I would choose Today's America

Post #114,534 by orion 8/20/03 9:49:46 AM Reply	I would choose Today's America I couldn't treat others as subhuman or unequals, I just couldn't do it. I don't feel like it is right. I have many friends from many different ethnic backgrounds. Our society has come a long way, but still has a long way to go. *"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"*
Post #114,548 by bluke 8/20/03 10:50:01 AM Reply	I would hope that most people here would 18th century America was a very racist and prejudiced place (not only against blacks, don't forget the anti-Irish sentiment, the anti-Chinese sentiment, etc.). Of course the status of women was not much better. It says a lot about Desitter that he would prefer such a society.
Post #114,553 by rcareaga 8/20/03 11:26:26 AM Reply	18th century America was, bluke asserts, "a very racist and prejudiced place," and he reminds us of "the anti-Irish sentiment, the anti-Chinese sentiment." Two nits here. Anti-Irish and anti-Chinese "sentiments" did not become significant political elements until these groups began to arrive en masse the following century. The Chinese, in particular, were approximately as rare in the early Republic as Patagonians are in your neighborhood, and as such were likelier to be perceived as exotica rather than cheap labor and a threat to the urban proletariat, such as it was. It might also be observed that people in all societies and in all epochs are to varying extents unavoidably the captives, for good or for ill, of the cultures in which they are embedded. Conventional wisdom is a perishable commodity, and while we may be thankful not to share the reflexive xenophobia of some of our forebears, and comfortable with such tolerance as our own milieu has learned, we do ourselves no favors merely to indulge a facile condescension toward the attitudes of the past. The most enlightened among us (no, don't all stand up at once) might do well to scrutinize some of our own reflexive beliefs and consider that among them at least a few, however deeply held, however self-evidently true and just these may seem today, must inevitably strike posterity as outlandish at best. cordially, Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist.
Post #114,693 by Ashton 8/21/03 4:22:52 AM Reply	re your caveat.. .. and never trust guys with beards ;-) The popular antidote to this umm temporal malleability of something so deucedly difficult to grasp as, Treating People Decently (an admittedly highly complex involute concept): is most often nicely handed-off by reference to one's Guide to Objective Morality. (Currently we appear to be living-out the various One True Objective Morality (s) as each group attempts to demonstrate its wisdom, tolerance, forbearance and just plain Humanity, via duelling Firepower.) Given this state of affairs.. I think I'll just read another Discworld adventure. Instead. The Objective Morality implied by the writer .. but left to the reader to discern .. somehow appears a better Source than the hoary texts of the above miscreants. (Those obv haven't Worked for a full calendar year since the ink dried.. and no matter Who's calendar you go with.) Damn it's tough evaluating a species you imagine you might somehow 'belong to', yet - -

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