to think "everyone did it back then" isn't an excuse?

[taaay]

This comes up quite a lot whenever people discuss things that were commonplace in the past.

People say husbands beating their wives was normal, children were routinely smacked or caned, racism was widespread, homophobia was accepted, and so on. Often the defence is that people were simply products of their time and didn't know any better.

But were they really?

Not that long ago, police often treated violence against wives as a private domestic matter and were reluctant to get involved. Marital rape wasn't even recognised in law. Racist attitudes were commonplace and children could be hit in ways that would be completely unacceptable today.

Yet even then there were people saying these things were wrong. Women campaigned against domestic violence, people fought against racism and discrimination, and some parents chose not to hit their children despite it being socially accepted.

I sometimes wonder whether too much emphasis is placed on "that's just how things were". Were people really incapable of thinking for themselves? Did they lack an internal moral compass? If your neighbour was regularly beating his wife, or a child was being routinely thrashed, did it genuinely not occur to people that this was cruel and wrong simply because society tolerated it?

I understand that social norms are powerful and that people are influenced by the world around them. But surely "everyone else was doing it" can explain behaviour without excusing it.

I'm sure in 500 years there will be people looking back in horror about things many people are doing today

Human civilisation isn't that old and constantly evolving

People aren't all the same. Back in the 70s when marital rape wasn't against the law that didn't mean that all wives were being raped, and that was because there were people back then who viewed it as immoral. The number of people who saw things that way increased so much that there was a successful campaign to change the law.

From my OP:

Yet even then there were people saying these things were wrong. Women campaigned against domestic violence, people fought against racism and discrimination, and some parents chose not to hit their children despite it being socially accepted.

If you don't think the culture you are brought up in and the social norms you are surrounded by don't influence your thinking, you are extremely naïve.

Social pressure, and consequences for not upholding whatever the established moral codes were at the time, especially for women, can't be underestimated really so it is unfair to judge the past by today's laws and standards.

Tbh as an “oldie” a lot of it was as you say “of the time”. Yes a lot of it was normalised and I know it sounds contradictory but most people did have a moral compass and recognised it was wrong but felt a bit like it is what it is.
Things evolve and I’m sure in years to come people will look back and think did they really do that? There are things people do today that make me think wtf, but that’s just society today just as it was just society back then. We can’t change the past but we can hopefully learn from it.

Nobody is saying people aren't influenced by the culture they grow up in. Of course they are. But influence and excuse aren't the same thing.

Even when wife-beating was brushed off as a domestic matter, there were people who thought it was wrong. Even when racism was widespread, there were people opposing it. Even when hitting children was considered acceptable, there were parents who chose not to do it.

I think it's a bit too easy to act as though people in the past had no ability to think for themselves and just went along with whatever everyone else was doing. Social pressure is real, but so is personal judgement.

There's a difference between understanding why people behaved as they did and pretending they had no choice at all.

I agree that social pressure, especially on women, could be huge. Many women had little financial independence, few legal protections and a lot to lose by challenging the status quo. That explains why many stayed silent or complied.

What I don't agree with is the idea that this means we can't judge anything that happened. Even at the time, there were people arguing that these things were wrong. Women campaigned for legal rights, some men opposed domestic violence, people fought racism, and others challenged accepted norms. If nobody could see that these things were wrong, those movements would never have existed.

Also, I'm not judging the past by today's standards. I'm judging it partly by the standards of the people who were living then and objecting then. The existence of those opposing voices shows that alternative ways of thinking were available.

Social pressure can explain behaviour. It doesn't automatically excuse it.

Otherwise we'd have to say nobody is ever responsible for anything because they're always influenced by the society around them.

Back then people had views about how their world should work.
They often expressed their views
They may have expressed that other's views were wrong
But they rarely insisted that everyone else should align with those views

And it was permissible to hold views that others disagreed with.

There is still a lot to be said for diversity of opinion. Usually better than today's frequent groupthink

I think people look back with rose-tinted glasses at times.

People absolutely did expect others to conform to their views. In many ways there was far less room to be different than there is now. If you were the wrong religion, the wrong race, gay, unmarried and pregnant, divorced, or a woman who didn't know her place, plenty of people made their feelings known.

I don't think people were more accepting of different opinions. I think lots of people just didn't dare voice opinions that went against the norm.

When homosexuality was illegal, when wives were expected to put up with all sorts, or when racism was completely mainstream, that wasn't society happily embracing a range of viewpoints. It was society saying 'this is how things are and you'd better get on board'.

Every era has its own pressures and its own groupthink. I just don't buy the idea that people in the past were all happily respecting each other's different opinions. There are plenty of examples showing they weren't.

Often the defence is that people were simply products of their time and didn't know any better.

But were they really?

Yes, they were. It was so normal for parents to smack their children that it was regularly portrayed in The Beano comic.

Liverpool Lullaby sung by household favourite, Cilla Black

Oh, you are a mucky kid
Dirty as a dustbin lid
When he hears the things that you did
You'll get a belt from your dad
Oh, you have your father's nose
So, crimson in the dark it glows
If you're not asleep when the boozers close
You'll get a belt from your dad

It takes a very strong willed person to stand up and go against the norm. Lots of people did what their parents did. Schools were doling out corporal punishment, so of course parents would. So it becomes out of the ordinary to object to it.

Social norms evolve and change. We look upon people in the past and their ignorance. But things need to be learned.

In Victorian times and before they didn't equate drinking raw sewage with being violently sick and dying until Bazalgette etc. It seems obvious it would be desperately unhealthy as a practice to us now.

So why were some people against it? Not everyone was a sheep.

The same way people at any time have different options about what is right or wrong - there will be things you do today / views you hold which when held to a future lens will probably be seen as deeply problematic.

It does take a strong-willed person to go against the norm, but that doesn't mean everyone else gets a free pass.

Lots of people did what their parents did, but plenty didn't. Even when corporal punishment was widespread, there were parents who hated it, children who thought it was unfair, and adults who spoke out against it. The fact that something is common doesn't mean people are incapable of recognising that it's wrong.

I also think there's a difference between a lack of knowledge and a moral judgement. The example of drinking contaminated water isn't really the same thing. People genuinely didn't understand how disease spread because the science wasn't there yet. That's very different from seeing someone being beaten, humiliated or discriminated against and not recognising the harm being done.

You don't need modern research, psychology or legislation to know that someone is suffering. People knew being hit hurt. They knew domestic violence caused fear and injury. They knew racism caused misery. The debate was often whether those things were acceptable, not whether they existed.

I agree that social norms evolve, but I think people sometimes overstate how ignorant those in the past were. There were always people objecting at the time, which suggests the moral arguments weren't nearly as invisible as some like to claim

Going even further back you be hung, drawn and quartered for a serious enough crime and alot of us would be living in a state of serfdom!
Im not sure what the point is... We can all look back and say things were wrong but unless you lived it you really cant say how you would react to something if society had deemed it normal your entire life.

I understand what you're saying. But these people weren't evil. They were a product of their environment. They thought that it was a legitimate way to discipline their kids. As long as they realised it didn't help and could see the error of their ways with hindsight you can't really expect much more of them?

I was a child in the 60s and 70s, when much of what OP was talking about, was common. What could I have done about?

Even as an adult, people get to vote once every four/five years? Political parties do not get the majority of the electorate voting for them, even if they win. Say I was MIL, she voted for the Conservatives, because they increased the state pension. She did not read the whole manifesto to see what else they proposed to do!

Other than that, most people cannot be bothered to campaign for change about an issue, unless they are closely affected by it?

Both me and DH were children in the 1960s and 70s .Neither of us were smacked or "belted" by our parents! People thought for themselves then as well you know they werent a lot of black sheep! Similarly there were campaigns against hard porn and the film Taxi Driver with a 12 yr old prostitute!? Things are not perfect today either by a long shot,hopefully still a work in progress

The fact that something is normalised doesn't mean everyone accepts it. Throughout history there have always been people who challenged the norms of their time, whether that was slavery, child labour, domestic violence, racism, or denying women basic rights. If everyone simply accepted whatever society deemed normal, social progress would never have happened.

It's also not true that we have no idea how we would react. We judge historical figures all the time based on the choices that were available to them and how they compared to their contemporaries. If some people living at the same time recognised that something was wrong, then others could have done so too.
Understanding why people held certain views is important, but understanding is not the same as excusing. We can acknowledge that someone was influenced by the culture they lived in while still recognising that their actions or beliefs caused harm.

The argument that "you can't judge because you weren't there" can be taken so far that it becomes meaningless. By that logic we could never criticise any injustice in history. Yet most of us are perfectly comfortable saying that torture, slavery, wife-beating, or persecution were wrong, even if many people at the time considered them normal. Society's approval doesn't determine whether something is morally right.

Being a product of your environment explains behaviour, but it doesn't automatically excuse it. Most people are influenced by the society they grow up in, yet we still expect individuals to exercise some degree of judgement and empathy.

It's also a false choice to suggest that someone was either evil or entirely blameless. Most harmful behaviour is carried out by ordinary people who believe they are justified. That doesn't mean the harm doesn't matter. You don't have to think someone was a monster to acknowledge that what they did was wrong.

The idea that everyone thought physical punishment was acceptable isn't entirely accurate either. Even when smacking was commonplace, there were parents who chose not to do it, professionals who warned against it, and children who grew up knowing it felt frightening or humiliating. There were always alternative views available.

Recognising later in life that something was wrong is certainly better than never reflecting on it at all, but hindsight doesn't erase the impact on those who experienced it. We can appreciate that someone changed their mind while still being honest about the damage that was done.

Understanding why people behaved as they did and holding them accountable are not mutually exclusive. We can do both at the same time.

I was smacked as a child, and boys were caned at my secondary school. I never gave either a second thought. I saw my cat knock her kittens flying, when they annoyed her - I just saw it was natural. I was more bothered by the way women, I knew, were treated by their mean controlling husbands and they ended up on Valium for years.

Society's approval doesn't determine whether something is morally right.

What is approval, if not moral judgement?

This totally sums it up