Yale putting high-tech tests to its controversial Vinland Map
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As a European (and particularly, as a Brit) I tend to look at most of our 'explorers' as violent colonisers, and consequently have complex (but mostly negative) feelings towards them. It also seems that's the way the public opinion here is moving (at least in my microcosm).
Is that the same in the US? I understand it may be a little different, in that Columbus is so tied into the grand mythos of the creation of the US.
And https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/opinion/christopher-colum...
Yes, I would say it is generally the same in the US, although I'm in Seattle which is a very liberal area. I imagine the opinion likely differs depending on where you're from and how you were raised
One can't help but enjoy the delicious irony of there being a federal holiday for a person who never stepped foot in this country, who sailed under a flag that wasn't his own nationality, who by all historical accounts was a raping / murdering / pillaging rogue. And then getting schoolchildren to sing about him. Says something about our country, its values, and its education system.
I know some places are celebrating the same day as Indigenous Peoples' Day instead.
The largest resistance to this change is from Italian Americans (the holiday was created as a way of cementing their acceptance as a cultural group in the US which had long resisted their integration) and older people who feel that the left is destroying "the culture" of America (as if that's a longstanding concrete thing and not "something that was basically made up 40 years ago).
I think you see similar things in the US culture when it comes to the Founding Fathers (Jefferson in particular) and how there are conservative elements who will not stand for anyone challenging the narrative that these were solely brilliant, morally upstanding men who only wanted the best for the world with the idea that they were flawed human men of a time in which slavery was still happening and women were often just chattel.
TL-dr; There's a lot of people that feel that the importance of Columbus is more important than the fact that he raped someone.
My point was that the same "we have to defend our past" tropes tend to come out when attacks on either happen. You see it as well in people who defend the men of the confederacy. Any statement that "these are complex men who did things that led to our current world order, some good others bad" is met as an attack. There is a group of people who look at history and feel that everything is black and white, good vs evil, and that's simply not the case.
Columbus, despite being a violent and horrid person, changed history. Jefferson, despite being the Author of the Declaration of Independence, owned other humans.
Except that's not how the statement is put forth. Instead we get something along the lines of "so and so was a murderous scumbag racist who blah blah blah, oh by the way you're a racist for not accepting that at face value". That doesn't exactly promote civil discourse about changing the status quo as to how so and so is viewed.
This isn't something of great importance to the overwhelming majority of the population and it doesn't play much of any role in most people's identity which explains to some extent why the discourse is dominated by a bunch of extremists on both sides (aka the few people who care) yelling at each other but that doesn't make those extremists right.
Columbus was a clown, imperialism is bad, rape and enslavement are reprehensible, celebrating Columbus seems like a poor choice. Any thoughts?
People are made of many parts. Jefferson was brilliant and farsighted, but also a vicious, selfish monster -- by the standards of his time.
https://your.yale.edu/work-yale/benefits/paid-time/official-...
Native Americans are not exactly fans.
Source: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/brendan_saint_1E.html
Fixed!