cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/4071058
this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
431 points (89.1% liked)
A Comm for Historymemes
1416 readers
198 users here now
A place to share history memes!
Rules:
-
No sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, assorted bigotry, etc.
-
No fascism, atrocity denial, etc.
-
Tag NSFW pics as NSFW.
-
Follow all Lemmy.world rules.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's absurd to compare even the poorest Americans (or any non-developing nation) with Middle ages peasants.
The standard of living by comparison is immeasurable. The poorest person in a developed nation today enjoys a standard of living higher than most royalty throughout the ME.
The ostentatious palaces and shit were largely a product of the Renaissance era. Most ME lords lived in what is effectively a single room stone building and drank water contaminated with their own feces.
I understand that things can, and should, improve further but this is well beyond a reach.
You're mistakening were the progress were made. The end of famines started with the industrial revolution. The increase in life expectancy went from taking care of child deaths and antibiotics for the biggest part. Vaccines come right after those. And war is probably next. All of these are why the population was multiplied by 10 between 1940 and now.
But that doesn't make the life of everyone a paradise. There are homeless people in your country, and those are no better now than before. Depending on where you live, you don't necessarily get to be cured in a hospital because liberalism thought good to forbid free healthcare. When you're poor, you only have access to bad food, if you're not too poor.
I don't idealize the past. But I don't demonize it either only to be able to idealize our present.
It's not idealizing anything to recognize that standard of living for poor people in developed countries (and, by this standard of measurement, developing nations as well) is massively improved over even 40 years ago, much less 400. That's just accepting reality.
Not even touching the "liberalism means health care is expensive" argument, because that's just fucking silly. Healthcare is unduly expensive in exactly 1 developed nation. That's on those people, not liberalism.