Cruelty and enlightenment

I don’t know if the following observations are profound or trite or somewhere in between. They are prompted by a recent visit to the Cascades Female Factory in Hobart, Tasmania.Every country, it seems, has something to be ashamed of in its history. Certainly, among other things, the US bears blame for its treatment of native Americans, slaves imported from Africa, and forced detention of Japanese descendants during World War II.And yet, those same countries have often made contributions to political systems that are truly noteworthy in the advancement of human society.  Think of the principles espoused in the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and in the practice of civil disobedience against injustice, a philosophy that stemmed from the writings of Thoreau and others.  These contradictions between eras of cruelty and shame and periods of enlightenment may be irreconcilable. Or perhaps there is some underlying theory of the advancement of the human condition that posits that the bad must occur to bring about the good.  Political philosophers of greater wisdom than I have surely offered their hypotheses.I think, though, that part of the process of societal development depends strongly on exposing the bad times with stories about normal human beings who were caught up in the antisocial maelstroms of their time.  We seem to be emotionally insulated from general histories about thousands or millions of people who were harme...
Source: Not running a hospital - Category: Hospital Management Source Type: blogs