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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I'm genuinely disappointed that the kids in that picture don't have guns too. The babies should have teeny pistols, it would be adorable! It just doesn't feel complete when they're left out.
In fairness, naming a school on foreign policy after Woodrow Wilson, whose foreign policy aims can be generously characterized as a comprehensive failure, does seem a mite odd for a university playing up their role as the training ground of American diplomats.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."They failed due to his poor handling of things domestically (he did not get on with the Senate of his day), his actual aims were rather laudable. If anything it's a nice idea, naming a place training diplomats after a man who tried to make the word a better and kinder place despite great opposition.
The big thing with the naming thing is how the US venerates people, we will have all sorts of things named after dodgy people (not many statues though, we don't tend to go for them in general) over here, but we acknowledge that such people had faults and often did bad things (well some of them, dissing Churchill won't get you far even though the man id push for some horrible things to be done), we don't expect them to have been perfect saints.
edited 7th Dec '15 6:15:59 AM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranWilson basically built the forerunner to the modern international order.
At the same time, he went out of his way to re-segregate the civil service, so people going to a public and international affairs school have right to take umbrage with the man himself, since he also did great damage to the American civil service in that manner.
The key, as in other things, is balance. Fair for Its Day has to be acknowledged (though again, on the civil service, Wilson was unfair for his time, but i'm talking about other people, like Lincoln), but we also have to acknowledge that so much of our great moments in history had components of erasing or minimizing the presence or contributions of women and people of color.
As that article in the Atlantic noted, the solution is also more than just doing something like putting Sacagewea on the $20
You know, we keep talking about how the Republicans' path to the White House might be found in a significant economic downturn. If the Federal Reserve raises rates in its next meeting, they could inflict a great deal of harm
in the slow, but marked progress of the recovery. Conspiracy? Or stupidity?
edited 7th Dec '15 7:46:35 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"We as a society are fully capable of saying "hooray for Columbus, without whom we wouldn't be here today — pity he was such a jerk about the people who were already living here at the time".
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.He didn't quite discover it on purpose. I mean, the first reasons of why he wanted to do the travel were quite noble: a new trade route. I mean. It took him quite a while to even realize he had discovered somewhere else.
Neil Armstrong at least had to study a ton of shit and was rare and unique in his time. Columbus was just a sailor.
As a governor, he was quite an asshole though. He and his brothers. It was just a matter of time before someone decided to explore though.
As for its impact on the modern world...well. Just tells us how little we know and how much we need to rework our education and what we teach children.
edited 7th Dec '15 8:42:15 AM by Aszur
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
His initial reasons were noble but they were also based in scientific failure, the reason nobody had already made the journey was because we got the size of the planet right and realised that a journey west towards India/China/The East would take ages, Columbus disregarded thsi science and figured it would be super quick (and thus that the earth was smaller then it is), and by dumb luck ran into a new pair of continents along the way.
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That's addressing the Columbus problem too lightly, in my opinion. Even during his time, there were loud voices in Spain calling for his dismissal and arrest for his actions that were, quite simply, monstrous. We're not just looking back and cherrypicking actions we dislike. The historical Columbus was an unsavory and genocidal robber whose sole raison d'etre was pillaging and enslaving as much of Hispanola as he could, and he's unworthy of the respect of decent human beings. We can learn about the importance of the joining of the Old and New Worlds and Columbus's essential role in it, without venerating him and having a federal holiday in his honor.
The historiography of the early Atlantic world, as taught by American schools, is a mess. We teach these neat, simply "Just So" Story tales that leave out everything unsavory about Columbus, or that the British in America were mustache-twirling tyrants, or teach us that the Founding Fathers were noble gods among men instead of the primarily self-interested, oligarchic elites that they actually were. The erasure of complexities and the lack of an honest look at what these men were actually like means we can use them as ersatz inspirations for every political ideology under the sun, and it's why we have a frankly infantile level of Patriotic Fervor in our political culture.
edited 7th Dec '15 8:58:05 AM by CrimsonZephyr
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."![]()
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I never said he was particularly smart or unique, though. Being a sailor was not particularly a unique skill back then.
His biggest achievement was basically convincing Isabella, really.
World's most succesful door-to-door salesman
edited 7th Dec '15 8:55:58 AM by Aszur
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
He wasn't the only one: John Cabot
was also around at the time, and was the first to discover the North American mainland.
edited 7th Dec '15 9:01:18 AM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling OnCheney was well-known to be an evil schemer during his time in office. It hardly takes any revisionism to figure that out.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"You guys are missing my point entirely. We can argue all day over whether Columbus was a decent guy who did some unfortunate things or a Complete Monster who we should burn in effigy. My point is that whatever you think about him, he's undoubtedly an important historical figure, and saying that we should just ignore him because he was an asshole is stupid.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
