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I'm happy to see the National Trust start embracing history instead of pageantry. I had an argument with a volunteer guide years ago who was absolutely adamant

by hkt 5y ago

I'm happy to see the National Trust start embracing history instead of pageantry. I had an argument with a volunteer guide years ago who was absolutely adamant a stately home was built with no connection to slavery, despite being built in the 18th century by a 'maritime trader' who owned sugar plantations in the Caribbean. It had the same air as hearing a communist party member doggedly insisting people loved living in East Germany. It looks like millennials (including me) are grasping the nettle of our history. It is partly because of ubiquitous university education, and partly because of the simple fact of distance from the cold war. The National Trust will come with us eventually, it is just a matter of whether or not it is held hostage by bunting-and-pints nationalists for decades first. I hope its board remains brave enough to present our history as facts rather than costume drama.

redis_mlc 5y ago
> I had an argument with a volunteer guide years ago who was absolutely adamant a stately home was built with no connection to slavery, despite being built in the 18th century So you started an argument with somebody today about events from 250 years ago? > It looks like millennials (including me) are grasping the nettle of our history. Without any context, apparently. Nothing to be proud of.
dash2 5y ago
It looks as if millennials including you have a rather inflated sense of your own newness and importance. I was taught about slavery in the 1980s. Large numbers of British people fought slavery in the 1780s. 19th century Britain spent around 2% of its GDP on the prevention of slavery.[1] [1] Chaim D Kaufmann and Robert A Pape, "Explaining costly international moral action: Britain's sixty-year campaign against the Atlantic slave trade", International Organization 53, 4 (1999), pp. 631--668.
- Tycho 5y ago
  The general impression I get from the sudden burgeoning wokeness in the UK is that a lot of people were somehow able to reach their 20s thinking that the world was largely a Disney film. Then when they found out, maybe at university, maybe just through mainstream media, about the horrors of history, it shook them to the core.
- hkt 5y ago
  We're just on one side of a culture war. The elder generation (no prizes for guessing which one) appears to have descended into fantasies about WW2 and the empire and it is being left to the young to try to be honest. There is no suggestion that we are the first; rather, I suggest our victory over the apologists might be starker and more final. Perhaps wishful thinking.
  - dash2 5y ago
    That itself seems like a fantasy, based on an immature worldview of goodies who know the Truth versus deluded baddies. How exactly are the young more honest than previous generations? What is this coming victory, exactly?

by hkt 5y ago

redis_mlc 5y ago

> I had an argument with a volunteer guide years ago who was absolutely adamant a stately home was built with no connection to slavery, despite being built in the 18th century So you started an argument with somebody today about events from 250 years ago? > It looks like millennials (including me) are grasping the nettle of our history. Without any context, apparently. Nothing to be proud of.

dash2 5y ago

It looks as if millennials including you have a rather inflated sense of your own newness and importance. I was taught about slavery in the 1980s. Large numbers of British people fought slavery in the 1780s. 19th century Britain spent around 2% of its GDP on the prevention of slavery.[1] [1] Chaim D Kaufmann and Robert A Pape, "Explaining costly international moral action: Britain's sixty-year campaign against the Atlantic slave trade", International Organization 53, 4 (1999), pp. 631--668.

Tycho 5y ago
The general impression I get from the sudden burgeoning wokeness in the UK is that a lot of people were somehow able to reach their 20s thinking that the world was largely a Disney film. Then when they found out, maybe at university, maybe just through mainstream media, about the horrors of history, it shook them to the core.
hkt 5y ago
We're just on one side of a culture war. The elder generation (no prizes for guessing which one) appears to have descended into fantasies about WW2 and the empire and it is being left to the young to try to be honest. There is no suggestion that we are the first; rather, I suggest our victory over the apologists might be starker and more final. Perhaps wishful thinking.
- dash2 5y ago
  That itself seems like a fantasy, based on an immature worldview of goodies who know the Truth versus deluded baddies. How exactly are the young more honest than previous generations? What is this coming victory, exactly?