That's my point, if you're going to be remotely fair when judging people from a radically different society you have to "grade them on a curve" so to speak. Otherwise, according to the prevailing modern social mores, not a single decent person existed prior to the 1960s or so
That's ahistorical. I'd say Martin Luther King seemed like a fairly decent fellow. Also Rosa Parks, Medgar Evers, Harry Belafonte, J Waties Waring, Andrew Goodman and so on.
But those people are all from the 20th century, historically speaking still quite recent and relatable. I think you'd be hard-pressed to pluck anyone from a truly different time/place (relative to the modern west) and have their moral standards hold up to modern scrutiny, and if you could they'd be a notable exception and not the rule
Well, you have Richelieu's famous quote about six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men and whatnot, but let's just say I think you're wrong.
You're simultaneously underestimating the people who were here before us and our ability to adequately scrutinize their moral fiber. Of course, if by "people", "person" or "anyone", you mean the powerful, wealthy elite of the US, it's another thing entirely.
Its possible that I'm underestimating our ability to fairly judge their moral fiber, but I did not mean to imply that the moral compass of all those who came before is genuinely worse than ours. Quite the opposite, I'm saying many great and noble people who's heart was in the right place are unfairly maligned by future generations for the moral failings of their society as a whole.
