DRAFT: Making Moral Judgments of History: A Brief User's Guide

Something I should perhaps cover in my first class or to this fall: my views on how we should make moral judgments when we do history, and to be sure to do them in their proper place. Below the paywal

Something I should perhaps cover in my first class or to this fall: my views on how we should make moral judgments when we do history, and to be sure to do them in their proper place. Below the paywall fold as it is just a draft right now…

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Personally, I think moralizing history—judging past figures by our contemporary standards—is both valid and necessary, in addition to being inevitable. Our modern standards are our standards, and we should use them for two reasons: they are ours, and they are standards. And when we use them we recognize that all pre-1850 High Civilizations were "Societies of Domination"—with élites grabbing what they could because it was the only way to get enough for themselves and their families, and justifying their actions with some uneasiness. But empires—cruel and brutal as they are—also, secondarily, are engines of civilization. And the British Empire, by virtue of the marriage of its growth with the coming of modern technology, was the most effective along this particular dimension of any empire the world has ever seen.