The question is how can it be possible to judge the actions of people who lived a long time ago with today’s eyes. Obviously, people who lived a long time ago could not be aware of today’s interpretation of human rights. It didn’t exist that time. Many people invoke this objection. Can you judge acts committed by ancient people with today’s eye? No, you can’t. But you can judge them with human eye.
The question is, if we set aside all the moral teachings we have ever heard about good and evil, can any crime ever committed against the innocents be judged. Yes, it is possible to judge, even condemn them from the perspective of innocent victims. These victims were not our contemporaries, but our fellow human beings. Only because they lived a long time ago, they were innocent victims.
We can’t think of them like bacteria. Since they suffered from harassments, abuses, humiliation the same way like those who live today. They got traumatized by terror incredibly brutaly. They had dreams, desires, and a world view just like anyone else has today. They were just as capable of loving as a modern man is capable of. Their blood was also red.
Abusers and terrorizers knew full well that they were causing pain, and that was exactly their goal. These perpetrators are only because they lived a long time ago, they were not sea lions or penguins yet. They were fully aware of the weight of their actions. If someone invented and used a torture device in ancient times or the Middle Ages, they did so with the same intention as anyone today.
Animals are not cruel for sake of cruelty, because they have no free will doing so. But different rules apply to humans, and not only because they have free will. They can choose not to hurt others. But also because people are capable of compassion and empathy.
The feeling of empathy enables us to put ourselves in the shoes of those who suffer. This is a cross-culture phenomenon. If this ability did not develop, we will not even survive the Stone Age. This is not an ability that is just unique to modern humans either. So if abusers hurt an innocent, they hurt me. The mirror neurons cause this. And where is compassion, there is judgement as well.
Not from perspective of human rights, since they do not exist in reality, but from perspective of victims I will take the courage and not take into account the ‘sensitivity’ of the terrorizers and traumatizers. Those who, just because they had never heard of human rights or ethics, still knew that their actions were causing pain and trauma to others. What they did was done with malicious and evil intent, because if they didn’t know, they wouldn’t have done it. They even found a joy and fun of torturing others. The inclination of sadism does not characterize modern man merely.
If we do not look at the act from perspective of victims, we must look it from perspective of perpetrators. There’s absolutely no any other possibility. We have to judge those ‘punishments’ and ‘verdicts’ from viewpoint of ‘law’ and ‘legal practice’ of psychopaths, sadists, abusers. But in this case, on what basis do we condemn the nazis? Based on this, everything is really relative. Khmer rouge regime used different style of ‘ethics’ on killing fields.
If we ever accept this objection there’s no more up and down. Everything is an issue of the taste of age. From this time everyone who had tough childhood can use this excuse. If the current jurisprudence does not allow sadism legaly, no problem at all. All we have to do is changing the laws. This is what nazis and bolsheviks have done, and this is what we call ‘fascism’ today.
Conclusion
Fashion does not override the laws of physics. Whatever Space Suit we wear we can’t disable the gravity with wearing it. A human-made legal order cannot override the value of humanity and empathy. Just because one legal practice allows genocide, it is not acceptable by any means. Just because the evil is legal it does not cease to be evil. Just because we lie that the cube is an sphere, that remains cube. There is only one alternative of cruelty. We must declare there’s no excuse for cruelty regardless place and time. And there’s no secret what does not come to light sooner or later. The other option is there’s excuse for cruelty even today.
Just like the tendency to do good, meanness has existed unchanged since ancient times. And if cruelty is condemnable today, it is condemnable all the time, even in the ancient one. To do this, we only have to judge from the perspective of the victims and not from the perpetrators. There are few exceptions of course, when the brainwashing on perpetrator makes them not capable to judge their own action. Because this not fall into category of evil intention. And there are also examples where the victim is not completely innocent, but his punishment is not proportionate to his actions. But this alone does not override the general rule. Anyone who is aware of his/her actions can be condemned, and held accountable.
The torture is the shame of human species. Creating artificial suffering is a sin against the Holy Ghost without doubt, which can never gain forgiveness. Because it destroys human in human, targeting the soul that makes us human.
Evil always disguises itself according to taste of age of spirit. What is evil? Creating suffering for the sake of suffering. Is this a phenomenon that only characterizes our time? I don’t think so. Human is capable to distinguish good from evil for seventy thousand years. Evil always knows that it is evil, better than else. We have to condemn moral relativism, and all who abused innocents ever. We have to condemn those who protect their actions too, because they are accomplices. This is the only way to prevent them from happening again. We owe that much to the victims, to all innocents who ever lived. We ought to judge action not time.
This is absolutely not hard to understand. One who does not understand this, understands nothing.
Thanks for reading me!