Considering Conditions from the Past

Reading chapter 5 reminded me of a question Rab asked us in the beginning of the ELA lessons: Is it fair to judge people in the past by the standards of today? I bring up this topic once again because this is an important factor when bringing up a topic like slavery. Although stories like Gone with the Wind suggests that slavery was an ideal social structure (Loewen, 2007), Loewen opposes this theory. Although today's society consider slavery to be evil, is it intelligent to criticize the era by today’s cultural values?

Although I would like to say that it is fair and that slavery should not be accepted in any case whatsoever, I must say that it is not fair. Take for instance, manners. Men and women behave differently than people 200 years ago, and this is a normal process. Cultures never stop changing, and the value system concerning race issues changed in the same flow. It is no doubt, a great accomplishment that slavery was abolished and that there is no more segregation. However, the culture of slavery grew obviously because of the cultural, economic, and political backgrounds of Europe and other countries.

Stating  “slavery was an ideal social structure” is Eurocentric and violates human rights indeed. However, at the time slavery was taking place, America was Eurocentric and did not have the same values as today. Criticizing Gone with the Wind for suggesting that slavery was an ideal social structure means criticizing the era’s cultural values. Saying that it wasn’t an ideal social structure at the time seems like trying to say that the conditions of that time didn’t exist. It may not be an ideal social structure today, but obviously at the time it was ideal considering various conditions. It is easy to criticize the past without considering the many aspects of the time, but it is not intelligent to do so. As with many cultural values today, they grow from various backgrounds and do not originate from simple human faults. It isn’t fair to judge the past by the standards of today for these reasons.

Loewen, J. W. (2007). Gone with the Wind. In Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (Reprint., p. 137). Touchstone.

  
(image source: http://fundyreformed.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/racialharmony.jpg)