>>42705660Not him but it's dangerous to fall into the thinking of Whig History, the idea that everything just socially trends upward and its opponents are on the wrong side of history. Civilizations can backslide and in many cases have.
For the first 100 years of America's existence, every drug under the sun was illegal, and there was even a period where the death penalty was outlawed on the grounds of being unconstitutional as a form of cruel and unsual punishment. Blacks had more rights from 1866-1901 than they did from 1902-1964.
France was famously known for its tolerance towards Jews under Napoleon.
Egypt used to be a place famous for producing movie stars, and Afghanistan under its last king Mohammed Zahir Shah was a frequent tourist destination of the beatnik movement for its lax laws on marijuana.
The Weimar Republic was not in fact a decadent and degenerate government (that was just Nazi propaganda used to justify its dissolution), but was actually a normal liberal democracy like many gound today, just placed in an impossible situation as they were given the reins of the country that lost WW1 and got all the blame for it, and Weimar should instead be a cautionary tale of the danger in turning to extremists to get rid of extremists.
For a brief period, China appeared as though it was going to genuinely become a free and open democracy under Sun Yat-Sen before Yuan Shikai's takeover. Much like how democracy flourished in Japan under the Taisho Era.
Brazil used to be one of the most genuinely impressive nations on the world stage, the America of the Southern Hemisphere.
Civilizations always have to be vigilant because they can't just assume everything they built won't be torn down one day by extremists and the entire social order is thrown back to a previous era. It has happened multiple times in every century, on every continent.
