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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sacrosanct" data-source="post: 7499905" data-attributes="member: 15700">As an aside, am I the only one who sort of rolls my eyes whenever I see people accuse long dead authors of being sexists and/or racists based on modern day standards?  It seems to me that it's low hanging fruit to try to score some sort of self righteous cred or something.  It's an unfortunate reality that moral relativity is a thing, and should be considered.  I'm not necessarily talking about guys like Lovecraft, who was clearly a racist even by the standards of the day.  I just think it's a bit disingenuous to attack someone who can't defend themselves as a sexist for how they portrayed the trope of a damsel in distress, when that was the common thinking of the day.  It misses the context, which is critical.  For example, you can say person X was a sexist by today's standards, but in his time, he was very progressive and fought against the status quo.  Thomas Jefferson comes to mind.  Was he a racist pig because he owned slaves, which is clearly abhorrent by today's standards, or is that characterization unfair when you compare his ideals to the rest of the accepted world at that time?Again, I'm not saying none of these authors were sexists or racists, but how did their views compare during the time of the writing?  I think that's how people should be judged.  I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to be judged by your actions now based on society's standards 50 or 100 years from now.</blockquote>

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