It has been pointed out that different countries have different cultural heritages.  This can explain Christian Fundamentalists condemning the inevitable.  Yet it can’t explain them expressing themselves as if they had trouble grasping others even had a different point of view.  I am talking about people born and raised in the US, Canada, Britain, Australia or New Zealand.  Also, they have to be alive during my lifetime which means they would have had to be alive at least in the 1980ies.  I am not talking about people who died when my Baby Boomer parents were kids or earlier.

Having someone arguing like this would make sense to me if the person had been heavily economically exploited from a too early age.  Then the person would have had to join a monastic order to even learn to read and write.  However, I can’t help wondering if such a degree of child labour existed in their country during their lifetime.  Moreover, they all belong to churches which don’t have any monastic orders.  The only person quoted in this context who would have been a member of such a church was Jorge Medina Estevez.  He was a Chilean Roman Catholic priest and as such is not a relevant example.  Quoting him is about as relevant as quoting George Walker Bush.  He is probably more thoughtless than fanatical.

The other possibility is the person growing up with the expectation of inheriting a position absolute power over loads and loads of others.  Their fear of him or her would then prevent the person from learning about most other points of view.  The trouble is, no such hereditary position of power existed in the country during the Christian Fundamentalist’s lifetime.  I am going to explain why.

Britain became a constitutional monarchy in the late 17th century.  At the time this was justified by there being no logical reason why normal rules would not apply to the ruler him- or herself.  By then chattel slavery had already been abolished for centuries.  Serfdom had also largely disappeared although the conditions for Scottish miners have been compared to serfdom.  Anyway, serfs were thought of as having rights unlike chattel slaves.  Some people did import a small number of slaves from British colonies where it was still legal.  Such use of loopholes was judged illegal in 1770ies.  From there on any position of power over others had legal limits.  This applies to Ireland too since it did not become independent from Britain until after World War I.

I don’t think Canada ever had large-scale chattel slavery.  Coastal southeastern Canada has a cool climate unsuitable for large scale cultivation for export.  The Saint Lawrence River is only sailable up to Montreal.  This made the southernmost part of present-day Canada inaccessible from the sea.  Anyway, Canada had slavery abolished in 1834.  When Canada became independent in 1867 it was as a constitutional monarchy, too.

Australia definitely never had large-scale slavery.  Past treatments of some Aborigines could be considered akin to small-scale slavery.  But no-one in Australia ever grew up with the expectation of inheriting absolute power of loads other people.  I don’t think New Zealand ever had any positions of absolute power at all.  When Australia and New Zealand become independent it was in the same way as Canada.

Wealthy Puritans only ever held monopoly on political power in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.  This was stopped by the British government within a few years of becoming a constitutional monarchy.  We are talking about events taking place before 1700.  During the decades between these events and American independence Britain could stop anyone from acquiring absolute political power.  After independence the American constitution was written with the purpose of avoiding absolute monarchy.  I think they kept slavery for economic reasons rather than anything else.  Slavery was de facto abolished in 1865.  The last person spending his or her entire upbringing expecting to inherit a slave plantation would have been dead by 1960.  Even someone who was twelve in 1865 would have been dead a hundred years later.  One can object that humans can live longer than 112.  However, as late as 1978 there was no recorded case of someone living longer than this.

It is one thing to see sharp boundaries everywhere.  It is another thing to take it for granted everyone see the same sharp boundaries as oneself.  Why trust the result of one’s ancestors’ inexperience over one’s own experience?  Apart from the possibility of someone lying to you there are several reasons not to blindly trust authorities.  The person who tells you may not realise you need to know something specific.  His or her knowledge might be outdated in the sense of the actual conditions having changed.  Finally, there is always the possibility of misunderstanding.

So whenever there is a contradiction between what we are told and our own experience we would spontaneously trust the later.  This tendency can certainly be annoying when someone fails to realise his or her personal experience is unrepresentative.  Yet without such an inborn capacity I don’t think we would be able to function.  Moreover, one can’t develop doubt about the reliably of one’s social experience without developing doubt about the authenticity of one’s own thoughts and emotions.  Such a person would not ascribe his or her own thoughts and emotions to the rest of humanity.

Uploaded on the 20th of September 2023.