“A statue of Thomas Jefferson, the drafter of the Declaration of Independence and America’s third president, was removed from City Hall because he was a slaveholder.”
N N Taleb coined a phrase for this: Anachronistic Sanctimony; accusing ancient individuals or groups of violating today’s ethical norms; more generally flowing values, beliefs, and standards backward in time.
1984 was not meant to be a government handbook:
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”