Grow up!

Copyright: The Guardian 2021

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​In our hyper-connected digital age, where opinions travel faster than facts, one disturbing intellectual trend keeps growing: the urge to retroactively judge history through the lens of modern morality. We are told to tear down statues, rename streets, cancel historical figures, and rewrite textbooks—to correct the past, as if we were gods looking down on it with superior vision. But judging from the past based on today’s values is as absurd as blaming a newborn for a traffic accident they’ll have in 40 years. It misunderstands the nature of time, civilization, and what it means to be human.
Civilizations Grow Like People
Civilizations, like people, are born in darkness. They crawl, stumble, and sometimes run before they walk. They learn, fight, fail, love, and rise again. To expect moral maturity from ancient societies is like expecting a child to recite a philosophical treatise on justice before they’ve even learned to speak. Yes, there was slavery. Yes, there was war, empire, disease, despotism. And yes, there was discovery, invention, liberation, poetry, and love. These opposites do not cancel each other, they coexist, forming the rich, complex reality of human history. To whitewash history is not to heal it, it is to amputate it.
The Dangerous Fantasy of the Time Machine
Let’s play the revisionist game for a moment. Say we invent a time machine. We go back and stop every tyrant, prevent every war, cure every plague, abolish every injustice. Nice idea. But then ask: where would we be now? Without tyranny, would we have discovered liberty? Without empire, would global civilizations have connected? Without oppression, would we have written constitutions? Without war, would we have built peace? The cause-and-effect principle, the foundational law of existence, tells us something uncomfortable: progress often grows out of pain.
Slavery, Democracy, and the Paradox of Progress
Slavery is abhorrent—but its existence shaped the world we live in. The brutal, shameful system gave birth to abolitionism, civil rights movements, and a deeper understanding of human dignity. Democracy did not emerge in a vacuum. It emerged because people lived under kings, emperors, and theocratic rule, and eventually said enough. The abuses of the past gave meaning to the freedoms of the present. We love democracy but forget that it is the child of despotism. The very ideas we now hold sacred were forged in the fires we wish had never been lit.
The Illusion of a “Pure” History
Some argue: “If Christopher Columbus had not discovered America, the indigenous peoples would have been spared.” Maybe. But then maybe there would be no Enlightenment, no global scientific exchange, no United Nations, no internet. Maybe we would still be living in fragmented, isolated societies, each fearing the other.

The same goes for the Sykes–Picot Agreement or the Crusades or the Hundred Years’ War. These are not isolated evils. They are links in a long, painful, but necessary chain. To break one link is to unravel the whole. We are not passengers watching history from a distance—we are its inheritors. And our modern privileges rest on ancient shoulders.
Cancel Culture vs. Historical Complexity
Canceling historical figures doesn’t make us wiser. It makes us shallow. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves—and wrote the Declaration of Independence. Churchill held colonialist views—and defeated fascism. The same duality lives in us. If perfection is the standard, then none of us will survive the judgment of the future. Instead of rewriting history, let’s read it more carefully. Let’s teach the contradictions, not hide them. Let’s learn how flawed people created extraordinary things—not to excuse them, but to understand them. And to understand ourselves.
History as a Mirror, Not a Weapon
The past is not a crime scene. It’s a mirror. When we look into it, we don’t just see “them”—we see ourselves. Their mistakes, their ambitions, their fears, their triumphs… they are ours, too. To grow as a civilization, we need to stop throwing stones at the past and start asking better questions: What did they believe? Why did they act that way? What can we learn—not erase—from their journey? The maturity of a society is measured not by how well it judges its ancestors, but by how well it understands them.
Conclusion: Grow Up, Not Backward
There’s a deep immaturity in trying to correct history from the comfort of the present. It is childish to wish the world had been simple, pure, or perfect. It never was. And that’s what makes its achievements more beautiful—not less.
We are here because countless generations struggled, suffered, built, and believed. They weren’t always right—but they kept moving forward. That is the only standard that matters.
Let’s stop pretending we’re above history. We are history. And if we don’t start respecting its complexity, we may lose the wisdom it offers.
Final Thought
As G.K. Chesterton once said:
“The object of the progressive is to go on making mistakes. The object of the conservative is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected. But the wise man learns from the mistakes of both.”
Let us be wise. Not perfect. Not pure. Just grown-up enough to see the full picture.

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