/lit/ - Literature

How can anybody, especially historians, have strong moral convictions with the knowledge that these convictions are merely placed in a certain historical epoche? Shouldn't the individual with this knowledge atleast try to unchain himself from the pushing currents of contemporary morality?

Fair enough, the individual is always part of his or hers Zeitgeist and morality will always be, more or less, formed by this but there still is a major difference between being completely swallowed by contemporary morality and having some sort of own moral conviction.