We tend to look at history through a modern lens, which is a mistake. We are the products of our time, conditioned to think and behave in specific ways in order to matriculate our way through society without losing our place in it. As a woman, in the mid-nineteenth century I wouldn’t even have had a voice, much less a vote, in pushing for change. I would’ve been outcast for it, at a time when few women who weren’t born rich could make a successful living on their own. Being so powerless and dependent, I probably would’ve been careful never to voice my beliefs because, if my husband or father didn’t share them, he was legally free to thoroughly beat them out of me, his chattel. So, though we like to think we’d be heroes and stand up for others, chances are we wouldn’t have had the courage to take that risk. We would’ve held back and left it up to the few truly brave individuals to take those risks and take the beatings, imprisonment, and disenfranchisement for it (repeated often, to try and break them) by those who benefit greatly from the status quo. Sound familiar? Yeah, it still happens today. Eventually the rest of us cowards reach our limit of what we’ll allow to happen, and join the heroes whose heads are bloody but unbowed, until we finally represent the majority. That kind of power is necessary to significantly change the status quo, and eventually society itself.

Excellent discussion and opportunity for honest self examination

So many modern equivalents that we're ignoring when assigning ourselves hypothetical historical superiority. What do you do for migrants, homeless, Natives, prisoners? It's easy to say "oh that's terrible" when told of someone's plight but then carry on with your day as if nothing was happening. People back then weren't faced with slaves picking cotton in the fields, just as we today are not faced with sweat shop workers making our clothes. Without a straightforward ethical dilemma, an easy solution, and the steps clearly laid out for us to follow, many people default to doing nothing. It's only when something affects us personally that we stand up and fight.

I think it's been that way through out history. We always see things out predecessors have done wrong. In a hundred years or so people will be pointing out faults about us that we don't even realize now. An optimistic view is that it is an evolution of conscious.

George is correct. Social mores are presumably held by the majority, or it would not have been a common situation. Judging the past on our present value systems is being ahistorical at best, and downright delusional at worst. That was something I taught every term, in every class. -Rev Dr M, retired history professor

In reality, most would have barely given a thought to slavery, because the vast majority of people had little to do with it. Most did not own them. They may see them now and again in the streets and such, but, it wouldn't have been anything they really cared or thought about. For most, the whole issue was low hanging fruit.

If you were from the south and had slaves or servants. It would be a natural way of life. People in the 21st century don't have the same mind set as people 100 plus years ago. For the students, it was an exercise in participation,or maybe provocation. My grandfather was born in 1883 in North Carolina. He and my grandmother were the nicest people on the face of this earth till their passing in the mid 70's. They experienced a life we will never have. I cry for the f(*&ed up world my grand children are inheriting.

Sadly, hardly anyone can really know how he'd have reacted to the mistakes of earlier times in these earlier times ... but ... but this also may generate hope - the progress of society, as a whole, has set a different standard of decency. We, as a whole, went on, became better. But, there are still things that need to end - all the things causing exploitation, cruelty towards helpless, total ignorance of said helpless' suffering, ... When I was in school, it still was normal that other students, with teachers laughingly joining in, ridiculed you for being a vegetarian. Well, me. Some might say this isn't of the same importance like the treatment of humans, but ... there are different things to it. Humans may reward you for treating them less s****y, other animals won't ... humans suffer for meat production, ... but this isn't what this is about - I sometimes even saw and heard people making fun of ANY and EVERY decision that was made according to ethical viewpoints...

Hope about an nba player saying all lives matter..including those in china

Trouble is, when a social problem is systematic, individual actions don't always count for much, while collective/policy ones can. I get that the U.S. is all about the single/team superhero mythology, but in reality (actual events we can look to for evidence), change unfortunately has to be more multi-pronged, garnering support from various pillars of society. Example: if a sole, unknown teenage actress complained publicly about the sexual exploitation of powerful movie producer, would that change anything? Now, how seriously would you listen to a collective of seasoned, powerful industry actresses coming forward with the same story? Or, what happened to those non-Jews in Nazi-occupied countries who wore the Star of David in solidarity? What use is having your allies also heaped up in gas chambers, leaving fewer to speak for, or witness, injustice? A person's religion, truth, race, or gender doesn't protect nonconforming individuals when a systematic value runs contrary to their own.

I am from ex-communist country, I am 81, so I can remember a lot. People always believe in their own courage and honesty in comparison with their parents and peers . It is total b******t, only war or economics can make change. Abolitionism is a very honest idea, but only war freed slaves, bc they are needed in the North for work in industry and nobody looked at their well-being there after the war. Sometimes it was worse than at plantations, but nobody cares, b.c. it is their free will, there is nobody other (wiser, richer) to sue out exploitation and there isn´t common will to do it.

This proves that most people have the biggest fear of other people without really knowing it

I'm pretty sure I would have been against slavery. The reason for that is my father was racist and my grandfather was a former KKK minister. I was raised by a racist person and yet didn't grow up to be racist myself.

I know myself well enough to know I wouldn't go against the crowd. It has to do with personal history and the fear of retaliation. It doesn't make it right, but at least I know why I would have gone along to get along.

Anyone intrigued by this, please read Ursula K. LeGuin's short story, "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas". It looks at exactly this question. What would you do, who would you be?

For those who think we are beyond racist laws, look towards the treatment of Native Americans in the US and in North and South America in general. There are no laws or actiosn SPECIFICALLY targetting people of African, Asian, or other descent, EXCEPT Native Americans. What happened with the Native Americans in the US region that we think was terrible, but in the past, is happening now, ONGOING, in Brazil. And as another commenter pointed out, we have just shifted using people to other countries. And a question: Not every Southerner was a wealthy person with a plantation that had slaves were they?

"and everybody clapped" 🙄🙄🙃

It goes back to, freedom being another word for nothing left to lose. I argue that those who DID defy unjust social norms were already marginal in significant ways. John Brown and Free State of Jones are examples of an individual and community which did NOT identify with the dominant culture and were not economically invested. It is easier to put your life on the line when your motivation is purely moral or self-defense, when the society one is opposing is truly Other; one that never offered acceptance or affirmation to begin with. Or, when the dominant culture has always been judged and condemned as immoral and unjust, as is the case with John Brown.

For the reasons he said I wouldn’t have openly been an abolitionist, but I would have secretly participated in the Underground Railroad and helped slaves escape to freedom as much as I could. I would actually allow my house to be one of the safe houses slaves would go to along their route. I know I’d still have to save face in the daytime, but by night I’d do whatever I could to save them. I wouldn’t even want to own slaves. I can pick my own cotton.

Well if you were white living around that time in the south i think that person having lived there and grown up there would have probably grown with slaves around so there is a 80% chance that guy or woman would have owned a slave.

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I think the past should remain the past. Most likely I would be a coward. I put myself in a situation that I am in an extremely Sharia country and with my presence, a woman is stoned. What do I do? I would be scared for my life, maybe even turn away, would not look. This is terrible savagery and not justice. I will never go to such strange countries, no matter how rich they are. It is terrible that there are terrible things that are happening in the world. And in my country, too, I don’t think anyone is ideal. But in my country, I intervened in fights between spouses. That is, it turns out I am hiding in the majority, even if I do not think that this is fair.

This ones easy..simply stand up for a conservative student's right to free speech on most college campuses.. maybe i should have gone to princeton

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My take on this is, if you're not a vegetarian, opposing the horrendous treatment of voiceless animals being given horrific lives and deaths for your enjoyment today, you would not have been an abolitionist then.

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alternate headline: Wise White Male Princeton Professor Knows How To Keep His Job At Woke Ivy University