Musing On Our Changing Morality

Blogging friend Kay over at Musings a few weeks ago brought up a darker chapter of our history where society decided to imprison Japanese-Americans in internment camps and unbeknownst to me, some of them used that time to play baseball. Now all these years later, we celebrate three Japanese-Americans who helped the Dodgers win the World Series. I know I along with most, probably find putting any race of citizens in internment camps to be morally unacceptable under our current set of morality codes but I know most of my Iowa ancestors probably found it morally acceptable 83 years ago. Our past is littered with similar changes in morality.

Going back just to the beginnings of our nation, one can easily point out such practices as slavery, indentured servitude, child labor, public execution, public shaming and assertions of class superiority to all be examples of things we find morally repugnant today but weren't 250 years ago. Even in my lifetime, I have seen changes and shifts to morality. I have seen the use of racial slurs decrease dramatically, use of non-binary gender identity increase and the entire area of cultural appropriation has come to the forefront of our discussions. These are just the low hanging fruit when it comes to this subject. If you proceed further up the tree, there are literally hundreds if not thousands of other subjects where our morality codes have changed as a society.

As I stated in the comments of Kay's post, such talk always leads me to ponder what will people 83 years from now find that I'm doing to be morally repugnant under their future set or morality codes? I have some guesses but they are just that because I think it is likely impossible to pick these things with any accuracy because we are hampered by our current set or moralities. 

My favorite one to pick is our current fascination with pets and I mean no offense to those that currently have them. But if one changes the lens of perspective ever so slightly, future people might see us as enslaving animals, keeping them locked up in our houses or on leashes outdoors where we parade them around and even deem certain ones superior by how they look or what characteristics they have on nationally televised shows. 

Perhaps our ideas of raising children, entrusting their care to au pairs, day care centers and such will be someday morally repugnant to others or on the other end of the spectrum, putting our elders in nursing homes.

At the current moment, we see such hot button issues as abortion and the death penalty changing in various directions in our society. Where will they end up 83 years from now? I suspect your guess is as good as mine. 

I would be interested to hear your thoughts on the subject? What things will our ancestors 83 years from now find morally repugnant?