Post by Kiwi Frontline on Oct 24, 2019 3:58:16 GMT 12
COOK WAS A MAN OF HIS TIME
A F writes > Two hundred and fifty years ago Europe/the West was riding on a surge of technological and scientific knowledge and development which led to an assumption of superiority over any less developed nation/race just as in an earlier age the Romans had acted.
The whole ethos was different. 21st century ideals of humanitarianism and egalitarianism simply did not exist.
Cook was a man of his time; he could be nothing else. So in a modern sense he was a supremacist but in the context of his age Cook was remarkably liberal open minded and sensitive to the new cultures he found. He was aware and wrote of his regret that his bringing Western culture to the Pacific would precipitate the collapse of the cultures there.
It is absurd to apply the politically correct ideology of our age to those times.
It is equally absurd to refuse to acknowledge the progress in humanitarian and egalitarianism since. The worlds not perfect but its a bloody sight better that it was. Credit where its due, please.
A F writes > Two hundred and fifty years ago Europe/the West was riding on a surge of technological and scientific knowledge and development which led to an assumption of superiority over any less developed nation/race just as in an earlier age the Romans had acted.
The whole ethos was different. 21st century ideals of humanitarianism and egalitarianism simply did not exist.
Cook was a man of his time; he could be nothing else. So in a modern sense he was a supremacist but in the context of his age Cook was remarkably liberal open minded and sensitive to the new cultures he found. He was aware and wrote of his regret that his bringing Western culture to the Pacific would precipitate the collapse of the cultures there.
It is absurd to apply the politically correct ideology of our age to those times.
It is equally absurd to refuse to acknowledge the progress in humanitarian and egalitarianism since. The worlds not perfect but its a bloody sight better that it was. Credit where its due, please.