“Presentism” can be a real error, but most of the common examples reactionaries point to are like laughably bad. Like slavery in the 19th century cannot possibly be an example of “it was a different time”, as if no one had heard of abolitionism before.
And the colonial atrocities of King Leopold or Christopher Columbus were considered PR disasters at the time they were occurring, not only centuries later.
“Death is what the living carry with them. A state of dread, like some uncanny foretaste of a bitter memory. But the dead do not remember and nothingness is not a curse. Far from it.” – Cormac McCarthy, Suttree
