3 ms·

I think you're both right. We live completely differently now, but it's not clear that our essence has greatly changed. In particular, that our values have cha

I think you're both right. We live completely differently now, but it's not clear that our essence has greatly changed. In particular, that our values have changed is wonderful. But that's a cultural development. I'm convinced most of the people I've known would have shrugged at slavery like most Romans did, had they grown up with it. (Maybe they would have questioned it as children, but by adulthood they would have choked those questions down.)

bambax 5y ago
The modern, western world still had slavery as recently as 150 years ago, so that too is not really a marker to differentiate between our era and antiquity. Not to mention all the wars and genocides of the last two centuries, unprecedented in scale and ferocity, which make it hard to pretend we are morally better than any previous generation.
- kragen 5y ago
  As I mentioned, the Burj Khalifa was built to a significant extent with slave labor, being completed only ten years ago, while the Great Pyramid probably was not, despite what the Greeks thought two thousand years later. In the United States there are some two million prisoners, most of whom also perform slave labor, as did the victims of GULAG. Perhaps the Khwarazmians would disagree that the genocides of the last two centuries were unprecedented in scale and ferocity.
kragen 5y ago
Undoubtedly Khufu's subjects would be aghast if you shrugged at damming the Nile; perhaps the Romans would be aghast if you shrugged at oral sex, conscientious objectors, and female bosses instructing male employees; Hindutva activists today are aghast if you shrug at eating hamburgers, to the point that they may lynch you if they catch you slaughtering a cow. Some of our moral values are of course the correct ones, slavery being actually objectively immoral unlike those other examples, but generally people only know their culture's value system, not the objectively correct one. And some of our moral values are definitely not the correct ones.

bambax 5y ago

The modern, western world still had slavery as recently as 150 years ago, so that too is not really a marker to differentiate between our era and antiquity. Not to mention all the wars and genocides of the last two centuries, unprecedented in scale and ferocity, which make it hard to pretend we are morally better than any previous generation.

kragen 5y ago
As I mentioned, the Burj Khalifa was built to a significant extent with slave labor, being completed only ten years ago, while the Great Pyramid probably was not, despite what the Greeks thought two thousand years later. In the United States there are some two million prisoners, most of whom also perform slave labor, as did the victims of GULAG. Perhaps the Khwarazmians would disagree that the genocides of the last two centuries were unprecedented in scale and ferocity.

kragen 5y ago

Undoubtedly Khufu's subjects would be aghast if you shrugged at damming the Nile; perhaps the Romans would be aghast if you shrugged at oral sex, conscientious objectors, and female bosses instructing male employees; Hindutva activists today are aghast if you shrug at eating hamburgers, to the point that they may lynch you if they catch you slaughtering a cow. Some of our moral values are of course the correct ones, slavery being actually objectively immoral unlike those other examples, but generally people only know their culture's value system, not the objectively correct one. And some of our moral values are definitely not the correct ones.