Historical Figures in Context

[DGS49]

The recent trend of destroying and removing statues of important historical figures is disturbing on a number of fronts. Sixty years ago when I was studying American history, we were always cautioned to remember that people lived in their own times, and conduct, attitudes, prejudices, and customs change over the years. Things that were absolutely normal or even well respected in different eras may be rendered rude, unacceptable, or even evil a few generations later.

In the early 20th century, eugenics was considered quite progressive, and was looked upon as a way of improving society and even the human race at large. Now, it is considered racist and everyone (except Margaret Sanger) who supported it is being "cancelled."

Slavery, of course, is the Big Banana, and everyone who owned slaves or didn't actively fight for the emancipation of slaves is considered evil. Any accomplishments in their lives are wiped clean, regardless of them magnitude or continuing importance. Everyone who fought for or supported the Confederacy is presumed to be an evil, slave owning bastard, and any discussion of other reasons for the secession are dismissed as trivial or simply diversions.

The entire country is deemed to have been obsessed with the campaign to "keep the Black man down," despite a complete dearth of evidence to support that thesis. And despite the fact that only a small percentage of Americans ever owned slaves or benefitted from their labors.

History teachers who do not season their teachings with cautions about context are committing pedagogical malpractice. It worse than even ignoring the history they claim to be teaching. The fact that this nonsense is going on PRIMARILY on college and university campuses is a huge indictment of Academe itself. If THESE people don't understand and accept the reality of context, then who, exactly, can be depended upon to pass along our history productively.

And it seems to me likely that a hundred years from now - assuming our descendants are not all burned alive by global warming - WE will be looked on as dubious characters for one thing or another that has changed. Kids will be asking their parents if it is true that people in the 21st century were still feeding themselves on cooked animal carcasses???

 

[Confederate Soldier]

To a point, I agree with you. Hitlers version of Eugenics was evil, even back then. I don't think at any point in time would that be considered acceptable, unless this was medieval or barbaric times.

 

[Winston]

I am also concerned with this whole cancel culture and the destruction of statues and Confederate monuments. But you unwittingly play into that movement's hand when you state the following,

And despite the fact that only a small percentage of Americans ever owned slaves or benefitted from their labors.

The reality is that during the time period almost the entire country was dependent on slave labor. One of the reasons for secession was the reality that the North was siphoning off huge amounts of the wealth of the South through tariff, taxes, and unreasonable shipping charges. Newspapers in the North wrote editorials demanding their "cut" of the value of that slave labor. They didn't write very many about how wrong slavery was. They were fine with it, as long as they got their money. The lawyers and traders in New York City made far more money from the cotton trade than any plantation owner.

And there in lies the foundation of why they want those statues destroyed. They want to believe that slavery was an issue that can entirely placed on the South. Your statement above plays right into that fantasy. But the North has just as much responsibility as the South. Slavery existed in New England during the Revolutionary War and even for a period of time afterward. When describing his famous ride Paul Revere referenced "where Marks was hung in chains

After I passed charlestown nek and got nearly opposite where Mark was hung in chains, I saw two men on horseback under a Tree.

"Mark" was an executed slave and his body was hung from a tree on a public road in Massachusetts. Paul Revere's use of that location as a landmark demonstrates the normalcy of slavery in Colonial Massachusetts, and Mark had hung in chains there for twenty years by the time Revere rode by.

Ten million people crossed the Atlantic Ocean before 1800, eight and a half million of those were enslaved Africans. While most went to the sugar colonies in South America and the Caribbean, it is pretty easy to see how entire economies were dependent on the slave trade. Just in the tiny state of Rhode Island historians have identified at least 700 people that owned ships engaged in the slavery trade. Contrast that with 328 documented slave driven plantations in North Carolina in 1860 and you can start to see why a good old Southern boy like me gets really pissed off when some dumbass Yankee starts condemning the South for slavery.

 

[Moonglow]

Society controls who it reveres and taste changes with time, what was once a successful propaganda campaign is now a slap in the face.

 

[rightwinger]

The recent trend of destroying and removing statues of important historical figures is disturbing on a number of fronts. Sixty years ago when I was studying American history, we were always cautioned to remember that people lived in their own times, and conduct, attitudes, prejudices, and customs change over the years. Things that were absolutely normal or even well respected in different eras may be rendered rude, unacceptable, or even evil a few generations later.

In the early 20th century, eugenics was considered quite progressive, and was looked upon as a way of improving society and even the human race at large. Now, it is considered racist and everyone (except Margaret Sanger) who supported it is being "cancelled."

Slavery, of course, is the Big Banana, and everyone who owned slaves or didn't actively fight for the emancipation of slaves is considered evil. Any accomplishments in their lives are wiped clean, regardless of them magnitude or continuing importance. Everyone who fought for or supported the Confederacy is presumed to be an evil, slave owning bastard, and any discussion of other reasons for the secession are dismissed as trivial or simply diversions.

The entire country is deemed to have been obsessed with the campaign to "keep the Black man down," despite a complete dearth of evidence to support that thesis. And despite the fact that only a small percentage of Americans ever owned slaves or benefitted from their labors.

History teachers who do not season their teachings with cautions about context are committing pedagogical malpractice. It worse than even ignoring the history they claim to be teaching. The fact that this nonsense is going on PRIMARILY on college and university campuses is a huge indictment of Academe itself. If THESE people don't understand and accept the reality of context, then who, exactly, can be depended upon to pass along our history productively.

And it seems to me likely that a hundred years from now - assuming our descendants are not all burned alive by global warming - WE will be looked on as dubious characters for one thing or another that has changed. Kids will be asking their parents if it is true that people in the 21st century were still feeding themselves on cooked animal carcasses???

We seem to suffer from revisionist history

Holding historical figures to 21st century values not the values of their day.

 

[skews13]

The recent trend of destroying and removing statues of important historical figures is disturbing on a number of fronts. Sixty years ago when I was studying American history, we were always cautioned to remember that people lived in their own times, and conduct, attitudes, prejudices, and customs change over the years. Things that were absolutely normal or even well respected in different eras may be rendered rude, unacceptable, or even evil a few generations later.

In the early 20th century, eugenics was considered quite progressive, and was looked upon as a way of improving society and even the human race at large. Now, it is considered racist and everyone (except Margaret Sanger) who supported it is being "cancelled."

Slavery, of course, is the Big Banana, and everyone who owned slaves or didn't actively fight for the emancipation of slaves is considered evil. Any accomplishments in their lives are wiped clean, regardless of them magnitude or continuing importance. Everyone who fought for or supported the Confederacy is presumed to be an evil, slave owning bastard, and any discussion of other reasons for the secession are dismissed as trivial or simply diversions.

The entire country is deemed to have been obsessed with the campaign to "keep the Black man down," despite a complete dearth of evidence to support that thesis. And despite the fact that only a small percentage of Americans ever owned slaves or benefitted from their labors.

History teachers who do not season their teachings with cautions about context are committing pedagogical malpractice. It worse than even ignoring the history they claim to be teaching. The fact that this nonsense is going on PRIMARILY on college and university campuses is a huge indictment of Academe itself. If THESE people don't understand and accept the reality of context, then who, exactly, can be depended upon to pass along our history productively.

And it seems to me likely that a hundred years from now - assuming our descendants are not all burned alive by global warming - WE will be looked on as dubious characters for one thing or another that has changed. Kids will be asking their parents if it is true that people in the 21st century were still feeding themselves on cooked animal carcasses???

You studied American history? I doubt that. The big banana was the largest case of human genocide in history. The genocide of millions of Native Americans.

The biggest indictment of academe is English Christians were anything but the violent religious zealots, and hypocrites, when they first set foot on the North American continent.

And speaking of historical English figures in context.

 

[Pellinore]

You're absolutely right that judging people by the standards of their own day is paramount to understanding history. If, in fifty years, society has changed to vilify adultery (for example) as much as we villainize slavery now, will it be either morally correct or intellectually wise to dismiss the achievements of Roosevelt, Kennedy, or Dr. King for sleeping around? Of course not, and that also reveals another maxim, that these people were human, and sometimes made mistakes, harbored faulty lifestyles, and made mistakes along the way.

We can, however, judge them by the standards of their own time, and turning on your countrymen in order to defend your right to keep entire families in chains was known to be immoral then as much as it is now. Ordering others to war for the same reason, even moreso. Building statues and monuments isn't about teaching (that is the role of schools, libraries, and museums) but about commemorating the subject, and holding them up as a standard of what we want our society to be. Most of these statues were also not built in the post-war years, but a century-ish later, as opposition to civil rights. I can understand someone not wanting to walk to work every day past the massive bronze token of appreciation for the person who was known even then to order a bunch of farmboys to kill their neighbors so he could keep owning their great-grandparents.

Societies change, and standards of heroism change, and I am perfectly fine with taking down statues of Confederate leaders. I would rather it we stick to our democratic standards to do it; I am less excited about a mob pulling them down with ropes, and even less when it is a statue commemorating the common fighting man rather than a leader. When people start targeting Revolution-era Virginians for whom slavery was a regrettable system they often hated but did not have the power to change, or someone like Lincoln or Grant because they didn't bowl perfect strikes every time, though, and I feel as if that gets to doing more harm than good.

Also, I'm absolutely stealing the term the Big Banana.

 

[Pellinore]

And speaking of historical English figures in context.

View attachment 568279

Hey, she's not "historical" just yet!

And my favorite picture of her ever is the one of her changing a tire. The only monarch in the world who is a veteran of World War II.

 

[sparky]

Kids will be asking their parents if it is true that people in the 21st century were still feeding themselves on cooked animal carcasses???

~S~

 

[Otis Mayfield]

Henry Ford was an anti Semite but then most people were anti Semites in those days.

At least Henry Ford would hire Jews to work at his factories.

But he did believe in the whole, "the Jews are trying to take over the world thing."

 

[DudleySmith]

There is no money and propaganda value in any modern effort to distinguish between racism and mere prejudices. In any case, no one who has seriously studied history can say with a straight face that poor white European immigrant workers were treated better than black slaves in the South; even Fredrick Law Omstead was appalled at how Irish and German workers building the levees along the Mississippi and around New Orleans were treated compared to black slaves. His travel diary recording his trip through the South to Texas is worth a read; he was a famous abolitionist in his day as well as a noted architect. Even Dickens, familiar with London's and India's slums, was appalled at New York City's slums.