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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 14, 2023

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The deaths honestly just sound like poor people deaths.

They weren't Poor People deaths though were they? They were Ward of the Church deaths. When you steal children away from their parents you get to take responsibility for what happens to them.

I have no issue with teaching poor people higher culture.

it was hardly """just""" that. If they had managed to do so without kidnapping, abuse, beatings, and deaths by neglect they'd have far less of a case to answer today, eh?

Whether the conditions were particularly bad I don’t know

Bad compared to conditions back at the tribe? Probably unknowable. They were certainly worse than they could have been. And like I said, when you steal children away from their parents you get to take responsibility for what happens to them. If you find that too burdensome feel free to not do it. Or engage in apologism for those that did.

I disagree. I don’t think you would be responsible for every death. You would have resources and technology level of the time and place. I would agree they are responsible for deaths from beatings (murder is a crime) or from neglect (if they withheld food). I’m not entirely sure of the exact time period for this but if they died of 19th century diseases or I believe it included the time period of the Spanish flu (which did kill younger people) then they were not responsible.

There is a bit of cultural relativism going on here. I don’t believe that is true and we have forgotten this. I think it’s a good thing to provide these children with a better education. Something feels wrong to me with NOT trying to educate these kids because of who their parents were.

Certainly if this happened today you would have a standard of basically zero deaths. But that is because we solved a lot of disease.

Whether the conditions were particularly bad I don’t know

Bad compared to conditions back at the tribe? Probably unknowable.

Well, there you have it. You don't even know if these schools had worse or better conditions for the children than they would have had at home, yet you're willing to blame the church for the deaths.

They were certainly worse than they could have been.

Perfection is never an option nor a reasonable standard.

And like I said, when you steal children away from their parents you get to take responsibility for what happens to them.

OK, suppose the state finds a cult who rape their children and sacrifice half of them to dark gods on their 16th birthday. The state takes all the children away to a group home, where a few of them die of ordinary accidents. Do you blame the state? It's the same principle.

Perfection is never an option nor a reasonable standard.

'better' is always an option. 'better than shit' is certainly a reasonable standard.

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'better' is always an option.

I would disagree; constraints exist. And for obvious reasons, it cannot be a standard.

'better than shit' is certainly a reasonable standard.

"Shit" here is rather poorly defined. You've already admitted that you don't know if the conditions the children were subject to were better or worse than they would have had at home.