historical figures & their bigotry aren’t valid just bc time has passed, or bc they got away with that shit while they were alive. if 100 years from now I have to listen to historians talk about how the 45th President of the United States Donald Trump’s actions need to be viewed in the “context of his time,” i will be forced to claw my way up from my casket and once again stalk the earth specifically to set fire to the harvard history department. there’s just nothing else for it im afraid
You do realize that exactly what you’re saying is the bane of every true historian? Like, we do have to look at them in their time, otherwise we’re bringing our own bias into it which is beyond unethical. Yes slavery was horrible, yes what white people did to people of every other race and religion was horrible, and yet in their time that was ok. We know better now, we know that treating people like that isn’t ok, but we aren’t them, and holding people from a different time and ethical background to our ethics is unethical and immoral.
Wait, since when studying history requires to like historical figures? Humanity has a shitty history, it doesn’t seems a big strech to me to say that most historical figures were assholes. Like, my country was founded by a really big asshole, then what? It’s not like denying their importance, it’s just saying that they were shitty people. And who knows, maybe if society weren’t build to support assholeness as a surviveing strategy, and we had more decent people in the jobs that allows you to be remembered by history, then we maybe hadn’t that shitty of a history we have. If we keep making exuses for historical shitheads and washing our hands, telling ourselves that “we’re knowing better now” tehn we won’t ever actually learn. And that’s a problem, because we obviously don’t know enough yet. Better is not enough, we have to learn it for good, and we very obviously aren’t there yet.
you’re absolutely correct, we should be like that. But we aren’t, and it isn’t the fault of the historians, its the fault of the regular people that just want to burn society down because they believe they deserve everything without working for it.
I didn’t said that historians responsible for anything, I just said I can’t see why it’s immoral to say out loud, that our screwed up, murderous history were created mostly murderous, screwed up people? I mean you can say that we have to view people in the context of their age, but then it weren’t the people itself who made their age? I don’t say that cavemen should be accounted for doing things for survive what would be unimaginable today, but I think it’s legitimate to say that society takes an unreasonably long time to catch up to civilisation. We changing our planet, we were on other planets, we sent objects out of the solarsystem, and really, all of humanity’s problems are human-made.So I think it’s hipocritic to use their age as an exuse for shitty actions for leaders when it would be their job to make their age better.
But thats the thing, for a lot of them, their bad actions were them trying to make things better. To use your caveman argument, they killed animals and people, in Lincoln’s time they had slaves but supposedly knew that killing people wasn’t ok, now we know that slavery isn’t ok and killing any human being isn’t ok, whats to say that in 100 years having sex wont be ok because of over population? We can only judge people by their own times ethics and morals, yes we can say thats not ok because of what we believe, but then people will say that of us in the future
Okay, but the original post mentions bigotry especially. I fail to see when bigotry was good or befefitial for society. It’s not about things like social distancing measures wich justified by the circustances, it’s about when someone says, “okay, XY made racist and homophobic laws, but that was the normal at the time, so we should respect that, they’re still chill”. No, they aren’t.
I understand that, and using our morals and ethics what they did was not ok. And while I respect the idea of not raising them on a pedestal, we shouldn’t try to erase history or try to disrespect or destroy their image. We should be trying to educate people, and say that what they did was not ok and should never be repeated. Basically, we need to learn from our past, not villainize it.
Ok-ok, but no one talked about erasing the past. Actually it was about talking about the past and thinking critically about the past, instead of creating excuses, and idealizing people just because they lived in the past. Saying that we should ignore that a historical figure was a bigott asshole, because that was the “norm” at the time more like erasing the past in my opinion.
“actions need to be viewed in the “context of his time,” i will be forced to claw my way up from my casket and once again stalk the earth specifically to set fire to the harvard history department. there’s just nothing else for it im afraid”
Thats from the original post. And while its not about erasing history it is part of the thought process of those that want to erase history. Plus I’m not saying we need to ignore it, in fact I literally said we need to educate people about their actions and teach them that that is wrong.
Okay, now you cutting out parts of the post to create a menanig that never was intended. And you doing so in the defense of the notion that things should be viewed in context, which is pretty ironic. The intended meaning pretty clearley was that bigott leadership what made their age worse for their people (see Trump) shouldn’t be excused because they lived long ago, or because their stuff were considered normal at the time. It’s not history-erasing, that’s what you come up with, using the rethoric of the post, which was a comedic adression of a serious thing in the first place. You argue with the joke part, while ignoring the actual part.
I have referenced everything I have an issue with, if I dont have an issue I didnt reference it. Plus I wasnt arguing with the joke statement of them crawling out of the grave, tbh I think you and I are arguing even though we share very similar viewpoints. I wont go political because that’s a bomb I do not want to set off. So I’m just going to draw a parallel for you. Isis (which is know to be actively trying to destroy historical records in their areas) destroy and deface statues, record holding buildings, and entire cities. Another group that has done the same thing is BLM.
Before you start calling me racist, I AGREE with the message, those of African-American descent SHOULD be treated far better than they are. In my opinion there are better ways to do it than what they have been doing.
And part of the rhetoric behind BLM is that we shouldn’t view things in context and we should condemn those in the past that did morally reprehensible acts according our morals and ethics.
Thus saying what @biggest-gaudiest-patronuses did, could be interpreted as the beginnings of trying to erase our history. Because our founding fathers did great things, they also did horrible things. But because they did horrible things, that doesn’t mean we should only identify them by their bad actions. But part of what it seems that BLM and the left are trying to do is to reduce our founding fathers down to just their bad actions.
Well, you can pick pieces of a text and interpret it as wahtever you like, but then you don’t argue with the text, you argue with something you made up. The original post was about bigotry. Bigotry is harmful to society, and never was justifiable by hystorical context. Being upset about bigotry and people denfending bigotry however a pretty justified feeling, and reacting passionatly to such behaviour is quite natural.
I can’t do much with your paralell, since I’m not american, and not too engaged with USA’s history. What I know is that my country are ran by the same type of bigot populist pieces of shits like Trump. And I know, if 50 or 100 years in the future someone would say that Orban Viktor’s actions are okay because of historical context, I would be pissed enough to crave out of my grave and set the idiot’s house on fire. So I can relate pretty well to the original post.
Personally I think that very few leader in history actually deserves praising. Even today, it’s peretty challenging to get such a position if you have decent morals, and the more you go back in time, the worse the matter is. History’s job should be to study people’s effect on the world, not to decide if they were okay people or not, or if they deserve to have statues and songs about them or not. The later is the job of today’s people, and changes of a society’s moral will naturally lead to changes in who that society will praise or despise. History, as a science should be able to deal with that phenomenon, or it wasn’t objective in the first place.
And no, I don’t say that destroying stautes, books, paintings, or any historical mementos is an okay behaviour normaly. However there’s a difference between keeping them because of their historical values, and displaying them publicly. Studying history don’t require, and shouldn’t involve praising historical figures, and it’s a really unhelathy and dangerous thing to blurr the two together.
Rereading my responses i have to agree with what you said about me. I lost my point and argued something stupid, for that I apologize.
And so, I'll go back to my first response, by interjecting the morals and ethics of our current time into the actions that people of the past did we are being immoral and unethical. It shouldn't be viewed as if they were worth of praise or not, it should be viewed as a lesson to learn from. Your Orban Viktor, which i wasnt able to find much on but I blame the fact that the American government doesn't like us knowing things about other countries (not Trump or Obama or republican or democrat oranyone else, its the government as a whole), as far as I know he's the worst thing that has ever happened to your country, and if thats the case then in 50 to 100 years its the job of historians to say "that guy did very bad things, here's what we should do so those things don't happen again"
Btw, history isn't a science, there are areas in which science and history crossover or combine, but they are 2 separate groups/entities. Just like math and science.
