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It's important to judge people in context. Just as you wouldn't think as harshly of a thief who grew up in a poor, violent household, you shouldn't think as har

by causi 3y ago

It's important to judge people in context. Just as you wouldn't think as harshly of a thief who grew up in a poor, violent household, you shouldn't think as harshly of the ignorance of a historical figure as you would of a person of today who should know better. I suspect there are many things about the people of today which the people of a century hence will regard as utterly depraved.

pessimizer 3y ago
We're making the third choice, which is to edit the words of the people we worship in order to maintain that worship, to keep them heroic. Keeping people from idolizing racists by going back and making them not racist (so we can continue to worship the same things without guilt.) Instead we should just be adult, and recognize that being racist isn't an entire person, it's a component of a person that may have other components that are deeply admirable. The refusal to admit that causes difficulties for people whose almost entire academic life consisted of the study of the works of racists. Deleting their racism from history is a comfortable solution for people still living off the wealth that their racist ancestors accumulated.
watwut 3y ago
Fairly often, people who lived in exactly the same time judged their contemporaries too by the exact same standards you complain about. There is this knee jerk assumption out of nowhere about pretty much any bad act by major popular figure being chalked up to their naivite or just them being product of times with zero own thinking agency. Sometimes it is the case, but also plenty of times these were conscious decisions or strongly criticized by contemporaries.
petsfed 3y ago
I think about the fragility of heroic personas a lot. During the peak of the 2020 protests and riots, there was a spate of statue toppling that, on their face, seemed excessive. Like various Confederate leaders, sure. But George Washington? Thomas Jefferson? But it turns out that George Washington owned a lot of slaves. Jefferson has a very complicated and questionable history with slavery in particular. I learned a bit about Robert E. Lee's history of slave ownership, and it's directly at odds with what I was taught in school. Its worth investigating if you've time. I eventually landed on this idea that there are specific acts that we should encourage our children to emulate, but there is no entire person that any children should aspire to emulate. Oskar Schindler, we should recall, was a member of the Nazi Party (and, I'm surprised to learn from wikipedia, was employed by the Nazi intelligence organization, and was convicted of spying on Czechoslovakia for the Nazis, prior to the German occupation). I am troubled by the idea that we should always forgive and forget, as it were, the things that get people canceled today. Yes, people change, and a questionable tweet by an 18 year old should not dog them in perpetuity until the end of their life. But on the other hand, I feel like we should not grant blanket pardon for people who have not sought to redress their own sins, and sincerely apologized. E.g. Donald Trump's past is littered with exceptionally bad behavior, and it seems he never expresses contrition, but always asks that the public set aside that bad behavior.
- tialaramex 3y ago
  In regard specifically of statues and monuments, we should not erect statues of people but of ideas. New York has a tremendously famous statue, it is not a statue of a person, it's a statue of an idea and ideas are something we can aspire to in a way we cannot and should not for people. Courthouses often feature Lady Justice, who likewise is an idea. We might erect more statues of Hope, and of Beauty, we have built many symbolic tombs said to contain an "Unknown soldier", again symbolising an idea, not the individual even in cases where a specific unidentified corpse has been entombed.
UncleMeat 3y ago
Yes, but we must use full context. Often, this is a cover for "judge people according to the prevailing views of people who held the same harmful beliefs." The classic example is slavery in the US, where people often speak about slaveholders like there wasn't a large abolition movement and an entire population of black people who identified slavery is evil. The context must also include the people who were oppressed by these systems and beliefs.

by causi 3y ago

pessimizer 3y ago

We're making the third choice, which is to edit the words of the people we worship in order to maintain that worship, to keep them heroic. Keeping people from idolizing racists by going back and making them not racist (so we can continue to worship the same things without guilt.) Instead we should just be adult, and recognize that being racist isn't an entire person, it's a component of a person that may have other components that are deeply admirable. The refusal to admit that causes difficulties for people whose almost entire academic life consisted of the study of the works of racists. Deleting their racism from history is a comfortable solution for people still living off the wealth that their racist ancestors accumulated.

watwut 3y ago

Fairly often, people who lived in exactly the same time judged their contemporaries too by the exact same standards you complain about. There is this knee jerk assumption out of nowhere about pretty much any bad act by major popular figure being chalked up to their naivite or just them being product of times with zero own thinking agency. Sometimes it is the case, but also plenty of times these were conscious decisions or strongly criticized by contemporaries.

petsfed 3y ago

I think about the fragility of heroic personas a lot. During the peak of the 2020 protests and riots, there was a spate of statue toppling that, on their face, seemed excessive. Like various Confederate leaders, sure. But George Washington? Thomas Jefferson? But it turns out that George Washington owned a lot of slaves. Jefferson has a very complicated and questionable history with slavery in particular. I learned a bit about Robert E. Lee's history of slave ownership, and it's directly at odds with what I was taught in school. Its worth investigating if you've time. I eventually landed on this idea that there are specific acts that we should encourage our children to emulate, but there is no entire person that any children should aspire to emulate. Oskar Schindler, we should recall, was a member of the Nazi Party (and, I'm surprised to learn from wikipedia, was employed by the Nazi intelligence organization, and was convicted of spying on Czechoslovakia for the Nazis, prior to the German occupation). I am troubled by the idea that we should always forgive and forget, as it were, the things that get people canceled today. Yes, people change, and a questionable tweet by an 18 year old should not dog them in perpetuity until the end of their life. But on the other hand, I feel like we should not grant blanket pardon for people who have not sought to redress their own sins, and sincerely apologized. E.g. Donald Trump's past is littered with exceptionally bad behavior, and it seems he never expresses contrition, but always asks that the public set aside that bad behavior.

tialaramex 3y ago
In regard specifically of statues and monuments, we should not erect statues of people but of ideas. New York has a tremendously famous statue, it is not a statue of a person, it's a statue of an idea and ideas are something we can aspire to in a way we cannot and should not for people. Courthouses often feature Lady Justice, who likewise is an idea. We might erect more statues of Hope, and of Beauty, we have built many symbolic tombs said to contain an "Unknown soldier", again symbolising an idea, not the individual even in cases where a specific unidentified corpse has been entombed.

UncleMeat 3y ago

Yes, but we must use full context. Often, this is a cover for "judge people according to the prevailing views of people who held the same harmful beliefs." The classic example is slavery in the US, where people often speak about slaveholders like there wasn't a large abolition movement and an entire population of black people who identified slavery is evil. The context must also include the people who were oppressed by these systems and beliefs.