The recent thread on the death penalty got me thinking that the practice was still widespread in Europe up until WWII. Not to pick on Europe, but ever since they “got religion” on the topic, they seem to have adopted an attitude of universal condemnation toward any other country that maintains the DP.
But do they look back at their forebears with a similar attitude? Do they (or should they) specifically condemn (say) Bismarck, Napoleon, or Disraeli for ever having signed a death warrant? If not them, how about Queen Isabella, Queen Elizabeth I, or Louis XVI? Or further back to Charlemagne, Richard I, or Hugh Capet?
Sanctity of human life presumably stands as a universal value in all places and times, so shouldn’t even the “good” rulers of the past be condemned for the practice? Or if not, why not?
And that got me thinking futher about, one thing we can all agree on nowadays, slavery. I don’t imagine that anyone would seriously think to defend slavery in the US antebellum South or in Europe at any point since the Middle Ages. Even as great a guy as Thomas Jefferson gets a hit in his reputation for having been a slaveowner. But why don’t we react with immediate revulsion to portrayals of slavery in (for example) HBO’s Rome miniseries? Vorenus is portrayed as a generally sympathetic character, if not a hero, yet here’s a guy who not only owned slaves but tried to go into the slave trade himself.
So can we honestly say that there’s any widespread social practice that we ought to say “they shouldn’t have done that”, no matter where or when? If there isn’t, does that have any implication for what we currently think of as “universal values”?
Apples and oranges, not everybody has the same judeo-christian collection of mindset.
Death penalty was very prevalent because warehousing people was not particularly possible in many areas and cultures - it is resource intensive. It makes more sense sentancing them to life in the galleys or killing them.
Nonmechanized manufacturing and farming is very labor intensive, so many workers are needed. Paying workers is expensive, slavery makes more economic sense. Can you imagine trying to run one of the larger roman lativundia without slaves? the salaries alone would break the bank of the owner. Slavery is also another way of splitting up a potentially rebellious population, scatter them around the winner’s empire and have tiny pockets of rebellion instead of one large pocket iin their home territory.
Ephebophilia [both sexes, very juvennile] To be blunt about the female aspect, when she bleeds, she can breed. With a decreased lifespan in many instances [and no I am not claiming that everybody died at 30, but the average between high infant mortality and people living to their 60s is about 30 so get off that subject right now.] you have to have your family when you are first able. Younger women tend to be more fertile and more albe to withstand the work of pregnancy and childraising. Men were considered adult much younger, and were expected to be in the workforce as a responsible adult while still in the lower teens. As to the male ephebiphilia read the philosophers…sex was actually a minor aspect, but think of it as a form of apprenticeship [and we are not going to discuss the varous ‘band of brothers’ systems.]
So in a nutshell, there is no particular practice that is universally bad, mka? Pretty much everything we consider bad has been practiced widely in various societies in history as the norm. And in most cases for a particular set of good reasons. About the only thing that I would say is bad would be individual murder and theft and I really dont know any culture that practiced murder and theft on a single person individual level as legal.
I think the OP is conflating two different things, whether a person does something wrong and whether the person is blameworthy for that wrong. A Roman slaveholder was engaged in a barbaric practice, but can hardly be blamed for his failure to recognize it as such. There is such a thing as non-culpable ignorance.
Interesting that aruvqan views things from the standpoint of economic and political necessity, whereas Sophistry and Illusion seems to take the view that our forbears did some deplorable things primarily out of ignorance.
I’d point out, Sophistry, that I’m not talking about individual actions but societal norms. I’m not “blaming” the Roman slaveholder–as you say, he might have a sort of non-culpable ignorance because he was just following the common practices. But the point is, were those common practices wrong? Or were they excusable on a societal level, given the circumstances of that society?
You’re going to have to forgive me as I run back and forth playing devil’s advocate. But aruvqan, couldn’t the exact same arguments be made–indeed, weren’t the same arguments in point of fact made–about keeping blacks enslaved in the American south to support an otherwise unsustainable large plantation system–and to keep them from rising up in rebellion a la John Brown?
What are you thinking of as Europe? Official policy of the EC or the various national governments? General public opinion?
Whichever, I’ve seen little that could fairly be described as “universal condemnation” of countries with the death penalty. Of the death penalty itself, perhaps, but not the countries.
Official policy of the EU and (I believe) most of its consituent states. Actually, I’ve seen some cites to the effect that the majority of public opinion in Britain (for example) still favors the DP. Don’t know if that’s true, though.
I guess I misspoke a bit, although it still affects things on a state-to-state level in affairs like extradition. Point still stands, though, that if the death penalty as a practice is to be condemned in modern-day Europe, is it or should it be deplored as a practice 100 or 1000 years ago?
Unfortunately this is not true. In ancient Greece, unwanted babies were left for wolves. In many cultures, it was commonplace when conquering a city to kill all the men and enslave the women. Central and South American civilisations had rampant human sacrifice. And so on.
I think I’m just not seeing the parallel – to the best of my knowledge, no EU member state has ever had to rule on whether to extradite someone to the 18th century, for instance.
Surely judgements on the behaviour of individuals or societies in the past are more matters of personal opinion than official government policy – as you acknowledge yourself, the two aren’t always in perfect alignment.
Yes, until the portion of the industrial revolution[i hate that term] provided the means to multiply force so that 1 person could do the work of many. Which did happen.
But society devolves upon the economic, it has to. Pretty much you HAVE to have the surplus to afford luxuries like churches which are essentially nonproductive other than as record keepers.
The church in its lovely history did also practice slavery, and killings for various reasons. And behind much of it all was the allmighty credit unit [or resources, much the same thing.]
Since slavery is alive and well today - and parts of the Chinese economy are based on the labor of “political prisioners” and the De Beers diamond company makes its profits off the backs of functional slaves - my guess is the for sufficiently broad definitions of “we,” you’ll find people who will justify anything. And even more people willing to reap the rewards and turn a blind eye to the practice. How many brides are willing to turn up their nose at a diamond ring (or demand one from Canada) because of the labor? And if you aren’t going to condemn Chinese prisioner labor, why would you condemn Thomas Jefferson, who apparently treated his slaves pretty well.
