Remembrance Day has been labelled “imperialist propaganda” by Cambridge University students. Credit: Christopher Furlong / Getty
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The enemies of the past are at it again. Forget ‘don’t speak ill of the dead’, the terminally woke have little time for anything else. When they’re not busy trying to pull down statues, they’re criticising astronauts for quoting Winston Churchill or making idiots of themselves over Remembrance Day.
And it’s not just silly students and activists. The next time you see a historical novel or short story adapted by the BBC, note how much contemporary political judgement is crow-barred into the plot and characterisation – as if the purpose of period drama is to revile the past not reveal it.
But is it really wrong to judge the people of earlier decades and centuries by the standards of the present?
It is, if we misrepresent the actions and motivations of previous generations – for instance by interpreting Remembrance Day traditions as a glorification of war, instead of a solemn respect for the fallen. And yet that still leaves numerous examples of historical heroes who really did say or do something that we, today, find repulsive. How are we to deal with that?
Is explaining away a foul thought or deed as ‘of it’s time’ a kind of moral relativism? Does it, moreover, expose cultural conservatives, who are suppose to believe in moral absolutes, to charges of hypocrisy? If something is morally wrong now hasn’t it always been wrong?
Well, you don’t have to be a moral relativist to see that context matters. You can believe that theft is always wrong and yet judge a starving person less harshly for stealing a loaf of bread than, say, a wealthy financier for defrauding a pension fund. Life was harder in the past – and people more likely to be faced with harsh decisions. I wonder how liberal today’s liberals would be without the resources available to the 21st-century welfare state.
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SubscribeA great article!