Judging the Past With Present Values
“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago”
I do my best to avoid the news as 99% are irrelevant to progressing in life. But sometimes, the really loud ones make its way through the grapevine, and I heard one of tearing down statues of historic figures because of some past mistakes per socially accepted values in the 21st century. I once heard talk of defacing the statue of Churchill in London
To judge the past with values of the present seems…simply idiotic. It’s a dangerous precedent that serves no purpose. Tearing people down, especially those who have died and can’t defend themselves is an act of cowardice and something those without anything better to do with one’s life. It’s easy to judge.
But it seems those who condemn the historic acts forget the common Bible teaching of:
“Let him without sin cast the first stone.”
I’m not religious but one cannot deny there is great sense in much of the Bible’s teachings and the above statement is one. The least one can do is focus on building up the self and the best will build up others. Anything other than these two acts is a waste of time and human effort.
If people of the past made mistakes then we would do well to merely try and learn so we don’t repeat it. Though, I imagine most will fail and make the same mistake before truly learning from it. Hopefully, this will teach humility of our individual fallibility.
It’s probably a more prudent thing to thank the people of the past for planting trees that shade us today and if they committed errors in planting the tree, then we should study it and realize even people who do such great acts for the future are flawed and most of us will not amount to anything of similar value to future generations so don’t be so quick to judge the mistakes of others and ourselves.
In the spirit of filial piety, we would do well to focus on improving upon my predecessors any chance we get.
“I should have made nothing if I had not made mistakes.”