> This tells us very little because every society can be viewed as "contextual" in that sense Oh yeah that's definitely what I mean. Every society at the botto

> This tells us very little because every society can be viewed as "contextual" in that sense Oh yeah that's definitely what I mean. Every society at the bottom of it is "might makes right", and then they can be judged by what they do when they obtain a monopoly on might. And at least some of the time, the US used that might to stick up for the rights of people many others wouldn't. But also we drove Native Americans from their homes in a super brutal fashion, practiced one of the most violent forms of slavery in history, etc. And I assume people of the future will look back on us and recoil at some perfectly regular things we do now, like work in coal mines, use air conditioning, eat meat, put kids in schools, whatever. We exist in this context too. All humans everywhere fail, but I think it's what we aspire to that defines us. And so I think the jury is still out on the US. I think it's not even really clear what we aspire to at this point--it maybe was in 1789 but that context is gone. In this new context, what is it we stand for? We need to have that conversation as a society. I think it's worth pointing out that we're ultra bad at it, but maybe if we reify this concept, we can start getting better at it.