Why are people so prone to believe they are superior to everyone else in the past because they are alive now? Why so sure that the values, morals, ethics, and judgements of 2021 are certain to be better than any that people upheld in the past? Progressivism simply cannot shake off its self-righteousness.
Perspective is supposed to come from history. But people study only as much history as supports their political or cultural stance in the present.
Religion seems to me now to be universally execrated by the progressive camp, unless it is the religion of non-Western people, especially the Abrahamic faiths. Or maybe only two of those are horrible.
Christians have not always been the caricature villains they are now. Churches actually were what people wanted. In Ireland, the Roman form of Christianity ensured the Irish were not swamped by the English and Scots’ Protestant attempts to annihilate Irishness. Ireland survived conquests. Religion helped create an Irish people. I, for one, am most happy they survived. And the Scots and Welsh.
What was done to Indigenous people in Canada was popular among Canadians who were of settler origin, endorsed by churches, propagandized by progressives of the day, justified by cultural elites, rationalized by the West’s debased anthropological, biological and psychological “sciences.”
People certain of their own moral high ground say it is so easy to choose a man or a church as the place to put all our fury at past atrocity. The church should feel our wrath for what was done. John A. Macdonald should be made personally responsible in retrospect for the Indian policies of Canadian governments that were following a script known across the colonial world — when the West “knew” it was the zenith of human evolution.
Come on, people. Perspective. No one is perfect, nor was. Be grateful we can make amends.
Charles Jeanes
Nelson