I'm not a cultural relativist. I don't believe that things become wrong when their wrongness is acknowledged.
I think the difference here is between deliberate wrongness and unthinking wrongness.
When I was eight, I was a shoplifter. I didn't even think about it. It was wrong, but I didn't think about it then.
If I steal now, am I better than I was at eight? Worse? No different?
(Anybody that picks "better" or "no different" will be asked to explain their position.)
To me, the difference between owning a slave now and owning a slave in 1775 is that I expect people to know better now.
I accept that slavery was always wrong, just as publishing something with the word "nigger" in it was and is wrong. But I judge the people that did not know better less harshly, even as I spare Mark Twain's writings the judgement that I would give to a white supremacist. They were a product of their times.
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Re: Part 1
Date: 2005-11-28 06:02 pm (UTC)I think the difference here is between deliberate wrongness and unthinking wrongness.
When I was eight, I was a shoplifter. I didn't even think about it. It was wrong, but I didn't think about it then.
If I steal now, am I better than I was at eight? Worse? No different?
(Anybody that picks "better" or "no different" will be asked to explain their position.)
To me, the difference between owning a slave now and owning a slave in 1775 is that I expect people to know better now.
I accept that slavery was always wrong, just as publishing something with the word "nigger" in it was and is wrong. But I judge the people that did not know better less harshly, even as I spare Mark Twain's writings the judgement that I would give to a white supremacist. They were a product of their times.