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He was a great oceanographer, engineer, filmmaker, and he opened the eyes of multiple generations on what lies in the oceans and how it's fragile and important

He was a great oceanographer, engineer, filmmaker, and he opened the eyes of multiple generations on what lies in the oceans and how it's fragile and important to protect it. Isn't that worth a monument? He may have said/done/been bad things at the same time. Do we bury all bronze busts of Wagner?

bambax 6y ago
I don't care for Wagner's bust. I care for his music. Edit: Cousteau's work is as bad as his character.
- billbrown 6y ago
  He blew up a reef one time in a documentary in the 50s. Do you know if he ever changed his mind about the event? Or was he just a-dynamitin' till the end? (I ask rhetorically because even a cursory read of his Wikipedia page would demonstrate that his actions afterwards undercut that sort of cavalier attitude to the undersea environment. I believe he explicitly repudiated that action besides but I can't find where.) Moreover, what _else_ of his work is bad? That one thing? He produced educational films, books, speeches, etc. for almost four decades after that film.
- henearkr 6y ago
  Well, people building/buying Wagner's busts are some big fans of his music who want somehow to materialize their fandom. They certainly are not fans of his life, his life is extremely irrelevant, it may as well be totally forgotten, and it would not hurt. About your last edit: here I beg to disagree. I love his work as a filmmaker, it made me love the sea and nature in general and made me want to protect it. When I was a child he contributed to educate me and make me an environmentalist. On me at least, his work was tremendously successful. As an engineer, he created a lot of devices used today for diving. His boat Alcyone was even sporting revolutionary static turbosails.
eplanit 6y ago
Yup. That's how Cancel Culture works.
bambax 6y ago
He blew up coral reefs with dynamite!! By this measure, the Monkey Christ affair "opened the eyes of multiple generations" on the importance of religious paintings.
- henearkr 6y ago
  I don't know what he wanted to achieve and what were his options at the time. Until I know that, I suspend my judgement. Anyway, he did not make disappear coral as a species, did he? Please do not confuse nature protection with sentimentalism. There are very serious environmentalist jobs whose description is "destroy all the cats on this island". Just to precise, there is none of this kind of cruelty in his films. What he transmitted to generations of children (and still does) is respect and fascination of nature in all its beauty and complexity. I don't know what you saw about sharks, but what I saw as a child was Cousteau's team filming sharks from inside special cages, and even outside the cages in the open, with special canes he designed to keep them at distance without killing them. If he ever had cruelty towards sharks, he had also compassion, and this is the compassion bit that reached me.
- henearkr 6y ago
  Here is an article putting back in context the method they used to count species: https://www.levif.be/actualite/environnement/quand-le-commandant-cousteau-faisait-chier-toute-la-faune-marine/article-normal-404393.html?cookie_check=1598484039 https://www.levif.be/actualite/environnement/quand-le-comman... Nowadays scientists use poison instead of dynamite, is it better? That shows you these methods have strong rationales, even if they seem stupid at first. And at the time the Sea was still a big unknown, Cousteau greatly contributed to open this unread book. So you see, you do not have to feel compelled to destroy him and his work.

bambax 6y ago

I don't care for Wagner's bust. I care for his music. Edit: Cousteau's work is as bad as his character.

billbrown 6y ago
He blew up a reef one time in a documentary in the 50s. Do you know if he ever changed his mind about the event? Or was he just a-dynamitin' till the end? (I ask rhetorically because even a cursory read of his Wikipedia page would demonstrate that his actions afterwards undercut that sort of cavalier attitude to the undersea environment. I believe he explicitly repudiated that action besides but I can't find where.) Moreover, what _else_ of his work is bad? That one thing? He produced educational films, books, speeches, etc. for almost four decades after that film.
henearkr 6y ago
Well, people building/buying Wagner's busts are some big fans of his music who want somehow to materialize their fandom. They certainly are not fans of his life, his life is extremely irrelevant, it may as well be totally forgotten, and it would not hurt. About your last edit: here I beg to disagree. I love his work as a filmmaker, it made me love the sea and nature in general and made me want to protect it. When I was a child he contributed to educate me and make me an environmentalist. On me at least, his work was tremendously successful. As an engineer, he created a lot of devices used today for diving. His boat Alcyone was even sporting revolutionary static turbosails.

eplanit 6y ago

Yup. That's how Cancel Culture works.

bambax 6y ago

He blew up coral reefs with dynamite!! By this measure, the Monkey Christ affair "opened the eyes of multiple generations" on the importance of religious paintings.

henearkr 6y ago
I don't know what he wanted to achieve and what were his options at the time. Until I know that, I suspend my judgement. Anyway, he did not make disappear coral as a species, did he? Please do not confuse nature protection with sentimentalism. There are very serious environmentalist jobs whose description is "destroy all the cats on this island". Just to precise, there is none of this kind of cruelty in his films. What he transmitted to generations of children (and still does) is respect and fascination of nature in all its beauty and complexity. I don't know what you saw about sharks, but what I saw as a child was Cousteau's team filming sharks from inside special cages, and even outside the cages in the open, with special canes he designed to keep them at distance without killing them. If he ever had cruelty towards sharks, he had also compassion, and this is the compassion bit that reached me.
henearkr 6y ago
Here is an article putting back in context the method they used to count species: https://www.levif.be/actualite/environnement/quand-le-commandant-cousteau-faisait-chier-toute-la-faune-marine/article-normal-404393.html?cookie_check=1598484039 https://www.levif.be/actualite/environnement/quand-le-comman... Nowadays scientists use poison instead of dynamite, is it better? That shows you these methods have strong rationales, even if they seem stupid at first. And at the time the Sea was still a big unknown, Cousteau greatly contributed to open this unread book. So you see, you do not have to feel compelled to destroy him and his work.