To play on earthboundkid’s comment, some “enlightened” explorers traveled in advanced craft from the Old World to the New World. They brought genocide and near total devastation on every society they encountered. 1492. Columbus. But the literal and figurative descendants of those aliens put up a statue of him in New York and called him a hero.
I don't know why you would call the conquistadors "enlightened". I'm talking about a civilization that's developed planet ending technology...and yet managed to not end their planet.
Well, what he did was pretty damn amazing and consequential, even if not all the consequences were positive or amazing. It was inevitable that the New World would eventually be contacted by the Old World, whether by Asia or Europe or perhaps Africa, and inevitable that when that happened, the isolated peoples of the new world would be devastated by pathogens they’d never been exposed to. Anyway, I see no issue making a statue to the guy. I kinda like statues in principle. At the end of the day that’s all they are. The world was bigger than the Americas, and still is.
>It was inevitable that the New World would eventually be contacted by the Old World, whether by Asia or Europe or perhaps Africa, and inevitable that when that happened, the isolated peoples of the new world would be devastated by pathogens they’d never been exposed to.
It's not the pathogens people object to, so much as the slavery and genocide. Particularly, celebrating the originator and perpetrator of those crimes on the land where they were perpetrated.
By all means, write about Christopher Columbus in the history books (after Leif Erikson, who unlike Columbus actually set foot in America) but let's stop normalizing erecting statues to villains.
Have you read the plaque on the statue ? Do you know the text? You can put up a statue to say someone did something meaningful or historical, not that they were a good or noble person.
>You can put up a statue to say someone did something meaningful or historical, not that they were a good or noble person.
Yes, but we don't. We don't create statues of Christopher Columbus to place his actions in their proper historical context, or to memorialize his victims, any more than we do the Holocaust with statues of Hitler. We erect statues of Columbus because until relatively recently the entirely Eurocentric narrative about him considered him a heroic figure, and the subjugation of indigenous peoples a righteous and noble cause.
You abuse the pronoun “we” - I consider him a heroic figure, highly flawed, plus - for better and worse - symbolic of the opening of the new world, totally acknowledging the negative impacts. ..And have zero problem with statues of the guy.
I think that’s more the norm with people, if they even think about Columbus at all.
The problem with contemporary dialogue is the refusal to allow for grey zones, for nuanced and balanced viewpoints. Who is this “we” that you project upon? Do you consider that this presumption and projection may by symptomatic of a neuroticism unique to a overly loud illiberal subculture in the US? I do, it’s all that gives me faith in the survival of the greater whole.
>Do you consider that this presumption and projection may by symptomatic of a neuroticism unique to a overly loud illiberal subculture in the US?
No. I consider that not everyone in the US is completely culturally detached from the legacy of colonialism, and that some people have perfectly valid reasons to object to statues of people like Columbus.
You seem to understand the negative impacts of colonialism on an intellectual level, as a simple fact of history, but you also seem perplexed as to why anyone would care. Perhaps you should consider why someone would object to a statue of Columbus. Engage with the nuance you're referring to, by not dismissing those with views other than yours as being carriers of a social disease. Examine your own views and ask yourself why you consider it valid to keep a Columbus statue up to celebrate some of his accomplishments, but not to remove it as a statement of opposition to his other accomplishments.
