“Three generations of imbeciles are enough.”
In 1927, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes ended a controversial Supreme Court opinion with this sentiment. His ruling: affirming eugenics.
By the end of 1692, twenty-five residents of Salem, Massachusetts were dead. The reason: accusations of witchcraft.
In 1619, a ship crossed the Atlantic ocean. Its cargo: captives from Africa.
These are only a few American examples, but history is filled with them — stories that seem immoral to us in the present.
Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Maybe the arc of the moral universe is bending in a positive way like King says. Supreme Court Justices no longer write opinions in favor of eugenics, the Salem Witch Trials would never happen today and slavery has been abolished. It does seem like the world is getting better as time progresses.
However, if King’s quote is true now, wasn’t it also true in 1927, 1692 and 1619? We, in 2025, are no different than any of these previous dates. History shows us that everyone in the past, present and future has had blindspots and moral problems.
If this phenomenon is a new realization, congratulations, you have unlocked a new moral dilemma. If it is not, then what are we doing about it?
One piece of this puzzle, Kevin Diller, professor of philosophy and religion, said, is to understand that if King is correct — if the arc of history does bend towards justice — it is because of God.
Realizing that humans do not control the universe must be the first step toward justice. By giving up control of the impossible, we can move forward with confidence that ultimately God is the only one who can bring justice.
Knowing that God is in control, however, does not give us permission to ignore our blind spots.
What we need is lasik surgery.
Enter Hector and Achilles.
Spoiler alert, at the end of the Iliad, Achilles kills Hector. In a show of dominance, Achilles ties Hector’s body to his horse and drags it around in a Dark Age version of NASCAR donuts.
As expected, this does not make Hector’s father, Priam, very happy. So he asks Achilles to think about how his father would feel if the same thing happened to him. By doing this, Priam cultivated in Achilles a sensitivity to the wrong that had been done.
“This is the gift of the humanities,” Edward Meadors, professor of Biblical studies, said. “Somehow we can get through to people by reading a book or watching a movie or engaging in theater to put themselves empathetically in the place of someone they’ve never identified with.”
This is the key to finding our blindspots — cultivating sensitivity by putting ourselves empathetically in the place of someone else.
“Whether it’s slavery or Salem, there were people at the time who were critiquing it, and they were minority voices,” Benjamin Wetzel, associate professor of history said. “Those are voices we should be listening to today.”
To clarify, Wetzel does not mean that we need to accept every minority voice as true. Ultimately, history will show whether those minority voices are prophets or crackpots. However, we should be willing to put ourselves in other people’s shoes if we ever want to find our blind spots.
Without spending too much time and money, anyone can live, partially, the struggles, joys, desires and needs of so many others. Whether it's through a book, a film, a play or taking a trip, the humanities allow us to vicariously experience the emotions of others.
So, read books with an eye toward the problems of those poorer than you. Watch films with hearts open to the pain of those being persecuted. Engage with theater productions that might not have originated on Broadway.
This is humanity’s version of lasik surgery.
