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Things should be taken in historical context. What's completely politically correct and progressive today will be horrific tomorrow.

A BBC exec recently criticized Monty Python for being politically incorrect (in today's terms). Of course they were on the leading edge at the time, and now they are being vilified.

Political correctness is the western equivalent of the hard-line extremists that destroy ancient art in the middle east. It's just wrong.

2 comments

We should recognize that it's both politically incorrect, and historically of it's time.

Just because something is from the pages of history, doesn't mean it should be presented as perfectly fine today - that's also wrong.

I find the case of Monty Python extremely important because some of their sketches are even more poignant (and funny!) today. Many would have no chance of being created and aired. However, the painful issues behind them, such as following some dogmas with blind faith and the consequences of such actions, are still there and watching Monty Python today gives young viewers a refreshing perspective.

"Merciless Indian savages" isn't something we should just accept because we must reject political correctness. The Europeans who came to Anglo-America were usually impoverished societal rejects, with difficult economic or religious situations yet airs of superiority over the American natives. The oppression they experienced at the hands of richer Europeans back in the old world was redirected at the other group they could punch down towards: the natives who had been recently genocided by foreign diseases and gunpowder.

This is a very common human trait. When you have a group of people experiencing hardship, they will look for someone at a greater disadvantage than them to redirect their retribution to. The economic hardships that Germany felt after WW1 were blamed on the marginalised Jews. Most people in the antebellum South were poor, not wealthy plantation owners, but of course the entire white population could punch down towards what they viewed as childish or animalistic slaves. Today economic downturn and lack of jobs can be blamed on illegal immigrants, instead of the galloping wealth disparity.

This has got nothing to do with being very careful with speech so as to not offend anyone. It's got nothing to do with political correctness or incorrectness. These words, "merciless Indian savages" are about one of the greatest atrocities committed in the name of freedom.

You claim "punching down" as a motive. What evidence do you have?

Your claim that disease is genocide is ignorant (probably linked to the "smallpox blankets" hoax). There was no germ theory at that time. They thought you'd catch smallpox from bad humors and that blood letting could cure it. In contrast, blankets were super expensive. Making thread and weaving it was a painstaking affair before automated looms. A goodwill gift of blankets being turned into a desire for mass murder is quite a large shift. Likewise, it wasn't illegal to sell guns to Indians until long after the homestead slaughters happened.

The average American settler family lived on less than $2 per day (less than $60/month) in today's money. For contrast, the average Chinese individual monthly income is $850 or around $28/day. Any settler was way more oppressed than anyone alive today.

The "oppression lens" of history and politics is seldom (if ever) useful for rational discourse. It forces a propagandized view of the situation.

When you've been genocided, whether intentionally or not, when you've been displaced from your lands, whether intentionally or not, and when you're being fighting wars with those who intentionally or not were responsible for this, yeah, this is punching down. Bear in mind that by the time when Europeans were landing, the native population had already been literally decimated -- 95% of the native population of the east coast was already dead. The modern US is in a very literal sense a post-apocalyptic society.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_smallpox#Epidemics_...

You can be poor and still be punching down. There's always someone further down you can find. Illegal Mexican immigrants in the US are often quite racist against black people, for example. Or other impoverished European immigrants against the Irish in the 19th century.

This isn't about guilt and you seem to be defending against some kind of guilt. Guilt and blame is utterly pointless, especially close to 250 years later. All we can do now is recognise that "merciless Indian savages" is a kind of dehumanisation of a group of people that had already suffered greatly at the hands of Europeans and would continue to do so still for centuries to come.

Genocide is defined as intentional. For this reason, smallpox in America (like the black death in Europe) is not genocide while the Young Turks killing Armenians or Saddam Hussein gassing Kurds is genocide.

As to the idea of "punching down". The North was punching down when they invaded the South and forced them to free their slaves. I think this was a good thing. Having power and using it isn't synonymous with evil. The issue with "punching down" is that it implies that position always entails abuse. People who use the phrase always seem to shut up when the punching down is in their favor.

> Illegal Mexican immigrants in the US are often quite racist against black people, for example.

Illegal immigrants leave a terrible situation to work the worst kinds of jobs here because they are still better than what Mexico offers. They live under constant threat of deportation too. You then paint these people as having privilege and say they're all racists. If punching down is a thing, you might just win a medal.