I would amend your idea: Nuremberg trial and Slavery are fact, the mass genocide of Jews during WWII is a fact. To negate these facts and pretend that there are alternative realities is insanity, or obeys to a very carefully politically thought project ( not sure about my English here).
Now, these facts need to be fully known, understood, explained, and that’s the work of historians among others. and at this level, there is a place for interpretation.
The history of slavery evolves, progresses, and nowadays we better know and understand it. Serious historians have debunked the myths about Secession war and so.
Nuremberg trial and Slavery are real facts, the mass genocide of Jews during WWII is a real fact. To negate these facts and pretend that there are alternative realities is insanity, or obeys to a very carefully politically thought project ( not sure about my English here).
Oh dear.
As a lifelong library lover, and occasionally helper in school libraries, Dewey Decimal was this awesome marvel of organization and Dewey was next to god in the pantheon.
God is dead and Dewey was a racist sexist predator.
. . . Given such accolades, many might wonder how Melvil Dewey accumulated a rap sheet of troubled behavior. Dewey’s legacy is often marred by a documented history of racism, discriminatory practices, anti-Semitism, and sexual misconduct. . . .
Are there any old heroes who remain unstained upon closer inspection?
Oh yeah. Don’t you know, that because Biden won the election, President Obama got another term in office? Oh wait, no, Biden stole the election and therefore Obama got another term in office and we must do everything we can to put the rightful person back into office. The Repugs, especially the Dumpster People, are complete nutters.
Nobody’s perfect. In ancient times there was a saying : " No man is a hero to his valet"
I hate this contemporary demand for purity. In human history, the times when absolute purity was seen as an imperative, were times of totalitarisme, be it religious or political.
I feel that we need a full knowledge of the past and of our predecessors. I know that some should be reevaluated.
To give the exemple of a French hero, i would choose Napoleon.
He is seen, a a great general, as at Austerlitz or in Prussia in 1806, and he is still celebrated as such, and not wrongly. He has promoted an administrative system which still lasts, even adapted and has promoted a civil law which is the basis of many no Germanic or English civil laws in Europe.
Now, he was a dictator, a racist. He was the first French chief of state since Charles VI (1422) to let a smaller France than when he came to power. His management of foreign affairs was a disaster and as a general, he made big mistakes, strategical ones in Spain and Russia and tactical ones, for instance at Waterloo.
Do we need to erase him ? I say no ! We need to remember him as he was to learn.
I guess that same can be told about Jefferson or Washington, slave owners.
IMHO, we shouldn’t erase anyone in history. While we should not honour General Lee with a boat and a statue, we still need to keep him in the history books. I wish Sherman had statues and alike. Sherman was a military genius with the move he made. Burning the South helped to end the war and in the end, keep the Union intact. Without him, the U.S. probably would be two countries now. Although some may argue it already is two countries, despite being called the United States of America.
The topic is libraries, and I don’t think a librarian would want to erase anything. It’s the school boards, the non-educators that promote that. Dewey was born in a caste system, and he classified as he saw the world.
Place names and statues change all the time. Someone is always marginalized on the process. The difference now is those marginalized voices can be heard.
So, who is erasing whom? There is ample documentation of attempts to erase Native culture and history, including the people themselves. The indigenous people have no such plan or allusions. They lost the battle to maintain settlements on this lake, but other treaties kept US expansion from wiping them out completely. This seems to me like a clear case of what we want to remember, not just a name of a lake. Calhoun has parkways, streets, and lots of other stuff with his name on it. He is not going to be forgotten. The White Earth nation has a reservation, miles from this lake.
Libraries and museums are the places where history can be preserved as reminders of the good and the evil in our past.
If we do not learn from the past, we are bound to repeat it in the future.
I believe that is beginning to become obvious today.
Morgankane, I’m curious where does one’s attitude towards the truth fit into your formula? You know?
some people are very comfortable lying about facts, especially when it clashed with their own ego (ideologies, religious or political, and sensibilities), they have no problem living within a fictional framing.
And there are other humans for whom the truth of the facts and honest understanding matters most, even if it means reevaluating and changing their own attitude towards their personal ideologies, religious or political, and sensibilities.
One matter is that some people reject the idea of learning about some facts. I would divide these in 2 categories:
Those who refuse to learn about a fact because it hurts their ideologies, religious or political.
Exemple are numerous : evolution, or the crimes of some totalitarian states;
-Those who refuse to learn about some facts, because it hurt their " sensibilities" .
One easy example is about students who want to learn about racism, without reading texts from racist people.
" No man is a hero to his valet"
Honesty, I don’t think that they are directly related.
Well, some great men may have rejected the idea of learning about some past facts for religious and ideological reasons, But I cannot find any exemple right now.
The Bible and all other mythological books were written by great men who believed they possessed the secret of existence. Kind of an early Dunning-Kruger effect.
It shaped the different and exclusionary philosophical and moral tenets of mankind for millennia before science started to whittle away at the fundamental falsehoods represented in these imagined Truths.
The Repugs, especially the Dumpster People, are complete nutters.