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.

There is a difference between not having the power to solve a problem and not having the ability to recognise it as a problem.

I don't have the power to stop a war or change a foreign government. Most people don't. But I can still form a moral judgement about those things.
The discussion isn't really about whether individuals can single-handedly transform society. It's about whether people have any responsibility to think critically about what is considered normal.

Also, I don't think the standard should be that unless you're actively campaigning, protesting and dedicating your life to a cause, you can't have an opinion on it. By that logic, almost nobody could ever criticise anything.

The fact that I'm imperfect and make compromises doesn't mean I have to pretend those compromises are morally neutral. Likewise, the fact that people in the past lived within the constraints of their society doesn't mean every accepted attitude deserves a free pass.

For me, there is a huge gap between "I couldn't change it on my own" and "therefore I bear no responsibility whatsoever for going along with it." That's the leap I don't find convincing.

So what would be your defence as to why you are currently partaking in socially acceptable but morally wrong activities OP.

So is your view that people who make statements like “everyone did it back then” have a lesser moral compass than people who are more apologetic and willing to acknowledge publicly that these things were wrong
Jellycatpyjamas hit the nail on the head in her post when she gave the reasons why some people are less vocal
Also I also agree that older people should definitely be involved in discussions
for the reasons you have stated
What I am trying to say is people are very different the soldiers who comes back from fighting a war and cannot discuss with anyone what he has witnessed
The concentration camp survivor who cannot ever disclose what they suffered or witnessed with anyone else but some are willing to go and speak in schools to this generation that’s how education helps

@taaay "After all, some people living in exactly the same society did question it. That's why attitudes changed in the first place."

So you've answered your own dilemma then. Some people had a moral compass, some didn't, some just didn't care and some were completely unaffected by most of the issues you're talking about. Not everyone lived in a hot bed of racism, not everyone was married to a rapist or knew anyone that was and the vast majority of people didn't know anyone sent to a mother and baby home. They just got on with their ordinary lives just as we do today. I was born in 1957 and my mother in 1919. I've never met anyone that thought wife beating was "just the way things were". And it was thanks to previous generations that laws and attitudes have changed. It's obvious to me that you're dealing with someone (maybe your mother?) who is refusing to acknowledge some kind of sin from the past, so this is all very personal to you. I am right?

It's worse to know it's wrong and do it anyway. Which is your current position!

Oh jeez, so now we will be outrun by cows,sheep, goats...... I am.not religious by any means but weve been put here to survive.... if we were meant to be vegans, we would have 1/10 fertile cows etc.

I think people in the past didn't have as much spare time for navel examining as we do now.

I don't think that really answers the point.

Yes, most people got on with their ordinary lives. That's true in every era. But ordinary people are still part of society. Social attitudes don't just exist somewhere in the background; they're maintained, challenged or ignored by ordinary people.

Also, not personally knowing a victim of something doesn't mean it wasn't happening or that people were unaware of it. Plenty of people didn't know anyone in a mother and baby home, but those homes still existed. Plenty of people didn't know a wife who was being beaten, but domestic violence still existed. The question is how society responded to those issues when they did come to light.

I don't think anyone is denying that previous generations achieved enormous social progress. In fact, that rather supports the argument that people were capable of recognising injustice and pushing for change.

As for the suggestion that this must be about my mother or some personal grievance, that's a bit of a cop-out. Sometimes people discuss ideas because they find them interesting, not because they're secretly working through a family dispute.

It feels as though whenever the discussion gets difficult, people start speculating about my motives instead of addressing the argument itself. Whether it's personal or not has no bearing on whether the point is valid.

’widespread acceptance explains a behaviour, but doesn't automatically settle whether it was right.’

Yes , but the people arguing eg in favour of vegetarianism were seen as cranks.

Most people are not able to make choices which will have them labelled as cranks .

Also the general consensus was that meat eating is good and most people don’t have the qualities to think in a way that puts them at odds with the views society is preaching.

But in some cases it just wouldn’t have occurred to an individual to question the norm.

I grew up in an area where sectarianism was the norm. I would never have thought to question segregated school systems, wouldn’t have brought home a boyfriend from the other side of the divide, the various sectarian marches were a holiday for me. That was the case well into adulthood for me. The place I lived reinforced that mindset, my family did and I didn’t see the harm. Until I did, and was able to challenge myself and my attitudes. If you asked me why I had those beliefs I’d say that’s how it was in my part of the world, an accepted truth as it was for many.

At that time in that place. Times have changed and now those views would rightly be challenged as abhorrent but I can’t judge my younger self against what I know now, because I didn’t know it then.

People in the past weren't too busy to think about morality, fairness or how society should work. If they were, there wouldn't have been campaigns for votes for women, workers' rights, better housing, abolition of slavery, improved education or countless other social reforms.

Many people worked far harder than we do today, yet still found time to join political movements, attend meetings, write letters, protest and campaign for change.

Also, discussing why people accepted certain things isn't "navel-gazing". It's how societies understand themselves. People have been debating ethics, justice and human behaviour for thousands of years.

If anything, saying people were too busy to think risks patronising them. Previous generations weren't simple-minded. They were just as capable of reflection, disagreement and moral judgement as we are.

How many of those reforms were fought for from a place of relative privilege though? And one could argue life was much simpler in those times than now, yes physically more demanding but limits of technology and working life created space for activism in a way that’s very different now.

I think its what we call evolution.

It was acceptable to burn/drown witches. It was acceptable to marry to have someone rear children.

Jeez, if we were to go back way way in time, how many children/elderly do you think killed for eating?

I think that's a fair example of how powerful social conditioning can be, but I'm not sure it proves that people were incapable of questioning the norm.

After all, even in the environment you describe, there were people who did question it. There were mixed relationships, people campaigning for change, people crossing community divides and people challenging sectarian attitudes. They weren't living somewhere else; they were living in the same society.
What your example shows is that questioning accepted beliefs can be difficult, not that it never occurs to anyone.

I also think there's a difference between saying "I didn't realise at the time" and saying "nobody could have realised at the time". The first is a personal reflection. The second is a much bigger claim.

And I don't think acknowledging that your younger self got something wrong is the same as harshly judging yourself. Most of us look back and realise we held views we'd now reject. That's part of learning. The fact that you eventually changed your mind suggests there was something there to recognise all along, even if it took time and experience for it to click.

To me, the interesting question isn't whether social norms influence people. They clearly do. It's why some people challenge those norms sooner than others, despite being exposed to the same culture.

To me, the interesting question isn't whether social norms influence people. They clearly do. It's why some people challenge those norms sooner than others, despite being exposed to the same culture.

So why won't you answer my question which I've asked 3 times now?

This one OP

But that isn’t the question you’ve been asking.

I don't think anyone disputes that attitudes evolve over time.

What I'm questioning is the leap from "it was accepted" to "therefore nobody could have known any better."

Even during witch trials there were people who opposed them, questioned the evidence and thought innocent people were being killed. Social change didn't happen by magic. It happened because some people challenged what everyone else took for granted.

Also, once you go back far enough to people literally starving to death, you're talking about survival rather than morality. A family abandoning an elderly relative during a famine because there isn't enough food is very different from a society tolerating racism, domestic violence or discrimination when alternatives existed.

Saying society evolves explains why attitudes change. It doesn't really answer the question of why some people were willing to challenge accepted norms while others weren't.

My Grandparents are and were much more open minded and accepting of differences while having strict morals with regards to violence etc than many people are today. I wish their attitude was much more the ‘done thing’ and recognised as how things were.

I have answered quite a few of your questions. I can choose who I respond to. It is how forums work. You don't get to demand that people answer your questions.

You can't answer it clearly. Which is my point really.

You have no defence. You know it's morally wrong but you do it anyway because it's acceptable in society.

I think some self reflection might help you answer the points raised in this thread even if you want to avoid responding to difficult moral questions.

You don't have to answer me. After all, sometimes it's the things that aren't said that say the most.

Your assumption that everyone is exposed to the same culture isn’t true though. There are a huge range of cultures and cultural experiences people may never be exposed to for one reason or another. There are also very harmful cultural influences that people may be over exposed to especially in an age where algorithms dictate what gets fed to you online.

The idea that everyone across time had access to the same information, the same cultural influences and had the same capacity to challenge or buck the trend is naive at best.

I don't think anyone is claiming that everyone had exactly the same experiences, information or opportunities. Obviously they didn't.

What I am questioning is the tendency to explain almost everything through culture and circumstance, as though individual judgement barely matters.
People don't need identical lives to be exposed to alternative viewpoints.
Throughout history there have been disagreements within families, communities, workplaces, churches, political movements and friendship groups. People have always encountered others who saw the world differently.

While some people undoubtedly had more opportunity than others to challenge accepted ideas, that still doesn't explain why some individuals questioned harmful norms and others defended them despite living in very similar circumstances.

To be honest, what seems naïve to me is the idea that culture is so powerful that people are largely relieved of responsibility for their beliefs and actions. If that were true, social change would be almost impossible because nobody would ever think beyond the environment they were raised in.

Of course culture matters. Of course information matters. But people aren't merely products of their surroundings. If they were, there would never have been reformers, dissidents, whistleblowers or anyone willing to stand apart from the crowd. Yet history is full of them.

“Otherwise nobody is ever responsible for anything because there is always a social context explaining why they thought as they did.”

this is what I don’t understand. What does responsibility mean in this context? How can your discussion ever hold anyone responsible for anything anyway?! I’m imagining:

Person- ”my dad used to get drunk and beat my mum. It’s awful but it was more common back then and he was a product of his time”

OP “what?!? You can’t say he’s a product of his time. I want him to be responsible/ accountable for being a wife beater!”

person- well, I mean you could try and talk to him I guess?

Haven’t read full thread - but you don’t say what we were supposed to do if you were against smacking children, unmarried mothers giving up their babies - unless you were extremely rich and powerful and you offered to take them all in??!!!

there was no one to complain to - I’m sure you are convinced you’d have spoken up and/or tried to help but awful things happen now - live online paedophilia for one -what are you doing about that?