OTOH slavery is so morally abhorrent that it far outweighs any positive contributions a person might make in their lifetime. I think its good that society condemns it in the strongest possible manner, including by renaming
Would you then support renaming the Washington monument? Removing any mention of his name from history books, or taking him off of our money? Should we take "Washington Crossing the Delaware" down from the walls of The Met and burn it?
I don't think that the bad things someone does should cause us to pretend that the good things never happened. We should see people for who they were, the good and the bad, even if in the end there was more of one than the other.
It might even be that the worse someone was, the more important it is that we shouldn't forget the good things. It helps remind us that everyone has the capacity for (and a history of) acts both good and evil and that even those who have done terrible things that could never be "made up for" (if that's ever even possible) are/were still capable of making the choice to do something wonderful.
Yeah, I don't have any problem with that one either. I'm not even sure what, if any, connection he had to the mountain. It's not like John Evans was super into mountains and inspired generations of others to get really into the enjoyment/study/preservation of mountains. It's really not clear what naming it after him was for exactly.
The other problem is when this all-or-nothing way of thinking escapes this kind of narrow case and seeps into the common public discourse, see the way politics are evolving in way too many western countries.
That said, renaming birds named after obscure figures is generally a good thing, descriptive names are more useful and don’t require knowledge of the historical background to make sense.
I'm not okay with the idea of destroying those kinds of statues and monuments, they are still artistic and cultural works after all, but they are probably best left to be displayed in civil war and civil rights museums where they can be contextualized appropriately.
Do you think civil war/rights museums are mythical? I promise you that there are several and if you've never seen one you should really make the time. I'll warn you though that they are filled with many things you'd find extremely distasteful which is exactly how they should be.
Ugly as it is, it's our history. A group of KKK loving racists put monuments to their heroes up all over the place including state capitol buildings and courthouses and some remained for over a century. That actually happened.
Current and future generations should be able to see those monuments with their own eyes, the same way that they should be able to visit Auschwitz or the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. We need to confront our history and learn from it, not just erase the parts that make us uncomfortable. It would be wrong to take away that opportunity by destroying all evidence of the shameful things in humanity's past.
Audubon was born into a world where slavery was considered a perfectly normal part of life and widely practiced. We don't have that excuse. We're supposed to know better than this. We just try to forget about the slaves that made our iphones and give a pass to the corporations responsible.