Ex Post Facto Hysteria

Is it acceptable to judge past crimes ie those committed in some cases 50 years ago if just unearthed, by today's mores and standards?We try and do this but I cannot help but think it is wrong headed and rather ridiculous excercise.Historians started this trend with historical revisionism,re trying centuries old cases by current values and it cannot but be a redundant endeavour.I think this is exactly happening with the Saville Row.

We have to understand that the past truly is a foreign country and they do things differently there.Footballers usued to carve each other up -remember Chelsea in the early 70's and it was accepted as the norm but today no players would get away with such wanton and conscious brutality.

The same goes for attitudes towards sex.It was very liberal and permissive.Things were done and people looked the other way.It was wrong but it has to be seen in the context of when it was done and within the contemporary cultural norms and their implicit or explicit assumptions and not wrenched out of its time and revisited and judged by the light of today's politically correct orthodoxy.

This is not in any way is not to condemn Saville's actions but merely to set them in context and avoid this rather ridiculous smug and self indulgent moral posturing which too many in the media seem to have succumbed to.