Going too far?

[Freiwillige]

History is a changing friends. Good guys are now bad guys. The founding fathers are next you watch!:nope:



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091011/ap_on_re_us/us_teaching_columbus

[Torplexed]

This is nothing new. They were beating up on Columbus back in 1992 on the 500th anniversary of his voyage. However, sooner or later some European nation was going to discover the continents in the Western Hemisphere and given the plundering attitudes of the times and the diseases rampant then, such a meeting probably wasn't going to be pretty.

"We have a very large Alaska native population, so just the whole Columbus being the founder of the United States, doesn't sit well with a lot of people, myself included," said Paul Prussing, deputy director of Alaska's Division of Teaching and Learning Support.
Geez. Columbus didn't 'found' the United States and it was the Russians who colonized what we now call Alaska. They didn't exactly win any humanitarian awards for their performance there either.

The founding fathers have already been routinely trashed for years on campuses as rich, elitist white slaveholders who didn't give any voting rights to women or minorities and kept slavery as an institution. What they got right doesn't count. Nothing new under the sun there.

[Platapus]

History is a changing friends. Good guys are now bad guys. The founding fathers are next you watch!:nope:



http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091011/ap_on_re_us/us_teaching_columbus

What? You think Columbus traveled to the new world to spread freedom and good will? I don't think so. :nope:

It is about time that real history is being taught to our children. :yeah:

[Raptor1]

As much as what some of that article says is nonsense, I was not aware of Columbus being some kind of hero. It's quite known that as Governor of the West Indies, Colombus routinely tortured, killed and oppressed both the natives and the settlers under him; In the end he was also imprisoned for tyranny both in Hispanola and later Spain for quite a while before the King of Aragon released him and allowed him to go on his fourth voyage.

[Freiwillige]

Well he was responsible for creating an environment that was to later become the United states of America. He brought the New world to European attention. And European the masses fought, conquered, explored and died to create this nation. I don't believe in collective guilt that is being sold to our children. He did what no one else before him accomplished (Okay so Lieff Erikson did it a few hundred years sooner, but failed to capitalize on it)

He was still an incredible explorer doing at the time what was unknown, I mean the earth was flat he could have fallen off!

[Letum]

I mean the earth was flat he could have fallen off!

Even before Columbus most people thaught the Earth was round.
Even after Columbus the minority that thought it was flat where still in force.

[Jimbuna]

It would appear after his death that his remains underwent nearly as much travelling as he did when he was alive :DL

[Skybird]

Well he was responsible for creating an environment that was to later become the United states of America. He brought the New world to European attention. And European the masses fought, conquered, explored and died to create this nation.
Well, before they did that, they took care of the real owners and natives on the Caribean islands, in Central and Northern America, and South America as well. It continued with the Spanish and French powers ruling in the region in the later centuries, and creating social, economical, cultural and environmental conditions that in several places decisively influence the desolate outcome and the violence in desperate places like for example Haiti or better: the whole island of Hispaniola, until today. And when I saw a TV documentary on the nuclear test series on the Bikini atoll this evening, I realised that we still act like our ancestors did back then, if it serves our purposes, by the only justification of being the stronger one.

for the people originally living in these places, it would have been better if neither the Spanish nor anyone else ever would have arrived and the United States nor any other nation ever would have been founded there. Because the price for the changes to that new world were - genocides. Compared to that mass dying due to diseases and mass killing and mass torturing and mass enslaving throughout North and South America and the Caribean, the independence war and the civil war fade in quantitative horror.

Whether all the native civilisations would have survived until today if left to themnselves, is another question. We know that many managed to wipe out themselves, over suicidal economical reasons leading to cataclystic environmental conditions. Other local civilisations in northern america especially, managed to balance their birth rates and economic options versus the environment, and survived until the arrival of the Europeans, which equalled a meteor impact for them.

[Torplexed]

It certainly would have benefited the Incas, Aztecs and other native American peoples to have had the luxury of a wider ocean. Japan escaped the same fate because geographically she was at the extreme edge of imperial reach. Western powers at this time, venturing into Japanese waters, were at the outer limits of their respective capacities. Russia, even after beginning construction of the Trans-Siberian railway in 1891, was able to do no more that extend it's fingertips into Manchuria and China proper. The European maritime powers possessed neither the regional naval base facilities or expendable land power to plant more than outposts in peripheral areas like China and Indonesia. The US after Admiral Perry's famous visit was too occupied with the Civil War and western expansion. The result of this slow march east was that by the 1860s the example of what was happening in next-door China suggested to Japan that it would be well advised to take control of it's fate and begin modernizing on it's own terms.

[FIREWALL]

The USofA has helped alot of people and countrys.

I have always wondered " what if Japan hadn't attacked Pearl Harbor "

Would've the US later entered WWII or maybe not.

History might've been changed if not for Japan. :hmmm:

[Skybird]

Well, when Perry arrived in Japan, Japan already had it's history of experiences with Dutch and Portuguese traders and Jesuit missionaries, an era that was put to end by the Tokugawa shoguns, the first of whom very legitimately feared the growing influence of the Europeans and catholicism in Japan since it already back then pressed for foreign explpoitation of Japan'S natural ressources (and from today's perspective we know how the eurppeans behaved in other parts of the world where they arrived newly, and none of their victims could have had a reasonable desire for what the Europeans brought upon them). When the internal social order increasingly became threatened by japanese feudal lords converting to Catholicsm, the shogun made short process, killed many of these, Catholicism was banned, and of course he threw the europeans out, which imo was a very wise decision from the perspective back then as well as that of today. that Japan until today combines both a high population density and still a very superbly functioning system of natural preservation and forest cultivation (Japan are amongst the very top nations with the hidgest density of forest coverage, three quarters of Japan are covered with cultivated forest!) - the Tokugawa jurisdiction needs to be given credit for. That way Japan avoided the fate many other societies with high population densities and consuming their natural resources until none were left fell victim to. However, Perry was send to Japan with the explicit order to break up the Japanese isolation, for one wanted access to it's ressouces, as well as it'S harbours' logistic supply capacity - to widen exactly that operational range Torplexed is pointing at. Perry dictated these conditions, because the superiority of the modern firearms of the europeans was too obvious.

Maybe the Perry invasion - that's what it was, if not in scale then in intention - came at the most "ideal" time for Japan. It had managed to estzablish a system of autarcy and preserving use of it'S natural ressources, mainly wood, and was in a state were it was not strong to reject the American demands and fight for that, but was strong enough not to fall completely to wetsern interests. the result is the industrialisiation (and militarisation) that made it such a strong player in the first half of the last century, and a major industrial player today. However, the price for that, from a modern perspective, is that it has lost it'S autarcy - The Japanese industry depends heavily on exports of goods, and imports of ressources. Which imo makes it a weak economy, like the German one that I consider to be a weak - or better: very vulnerable one - as well.

China slept too long, and when it was awakened by the europeans, it had become so static and paralysed that the small force of europeans and the influence they unfolded was able to dominate this huge empire and it's government, and exploit this weakness for Western interests without china being able to resists. Maybe the contact with China should have come earlier when the Chinese feudal hierarchy was not already so much paralysed by ritual and lacking flexibility, maybe then the europeans would not have been able to dominate them like they did. What would have happened if the West would have "cracked open" China later than it actually had, must remain speculative. Maybe the bad awakening would just have been delayed, but maybe china would have taken the additional time to realise that there was a world beyond China that was threatening to take it over, would have started to move, to adapt and to meet the challenge of the arriving Europeans.

Seen that, Japan was better off with the way it went there.

[Skybird]

The USofA has helped alot of people and countrys.

I have always wondered " what if Japan hadn't attacked Pearl Harbor "

Would've the US later entered WWII or maybe not.

History might've been changed if not for Japan. :hmmm:
I belong to that camp that believes that Roosevelt pressed the Japanese only for one reason over the oil so hard until they finally either had to completely give up their ambitions to become the regional dominating power, or would need to attack America and overcome it in order to break open the "oil-garotte": Roosevelt wanted america netering the war in Europe as well, but was opposed by a congress and a public mood that simply was opposing that idea and preferred the production of cars and refrigerators to that of tanks and warplanes. If Roosevelt would have failed to make the Japanese attack, he would have found another way to enter the war. I am very sure he also saw the chance that America would inherit the Britsh empire's estate, because after the air battle of Britain and the U-Boot war having brought Britain twice to breaking point it was clear that however the war ended, the empire never would be able to live up to it'S former power and glory again. If in the wake of that taking over from the British, Japanese interference with American intentions for domination in the Pacific could be switched off as well - the better.

I think of Roosevelt as both being sly and intelloigent, and unscrupellous. considering the cirucmstances at that time of history, that maybe was the best imaginable combination of characteristics for the US leader.

[nikimcbee]

I belong to that camp that believes that Roosevelt pressed the Japanese only for one reason over the oil so hard until they finally either had to completely give up their ambitions to become the regional dominating power, or would need to attack America and overcome it in order to break open the "oil-garotte": Roosevelt wanted america netering the war in Europe as well, but was opposed by a congress and a public mood that simply was opposing that idea and preferred the production of cars and refrigerators to that of tanks and warplanes. If Roosevelt would have failed to make the Japanese attack, he would have found another way to enter the war. I am very sure he also saw the chance that America would inherit the Britsh empire's estate, because after the air battle of Britain and the U-Boot war having brought Britain twice to breaking point it was clear that however the war ended, the empire never would be able to live up to it'S former power and glory again. If in the wake of that taking over from the British, Japanese interference with American intentions for domination in the Pacific could be switched off as well - the better.

I think of Roosevelt as both being sly and intelloigent, and unscrupellous. considering the cirucmstances at that time of history, that maybe was the best imaginable combination of characteristics for the US leader.

@Skybird: Have you heard of the book "Day of Deceit"? If you haven't read it, the basis for the book is to clear Kimmel and Shorts names in the Pearl Harbor attack. While some of the accusations are alittle far fetched, a large portion of the book is from recently declassified info (first hand sources). In a nutshell, the author says that FDR was pushing Japan into an attack, so the US would be in a posistion to go to Britain's aid. I'd be curious to hear your opinion on the book. Many of the critics of the book stat: A US president would NEVER do anything like that, or it's not first hand info (which is totally wrong, it's all first hand data).
Anyway, I thought it was interesting.

[Skybird]

Don't know that book, sorry. Maybe I have read references to it in other lecture I had. But I hardly memorise every single such reference detail when reading something.

[nikimcbee]

The USofA has helped alot of people and countrys.

I have always wondered " what if Japan hadn't attacked Pearl Harbor "

Would've the US later entered WWII or maybe not.

History might've been changed if not for Japan. :hmmm:

The Japanese have been gearing up to fight the US since the early 1900's. I think we would have butted heads sooner or later.

[Skybird]

The Japanese have been gearing up to fight the US since the early 1900's. I think we would have butted heads sooner or later.
I agree. Two players in the same field - was one too much. Although I think that the Japanese hoped for long time to acchieve a balance of power that resulted in a stable coexistence with America. In the late 30s they maybe started to realise that war with the US would nevertheless be a real possibility in the future, but I think they still hoped to avoid it. Imo the constellation nevertheless was so critical and ripe with potential conflict that the war was unavoidable even if both nations would have hoped to avoid it. Sometimes - things simply do not work the way you wish them to work, and never had a chance to function from the very beginning. It's then called wishful thinking.

And I just have the strange feeling of a deja vu, as if I have dreamed to have written exactly this posting before, right down to every typo I produced and corrected... :doh:

[FIREWALL]

I'm more wondering if HISTORY might have been changed. :hmmm:


@ Skybird.... Good point. :up:
@ Niki ..... Good point. :up:

[nikimcbee]

I'm more wondering if HISTORY might have been changed. :hmmm:


@ Skybird.... Good point. :up:
@ Niki ..... Good point. :up:

sheesh, history would be different! Japan would have never been nuked and thus, there would never be any godzilla movies!:O:

[Platapus]

sheesh, history would be different! Japan would have never been nuked and thus, there would never be any godzilla movies!:O:


Trivia question: What was the event that was used as a basis for the plot of Gojira in 1954?

:D

[antikristuseke]

The real question is weather Japan was nuked because it is weird or is Japan weird because it got nuked?

[TarJak]

The real question is weather Japan was nuked because it is weird or is Japan weird because it got nuked?The real and slightly more firghtening answer to that question is both.:D

[CaptainHaplo]

It is so true that history is written by the neutral observerr, propaganda is written by the victor.

Ultimately, Columbus was not looking for new lands to exploit. When new lands to exploit were found - the European powers had no ethical issues with doing so. "Americans" often forget how much of our own history is one of exploitation, and I am not talking about slavery (though that is an issue too, and not merely a "southern" one as some believe). During the centuries, the US government violated most of its treaties with the major indian tribes. Even today. there are a couple of tribes who still are technically at war with the US Government. One I distinctly recall being based in Florida.

Maybe its not just gators that get ya if you wander in the swamps?

The history of humanity, regardless of "nationality", is one of exploitation. To say otherwise is to ignore history. Columbus was no doubt a historical figure. His actions were what they were. Was he an "evil" man? No more so than any other person who opens a door. While his own acts may be judged, he is not personally responsible for anything more than his own acts. The exploitation that followed he did not choose.

To each person belongs the responsibilities of their own decisions, not the decisions of the rest of the world.

[Freiwillige]

I agree with Skybird that Roosevelt was itching to provoke something with Japan so that his hand would no longer be tied by the isolationists. I think that he figured the Japanese would eventually attack one of our assets closer to Japan or the Dutch east indies. I doubt he wasn't shocked when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and so effectively at that.

He was already prodding congress to act in speeches given about coming to England's cause. And he admitted in his memoirs to misleading the American people for their own good.

And as far as nuking Japan. It happened for several reasons.

1. As a show piece to make Stalin think twice, Since he was saber rattling already both in the east and the west and pushing for more land grabs.

2. To see the effects of our new super weapon. It was tested on cities that had thus far escaped major damage in the war.

America knew that Japan was about to throw in the towel and had approached Russia about a diplomatic end. The only stipulation was that they kept their emperor. We bombed them and let them keep their emperor anyways.

Politicians are always more devious than the Generals in the field.

[CastleBravo]

Judging a 15th Century person by 21st Centuriy morality is a flawed paradigm, only the arrogance of political correctness allows.:nope:

[Skybird]

Judging a 15th Century person by 21st Centuriy morality is a flawed paradigm,

My first thought was something like this, too, but I then deleted it because the basic drives of civilisations do not seem to have changed over centuries, if not millenias. Or maybe one should more neutrally say "the ways in which civilisations rise, culminate and fall, often from their own hands". The gaining of new ressources needed at home to support growing populations has been a prime motive from the first tribes to the latest empires.

The problem often becoming obvious here is that additional ressources not often resulted in stockpiling them for times of shortness, to support the population then and enable them to survive despite the failed harvets, for example, but that new ressources always get invested for an ever growing population size. By stockpiling ressources I also mean to maintain agriculture and use of natural ressourceslike wood in way that preserve them not only for the next five years, but for the next dozen of generations, or longer. In other words: no matter how much you win and gain - it simply never will be enough. It necessarily leads to a condition of lethal environmental destruction (disappearing forest, erosion of soil, lacking animals that could be hunted) where the excessively grown population got reduced by hunger, unrest, war, disease. And if the technical status of the civilisation in question already had reached the maximum of it's possible geographical reach and no new areas of potential ressources were accessible, the whole civilisation collapsed and died.

We are too damn many people on earth. That makes any call against birth and population size control a capital crime against humanity, imo.

[CastleBravo]

My first thought was something like this, too, but I then deleted it because the basic drives of civilisations do not seem to have changed over centuries, if not millenias. Or maybe one should more neutrally say "the ways in which civilisations rise, culminate and fall, often from their own hands". The gaining of new ressources needed at home to support growing populations has been a prime motive from the first tribes to the latest empires.

The problem often becoming obvious here is that additional ressources not often resulted in stockpiling them for times of shortness, to support the population then and enable them to survive despite the failed harvets, for example, but that new ressources always get invested for an ever growing population size. By stockpiling ressources I also mean to maintain agriculture and use of natural ressourceslike wood in way that preserve them not only for the next five years, but for the next dozen of generations, or longer. In other words: no matter how much you win and gain - it simply never will be enough. It necessarily leads to a condition of lethal environmental destruction (disappearing forest, erosion of soil, lacking animals that could be hunted) where the excessively grown population got reduced by hunger, unrest, war, disease. And if the technical status of the civilisation in question already had reached the maximum of it's possible geographical reach and no new areas of potential ressources were accessible, the whole civilisation collapsed and died.

We are too damn many people on earth. That makes any call against birth and population size control a capital crime against humanity, imo.

Except we are not talking about a civilization/culture. Christo Columbo was but one man. Can we really blame the faults of an entire civilization on one man? Or visa versa? I think not. He was but the product of that civilization, not its creator. A better lesson would be to focus on the culture of the times, which is what you may be saying but I can't tell, than on one individual and claim he is any better or worse than the rest of the culture of the time.

[Shearwater]

Except we are not talking about a civilization/culture. Christo Columbo was but one man. Can we really blame the faults of an entire civilization on one man? Or visa versa? I think not. He was but the product of that civilization, not its creator. A better lesson would be to focus on the culture of the times, which is what you may be saying but I can't tell, than on one individual and claim he is any better or worse than the rest of the culture of the time.

I agree with you, but not completely.
When I started studying history here, my first seminar was on early colonialism (for those interested, I have some recommended reading on the topic, though most of it is in German). It was quite interesting, to say the least, and apart from all the atrocities that really did happen, it was a tremendous mental challenge for all involved. We can't, and shouldn't, expect that these people could grasp all of the consequences of their actions, much like it will be only for later generations to assess our current actions. Not that we shouldn't write contemporary history - but some things, and often the most important ones, only become clear in retrospect.
I wouldn't let ole Chris completely off the hook though. One of the reasons is that even to his contemporaries, his behavior seemed extraordinarily harsh and cruel, so we cannot simply blame it on the "spirit of the times", if you will.
He couldn't change that "spirit", but he can be held responsible for how he acted within that framework.

[Skybird]

Columbus was a "kid of his time", but that time, despite differences to our present, nevertheless shared patterns of functioning and drives that compare to those motivations driving the world today. I do not see past and present ike black and white, and thus strictly different, or strictly the same. Some things are different today, and some still are very much the same. What appeared tohave not chnaged that much I tried to line out in the above - and that these variables are amongst those that have not chnaged that much is a reason for concern today, for it puts our global civilisational survival into question.

Possible that I mismatch "civilisational" and "cultural" here, the meaning of both terms are somewhat the other way around in English and German, but I wonder if I correctly understood it. English "civilisation" seems to be what German means by "Kultur" and "German "Zivilisation" seems to mean what English labels as "culture". I try to take this different understanding into account, but maybe I nevertheless use the wrong words at times. Joys of foreign language... :D

[CastleBravo]

He couldn't change that "spirit", but he can be held responsible for how he acted within that framework.

Ya mean this framework?

1402: Ottoman and Timurid Empires fight at the Battle of Ankara resulting in Timur's capture of Bayezid I.

1410: The Battle of Grunwald was the decisive battle of the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War leading to the downfall of the Teutonic Knights.

1415: Henry the Navigator leads the conquest of Ceuta from the Moors marking the beginning of the Portuguese Empire.

1415: Battle of Agincourt fought between the Kingdom of England and France

1420–1434: Hussite Wars in Bohemia

1441: Portuguese navigators cruise West Africa and reestablish the European slave trade with a shipment of African slaves sent directly from Africa to Portugal.

1444: Ottoman Empire under Sultan Murad II defeats the Polish and Hungarian armies under Władysław III of Poland and János Hunyadi at the Battle of Varna.

1453: The Fall of Constantinople marks the end of the Byzantine Empire and the beginning of the Growth of the Ottoman Empire.

1453: The Battle of Castillon is the last engagement of the Hundred Years' War and the first battle in European history where cannons were a major factor in deciding the battle.

1454–1466: After defeating the Teutonic Knights in the Thirteen Years' War, Poland annexes Royal Prussia.

1455–1485: Wars of the Roses – English civil war between the House of York and the House of Lancaster.

1456: The Siege of Belgrade halts the Ottoman's advance into Europe.

That's just the first half of the 15th Century. It was a violent time when people died and were subjected to many things which would be considered attrocities today.

Columbo (1451–1506) was also a contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci, (1452–1519), and much of da Vinci's work was warlike and brutal, in its concept. Would you criticize da Vinci? He didn't raise his own sword, that we know of, but he did contribute to the world of the 15th century which we in the 21st century would consider brutal.

[Shearwater]

Could you elucidate why that contradicts what I have said in my previous post, CB?

[CastleBravo]

Could you elucidate why that contradicts what I have said in my previous post, CB?

This is what stood out in my mind during my reply. I don't know if elucidate is a word but I think I know what you are asking.


One of the reasons is that even to his contemporaries, his behavior seemed extraordinarily harsh and cruel, so we cannot simply blame it on the "spirit of the times", if you will.

[KeybdFlyer]

Judging a 15th Century person by 21st Centuriy morality is a flawed paradigm, only the arrogance of political correctness allows.:nope:

Some years back I had to take my son's trendy young history teacher to task after I had seen one of the questions she'd set as homework. Basically it was "Describe how Henry VIII's actions were sexist." My son, being only 12 at the time, didn't see the invalidity of the question. By the time I'd concluded my "explanation" of why it was to his teacher, she did!