Overly Glorified or Idealized Historical Figures

[Revoltingest]

Let's consider an analogy with science....
We all know that scientific advancement is made
"on the shoulders of giants". So we may praise
Newton for his contributions to physics & math,
despite his primitive knowledge of math, & his
total lack of awareness of relativity....even the
simple special relativity.

He achieved important progress, & gets credit for
that. Could someone like Lincoln be praised as a
person for his contribution to ending slavery,
using the Constitution written by his predecessors,
who also could be seen as giants, albeit imperfect
ones in the modern gaze?

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I wasn't supporting an argument.
Just stating the facts.
(They're not opinions.)

BTW, I never said the atomic bombs were "necessary".
Only useful to avoid more USA deaths to get Japan to surrender.

They're not 'facts', apart from the 'We had 2 bombs' comment, which is absolutely a fact, with a rough lead time of just under 2 months for the production of any additional bombs.
But that's fine.

My subjective opinion (as it was in my original post that started this) is that it's quite difficult to justify the bombing of Nagasaki in particular. That remains my subjective opinion.
I also believe there are unsupported narratives on the bombings commonly believed, particularly by people sympathetic to the Allied forces and what they'd been through (I would put myself strongly in the camp of 'sympathetic to Allied forces', but don't buy the common narrative on this one). That remains my belief.

If you want to challenge either of those, I'm happy to discuss, if not, I'll tip my hat and we can wander in our own directions.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Let's consider an analogy with science....
We all know that scientific advancement is made
"on the shoulders of giants". So we may praise
Newton for his contributions to physics & math,
despite his primitive knowledge of math, & his
total lack of awareness of relativity....even the
simple special relativity.

He achieved important progress, & gets credit for
that. Could someone like Lincoln be praised as a
person for his contribution to ending slavery,
using the Constitution written by his predecessors,
who also could be seen as giants, albeit imperfect
ones in the modern gaze?

I say yes. However it is worth looking at the controversies and issues he had in his own time, so we get a more nuanced version of him.
I don't think it's very informative to judge him based on a modern lens.

 

[Revoltingest]

They're not 'facts', apart from the 'We had 2 bombs' comment, which is absolutely a fact, with a rough lead time of just under 2 months for the production of any additional bombs.
But that's fine.

My subjective opinion (as it was in my original post that started this) is that it's quite difficult to justify the bombing of Nagasaki in particular. That remains by subjective opinion.
I also believe there are unsupported narratives on the bombings commonly believed, particularly by people sympathetic to the Allied forces and what they'd been through (I would put myself strongly in the camp of 'sympathetic to Allied forces', but don't buy the common narrative on this one). That remains my belief.

If you want to challenge either of those, I'm happy to discuss, if not, I'll tip my hat and we can wander in our own directions.

I was joking about my opinions being facts.
I suspect that many judge USA's nuking of Japan
harshly because of the horror of nuclear war.
This induces prejudice, ie, a desire to see the
bombings as unnecessary. Critics speak of the
number of deaths, but ignore the greater
destructive power of firestorms that USA used
against Japan.

My own perspective is also agenda laden, of course.
I value US soldier lives higher than Japanese civilians
& soldiers. I also see a benefit to introducing the
horror of nuclear war, ie, that the general reluctance
to subsequent nuclear bombing has curbed it,
thereby enabling MAD to work....so far. (It's a very
risky strategy.)

 

[Augustus]

I say yes. However it is worth looking at the controversies and issues he had in his own time, so we get a more nuanced version of him.
I don't think it's very informative to judge him based on a modern lens.

This is the real problem of presentism and what basically amounts to smug virtue signalling.

We can learn so much more from asking why normal, decent people might have believed what they did rather than simply saying "historic man bad, me good".

 

[lewisnotmiller]

But does having conditions meaning surrender wasn't permitted?
No, that's a dubious claim. Although not as bad as claiming
that the Japanese had already surrendered.
But the 2 bombs did the job, even after killing greater numbers
in the firestorms. This suggests that fear of the weapon had
relatively greater value than the actual deaths.[/I]

Not a dubious claim at all. You should really go back and read the earlier information I linked to if you want to discuss this further.
In simple terms, the Allies were pushing for an unconditional surrender. The Japanese were discussing a conditional surrender, and there were considerably more conditions on their list than the Allies felt appropriate.
Eventually, an unconditional surrender was landed on, apart from a single condition. Even that was a sticking point. The Japanese wanted to retain their Emperor, who was literally seen as divine by some. The Allies eventually agreed to this, but only if it was outlined that it would be under the oversight of the Allied Command (can't remember exact words). Japan agreed to that, and a conditional surrender was accepted (albeit almost unconditional in practical terms).

I didn't claim they had already surrendered, so I'll assume that wasn't for me.

The US Strategic Bombing Survey I linked to earlier includes the US research conducted on the key reasons for surrender. You're using common sense to put forward a point that 'fear of the weapon had a relatively greater value than the actual deaths' but that can be true and largely uninformative at the same time.
The Russian entry to the war had a larger impact than the 2 atomic bombs, imho.
The economic blockades had a larger impact than the 2 atomic bombs, imho.
The ongoing bombing campaign, including the firebombings, had a larger impact, imho.

Ultimately, I'm not sure what point you are driving at here, or if you have a point you're trying to make. The bombs sped up surrender?

Meh, we might have moved past this. I just realised I hadn't actually posted it, and was trying to respond to @Augustus about something, so now I have a weird quote box mixed in...
I guess I'll get used to the new features at some point!!

[edit] Weirdly, the quote box for Augustus only appears in preview, but auto-hides on posting.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

This is the real problem of presentism and what basically amounts to smug virtue signalling.

We can learn so much more from asking why normal, decent people might have believed what they did rather than simply saying "historic man bad, me good".

Yup. Each of us is working from the information and 'norms' of our own day, and the best of us can see how to improve things, be more humanistic, or otherwise 'be good' from that base. None of us would be capable of living in Persia, 500BCE, and developing a Constitution protecting the rights of minorities, and enshrining people's rights. It takes a special kind of hubris to judge our ancestors in that way.

 

[Revoltingest]

Not a dubious claim at all. You should really go back and read the earlier information I linked to if you want to discuss this further.
In simple terms, the Allies were pushing for an unconditional surrender. The Japanese were discussing a conditional surrender, and there were considerably more conditions on their list than the Allies felt appropriate.
Eventually, an unconditional surrender was landed on, apart from a single condition. Even that was a sticking point. The Japanese wanted to retain their Emperor, who was literally seen as divine by some. The Allies eventually agreed to this, but only if it was outlined that it would be under the oversight of the Allied Command (can't remember exact words). Japan agreed to that, and a conditional surrender was accepted (albeit almost unconditional in practical terms).

I didn't claim they had already surrendered, so I'll assume that wasn't for me.

The US Strategic Bombing Survey I linked to earlier includes the US research conducted on the key reasons for surrender. You're using common sense to put forward a point that 'fear of the weapon had a relatively greater value than the actual deaths' but that can be true and largely uninformative at the same time.
The Russian entry to the war had a larger impact than the 2 atomic bombs, imho.
The economic blockades had a larger impact than the 2 atomic bombs, imho.
The ongoing bombing campaign, including the firebombings, had a larger impact, imho.

Ultimately, I'm not sure what point you are driving at here, or if you have a point you're trying to make. The bombs sped up surrender?

Meh, we might have moved past this. I just realised I hadn't actually posted it, and was trying to respond to @Augustus about something, so now I have a weird quote box mixed in...
I guess I'll get used to the new features at some point!!

[edit] Weirdly, the quote box for Augustus only appears in preview, but auto-hides on posting.

We've been all thru this subject before.
No one will be changing their mind.

 

[LuisDantas]

The problem with widely acclaimed people is that acclaim tends to have very poor correlation with merit. Popularity usually comes from very questionable actions, while situations of true remarkable individual merit tends to be hard to fathom by others.

That is to be expected; after all, easily discernible merit would probably be imitated fairly quickly, making it difficult to find opportunity nor reason to single out specific individuals. And leadership, while difficult to delimit, tends to involve the ability to pressure and influence others. The risk of letting one's ego overcome good judgement can't really be fully avoided.

Generally speaking, I find the very idea of giving political or military people acclaim somewhat self-contradictory. People who are given the opportunity to wield power on stead of many, many others are expected to get impressive results; that is the whole point.

Most of the people who I believe to be worth of acclaim are some sort of writer, researcher, developer or religious questioner. Edgar Allan Poe, Marie Curie, Linus Torvalds, Atisha, Boddhidharma, Shinran Shonin, Pasteur, Carlos Chagas, Oswaldo Cruz, Laozi.

Honorary mention to Badshah Khan. I don't know what to think of the man's goals, but his determination, courage and even physical prowess are undeniable.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Generally speaking, I find the very idea of giving political or military people acclaim somewhat self-contradictory. People who are given the opportunity to wield power on stead of many, many others are expected to get impressive results; that is the whole point.

Obviously, you can decide for yourself who is worthy of acclaim. I would make a couple of quick points though;

1) If you compare people to each other within their own discipline, it becomes obvious that some are 'better' than others at achieving results. You might see Poe as better than Shelley, but I wouldn't think saying 'Well, of course they present interesting ideas, and challenge norms...they are writers...is particularly meaningful. Good writers do these things. Good military leaders have different and greater impacts than bad ones. So, whilst military people might not be your cup of tea (and that's fine) I think people could still measure Napolean as a better General than Washington. And that might not mean he is 'better' in any general sense. Just like we might rate Poe a better writer than others, without actually judging them the better person.

2) Sometimes generals or politicians suffer from being viewed based on their war records only. You could argue that figures like Cyrus II or Constantine had much larger impacts in terms of religion than almost any other religious figure you could name. So when you talk about 'religious questioners', do we include them or exclude them?

 

[LuisDantas]

2) Sometimes generals or politicians suffer from being viewed based on their war records only. You could argue that figures like Cyrus II or Constantine had much larger impacts in terms of religion than almost any other religious figure you could name. So when you talk about 'religious questioners', do we include them or exclude them?

I will exclude both, for reasons that I expect to be self-evident but apparently are not.

Constantine, to the best of my knowledge, never showed any religious wisdom whatsoever. Instead, he was determined to promote a certain version of Christianity. He was of course succesful, but that is just political power being used.

Cyrus apparently is well-remembered by the Jewish people on the grounds that he showed religious tolerance. That is fine and proper and, yes, even admirable. But it is still not much when it comes to personal merit.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I will exclude both, for reasons that I expect to be self-evident but apparently are not.

Constantine, to the best of my knowledge, never showed any religious wisdom whatsoever. Instead, he was determined to promote a certain version of Christianity. He was of course succesful, but that is just political power being used.

Cyrus apparently is well-remembered by the Jewish people on the grounds that he showed religious tolerance. That is fine and proper and, yes, even admirable. But it is still not much when it comes to personal merit.

I would assume most people would find the reasons 'self-evident'. But no...I don't.
I guess ultimately I'm a little confused what you do see as constituting personal merit, either in a religious sense, or more generally. What would an example of a religious thinker be that you find merit-worthy, and why?

(To be clear, there is no need for you to justify or explain yourself to me...that's entirely up to you. I find questions like these interesting precisely because I think we all too often think of them as self-evident...)

 

[Debater Slayer]

He was a racist, but probably not beyond the norms of his time.

He was a “white man’s burden” racialist, although this belief was very much of its time and was deemed scientific and rational by those from across the political spectrum. He wasn’t a hateful racist like a Hitler, but was a white supremacist as many/most were.

Unlike today, imperialism was a progressive agenda of the left too.

I’d say he was very much a man of his time, not an outlier and should be judged accordingly.

I happened to stumble upon this article today, and I'm interested to know your thoughts on this:

Of course, it’s easy to dismiss any criticism of these actions as anachronistic. Didn’t everybody think that way then? One of the most striking findings of Toye’s research is that they really didn’t: even at the time, Churchill was seen as at the most brutal and brutish end of the British imperialist spectrum. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin was warned by Cabinet colleagues not to appoint him because his views were so antedeluvian. Even his startled doctor, Lord Moran, said of other races: “Winston thinks only of the colour of their skin.”

Many of his colleagues thought Churchill was driven by a deep loathing of democracy for anyone other than the British and a tiny clique of supposedly superior races. This was clearest in his attitude to India. When Mahatma Gandhi launched his campaign of peaceful resistance, Churchill raged that he “ought to be lain bound hand and foot at the gates of Delhi, and then trampled on by an enormous elephant with the new Viceroy seated on its back.” As the resistance swelled, he announced: “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.” This hatred killed. To give just one, major, example, in 1943 a famine broke out in Bengal, caused – as the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has proved – by the imperial policies of the British. Up to 3 million people starved to death while British officials begged Churchill to direct food supplies to the region. He bluntly refused. He raged that it was their own fault for “breeding like rabbits”. At other times, he said the plague was “merrily” culling the population.

Not his finest hour: The dark side of Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill is rightly remembered for leading Britain through her finest hour – but what if he also led the country through her most shameful hour? What if, in addition to rousing a nation to save the world from the Nazis, he fought for a raw white supremacism and a concentration camp...

www.independent.co.uk

A lot of what I have read about him points to deep hatred for other peoples, not just a belief that they needed to be "civilized" by white people. The amount of death and suffering he caused is quite possibly on par with that caused by Lenin. This is why it seems to me that his racism, even if it was normalized back then, went further than the racism of the majority in his time. I agree we shouldn't judge him by today's standards, but I also think that, much like Lenin, even many of his contemporaries wouldn't have been as ruthless and murderous as he was.

 

[Debater Slayer]

My own perspective is also agenda laden, of course.
I value US soldier lives higher than Japanese civilians
& soldiers.

I would understand valuing the lives of American soldiers more than the lives of Japanese soldiers or any others who were fighting for the Axis, but civilians? Why? I'm curious how you find this to be a defensible position considering that many civilians had no say in the war and no power to stop it.

 

[Left Coast]

I have been reading about Che Guevara and a few other prominent Marxists, and I find it disturbing that so many people don T-shirts or keep items bearing his visage in an idealizing manner. He had some good goals, such as liberation from imperialism, but some of his actions and words were dubious at best and, in my opinion, should definitely disqualify him from being held up as a role model to the extent where his image is on everyday items.

I suspect that many who participate in the pop-culture glorification of him either contribute to exploitation of third-world countries—which would make them inconsistent or at least misinformed about their own contribution to such or about what Guevara stood for—or would hate to live under the rule of someone with his overall mindset, which was extremely violent and unhesitant in being so.

I also similarly dislike glorification of Winston Churchill. He was a great leader for Britain during World War II, but he was also deeply racist even beyond the norms of his time and oversaw violent colonialism in multiple parts of the world.

Which historical figures do you think are overly glorified or idealized when they shouldn't be?

Is no one gonna bring up Jesus?

 

[Twilight Hue]

I'd say Mother Threasa who would never step foot in her own hospitals to get treated.

 

[Aupmanyav]

A whole lot in India. Chhtrapati Shivaji, Rani Laxmi Bai (called as the Joan Ark of India), Gandhi, Nehru, Subhas Bose, etc.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Is no one gonna bring up Jesus?

The title says 'historical figures', so...

*flees*

 

[LuisDantas]

I would assume most people would find the reasons 'self-evident'. But no...I don't.
I guess ultimately I'm a little confused what you do see as constituting personal merit, either in a religious sense, or more generally. What would an example of a religious thinker be that you find merit-worthy, and why?

I focus on the innovation and wisdom and disregard matters of contribution to spread.

Laozi, even if he did not necessarily exist as a sole, physical person, is worthy because he codified the Tao Te Ching, which happens to be a religious text of rare insight and worth.

Constantine, far as I know, never had a religious teaching of his own. He aggressively promoted his own vision of Christianity, which is entirely besides the point and IMO a demerit.

Bodhidharma dared to challenge the apparently widespread assumption that enlightment should only be pursued by paying a lot of attention to the written contents of the Sutras (and perhaps other texts as well; I'm not sure on this particular) and developed his own path for the purpose, accepting the duties, prices and consequences. That is merit, even if again it is not entirely clear that he existed as an actual person.

While I am in the subject of people of dubious existence, there is also Plato's Socrates. Fictional characters as it was, it spoke words of true religious wisdom.

By contrast, I have little time and less patience for people attempting to interest me in the worth of scriptures that tell me how Abraham's god is totally real and I ought to ensure a pleasant afterlife by reading scriptures of about nil value and submitting to the authority and will of said god. That is quite the opposite of both religion and wisdom.

 

[Revoltingest]

I would understand valuing the lives of American soldiers more than the lives of Japanese soldiers or any others who were fighting for the Axis, but civilians? Why? I'm curious how you find this to be a defensible position considering that many civilians had no say in the war and no power to stop it.

In any war, each side values its own more than foes.
The Japanese were the hideous worse side in WW2.
You might disagree with this, but I say that it was
morally compelling to defeat them. This is so,
despite USA being less than saintly.
Winning meant vicious, violent, deadly, destructive
acts. They tried to kill us. We killed more of them.

War is not sport. Fighting fair is a stupid idea.
Results should not be equal. Winning is the goal,
& overwhelming advantage is the best tool.
It's unavoidable that civilians with suffer & die.
No one should kill civilians out of carelessness or
vengeance, but there are situations where their
deaths result from actions useful to winning a war.
The greatest good generally involves some evil.