Someone I know. Someone you know. The quintessence of moral failure.

There are the persistent systemic failures in whole cultures and systems of values. When religion is patriarchal it cannot claim to be universal. Societies and cultures are conveniently blind to their own failings, so that the caste system is reinforced. The mother, eager to be respectable in a traditional society, forces her child to be circumcised.

But Europe and the West as a whole is also blind to its systemic moral failings. It was Kenneth Clark who said that the Victorians did the terrible, cruel things they did around the world in the name of Malthus and Darwin. These were things that they would never have contemplated doing if they had allowed themselves to be guided by their Christian morals.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://arsnotoria.com/2020/05/19/social-darwinism-the-deadly-poison-at-the-heart-of-reason/