I sorta agree and sorta don't. Thing is, we really aren't all that far advanced. Many of the things you describe as horrible in the past still happen on a regular basis.
Yes, we have broadened the definitions of Human, the basis of most "moral" development. But there is still massive genocide, USA is a defacto Empire, and there is a good chance I own and have eaten the products of essentially slave labor over the last year.
It may well be that in 100 years, being an omnivore like I am will have been considered utterly barbaric.
It sincerely hope that the present-day foreign policies of the USA (along with much of the rest of the world's governments and corporations) will be considered barbaric. However, many people do not see the past atrocities of the US as barbaric. How many Americans actively acknowledge that our nation was founded on the active and deliberate genocide of Native Americans?
And around the world, people keep doing the same crap over and over again. Israel is building ghettos for the Palestinians, Iraqi death squads are torturing people to death for belonging to a different religious sect, etc.
And it's not like we, as a "1st World Nation" are doing a lot better once you get outside our borders. Take S. Africa. For a long time, the US official policy was that the anti-apartheid leaders were criminals and communists, etc. Don't recall if "terrorist" was in vogue then, but that label would be stuck on them these days.
Argh. The whole "moral progress" bit is just a bit much for me. Basically, there is less excuse for the evil these days--it is awfully hard to argue that only ones local village is really "human"--but the evil still happens. Not sure if that is progress.
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Yes, we have broadened the definitions of Human, the basis of most "moral" development. But there is still massive genocide, USA is a defacto Empire, and there is a good chance I own and have eaten the products of essentially slave labor over the last year.
It may well be that in 100 years, being an omnivore like I am will have been considered utterly barbaric.
It sincerely hope that the present-day foreign policies of the USA (along with much of the rest of the world's governments and corporations) will be considered barbaric. However, many people do not see the past atrocities of the US as barbaric. How many Americans actively acknowledge that our nation was founded on the active and deliberate genocide of Native Americans?
And around the world, people keep doing the same crap over and over again. Israel is building ghettos for the Palestinians, Iraqi death squads are torturing people to death for belonging to a different religious sect, etc.
And it's not like we, as a "1st World Nation" are doing a lot better once you get outside our borders. Take S. Africa. For a long time, the US official policy was that the anti-apartheid leaders were criminals and communists, etc. Don't recall if "terrorist" was in vogue then, but that label would be stuck on them these days.
Argh. The whole "moral progress" bit is just a bit much for me. Basically, there is less excuse for the evil these days--it is awfully hard to argue that only ones local village is really "human"--but the evil still happens. Not sure if that is progress.
-B.