Eh, living with themselves was punishment enough. I'm just sorry for the few level-headed outcasts who had to live thinking they were weird or pretending to fit in so they wouldn't be persecuted.
Well the plot twist is, they were generally exceptionally smart at what they needed to know to survive. It's easy to forget how difficult life was for average people up until fairly recently. Like less than a century ago. Education and literacy really weren't a priority.
Iâm not sure if not discriminating against lefties, homosexuals, âcoloredâ, women in general, âwitchesâ in particular, muslims, jews, basically anone non-Christian or even non-{insert denomination} counts as âeducation and literacyâ.
One of my favorite theories, by no means provable, is that since the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body and also language (both of those are true actually), it's literally disparaging the side of the body it doesn't control and praising the side it does, which is why so often "left" develops negative connotations and "right" positive ones.
I think this meme is a Christian thing, although Muslims do reserve their left hand for the filthier things, so there's that coincidence. But in Asia I don't know any such precedent.
@Gsus4 In my country kids were beaten with rullers on their hands at school until they were able to write right-handed IIRC. Not sure if this brought to them anything else than trauma anyway.