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[quote user="schlimm"] Differences in attitudes and beliefs.  Some make rationalizations for child labor.  Some on here believe slavery was necessary.  Some believe commerce creates wealth.  Perhaps some of us still believe that child labor was flat out wrong, slavery was morally evil and that the people create wealth. <div style="clear:both;"></div> [/quote]   Schlimm,  <o:p></o:p> You say that some here believe that slavery was necessary.  Can you point out where someone here expressed the belief that slavery was necessary ?   I don’t recall anyone here expressing that view. *******  <o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> Sam, Just incidentally, I don’t recall saying that the past was ruthless, as you attribute to me. *******  <o:p></o:p>  <o:p></o:p> People talk about revised history, as if there were a single accurate history.  I would submit that in a very large way, aside from recorded facts and figures, history is in the eye of the beholder.  Most people in the modern era almost always look at history as being harsh and miserable, even without considering the obvious hardships such as the Civil War, for example.  They believe people in the past were not as smart as people today.   <o:p></o:p> These people in the modern era naturally see history through a dark lens because the modern goods and treasures they are attached to are absent from history.  So when they look at history, they feel the sting of loss and deprivation.  I believe that the majority of people simply don’t relate to history.  They worry about the future and fight their way through the present.  Once things move into the past, the battle is over.  The past can safely be dismissed and forgotten.  The past is nothing more than a graveyard of old battles that took place in the present.  It is not a reality.  That is why teaching history is a hard sell.  <o:p></o:p> However, there are some people, perhaps 5%, who actually enjoy looking at the past, and do so with a sense of nostalgia.  The true historians are among this group.  They see the past with the same cognition as most people see the present.  They are open and sympathetic with the past, and often regard it as the time and place where most things were right before they all went wrong.  The affinity for the past appears to be a naturally occurring trait rather than something they learned.  So, you might say these people are wired for the past.  The majority, however, mostly have disdain for the past.  So the past is in the eye of the beholder.   <o:p></o:p> For example, if you start with the belief that it is abusive for people to have to work hard for something they should be entitled to, then child labor looks like child abuse.  Some feel that these photos of the child labor era are repulsive to look at because of what they represent.   I contend that they do not represent the same thing to everybody, including the subjects that posed for them so long ago.  I think what you see in the photos depends on your pre-existing viewpoints concerning principles such as entitlement, victimization, individual responsibility, etc.     Some regard the child labor era to have been as unspeakably horrible as the era of slavery.  Some feel the photos are proof of the horror, and that they depict children as victims of it.  I don’t see that in the photos.  Sure there was an ugly side to child labor, as there was with many things, but I don’t think you can make that point by the photos alone.    The photos will confirm that if you already believe it, but objectively, the photos don’t convey it.  Earlier, I said the photos generally portray the children as confident and content with their lot in life.  If you believe that they could not have possibly been content because of your idea of what their life was like, then you will find it impossible to see them as content and confident.    This was posted earlier, but take another look at it.  I was going to post this photo some time ago because I think it is interesting.  It is an exceptionally high quality photo.  As little Johnnie X strikes a pose with an ACL ventilator car, he looks quite confident and content to me.       <a href="http://www.shorpy.com/node/4395?size=_original">http://www.shorpy.com/node/4395?size=_original</a> <o:p></o:p>
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