I think "a product of their society" is a lot more justifiable way to get across the same message.
Like, if someone is born in a small, racist white town with no POC, you can expect that they'll be racist because they've never been confronted with opposing ideals and, I'm sorry, very few people were John Brown.
But more importantly, I think that we use "a product of their time" to accomplish a really dumb purpose. People aren't morally one thing- a lot of very good union people from the US labor movement had some problematic beliefs about women, for example.
I think "a product of their society" is a lot more justifiable way to get across the same message.
Like, if someone is born in a small, racist white town with no POC, you can expect that they'll be racist because they've never been confronted with opposing ideals and, I'm sorry, very few people were John Brown.
But more importantly, I think that we use "a product of their time" to accomplish a really dumb purpose. People aren't morally one thing- a lot of very good union people from the US labor movement had some problematic beliefs about women, for example.