“My Momma says, sometimes people do funny things.”
– Forrest Gump
But, all Cornfeds-in-arms were traitors to the United States, by strict constitutional definition.
Better get ready to dethrone RE I.
Maybe they should name the school after George Washington instead.
Oh, wait.
[shrug] That slaveowner was still the Father of His Country, Victor of the Revolution, First POTUS, and all of that. I’m inclined to cut him some slack. He grew up in a slaveholding social class, he had never been taught that slavery was wrong (abolitionism was just getting started and widely regarded as cranky), and he had an estate to run and a gentleman’s position to maintain in a society where there was practically no market for free domestic labor. And he at least set his slaves free in his will, which Jefferson did not. See Fair for Its Day and Presentism.
I presume that all sorts of places in Europe are named for lords who held serfs and saints who enabled the worst excesses of the RCC – should all those place-names be changed too?
Hold up. Are you saying… that in the past… English people did horrible things, too?
Cancel my entire argument. I won’t stand to have even jot of my precious English Royals be taken down, God save the Queen, did those feet in ancient times, etc. etc.
No, I’m asking if you are ready to dethrone Queen Elizabeth I? To remove any memorials to her and take her name off anything that is named after her. To rename the current queen?
Here’s what I don’t get; all those fine things are fine things. Why not celebrate the fine things and not celebrate, even accidentally, even partially, the bad things? Washington is the Father of the Country? Great, celebrate what makes your nation good. Victor of the Revolution? Fantastic, celebrate a great martial triumph. First POTUS? Celebrate those fine things he did in office. Why muddy the waters by triumphalising the man when there’s no need for it?
Yep. I guess the automatic strike against me is that I’m a hypocrite. That’s depressing for me.
Sounds fine to me, yes. Sorry, my post was a little too sarcastic to be obvious. To be clear; plenty of people in my country’s history are shits who I see no reason to revere.
OK, at least you are consistent.
Personally, I don’t see the value in holding historical figures to modern ethical norms. They literally did not know any better. I don’t know exactly when I’d draw the cut-off date, but it would start somewhere around 1859 (publishing of The Origin of Species) and end somewhere around WWI.
Well, we can’t very well name a city “Washington, a Name Chosen to Honor George Washington’s Achievements but Not His Slaveholding.” It would look silly on the “Welcome To” signs and anywhere else.
Well, those, of course, were No True Englishmen.
Agreed. We acknowledge, but do not celebrate, GW’s owning of slaves.
I’m not holding them to modern ethical norms. I’m holding us. We shouldn’t celebrate people who owned slaves. Even if they were very smart, visionary, heroic slave owners.
True.
Freedom, DC.
Constitution, DC.
Victory, DC.
Revolution, DC.
Independence, DC.
Sorry, not seeing the difference. You are judging them by our standards.
Nope, sorry. If Washington, or indeed anyone around at that time, thinks that their nation’s capital should be named after that guy, that’s an understandable judgment. By the standards of the day, having a capital named after a slave owner would have, I’m sure, barely made most people blink an eye, at least of non-slaves.
The standards of today I’m using to judge the existence of statues or parks or capitals named for slave owners. By the standards of today, those are bad things. The statues and that. The celebration of slave owners.
They’re also unnecessary things! Name them after the good shit they did. That way you don’t have statues or parks or capitals named for slave owners.
But we’re not naming our nation today. It already has a name. By removing that name, you are judging the person by the standards of today. You might argue that we should no longer name things after Washington, but why do we need to change the name of those things already named for him. This seem like an endless process of whitewashing history. No pun intended.
Nope. Judging us by the standards of today. It is a bad thing, today, for people to happily have a capital or a park or whatever named for a slave owner.
In what sense am I doing any whitewashing? What cracks am I seeking to paper over? What am I covering up?
I’ve always wished the capital of the United States were named “New York City,” but that’s another debate.