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Are you really cool with that though? It implies no mathematician, scientist, artist, writer, athlete, politician, soldier, or activist should be celebrated or

by Veen 5y ago

Are you really cool with that though? It implies no mathematician, scientist, artist, writer, athlete, politician, soldier, or activist should be celebrated or admired unless they exactly conform to the ideological purity standards of modern progressives? If you are cool with that, you and those who think like you are precisely why people get so agitated when statues are pulled down and windows hidden in basements.

akerl_ 5y ago
You’ve jumped from “bigoted” to “ideological purity”, which I didn’t say. But just in the interest of going whole hog: let’s assume I become King Of Earth and my new rule is “nobody is allowed to be celebrated”. Does the world stop spinning? It’s a crazy rule, but celebration of dead people isn’t exactly the glue holding society together. Meanwhile, racism is a pretty ongoing issue that is tearing it apart.
- tyre 5y ago
  Celebrating people and history is a core pillar of identity. The “founding fathers” are central to the story of America’s founding. Jesus is certainly a glue of Christianity, Mohammad of Islam, etc. Does that mean we have to accept all of who those people are? Of course not. We can choose to celebrate the Federalist papers and denounce the slaveholding. People have a natural desire to follow leaders, to idolize people. In doing so they are tied more closely to others who value/worship/memorialize the same. That’s (one!) tribal glue.
  - akerl_ 5y ago
    > People have a natural desire to follow leaders, to idolize people. In doing so they are tied more closely to others who value/worship/memorialize the same. Yea, this is pretty much the same reason that people want racists’ statues taken down. People celebrating bigots are people who value bigots, and that’s a tribe I’m pretty happy letting go extinct.
    - kbelder 5y ago
      > that’s a tribe I’m pretty happy letting go extinct. Funny, saying that sort of thing is what got Fisher condemned.
    - Veen 5y ago
      > People celebrating bigots are people who value bigots But, with some exceptions, these people aren’t celebrated for their bigotry. They’re celebrated for their positive achievements. People are complex mixtures of good, bad, and indifferent values. No one is pure of character or thought.
  - derbOac 5y ago
    FWIW I happen to think ideas should be celebrated, maybe accomplishments per se, not people. I've grown skeptical about celebrating people. There's too many problems in the background, all the time, too many unknown stories, too much about the idolizers rather than the idolized, too much weight of privilege, too much.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  You think racism today is tearing society apart? Racism has never been lower. I haven't ever seen race riots breakout. In a few American cities anti-police protests have happened. Liberal guilt is tearing itself apart. As things get better day after day because of the work so many put in, a group of people exists who ignores this and thinks the world is frozen in some media generated history.
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  there's no causal link between Fisher supporting eugenics and continued institutional racism though? The idea of "cancelling" all of history's greatest people is one of the worst suggestions I can imagine, optically, for progressive movements. I would think that educating people about the shades of grey in our cultural icons' history, beliefs and personality is a much better cause. For example I didn't know that Churchill had some pretty horrendous things to say about Indian people until the last couple of years because British cultural attitudes towards him are pretty unflinchingly patriotic. It doesn't diminish that he played a key role in saving us and the rest of the world from the Nazis, but it does balance his image as a man with positive and negative qualities, which is a more realistic image. To tear his statues down says to other people "fuck your heroes, racism is the only dimension I judge people on" - which is much more likely to garner a reactionary response than to initiate dialogue and understanding on the racism of our history, which IMO is the valuable thing you can get out of these conflicts. Tearing down statues (of people famous for things unrelated to racism) just makes progressives seem incredibly unreasonable, which is already a popular perception, because of exactly things like this.
  - Kye 5y ago
    Few people paid attention to racism until people started tearing down statues and burning Targets. What's the incentive to be nice and polite when being nice and polite gets you ignored? This is just another call for respectability politics. You're asking people to do something that doesn't work.
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      I don't care if you're canvassing in a suit and tie or spray painting Marxist slogans on banks - respectability doesn't matter. Results do - and consequentially speaking, destroying things that people consider symbols of pride is not going to win you many friends among moderates. If you want to argue that trying to clandestinely pull down a statue prompts a national conversation about the motives of the vandals, then sure, I can agree with that reasoning. But actually making the argument "no accomplished people should be celebrated at all if they weren't morally squeaky-clean"? That's purity politics, and a continued association between progressivism and puritanism is not going to win any friends or allies.

by Veen 5y ago

akerl_ 5y ago

You’ve jumped from “bigoted” to “ideological purity”, which I didn’t say. But just in the interest of going whole hog: let’s assume I become King Of Earth and my new rule is “nobody is allowed to be celebrated”. Does the world stop spinning? It’s a crazy rule, but celebration of dead people isn’t exactly the glue holding society together. Meanwhile, racism is a pretty ongoing issue that is tearing it apart.

tyre 5y ago
Celebrating people and history is a core pillar of identity. The “founding fathers” are central to the story of America’s founding. Jesus is certainly a glue of Christianity, Mohammad of Islam, etc. Does that mean we have to accept all of who those people are? Of course not. We can choose to celebrate the Federalist papers and denounce the slaveholding. People have a natural desire to follow leaders, to idolize people. In doing so they are tied more closely to others who value/worship/memorialize the same. That’s (one!) tribal glue.
- akerl_ 5y ago
  > People have a natural desire to follow leaders, to idolize people. In doing so they are tied more closely to others who value/worship/memorialize the same. Yea, this is pretty much the same reason that people want racists’ statues taken down. People celebrating bigots are people who value bigots, and that’s a tribe I’m pretty happy letting go extinct.
  - kbelder 5y ago
    > that’s a tribe I’m pretty happy letting go extinct. Funny, saying that sort of thing is what got Fisher condemned.
  - Veen 5y ago
    > People celebrating bigots are people who value bigots But, with some exceptions, these people aren’t celebrated for their bigotry. They’re celebrated for their positive achievements. People are complex mixtures of good, bad, and indifferent values. No one is pure of character or thought.
- derbOac 5y ago
  FWIW I happen to think ideas should be celebrated, maybe accomplishments per se, not people. I've grown skeptical about celebrating people. There's too many problems in the background, all the time, too many unknown stories, too much about the idolizers rather than the idolized, too much weight of privilege, too much.
ipaddr 5y ago
You think racism today is tearing society apart? Racism has never been lower. I haven't ever seen race riots breakout. In a few American cities anti-police protests have happened. Liberal guilt is tearing itself apart. As things get better day after day because of the work so many put in, a group of people exists who ignores this and thinks the world is frozen in some media generated history.
beaconstudios 5y ago
there's no causal link between Fisher supporting eugenics and continued institutional racism though? The idea of "cancelling" all of history's greatest people is one of the worst suggestions I can imagine, optically, for progressive movements. I would think that educating people about the shades of grey in our cultural icons' history, beliefs and personality is a much better cause. For example I didn't know that Churchill had some pretty horrendous things to say about Indian people until the last couple of years because British cultural attitudes towards him are pretty unflinchingly patriotic. It doesn't diminish that he played a key role in saving us and the rest of the world from the Nazis, but it does balance his image as a man with positive and negative qualities, which is a more realistic image. To tear his statues down says to other people "fuck your heroes, racism is the only dimension I judge people on" - which is much more likely to garner a reactionary response than to initiate dialogue and understanding on the racism of our history, which IMO is the valuable thing you can get out of these conflicts. Tearing down statues (of people famous for things unrelated to racism) just makes progressives seem incredibly unreasonable, which is already a popular perception, because of exactly things like this.
- Kye 5y ago
  Few people paid attention to racism until people started tearing down statues and burning Targets. What's the incentive to be nice and polite when being nice and polite gets you ignored? This is just another call for respectability politics. You're asking people to do something that doesn't work.
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    I don't care if you're canvassing in a suit and tie or spray painting Marxist slogans on banks - respectability doesn't matter. Results do - and consequentially speaking, destroying things that people consider symbols of pride is not going to win you many friends among moderates. If you want to argue that trying to clandestinely pull down a statue prompts a national conversation about the motives of the vandals, then sure, I can agree with that reasoning. But actually making the argument "no accomplished people should be celebrated at all if they weren't morally squeaky-clean"? That's purity politics, and a continued association between progressivism and puritanism is not going to win any friends or allies.