We are circumstances to the past, and we owe the future at that of responsibility for the problems it inherits. The past, the present, in the future are inextricably intertwined, and any attempt to avoid judging another time or place with all the knowledge available to us is to choose ignorance and willful blindness. This essay will argue that, to make the most out of the knowledge that we have been given by our predecessors, we should judge those from the past by the standards of today. 
 
I set out this argument into sections. In the first section, I argue that there is little qualitative difference between judging those from the past by the standards of today and judging them by the standards of their own time. Furthermore, I argue that judging those of the past with the standards of today is a powerful tool for gaining prospective on present-day problems. In the second section, I argue that judging those from the past by the standards of today enhances our analytical abilities through the process of criticism and provide signposts for future action. Finally, I argue that we will no doubt be judged just as harshly by future historians as those from the past are judged by our historians today. However, the more we clarify the standards we hold dear today in the light of the historical record, the better we will be able to act now, and the more future historians will respect our efforts to understand and improve the world.
 
 
Section 1. On the qualitative nature of judgments
 
Why might one argue that we should be prevented in judging those from the past by the standards of today?  
1. One of the most common arguments against using the standards of today to judge those from the past is that in doing so we fail to take account of the myriad differing circumstances that surrounded our forebears. Under this view, not only do we not understand the everyday realities of the past, but we would be compounding our ignorance by applying standards that developed afterwards. In the process, we would be unfairly judging those who came before us with ideas that were not available to them at the time.
 
This historical relativism, however, would not only limit our ability to judge those from the past. Applied consistently, it would also make sure that we could not judge our contemporaries either. Qualitatively, we lack just as much information about those who live around us today as we do about those who lived hundred years ago. Even among our contemporaries, we can never know the entirety of the variables that another person considers when they make their choices. Even if we do know most of their circumstances, we cannot know many of the subjective factors that shaped individuals’ decisions. This argument for not judging the past by the standards of today appears even more feeble in the face of the fact that there are many historical figures about whom we have much more information that we do about many of our contemporaries. I daresay, for example, that I know more about what factors would have been considered by President Truman, that I do about what was going through the mind of the mass shooter in Tennessee on 27 June, 2021. In effect, the refusal to use our own standards to judge others is a willful paralysis of judgment that requires us not only to not analyze the past from our own perspectives, but to not even analyze the present critically.
 
2. The opposition to the use of contemporary standards in judging those from the past paradoxical reveals one of the most important reasons for using our present perspectives to criticize past missteps. At the core of the above argument is the belief we should not criticize the past from our perspectives because of an informational deficit: we should not judge those about whom we do not know enough. In a sense, this is true, but the solution to this criticism is not to abdicate all judgment entirely. On the contrary, this analysis should push us to attempt to overcome the weaknesses in our ability to judge others. In other words, instead of capitulating to our own ignorance, we should use that ignorance as a reason to learn more. We should base any criticism of the past not only on the standards of today, but also on a rigorous study of the concrete realities that existed at the time and place that interests us.
             
             Doing so will ensure that our judgments of the past are complex, well thought out, and in fair. By considering the factual situations of the past carefully, we will understand that it every point in the past there has not been a single standard. There have been warring ideas, opposed factions, and contradictory individuals. At every point in the past there have been those who look to tradition for their ideals and those who try to appear be on the horizon. In times of slavery, there have always been abolitionists. In times of genocide, there have always been pacifists. The beauty of history is that we are able to delve deeply into these mosaics of information, overlaying our own moral compass over the people and events that have shaped our present, no matter how remotely.
 
This approach to judging the past from her own perspective is also powerful in that it is not a one-way street. E.W. Strong said that “history of historiography exhibits historians’ intent on being moralists teaching by experience and precedent” (Strong, E. W. ,1952). In other words, even though historians cannot help but judge the past, in doing so with the rigor, the past speaks through them as well. It is not merely the case that we retroactively judge the past by our own standards, but as we look back, we inevitably bring gems of wisdom into the present. It is precisely because of history that our lives are the sum of the lives of our ancestors. Any freedom that we enjoy to criticize the past today is the bounty of the valor of those who came before us. To judge them is not a stain on their accomplishments, but a recognition of the opportunity to continue testing our mind and our morals against the giants of history.
 
             Above all this, we have a moral obligation to judge the past by the standards of the present, because the failings of today are the failings of yesterday. Genocide is still with us. Female genital mutilation is with us. Child soldiers are with us. Ethnic cleansing is with us. Because of the pressures that surround us, it is often hard to see the horrors that occur around the world right now. By looking into the past, however, we can attain a form of objectivity through distance. Then, by holding up our present against the past that we have judged, we are often able to see with greater clarity. Thus, to improve our present, we must look to the past with the standards that we have today not only to judge those who came before us, but also to judge ourselves.
 
Section 2. There is a distinct benefit to making judgments about those of the past with standards of today 
Benefit 1: We improve our own abilities by criticizing the past
Recording our judgments of the past from the perspective of our current beliefs also serves additional important functions. First, by recording the application of our beliefs to concrete circumstances in the past, we hone our abilities to apply abstract ideals to practical situations. In the past, we have seen one human philosophy after another, beautiful in the abstract, crumble in the face of reality. Belief in the divine right of kings crumble around the world in the face of the democratization of knowledge. The utopian ideals of Marxism and communism crumbled in the face of human nature and individual rights. It is only by judging these histories from the perspective of today that we are able to understand what went wrong in the past. As we have done so, we have learned lessons that can be extrapolated into the future: although we are far from perfect in our understanding of government in society, we have learned key lessons about what does not work.
At the same time, recording the application of our beliefs to concrete circumstances is an invaluable exercise in improving our mind. Many of the foremost insights in law, politics, and economics, have come directly from post hoc criticisms of the past. Our understanding of international law developed from our abhorrence of the depredations of Nazi Germany, and our modern understanding of economics has been strongly shaped by the failures of commonest countries like the Soviet Union. Judging these past events and past actors does not just teach us individualized lessons, but also teaches us new techniques for how to think.
 
Benefit 2: We leave behind information to provide gauge/steering wheel for the future 

The second major benefit of judging the past from the perspective of the present is that it allows us to build new tools for steering future. As much as it may seem that we are forever more than the present, on an island of immediate experience, the fact remains that our every thought is influenced by the past. In the future, the work that we do today to judge the merits and missteps of those who came before us will in turn inform the entire trajectory of societies. The standards that we hold so dear today will evolve into the standards of tomorrow, which may in turn revert to the beliefs we hold today or those of some nobler time.
 
The value of the lessons that we leave behind us are determined less by the single moral standard that we apply in the way that we look at the past, and more by the rigor that we put into the analysis itself. Fifty years from now, arbitrarily harsh lenses from our modern beliefs will be of little use. But what will be of use will be intellectually consistent dedication to intelligent historical analysis from a variety of moral, social, and political perspectives. The greatest legacy that we can leave for the future is a historical record based in intellectual diversity where excellence is defined not by a single standard, but by a widespread fidelity to quality and accuracy.
  
The truth is, there is no alternative. No matter how hard we try, we will judge, and our judgments will be shaped by the reality we live in. Our judgments will not be perfect, and we will be questioned by the historians of the future. But there is no harm in this. We should use the knowledge that the future will judge us to hold ourselves to a higher standard. Perhaps someday our beliefs will be questioned, and so will our way of life. The way forward is not to surrender our judgment, but to think critically about our past, are present, and our future. To pretend as though there is no value in the considered believes that we hold today and to give up on applying our faculties, that is the true villainy. 
 
So, judge away.