Revising History

[DaveP]

I'm thinking of becoming a Neanderthal  activist, my ancestors (who were probably black out of Africa), systematically replaced all those Neanderthals (Native Europeans) after they had been there 50,000 years!  All I've got to show from them is a few percent of my DNA.

When I've righted that injustice, I will become a Britonic activist, my Celtic ancestors swept down from the Black Sea and displaced all the early Britonic peoples and occupied Europe.

There's more, those Celtic ancestors of mine and of all Americans of European origin, were systematically terrorized and enslaved by Julius Caesar.  We must stop visiting Italy and Rome in retaliation!  They still have monuments to him in Italy, don't they know how offensive this is to us Celts?

I'm convinced that if we replace the morality of those times with 2020 morality, the world will be a better place, or will it?
Maybe future generations will damn the 2020 generation for using plastic and coltan slavery for their mobiles?  How can I future-proof my morality when I don't know what will be wrong in later years? wtf can I do now?

DaveP

 

[living sounds]

OK boomer.

 

[JohnRoberts]

wtf can I do now?

DaveP

Just feel very guilty?  :

JR

 

[DaveP]

OK boomer.

I cannot tell you how insulted and aggrieved I am by this blatently ageist comment from a supposed liberal member of our community.

DaveP

 

[scott2000]

“Behold also the ships, which though they are so great, and are driven by fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, wherever the governor listeth.”

 

[living sounds]

That was actually my first ever use of the phrase. I’d like it to be understood to be voiced not in an aggressive manner but with a kindly chuckle and slight shake of my head.

It is not ageism that prompted me to use it, but rather that I find it a fitting reply for the textbook tone deafness, the dismissive attitude displayed in the face of a pressing political matter.

I know you and other people here mean well. But I would hope for you to make more of an attempt to mentally step back and contemplate what motivates these young people. Empathize. Take into account, that there might be grievances for many people you know little about.

There is a right side of history here, and the consensus is already there.

 

[craigmorris74]

Sure, let the monuments stand, as long as you have signage explaining what unethical, backward morons the Confederates were,and their stupid philosophies still act like a cancer on America today.

The other problem with your thought is the descendents of slaves are still being beat down by descendants of the free Southerners. 

 

[L´Andratté]

EDIT: LS spoke for himself already

Totally understand you, Dave, not...kind. Of those persons of completly different political opinion than me,
I really respect your (forum)personality for listening, trying to understand, admiting mistakes!
So please read this.

I cannot tell you how insulted and aggrieved I am by this blatently ageist comment from a supposed liberal member of our community.

DaveP

That´s exactly the point why this phrase is used (in this instance, as interpreted by me, I´m not
speaking for LivingSounds). It´s provocative to a point where it hurts.

It´s created by a generation (not mine btw.) out of frustration, as a response to an older generation,
that holds all the power, all the wealth, the sovereignity of opinion and blatantly fails those
who have to live in this world forty years from now and likes to hold edifying diatribes without showing any interest or empathy (polemically put).

Not to excuse the offensiveness of it, its borne of helplessness mostly, the inability to cross an "ideological" divide. As such the end of communication. But, please, please take a stand for your view
that I totally don´t share, and keep listening, trying to understand :
Don´t know, what I´m doing here, don´t want you to feel hurt...

 

[Winston OBoogie]

"... my ancestors (who were probably black out of Africa), systematically replaced all those Neanderthals ...


"... my Celtic ancestors swept down from the Black Sea and displaced all the early Britonic peoples and occupied Europe.

"...  Celtic ancestors of mine and of all Americans of European origin, were systematically terrorized and enslaved by Julius Caesar.  We must stop visiting Italy and Rome in retaliation!  "

I know your post was tongue in cheek, but that's all false equivalency,  we don't do any of those things anymore.
But the racism and inequality that folks are protesting against is happening now. 
See the difference?

Also voicing this with a kindly chuckle and slight shake of my head by the way.

 

[DaveP]

I should have known better than to inflict my English humour on this forum, my indignation was not genuine !

The whole point was to illustrate the current futility of revising history because we are unable to put ourselves in the shoes of our ancestors, to listen to their influences, to learn what they were taught etc. etc.

We are free to judge our own actions, but the farther back we go in history, the more the distance between us and them grows, to the point of becoming ridiculous.

DaveP

 

[DaveP]

Someone defaced a statue of Churchill in London during the protests, calling him a racist.  The irony is, that without this "racist", England would have been German now and there would have been no immigrants here with the freedom to deface a national hero.

Very mixed up thinking on their part showing a complete lack of historical knowledge.

DaveP

 

[Winston OBoogie]

Obviously the Churchill statue stuff isn't going to garner much support in the main,  unlike the statue in Bristol which probably won't be missed at all.


Truth is, it's complicated with icons like Churchill.  Of course, he commanded the Empire's (corrected just for Dave) forces etc.  But there's no doubt he was also racist if judged by any reasonable standard.    It's not a question of either, or.  He was human, and was both of the above. 
On balance, the majority of folks seem to have decided to give him a pass for the bad stuff.   

   

 

[JohnRoberts]

Someone defaced a statue of Churchill in London during the protests, calling him a racist.  The irony is, that without this "racist", England would have been German now and there would have been no immigrants here with the freedom to deface a national hero.

Very mixed up thinking on their part showing a complete lack of historical knowledge.

DaveP

I don't know about your country but I fear childhood education these days is not the same history curriculum that we studied decades ago... While the history has not changed, some find it easier to ignore than explain.

Rioters have been systematically tearing down old statues here as presumably supporting racism. We still have George Washington on the dollar bill, despite the inconvenient history that he owned slaves. We don't need to glorify old cultural norms that we have risen above, or ignore them. Studying history, all of it, is informative to form a healthy modern world view.

Apparently opinions vary.

JR 

PS: I have commented before about the rapidity of cultural change, not only driven by social justice warriors but modern media saturating entertainment with examples of woke behavior. New TV series are their own drinking game. Take drink with every social justice cliche they drop... the first episode routinely checks several boxes before the first commercial break.  I guess for young people this is the new normal.

 

[DaveP]

Before you start complaining about racism in a country, you need a sense of historical perspective.  In France where I live now, you are expected to speak French and be very polite, that is French culture.  The message is very clear, embrace French language and culture or go back to where you came from.

In the UK, the local councils translate everything into Urdu and every other language going, so immigrants never have to learn English or integrate, this is was done under the banner of multiculturism, it has been at the expense of English culture in the main.

What lies at the bottom of the racist tag, is that British people have lost their own culture and have been fobidden to complain about it.  No government after the war ever asked the British people if they wanted immigrants, they just did it to maintain a cheap labour supply.  This has caused a growing resentment which finally resulted in Brexit (the wrong target, but the only one available).

I am an immigrant to France, because the culture here reminds me of the England of my youth, even though I am in a foreign country.  This is something that all the English in France identify with, we feel more at home here, than we do in multicultural Britain.  This probably makes us racist in many eyes, we are not really supposed to have any opinions about which culture we embrace, only the immigrants are free to set up their own culture within another.

I doubt any of this will make much sense to Americans as your country was built on immigration.

DaveP

 

[DaveP]

Truth is, it's complicated with icons like Churchill.  Of course, he commanded the Commonwealth forces etc.  But there's no doubt he was also racist if judged by any reasonable standard.    It's not a question of either, or.  He was human, and was both of the above

.  Churchill was no more a racist than any other Brit .........at the time.  And it was the Empire's forces back then, the Commonwealth came later.

I was born after the war, a baby boomer as we are now called!  Although I lived in East London, I never saw a black man until 1961.  He was Mr. Womboua and he was Nigerian and my Geography teacher.  He was completly accepted by all and sundry as I recall.  I never saw an Asian until 1971, when my mother pointed out a woman walking 6 feet behind her husband and never catching up, this is the world that my generation grew up in and why the modern world now seems so alien.

DaveP

 

[JohnRoberts]

I doubt any of this will make much sense to Americans as your country was built on immigration.

DaveP

We have our share of skeletons in the closet, of course I understand what you are talking about.

Yes the success of America comes from embracing legal immigration. One distinction that is lost by many critical of America (not you of course), is that Americans are not a single race, or common ancestry like many other countries but founded on a powerful fundamental concept that all people are created equal, and should be treated the same before the law. (Of course that is currently being disputed.)

JR

 

[pucho812]

revising history does not negate the negative and positive  that happened. Revising history like pulling doen statues are low hanging fruit.  Since it's much harder to enact real change that has lasting positive effects. We can appease the mob by removing a statue.  I find it most bizarre they push to remove statues of general robert E. lee.  His history is most fascinating. He wanted nothing to do with slavery and was even asked by Lincoln to head the northern armies during the civil way here in the U.S. He turned it down when  his home state of Virginia  seceded from the union claiming he had an oath to serve his commonwealth.  But history is getting rewritten in favor of the easy explanation.  What I learned in school as to the why's things happened are slowly going away in favor of the easy answer. Well unfortunately that's not the correct answer and ultimately history is complex.  Going after low hanging fruit appeases the mob.  Frank zappa had a great thing on this calling these kinds of actions fads and superficial. that ultimately it's people seeking validation from their peer group. So for example one in the group  can say something like "grand funk rail road" and the rest will Say "yeah, grand funk rail road." in the end it only lasts until someone in the peer group moves onto something else and they rest of the group follows to not be left behind.

 

[Winston OBoogie]

I've read all four volumes of Churchill's  'A History of the English-Speaking Peoples' and three Churchill biographies...  Four if you include David Irving's 'Churchill's War' as being in any way credible. 

But what I thought you'd said was written with English humo(u)r, seems to actually be some contentious for you.  I'm sorry. 


Peace

 

[living sounds]

What lies at the bottom of the racist tag, is that British people have lost their own culture and have been fobidden to complain about it.  No government after the war ever asked the British people if they wanted immigrants, they just did it to maintain a cheap labour supply.  This has caused a growing resentment which finally resulted in Brexit (the wrong target, but the only one available).

I am an immigrant to France, because the culture here reminds me of the England of my youth, even though I am in a foreign country.  This is something that all the English in France identify with, we feel more at home here, than we do in multicultural Britain.  This probably makes us racist in many eyes, we are not really supposed to have any opinions about which culture we embrace, only the immigrants are free to set up their own culture within another.

I doubt any of this will make much sense to Americans as your country was built on immigration.

DaveP

I can understand the personal / cultural sentiments and get this (to my mind, pardon me, very Tolkien-esque) longing for the bygone good old days in Britain.

But the historical truth here is that this era only existed on the backs of other countries exploitated by the Empire. And it wasn't that great a time for many people even in Britain.

India was the world's richest country before the East India Company ravaged it. Now those brown people from the countries the UK invaded in centuries past are coming to the place that sucked up all their wealth...

I also think the reason why this massive divide exists in Britain and the US, but not in many other countries, has to do with the neoliberal economic policies both countries enacted, which led to massive inequality, as well as the two party systems which provide inadequate representation. An influx of immigrants by itself is not a sufficient condition to create this level of discontent. For example, Germany took in many immigrants, but our far right thankfully still remains marginalized.

There's also the issue of the media, which in more consensus-oriented systems cannot go off the rails the way, for example, the Murdoch media and talk radio and then online sources did.

Personally, I count myself lucky we have all these cultural influences from around the globe here. Life would be inconceivably boring without it. And the food! I rarely eat "German" food and would become really unhappy very fast if that was all I could get...

And music... do I need to go on?

The irony is that actually these days educated big city dwellers around the globe are culturally very homogenous.

Ultimately, change is a fact of life, always has been and always will be. I don't like the music that kids listen to these days. But there's now use getting worked up about it.

 

[DaveP]

I sympathise and identify with many of the things you have said.  I love Motown and all Black music (before rap).  I think that the Black phrasing of the English language made Rock n Roll possible and the hijacking of R&B from Black Churches sealed the deal.  James Jameson is an idol of mine, in terms of bass playing anyways.  I adore Indian cooking, its the best!

All of these things and other too many to mention, add richness to life, which is just what you have found.  My problem is that in many areas we have been swamped to the point where our original culture has gone for good.  This is not all down to excess immigration, the younger generations have abandoned older values too, English churches that have been neglected and converted to mosques makes you feel very weird about where you grew up.

In the end, it all comes down to the degree of change that one can tolerate, music and food choices are one thing, loss of entire cities is quite another.  Before 1975, I had never seen a vandalised telephone box (kiosk) and graffiti, now its everywhere and England has so much litter its disgusting.  So many kids have tattoos it seems like entire generations have low self-esteem and want to pierce themselves or practice self-harm or shave their heads like they just underwent cancer treatment or something.

I just don't want this in my face anymore, and here in rural France it does not exist.  I can make tube gear and send it to people who still make actual music and can appreciate the sound of it, instead of manipulating samples someone else made.

DaveP