But it makes no sense to do so unless you also recognize, for instance, that to live in the West in this time is to enjoy a piece of historical good fortune unlike almost any good fortune in history. You might feel some regret that things happened in the eighteenth century that people are not proud of today. But you might balance that out by feeling some gratitude to be part of a civilization in which all human life came to be regarded as sacred, in which people are regarded as being endowed with innate dignity, in which peace is the normal state of affairs and where wrongs done in the current
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