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Old 04-07-2014, 12:14 PM
 
Location: New Mexico
4,788 posts, read 2,766,670 times
Reputation: 4910

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dopo View Post
One of the main factors for this is that people think that "some were good and some were bad"
If one hadn't enslaved the other (using slavery as an example) I guarantee it would have happened the other way around.

We can start by stop constantly saying H:tler was the worst person in the World but nobody ever says that President Truman was a bad person for dropping two atomic bombs on Japan.

Blacks would have come to the New World, invaded and conquered, and enslaved the Europeans and their descendants? That is an interesting scenario, but - barring the Barbary Pirates and related who gave US shipping in the Mediterranean and Presidents Jefferson and Monroe such problems - when did we suffer from Black slave takers?

President Truman's decision to use nukes on Japan has been very much debated, especially in the last couple of decades. Witness the Smithsonian's 1995 display of the Enola Gay, was it? There was a veritable firestorm of protest, pro and con.
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Old 04-07-2014, 01:50 PM
 
Location: New Mexico
4,788 posts, read 2,766,670 times
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Default Better living through tech

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Originally Posted by jtur88 View Post
Is that really so? Or have there been historical events that dead-ended, with no influence on anything? Some of your large and bold arrows pointing off onto blank white paper.

An example comes to mind of the US Moon landing. OK, been there, done that, and the world went on exactly as if men had never been to the moon. What science or geo-politics learned from the exercise probably isn't even relevant anymore to any endeavors of today, and a repetition of it today would not be any more nor less challenging than if we had never put a man up there. In a sense, our man on the moon was our Sphinx and pyramids. Which also fall into the category of asking how world event would have ever taken a different turn had there been no pyramids.

And the next question, would a dead-end event make something less historically "important"? Or does history exist for itself alone, regardless of how our knowledge of it can be applied to practical affairs.

No, the moon landings provided - and are still providing - data for the moon's origin, composition, long-term effects of regolith exposure to cosmic rays, solar radiation, vacuum - a lot of data, to feed into various theories. Science doesn't abandon data - it's the theories and experiments that are used to probe our understanding that undergo evolution, not the basic samples/data, etc.

There was a lot of discussion about the change in POV once photos of the Big blue marble in space - Earth as seen rising over the lunar landscape - were published. I think there's a link there to the rise of environmentalism, a concern for the biosphere, industrial pollution, the beginning of study of climate change caused by human activity. There had been a theoretical understanding of these issues, but I think the photos & footage of Earthrise on the moon, the views of spacewalks and shots of the terminator sweeping over the planet, helped move that conversation along.

And of course we have comms satellites in orbit, relaying everything from telephone, TV signals, radio, Internet and on and on. We're not backing away from high technology, far from it. GPS is embedded in our military, smartphones, laptops, cars. Commercial fleets - cars, semis, ships, trains - can be and often are tracked in real time - to help with planning deliveries and avoiding drunkards' walks, as much as possible.
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Old 04-07-2014, 05:56 PM
 
21,389 posts, read 10,430,634 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dd714 View Post
Yes you are right, but my response was more concerned about internal history in the US - the president who had slaves, Christopher Columbus, the American who worked for the Nazis. Why do we beat up on ourselves so much? I figured that was the topic.
What you are talking about is ethnic, religious, and cultural fueds (I think, it wasn't clear) that originated millineums ago, which never seem to go away - British vs. French, Greek vs. Turkey, Arabs vs. Jew, Arab Shiite vs Arab Sunni. Those issues are more complex, but a different topic. At least that's how I interpreted the OP.
It's exactly those long memories that cause so much turmoil in those regions. They don't look at history as something to learn from. They get mad about something people did long ago. That is stupid. Why should I carry the guilt of my ancestors? I didn't own slaves or cause segregation. I didn't kill the native population for lands. In fact, I have Cherokee blood running through my veins. People change, and areas with long memories are not great places to be.

Last edited by katygirl68; 04-07-2014 at 06:13 PM..
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Old 04-07-2014, 06:12 PM
 
21,389 posts, read 10,430,634 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by muer22 View Post
We happen to disagree. You are saying that the majority will always be right. People deciding to evict Natives off the land is moral because most of the people agreed with westward expansion ? What do you think of the wife of the Winchester Rifles? She agreed with selling weapons to "win the west", then later went crazy as she sought sanctuary from the Native spirits by build the now infamous Winchester mansion in San Jose. So are you saying Ms. Winchester was moral one part of her life then moral another part of her life with a completely different view? Please explain.

My rebuttal is sometimes Barbarians who rape, torture, and war against other people rule nations. Just because they are might does not make them right.

Another argument is that by using the southern USA you are establishing an arbitrary division. I can, in the same spirit, say the majority of them people in southern Texas support a cause therefore it is right. Yes right if it does not go against the rights of other people. This is where we diverge.


Many southerns disagreed with slavery...uhhh no thats not correct. Yes the French speaking Mark Twain did, but he was not your average southerner. You should read The Cotton Kingdom by Abolitionist Frederick Law Olmsted. In his journal you will see almost no sympathy for slaves. The few sympathizers he found were the Irish. Also the people of Western Virginia were against slavery which is why the suceeded and became West Virginia. There were other abolitionist pockets in the south, to my knowledge in more mountainous regions where slavery was notnthat useful...Kentucky, East Tennessee
And yes Tallinn, Estonia, my bad
I'm curious what cause you think the majority of people in southern Texas believe. Are you talking about slavery back in the 19th Century, or are you talking about the present time? Inquiring minds want to know.

As for your other stuff, yes, we get it. Slavery was wrong, and all thinking and moral people believe that in the present time. However, in the 19th Century until the British abolished it outright, it was a common practice throughout the world for millennia. That it took another 20 years and a bloody civil war to abolish it here is sad, but actually understandable. Massive change in thought often takes a generation or more to spread throughout the population.
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Old 04-07-2014, 06:22 PM
 
21,389 posts, read 10,430,634 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph_Kirk View Post
No, there's no difference. The issues have not gone away. Lessons have not been learned, attitudes have not changed.

At least not until all of us Boomers are dead.
Really, come on man! The issues HAVE gone away. There is not one single black slave today that is owned legally (of course we all know that people of all races are being trafficked for sex or manual labor right under our noses). Of course attitudes have changed. We have a black president for goodness sakes! He wasn't elected solely by the 12% of black people in the USA.
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Old 04-07-2014, 06:24 PM
 
Location: Cushing OK
14,539 posts, read 21,159,203 times
Reputation: 16936
Quote:
Originally Posted by katygirl68 View Post
It's exactly those long memories that cause so much turmoil in those regions. They don't look at history as something to learn from. They get mad about something people did long ago. That is stupid. Why should I carry the guilt of my ancestors? I didn't own slaves or c ause segregation. I didn't kill the native population for lands. In fact, I have Cherokee blood running through my veins. People change, and areas with long memories are not great places to be.
We seem to have a problem seperating the actions of ancestors within their own time and the perceptions we do today. Its awfully presumptious of us to assume that everything we do will in two or three hundred years be percieved as perfectly all right. We can only see the results of some actions on the whole as they play through time, and see the missed options they had. But if it has to be done with approval or disapproval of the time you lose the perspective which it should offer.

My family is largely southern, and I doubt many would have owned slaves (that's what all those kids on the farm were for) but I'm sure I don't mirror their attitudes. I won't condem them for being a part of their society either. I certainly won't feel any 'guilt' over any choices they made. We are all individuals and make our own choices, even those in other now deceased ones.

But if you pull back, let people of the past just be who they were and not be good or bad except by their own times defination, we can really look at how history works. The most powerful argument against those things we see as bad in the past is the effects it had over time and this is most clear when its studied dispationately and with the intent to learn, not moralize.
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Old 04-09-2014, 02:23 PM
 
854 posts, read 1,472,244 times
Reputation: 1003
I think it's because history still affects us. Even if the original players are dead, their children inherit a lot of their fortune and misfortune, and their values...
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Old 04-09-2014, 02:44 PM
 
28,563 posts, read 18,563,896 times
Reputation: 30802
Quote:
Originally Posted by spicymeatball View Post
I think it's because history still affects us. Even if the original players are dead, their children inherit a lot of their fortune and misfortune, and their values...
If we still have their fortune, misfortune, and values, then it's not "history" at all. It's a continuing circumstance.
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Old 04-14-2014, 03:01 PM
 
6,082 posts, read 6,004,241 times
Reputation: 1916
Quote:
Originally Posted by travric View Post
At times, no doubt the residual 'anger' inherent from looking at history is active and as suggested others can take advantage of it and not in a good way.
Dude, that's MSNBC and FNC entire business model.
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