Attempting to debunk "man / product of his time" argument

[sasha_feather]

Saving my tweets on this as I think it through.

The "Man of his time" argument assumes that everyone in that time period felt the same way. Erases nuance and difference.

It also erases experiences of dissents and marginalized people. Those people existed even if history has forgotten them. (For example: I learned from Rachel Maddow tonight that Vince Lombardi was pro-gay and had a gay brother. He was a famous football coach that lived from 1913-1970).

Me and my friends don't hold the prevailing views of mainstream society. I don't think of us as "products of our time."

This argument also assumes that society progresses forward thru time, that people in the past were worse. Which is not true. (History does not go forward in a upward line. It's more like a sine wave maybe.)

We are all influenced by our time and society, but we can all think critically and listen to our consciences re right and wrong.

Saying that someone was "a product of their time" is usually just apologism for their bad behaviors.

If something is wrong today, it was wrong 100 years ago. (Ethical behaviors, possibly, have some standards across societies and times, even if morals are relative. Have to think on this more.)

Just because people in power endorsed it, doesn't make it OK for everyone else in society to do so.

Comments

[oursin]

(Via dwcircle) And sometimes there's the Wilberforce Problem of contradictions: yay for his efforts antislavery, boo for his record on UK working class suffering the Industrial Revolution (and people pointed that disjunct at the time).

[spiralsheep]

(Also here via dwircle) Wilberforce wasn't as "anti-slavery" as you might have been taught. Let's hear it for the women, such as Elizabeth Heyrick:

http://spartacus-educational.com/REheyrick.htm

/it's always more complicated

[oursin]

Well, yes, plus the way individuals of that era could be antislavery but still racist in their basic assumptions.