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Comment by mthoms | Hacker News Reader

Thank you for your thoughtful reply.

The overall trend is that justice and respect for human dignity has steadily, undeniably, increased over the last several hundred years. Therefore, generally speaking, I would say that yes, a modern 30-something has more "decency" than one of 50, 75 or 100 years ago.

To be totally clear, I don't fault my grandparents or other people that are products of these eras. They aren't necessarily bad people. And certainly, the measure of "common decency" would, of course, be different then.

I just can't wrap my head around longing for a time when society was more constrained/repressive/intolerant. Yes, there are things I think were better in the past, but they are the exception.

(side note: this is not to say I don't think political correctness can go too far, it certainly can. There are exceptions to everything).

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To say that respect for human dignity has increased over time is very subjective. While I think many would agree with you a large portion of society would not.

An example: Traditional values would say that modern men have less respect for human dignity given the rise in single motherhood. Out of respect men were expected to stick around and help raise a child.

No everyone is going to agree that we are moving in the right direction. It's important to remember that when engaging in political discussions. That people are not often acting out an evil agenda. They are just going with what they think is right.

Discussions on what is the best way forward for society are far more fruitful than the way politics are generally discussed online. Where the other side is evil and it should be obvious to everyone that they just want to see the world burn.

>To say that respect for human dignity has increased over time is very subjective.

No. No it isn't. That's patently ridiculous. Almost every decade of the past couple hundred years has consistently seen better human rights (in the Western World at least).

We're talking about: the elimination of slavery, establishment of women's rights, childrens' rights, elimination of colonialism, elimination of authoritarian rule by non-elected persons, elimination of torture, the right to freedom of speech, the right to a fair trial, single digit illiteracy, near zero deaths due to hunger, reduced systemic oppression against minority groups, reduced systemic oppression against non-traditional sexual orientations, universal access to free basic healthcare (caveat: every western country except the US), universal access to free basic education, and, in my lifetime alone we've added access to affordable and near-instant worldwide communication with the right to use it anyway we see fit (within reason). [0]

Now, how (besides the environment) have things gotten worse from a human dignity standpoint in the west?

The one example you gave was indeed a decent one. I know there are other good ones but there's absolutely no way they will add up enough to tip the scales so that you can argue human rights and dignity have gotten worse overall.

----- [0]: The list provided contains generalizations about "Western Countries". The list is incomplete/imperfect in that there will be some exceptions/caveats. In other words, yes I'm sure someone could find something there to nitpick but it's generally true in the big picture.

If one wants to figure out how your question could be answered, I think the question to ask oneself is, would someone from the 19th or 18th century think we have more or less regard for human dignity than they did? And if they would think we have less regard for human dignity, why would they think that and what argument would they make?

You use 'dignity' to mean, I think, that an individual has been granted autonomy. So a woman is now free to sleep around, terminate her pregnancies at will, and live her life however she pleases; she has rights. To you, she is being treated with dignity because she has autonomy. But that is not, I think, the way the 19th century mind thought (obviously this is a generalization; but think in terms of the kind of person who would have defined what 'common decency' meant in 19th century America). Dignity back then had to do with comportment and behaving well. What you call 'dignity' they would call 'licentiousness', and it would be considered the antithesis of dignity. One of the words for such a woman was 'indecent'.

You can argue that political correctness is just the decent way to speak, but to assume that it is 'common decency' is to assume an awful lot, especially when using that phrase to put down approximately half of the US electorate. The disagreement on just what constitutes 'common decency' is the exact issue here. One cannot resolve the issue by appealing to it. Conservatives and liberals have a different idea of what is offensive/harmful and what is decent because they have different fundamental values.

Or at least some of them do. A whole bunch of people on all sides are just engaging in thoughtless tribalism and mood affiliation. You are not one of the thoughtless ones, obviously. :)

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