Comment by Larrikin
4 years ago
If we're discussing relative activities would you rather have a finger cut off or a leg cut off?
The idea of time travel being a fun concept, especially in recent history has very real implications if you go anywhere in the world where you're a minority or not from a colonial power subjecting people to your will.
Yes, even before colonial times, this sort of thing is ancient. Being a Frenchman in Britain 400 years ago you would find yourself in the disdainful company if not outright contempt of your peers. These countries fought 100 year war despite being extremely close from a racial perspective. And you had this same pattern play out all over the world. Indian tribes and nations warred with each other, slaughtered each other, sacrificed each other. Asians, Africans, Mediterranean empires, etc. There is no point in history you can go back to where these dynamics are not in play. It's the remarkable achievement of the past 100 or so years that we move relatively freely in most of the first world today without fear of violence or extreme bigotry. Tribalism is the rule of human history, not the exception. And U.S. was for better or worse a proving ground for how a multicultural and multiracial society could work. No doubt that came with sacrifices and tragedies, but I suspect without those, we'd not have had much change in the world.
The US didn't end the tribalism, ever. Europe did, and even more because of the Nazis' antiexample.