Thread: Historical and Modern Standards

This thread stems from a discussion in another thread about the founding fathers. I believe that holding historical figures to some modern standard is necessary to take any valuable lessons from history. I also recognize that throughout history people have behaved very differently, and they have had very different moral standards than the ones we have today. It would take up far too much of our time to morally judge all the historical figures we study. So to an extent I don't think holding all historical standards to modern moral standards makes sense. When it does make sense is when people look to historical figures as models for present behavior or as people to be admired. That is where a discussion of the founding fathers comes in.

The mass delusion and brainwashing that takes place in this country about the founding fathers is incredible. When you are in school you are told that the founders are just about the greatest people ever to live, next to Jesus. I had the same experience as everyone else, and I went into college(where I got my degree in history) with the sense that the founders were just about the smartest and bestest people in the whole wide world. I also believed that the constitution was the greatest document ever written anywhere ever. I then began to actually study the things the founders said and did. I studied what the constitution said. It was impossible for me to actually view this stuff with an open mind, and come away with the delusions about the founders and constitution intact.

This is where the argument from the other thread comes in. People claim that because it was a different time, we cannot judge Thomas Jefferson(or whatever founder) for owning slaves, nor for raping those slaves, nor for being hypocrites, etc. We are supposed to just chalk it up to the whole "it was a different time" excuse. That excuse is entirely invalid if these are the men I am meant to look up to. To say it was a different time could explain away anything. Hitler killed millions of jews, but no big deal it was a different time!! That explanation is nonsensical.

But even accepting the whole "it was a different time" excuse(which there is no reason to do), the fact is that isn't true. People pretend like there was no conception of the moral evils of slavery or rape in 1776 or 1787, when there of course was. Jefferson wrote frequently about the evils of slavery, and yet he was a slave owner. He thought slavery was evil, and yet he owned slaves. Different time?????? Does that really explain it away? Not only that, but some of our more upstanding founding fathers did recognize the evils of slavery and they opposed slavery completely. Paine, Franklin, Adams, and other recognized the evils of slavery. So did the French who banned slavery only a few years after our founders wrote the constitution, and codified slavery into our laws. These are not the intellectual and moral examples people try to delude themselves into believing. They were a group of relatively unoriginal thinkers, borrowing heavily from other enlightenment era thinkers, and rejecting much of what was best about the enlightenment, usually in an incredibly hypocritical fashion. They said "all men are created equal" but it really should have read as "All men our created equal!! Well except for that man, and that other man over there as well, and those ones, and that one too, etc"

This brings me to the constitution. As written, the constitution granted rights to no one. The only thing it did that could be considered good by a progressive standard was that it limited the power of government, by granting power to different branches of government, all of them being checks upon each other. The constitution as originally written had no bill of rights, that was added in the first congressional session. Even upon the issuance of the bill of rights, people's rights were not actually protected, as only congress(or the federal government as a whole) was prohibited from infringing on the rights outlined in the bill of rights. The states were free to infringe those rights until the passage of the 14th amendment. The constitution as originally written allowed rich white protestant men over 21 to vote(there is still no right to vote in the constitution even to this day). The only body directly elected was the house of representatives. As I already pointed out, slavery was codified into law, and black people were described as 3/5 of a person.

Now if I was not told how wonderful these men were, I would have no necessity to project my modern views onto very unmodern men. I do not judge Charlemagne by modern standards, because no one holds Charlemagne up as a model. Since the founders are held up as a model to be admired and followed, to ignore the fact that they were hypocritical, bigoted, misogynistic, arrogant elitists is ultimately incredibly stupid. They only wanted rich white men to vote, because they did not believe anyone else was worthy of voting. The same is true of the constitution. I am constantly bombarded with nonsense about how we, in 2010, must follow the constitution because the constitution is so very wonderful. And we must follow it in the way the founders intended. It then becomes very very important to hold the constitution and the founders to modern standards. When held to those modern standards only a few of the founders come out in a good light. If you don't want the founders to be held to modern standards, though no logical reason for that is ever given, don't try to hold modern people to the mythical standards of the founding fathers.

I was told by more than one person that if I started this thread, those people would be along with a response. I imagine they just missed it, so I will bump this. I wouldn't but looking around the forum at the active threads, we need a thread where intelligent debate can take place.

Originally Posted by frodly

I was told by more than one person that if I started this thread, those people would be along with a response. I imagine they just missed it, so I will bump this. I wouldn't but looking around the forum at the active threads, we need a thread where intelligent debate can take place.

The problem is that we do not hold the actual men and their atual deeds in awe. We tend to hold the myth of these men in awe. It's that American tendency to relate in black/white, good guy or bad guy terms. And rhat seems to only gets worse.Then you have the fact that few Americans really know all that much about their own history, it's simply easier for them to believe the popular myths than to really inform themselves..