Judging historical figures based on the "values of the time"
In JJ McCullough's recent video about PragerU's Guide to American Presidents, while correctly identifying the latter half of the book as hyper-partisan propaganda, he makes the spectacular mistake of suggesting that it is unfair to judge historical figures based on "today's values", and that revering earlier presidents is "fair".
This idea that we should judge slave holders, colonizers, and white supremacists based on "the values of their time" suggests that any time period has only one set of values, and erases other perspectives. Yes, most definitely there were white supremacists who thought it was okay to own black people and treat them as property, and perhaps this was a majority.
But so too were there abolitionists and MORE IMPORTANTLY, there were BLACK PEOPLE who were ENSLAVED.
Why do the slave holders' values become "the values of the time"? Why aren't the values of enslaved people and abolitionists and colonized natives considered "the values of the time"?
JJ can identify the second half of the book because it is explicitly partisan in its framing and use of language. The first half is just as biased and JJ misses it entirely because it uses objective-sounding language.