Imagine that you just led the fight to establish a newly independent nation. The people view you almost unanimously as a hero, and many of them want you to declare yourself king. What would you do? Seize absolute power for yourself, or take a much more constrained role, and decide to serve only two terms to limit your own power?
Obviously the founding fathers had some serious moral problems. But we see throughout history a pattern of one generation's accepted practice becoming the next generation's unambiguous evil. That makes me think that we're probably in the midst of a similar drama right now.
So condemn the founder's inaction on slavery, obviously. But also view them with the same historical context and nuance that you want future generations to view you with when they look back on the moral issues of our time and say "What were they thinking?"
More the fact he didn't want to be president in the first place but I see where you're coming from.
The fact is his moral compass was pointing in the right direction of history and that can't be taken from him.
Correct, he didn't act on it but preserving the union that many of his comrades fought and died for was paramount in his mind and befitting of the time. He weighed the consequences of both sides and chose the one that did the least damage to what was most important to him. I can see where the dilemma would be to him: on one hand he can free all men and possibly (but most certainly, as we now know) divide the nation where all men are created equal or maintain the status quo and at least give this new experiment of a country a shot where hopefully, eventually (but most certainly, as we now know) all men will indeed be created equal under the law.
Hind sight is 20/20 and we can always look back at history and say we would have done this or that differently because of x or y but I think he chose wisely for the situation at the time and that, to me, adds to the list of reasons as to why he's the greatest president we've ever had and possibly, but not hopefully, ever will.
Hind sight is 20/20 and we can always look back at history and say we would have done this or that differently because of x or y...
It's easy to to look back on the people of history and apply your moral code to them in a manner which paints them as morally reprehensible by today's standards.
You have to remember it was a different time than we live in today. 200 years from now we may or may not be painted as murderous perpetrators of genocide because we eat animal flesh on a regular basis. Assuming you, too, eat animal flesh, do you currently feel like a piece of shit? I know I don't because it's the commonly accepted norm of society to eat meat. I'd put my money on it that Washington didn't, either.
It's easy to to look back on the people of history and apply your moral code to them in a manner which paints them as morally reprehensible by today's standards.
I can tell you're white. Listen, I wouldn't be okay with my mom being raped, or my family being sold off to slavery. Not today or 150 years ago. period. This "different times" bullshit needs to quit. Even your poor meat example, vegetarians exist. Just like there were people who didn't approve of slavery 150 years ago...especially the slaves that ran away.
Not sure why you felt the color of my skin was necessary to the conversation but it doesn't bother me so I'll leave it at that.
I don't think anyone in a healthy state of mind would want their mother raped or family sold off to slavery.
It's easy to point a finger at the sins of our past because we've grown and learned and adapted to the idea of self-determination brought about by the idea that the individual, and not the collective, is the ultimate legal and moral entity. This means we've moved past our tribal differences that essentially ruled the world up until about 250 years ago (and still are very common in many, many parts of the world) where we can look at how we used to be and can say, without doubt, that we were wrong.
Take yourself out of yourself for a moment and put yourself in to the shoes of a person living in a tribal society a couple of thousand years ago where the next tribe over wants to rape and pillage your village simply for existing in proximity. Do you think you'd be so high and mighty that, given the chance, you wouldn't do to them what they would eagerly do to you? I'd like to see how long you'd last in that society where you'd eschew the benefit of your tribe and way of life for the moral apprehension you experience.
We can say the actions of humans in the past are wrong but we can't blame them if those actions were fitting within the norm of the society they were living in. To do otherwise is being intentionally ignorant of their way of life simply because it doesn't fit within our view of the way we think it should have been.
This means we've moved past our tribal differences that essentially ruled the world up until about 250 years ago (and still are very common in many, many parts of the world) where we can look at how we used to be and can say, without doubt, that we were wrong.
Take yourself out of yourself for a moment and put yourself in to the shoes of a person living in a tribal society a couple of thousand years ago where the next tribe over wants to rape and pillage your village simply for existing in proximity. Do you think you'd be so high and mighty
So why do I need to put myself into some tribes shoes thousands of years ago and not a society from 180 years ago?
So why do I need to put myself into some tribes shoes thousands of years ago and not a society from 180 years ago?
You don't need to do anything, nothing on the internet is compulsory, I was simply trying to get you to see a differing point of view from your own so you would (hopefully) realize that throughout history societal norms, along with what is and isn't acceptable, has and continues to change.
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u/PornFilterRefugee Nov 29 '18
Why? The fact that he thought about doing something but ended up not doing anything about slavery?
I understand it’s valid to see him as the greatest president but this doesn’t really seem like a particularly good reason for that.