🌰 When judging the views of historical figures, class and race are as important to consider as societal norms

Main points from A Man Of His Time, And Ours:

There will be multiple views within society at a time. You will always find people critiquing a historical character for their stance.
Views “of” a time may actually mean “We’ve conflated the views of the elite from this period with the views of everyone.” The views of white, rich men may not be the same as everyone’s views.
In Churchill’s case specifically, people were more critical of his policies than his supporters would like to believe. “Oh, he just followed the views of his time” holds less water when you know that his policies cost him an election.

Relevant quotes

Churchill’s views not only reflected but also enormously influenced his time; more interestingly, over his long career, they were at times significantly out of step with his time – typical only of his place as a member of Britain’s ruling upper class.

Whether these views were “of” his time is a misleading and impossible question: In every time, including ours, multiple value systems are in contest.

Churchill’s decisions were guided less by intellectual consistency than an unapologetic sense of entitlement to make decisions (often opportunistically) based on his romantic intuitions.

Churchill’s sense of historical birthright, of masculine, upper-class entitlement to make history without accountability for human costs, is what Britain’s ruling classes hanker after today. But in Churchill’s time, that prerogative was precisely what began to be questioned. His autocratic expansion of empire in the Middle East was what cost him his seat in parliament in 1922, which went instead to E. D. Morel, a leading figure in the movement for democratic control of foreign policy.

Source: A Man Of His Time, And Ours

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