from the magazine
A Short History of Morality Past generations could no more live up to present moral standards than we could live up to those of the distant future.
The Social Order
Over the past year, a spirit of iconoclasm has swept across the United States. Dozens of statues have been removed or toppled by people outraged by the supposed moral failures of the men depicted in stone and bronze. Christopher Columbus was guilty of genocide, they claim. George Washington owned slaves. Leaving aside the moral smugness of the topplers, do they have a case?
The answer: no. The argument that men such as Columbus and Washington are guilty of moral turpitude, and thus unworthy of our respect and admiration, is inescapably based on the idea that twenty-first-century concepts of right and wrong have been in place since the dawn of humankind and won’t change in the future.