We don't have race and gender equality anywhere, and the one place that has it less is probably the US (see incarceration rates for blacks for instance).
Same for respect for life; we seem to be quite indifferent to the victims of our bombs, while we mourn the loss of one soldier (this has been going on forever, but hasn't changed in recent times).
Also, our "way of life" is built on the massacre of trillions of animals, many of which mammals who have feelings very similar to ours; being indifferent to their suffering and death is not an absolute value, nor is it "better" than the opposite.
> We don't have race and gender equality anywhere, and the one place that has it less is probably the US (see incarceration rates for blacks for instance)
The US is not a paragon of racial or gender equality (not is any other modern Western society, for that matter), but it is not demonstrably worse than Ancient Rome.
Our common perceptions of Roman history are shaped heavily by romanticized contemporary depictions which downplay the exteme aspects of their culture (except in a few cases so as to exoticize it).
Same for respect for life; we seem to be quite indifferent to the victims of our bombs, while we mourn the loss of one soldier (this has been going on forever, but hasn't changed in recent times).
Also, our "way of life" is built on the massacre of trillions of animals, many of which mammals who have feelings very similar to ours; being indifferent to their suffering and death is not an absolute value, nor is it "better" than the opposite.