Are we really going to go down this road of trying to erase great historical figures from public acknowledgement because they aren't as progressive as people living in the twenty-first century? By that logic, we should take Lincoln off the penny because he watched blackface performances and his personal views were racist by today's standards. Nevermind that his legacy was in service of racial equality - a legacy that still rankles white racists to this day.
revisionist history is terrifying and shouldn't be tollerated
Hello, circumstance? People were progressive in their own periods of time, in those circumstances, that doesn't invalidate their actions. If we're going to consistently judge history by what we deem ok at this hour of this day at this year, surely we'd get shun about 90% of them?
Stupid people.
Nope, context doesn't matter to these people.
I'm confused, how is this historical revisionism? Doesn't that imply rewriting history as opposed to stripping someone of an award?
all they're doing is removing her name from the award. they're not asking schools to remove her books from libraries or curriculum (since tbh the racism present in the books allows for teachers to have good teaching moments), they're just taking her name off of the award because they feel her works do not represent what their organization strives to represent.
there is nothing wrong with this at all.
doesn't matter, there's no place for context here
can't wait to see this in the next "don't take down our confederate statues" protests
We're going to run out of people to look up to if we keep holding our heroes to the exact same standard as today.
It's not as if Laura Ingalls had the ability to Google Native Americans and learn that she was wrong. She was working within the framework provided to her by society.
...or we can raise our standards as we progress, and replace old heroes that don't represent our values for newer ones that do
Then how would we be able to complain about the left?
find new people then? all they're doing is changing the name of an award, this is hardly something to get pissy over.
no but she did have books, and attitudes towards native americans had been changing by the 1930s.
that doesn't mean what she wrote can't be viewed as wrong. The Nazis were working within frameworks provided to her by their society, yet that is not an excuse for the horrors they ravaged upon Europe. Having a different frame of reference is not a "Get out of Jail Free" card.
Or maintain the status quo to not offend our comfortable sensibilities
Sure but acting like these people weren't the hero's of the time is nothing but historical revisionism and is actively harmful to perpetrate
Social progress has made innumerable changes to the quality of life over the last century. The march of progress was carried by people markedly unprogressive by todays standards, and that's just how it was, and always will be. Some day, people will look back on you, and say "what an asshole, what a failure compared to today" and it'll be just as empty, and as hollow as the portrayl of these people as anything but progressive.
Our history is filled with names of people who we no longer agree with the actions of, but their ideas still live on. Hume, Locke, Jung, Spinoza, hundreds of others as well who we would today consider monsters, but who's ideas still shape our very discussions. Moving past them for no reason other than "they're not as progressive as we are(standing on their shoulders)" is stupid, full stop.
what?
I phrased that wrong I suppose.
These people, who we no longer consider to be progressive by the metric of our current day, were in fact progressives. They led the charge at the time. They did good things. Now, many of their actions may be criticizable, but that's with the benefit of hindsight. They did what they could, and we shouldn't name and shame them from the annals of history just because they don't measure up to todays standard.
The heroes of THEIR time, sure. Doesn't mean they need to be the heroes NOW. People in the future should look to now with high criticism, because they should be farther ahead. If anything it's revisionistic to look at these people and say they were great, just because thy were in comparison to people at the time.
It's likelooking back on something that seemed huge as a kid, and then demanding that people see it as just as large because from back then it looked huge
One day, if you make it into history books, you will be vilified for partaking in the cruelty of animals.
And all of your accomplishments and relevance will be made moot because you weren't as progressive as tomorrow's society.
Thats no reason to change what once was, "newer" values would be meaningless if you didn't have older values to compare them to.
More to the point, the sentence in question isn't necessarily racist from a personal standpoint since its what the general viewpoint was back then, anytime the british encountered a race of people that were way behind technologically they were not considered to be the same as themselfes.
Are we going to just strip any award from anyone that received one from that time period because the general viewpoint is considered racist by todays standard?
Sorry guys any astrologist that once referred to pluto as a planet needs to have their awards for the advancement of our understanding of space stripped because thats the wrong term by my standards?????
Or it will be seen in context. This is an award for fucks sake, not a history book.
No it's just recognizing it for what it is.
Removing them from the history books, stripping their name from their achievments and values is harmful to those that come afterwards, and would seek to do the same as they did.
i recommend taking some actual history classes. moral relativism is not a pass to not be able to judge the past, it just means to keep in mind the frames of reference that they had and work from there.
and what exactly was progressive that Laura did, by chance? She wrote a series of childrens books, that even in the 1950s were seen as derogatory towards minorities at times.
This person doesn't HAVE the award ffs. It's just taking their name off for someone who has better and more current values
good job missing the point.
except THEY WEREN'T REMOVED FROM ANY BOOKS
Except what the nazis did was unacceptable even by the standards of the time.
they're not even naming it after a person now, just their organization.
I quite love history so yes, I will continue to be a student of it for my whole life. Great advice.
I'm not advocating for moral relativism dude, but you could interpret my statement to do so, I just positively don't care to respond to a point of view I'm not advocating for.
Check out Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing, and Dying by Harald Welzer and Sönke Neitzel. It's a book all about the frames of reference that the Germans were operating under during the Holocaust and WWII. You'll probably be surprised to find that the frame of reference for Germans made what was going on acceptable. so you've gone and missed the point.
No, it's just saying there are people who better represent the values for this award. People can look up to who ever they want, Don't get butthurt if someone else doesn't share your love for them
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