November 29, 2012
Why are white men, especially old white men, held in such disdain
Target: Old White Men
You could roughly say that old white men built the whole modern world.
Posted by Jill Fallon at November 29, 2012 1:44 PM
You can precisely say this if you include in the category the budding old white men known as younger white men. Who were all the great inventors, innovators, and philosophers from ancient Greece and Rome up through medieval and modern Europe and the United States? Who forged the West? Who birthed democracy? Who improved upon it, giving us our Constitution and modern republican government? There is a reason why most of the busts and pictures of legendary figures portray old white men.
We might also note that while old white men probably weren't the first to practice slavery, they were the first to eliminate it. The same can be said of human rights: old white men had lots of company trampling them. They were alone in crafting the modern conception of them.
Demonizing white men old or dead keeps the young and alive disconnected from them and hence from the past. This gives us a civilization of children, just the kind of people a pied piper can lead.