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Reading historical essays is interesting in that it exposes defaults that seem obvious to the people of the day, but stick out to us now. John Stewart Mill is building an argument for self-determination and limited government but included an aside which basically says "of course, all those primitive races should be ruled by dictators who civilize them and bring them up to modern standards, THEN they can have self-determination, but not now." #History #Hypocrisy #Politics #Racism #Culture

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Reading historical essays is interesting in that it exposes defaults that seem obvious to the people of the day, but stick out to us now. John Stewart Mill is building an argument for self-determination and limited government but included an aside which basically says "of course, all those primitive races should be ruled by dictators who civilize them and bring them up to modern standards, THEN they can have self-determination, but not now." #History #Hypocrisy #Politics #Racism #Culture
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Birds Books and Bullshit (nanobookreview@zirk.us)'s status on Friday, 05-May-2023 13:14:04 JST Birds Books and Bullshit

Well, I guess all you have to do is wait a little while and John Stewart Mill brings up my own point about different eras having different assumptions.
"Ages are no more infallible than individuals, every age having held many opinions which subsequent ages have deemed not only false, but absurd. And, it is a certain that many opinions, now general, will be rejected by future ages, as it is that many once general are rejected by the present."
#Books #Hypocrisy #SelfAwareness #Culture #History

In conversation Friday, 05-May-2023 13:14:04 JST from zirk.us permalink