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If you’d lived in Bristol at the time when schools for poor kids were founded and you were asked to put a coin in a collection for a statue to the guy who funded it would you not have enthusiastically chipped in?
actually the people of bristol didnt fund it
a chairity drive failed
so the merchant ventureres put it up
however many schools he put up, they dont negate the horrors of his slave trade
Agreed, the 18th C is fascinating, in many ways it’s the start of modernity, lots of things they worried about we’d recognise (women’s rights, drinking culture, social media, getting fat, the latest trends, too much shopping etc etc) but in huge ways it wasn’t anything like our world.
100pc agree. A turning point.
Of course the Pepys, Colston, John Lock, Charles II - the Royal African Company people we're talking about here - were earlier - 17thC. So either predating the enlightenment or pioneers of it. (Seems like John Lock is 100pc considered an Enlightenment leading light in spite of dying the 17thC.)
It’s up to protesters to spoon feed you with information available via a 5 second google search?
Pretty much yeah. Not much point in protesting without a clear statement of what you want.
You don't know what #blacklivesmatters wants?
Pretty much yeah. Not much point in protesting without a clear statement of what you want.
It's instructive that you can't be bothered to do even the most cursory research, yet are ever eager to waste so much electronic ink here.
Anyway, I didn't have any trouble at all understanding it.
were earlier – 17thC.
erm...Colston dies in 1721, Pepys just scrapes in fo'shure but he's 1703, which puts them both pretty firmly in the 18th C Bear in mind that for most scholars, when you talk about the 18thC they refer to a "long" century so mid 1650-to 1800 ish.
If you’d lived in Bristol at the time when schools for poor kids were founded and you were asked to put a coin in a collection for a statue to the guy who funded it would you not have enthusiastically chipped in?
But I dont and no one alive today did, but many live there now and wanted the statue removed.
If you’d lived in Bristol at the time when schools for
poorsome kids were founded...
FTFY
I don’t think it’s necessarily a problem to revisit who they are and what they did. It doesn’t follow that you have to revisit the whole of history, antiquity or even prehistory (I’m willing to bet that Stone Henge wasn’t erected by completely willing labour) but I don’t think it’s a bad thing to look at what is there and make a judgement. After all, that’s exactly what the folk who put them up did, they judged these men by their own standards, so what’s wrong with judging their worth (as statues) by our own standards. We’re not slaves to our past.
Historians already have revisited everything over and over. But we're talking about statue moving to stop people rioting. And that requires a clear set of demands. If they state their criteria then it might turn out that we can move (say) 4 statues of little significance created after 1900 and everyone's happy. If their criteria require 100,000 monuments moved dating back before Roman times that might be harder.
There was a plan to evacuate the UK parliament, the Royal family and the “Rump” govts of occupied Europe to Canada, should Op Sea-lion ever really start to happen. For obvious reasons (Op Sea-lion was never ever going to happen or succeed) it was never really taken overly seriously
That's not 40 tons of Churchill's furniture though. Agree re Sea-Lion and I heard a Churchill speech recently (part of one of his really famous ones) where he mentioned lack of landing craft so it was clearly understood at the time that getting an army with tanks onto UK soil was highly unlikely to work. So people have been arguing about it for 80 years yet the near impossibility seems to have been well understood at the top at the time.
outofbreath
Member
It’s up to protesters to spoon feed you with information available via a 5 second google search?Pretty much yeah. Not much point in protesting without a clear statement of what you want.
Hiya rydster!! 😆
erm…Colston dies in 1721, Pepys just scrapes in fo’shure but he’s 1703, which puts them both pretty firmly in the
Nah, all the people I reference lived the vast bulk or all of their lives in the 17thC. Certainly all of their active lives. Over 60 years of Colston's life was in the 17thC and his association with the RAC had ended by the end of the 17thC.
18th C Bear in mind that for most scholars, when you talk about the 18thC they refer to a “long” century so mid 1650-to 1800 ish.
In which case I should have said 1600s.
The protest isn't about statues btw, one has been toppled, and it's created alot of discussion, that's about it.
The obscene wealth and privilege statues matter fraternity can stop panicking. 😆
I'm pretty certain this movement is about more current issues.
chrismac,
If you feel that strongly about it feel free to go and put it back up yourself. I’m sure you can round up a posse of like minded law abiding citizens to help you.
Chrismac and his mates earlier...
https://twitter.com/Frenchd0gblues/status/1270050171162894337?s=20
"Don't bother it's not contemporary!". 😀
OK, for the 3rd time for those at the back. BLM is an unorganised collective of groups and individuals, which are campaigning for the equality of BAME people in every sector of society. They are not a political party and do not have a manifesto.
I would doubt if you can find an Enlightenment philosopher that didn't support slavery and the classification of man. Even David Hume wrote "I am apt to suspect that the N*, and in general all other species of men to be naturally inferior to the whites"
Why did Hume align with Kant's philosophy rather than Kraus, who praised "the natural genius" of Africa and "Its appreciation of learning"?
Why do we still align with all of the theories of the Enlightenment philosophers?
Why can't we accept that some of their theories were flawed?
They are the foundation of our values and wealth, perhaps to preserve them we need to reassess them and the structures which they support. Science has moved on from Francis Galton's skull measuring devices, to being able to map the genome. So why hasn't our society aligned with modern science?
A large aspect is that, we are generally lazy and the status quo suits us, another is because we seek out information which reaffirms our beliefs, and the first hit on Google satisfies this.
When I was compiling my case against institutional racism I didn't appreciate how difficult it would be to find quality research, based on science rather than observation. It led me to Critical Race Theory, but I'm not going to take you on a guided path to enlightenment.
To suggest that because one statue, or a few statues come down that every bluddy statue in Britain either has to come down or will come down is mad. I've noticed a few writers (Douglas Murray, Domonic Sandbrooke etc) comparing what a few citizens did in Bristol to the Chinese cultural revolution. Hyperbole? False equivalence? Or just fox news style batshit crazy. It's the Jimmy Savile defence.
Critics and protesters have been pointing this stuff out for years, 40 if were talking about Edward Colston. If your petition is unlikely to be heard in your lifetime then you're left with no option other than to take direct action.
Churchill (well Lincoln bombers actually) dropped 6 million bombs on Kenya between 1952 and 1955, trying to finish off those 'rebels that hadn't already been rounded up, relocated to concentration camps and tortured. The British called it an uprising. For Kenyans it was a civil war.
Again, something many have been trying to point out for decades. It took a tagger with a tin of spray paint 10 seconds to bring the truth into public discourse. Many, many more people are now aware of some of the sins of Winston Churchill and even if they are foaming at the mouth at the moment, they can no longer claim ignorance. They have been furnished with information that allows them to make a more objective evaluation of the great wartime leader, a figure whose legacy hitherto has been sacrosanct.
Many, many more people are now aware of some of the sins of Winston Churchill and even if they are foaming at the mouth at the moment, they can no longer claim ignorance.
I think people were more aware in 1945... it's certainly the case that my grandparents were of the view that Churchill did not represent the working classes. They hadn't forgotten his disastrous role in the general strike.
Why can’t we accept that some of their theories were flawed?
I think it's reasonably widely accepted that many of their attitudes, ideas on race, and so on were flawed. That doesn't mean that say Francis Galton wasn't (in some ways) a genius, but we also accept that he was a terrible racist and eugenicist. Francis Crick has somewhat blotted his copy book as well, but that doesn't mean we don't recognise his contribution. Both have many university buildings/depts. named for them, personally I think it's well nigh time for a re-think
Or that Lineaus while grouping men (Homo) in with Simia predates Darwin by nearly a century, but then goes on to put Asians and Africans in different sub species...But then he also created descriptions for fantastical beasts as well in early editions of Systema Naturea...
Because - Humans...
a figure whose legacy hitherto has been sacrosanct.
Only if you're purposefully ignorant. I don't think I've read any sensible bio of Churchill that doesn't mention his flaws (of which there were many) even reading the normally awful Wikipedia, you'd be hard pushed not to become a little queasy.
To all the people complaining that the statue was thrown in the docks, I'm sure you'll be pleased to know Nigel farage agrees with you. He also compared BLM to the Taliban.
Be careful which side of the fence you decide to stand on. Maybe have a look around and see who else is there.
It took a tagger with a tin of spray paint 10 seconds to bring the truth into public discourse.
Give over. My granny knew he wasn't the great hero and she's been dead for 20 years.
If we look at depictions of black people from the Renaissance period and before, we see Kings, emmisaries, traders, musicians and gondaliers. Defined by their occupation not their colour.
Slavery is something that has been practiced by societies from the advent of societies. The Europeans industrialised that process. The Industrial Revolution began with Trans Atlantic slavery. Without slavery there wouldn't have been the cotton that built Manchester, the city I live in.
The Enlightenment was the moment at which the scientific method superceeded superstition. That 'scientific method' was then corrupted to justify slavery, a profitable but unjustifiable business by inventing eugenics, a hierarchy based on perceived racial differences.
I've always thought of the STW forum as a liberal place. Some of the posts on here have served to remind us of the origins of the word liberal and that what we now define as racism is not an 'ism that has persisted through history, it is entirely the product of the Enlightenment
The Enlightenment tried to posit racism as a natural condition. If you are predisposed to consider religion to be the root of many evils consider this: it wasn't a century and a half of religious hegemony that introduced racial heirachies, it was secular Enlightenment thinking.
Interestingly there are now protests going on in Brussels about statues of King Leopold.
Cool.
Dazh,
They could be collecting it for scrap?
It led me to Critical Race Theory, but I’m not going to take you on a guided path to enlightenment.
Thank you for another bread crumb at the start of the trail, I intend to see where it takes me.
Interesting how many books about race are out of stock at the moment - a hopeful sign...?
Only if you’re purposefully ignorant. I don’t think I’ve read any sensible bio of Churchill that doesn’t mention his flaws (of which there were many) even reading the normally awful Wikipedia, you’d be hard pushed not to become a little queasy.
+1. My entire knowledge of Churchill comes from Roy Jenkin's Bio read a few years back and a few Podcasts plus what I may have seen on TV over the years. I've seen nothing I didn't know because of all this. I'd be amazed if any of this was new to anyone.
...and he lost the '45 election.
Interestingly there are now protests going on in Brussels about statues of King Leopold.
That seems like a much more reasonable target to me. Horror doesn't even describe it and much more recent.
Yes Crikey, your GRANNY.
People who lived through the war knew because they lived in the same era as Winston Churchill. They saw the good, the bad and the ugly and could voice an objective opinion.
If your 50 or under, you have grown up with the myth of Winston Churchill, a redacted version of history. A uuge majority of the population are unaware of his darker side and many rush to defend that myth without sharing the knowledge your granny had privilege to.
Shame she didn't pass any of her wisdom on to you. That tagger certainly knew what your granny was talking about.
actually the people of bristol didn't fund it
a charity drive failed
so the merchant venturers put it up
Just to correct your last point one of the Anchor Society (James Arrowsmith) put around half the funds up after around 2 years of stalled fund raising. The last plea to the livery companies raised around £2 10s!
Source: https://www.brh.org.uk/site/articles/myths-within-myths/
No King Leopold II, no Apocalypse now. The horror........
Just to correct your last point one of the Anchor Society (James Arrowsmith) put around half the funds up after around 2 years of stalled fund raising.
Yup: a society formed with the explicit purpose of honouring Edward Colston.
OK, for the 3rd time for those at the back. BLM is an unorganised collective of groups and individuals
This is what scares them the most. Do a little research and you'll see that any group which organises itself without leaders, memberships or formal structures are dismissed as anarchists, mobs, terrorists or whatever other hysterical label they can think of. The fact that people can effectively organise themselves without formal hierarchies and rules threatens the entire basis of the political system and the power held by those that control it. They just can't get their head around the fact that people can organise themselves around collective principles or aims, and so they assume there's a hidden group of actors with malevolent intent pulling the strings. Always used to be amusing back in the day on environmental protests when the cops would ask 'who's your leader?'.
Inspired by the other thread about best movie scenes, surely there is no more prescient a scene than the murder of Radio Rakim in 'Do the Right Thing.'
Consider how Spike Lee drew the character, Rakim was a belligerent and intimidating presence throughout the film and he ends up in a fight with a pizzeria owner. These character traits are illustrated in order to bring plausabillity to the story's finale. Had Rakim been an unfit guy selling untaxed cigarettes on the pavement the film would have been seen as lacking all plausibility and all credibility.
Consider also the final scene where Sal and Mookie meet up. After being paid Mookie throws the money back at Sal, he then picks it up before they part. In that moment we see how as a black person earning on average a tenth of what a white person does, Mookie can't afford such noble gestures, showing us how poverty crushes pride.
Black lives matter is a club you don't have to be black to get into, it has been inclusive from the outset. Hell, they even let Mitt Romney join in!
There's no entry requirements, as long as you're prepared to show a little humanity you're welcome to the party.
To all the people complaining that the statue was thrown in the docks, I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know Nigel farage agrees with you. He also compared BLM to the Taliban.
Yep, caught that this morning. The Taliban blowing up numerous monuments of historical and religious importance is exactly the same as a few people pulling down a statue. They don't do any of the shit that the Taliban do but that one thing that is similar if you squint hard enough is enough for Farage. BLM is also left wing and Marxist apparently so extra points from me if that were the case.
On Farage a football journalist tweeted about him this morning and received a threatening email from the House of Commons
https://twitter.com/danohagan/status/1270343135512670208?s=19
If they state their criteria then it might turn out that we can move (say) 4 statues of little significance created after 1900 and everyone’s happy. If their criteria require 100,000 monuments moved dating back before Roman times that might be harder.
Ah, the classic "we can't have any change until you have defined all possible change" argument...
Why do you think the removal of statues cannot be addressed on a case-by-case basis?
Oooooh! I like a nice bit of IT-based threatening behaviour. On a technical level, that should be super-easy to sort out if the right people are involved and, given that it is pretty threatening, I'd be tempted to get the police involved.
Ah, the classic “we can’t have any change until you have defined all possible change” argument…
Why do you think the removal of statues cannot be addressed on a case-by-case basis?
If they state their criteria then it might turn out that we can move (say) 4 statues of little significance created after 1900 and everyone’s happy. If their criteria require 100,000 monuments moved dating back before Roman times that might be harder to do.
The Taliban blowing up numerous monuments of historical and religious importance is exactly the same as a few people pulling down a statue
excellent, by Farages' logic then, that makes the US Marines the same as the Taliban after they helped pull down the Statue of Saddam in 2003...
If they state their criteria then it might turn out that we can move (say) 4 statues of little significance created after 1900 and everyone’s happy. If their criteria require 100,000 monuments moved dating back before Roman times that might be harder to do.
Is there an echo in here?
excellent, by Farages’ logic then, that makes the US Marines the same as the Taliban after they helped pull down the Statue of Saddam in 2003…
I've been thinking about that incident a lot since this all came up. It passes my 'contemporary' test but it was fairly recent so I reckon it was fine to pull it down.
If it had been there for 350 years and was contemporary to Saddam himself my vote would be for it to stay.
Wartime statue of Stalin? I'd vote to keep at 80 years distance with some text explaining about Stalin.
My problem with Buddhas of Bamyan was a) The age. b) The significance. c) The devastation economy of the area which relied on them. Personally I think the Buddhas of Bamyan thing was pretty low. Ironically the Taliban weren't interested in them until they were asked to preserve them which indicated their value to the west and the Taliban blew them up out of spite. If we'd kept our mouths shut they'd still be there. (According to a local bloke on a podcast I heard once.)
How about this monstrosity? It's estimated he's responsible for at least 40 million deaths...
Keep the plinth, but replace Genghis with the Sugababes, they were brilliant.
(I really want someone to pop up and offer a credible argument that Genghis was a forward thinking progressive by the standards of his time.)