Yale is efficient. They’ve been debating whether to rename a building named after John Calhoun, the 19th century racist defender of slavery. Remember, this is the guy who said
I hold that the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding states between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good. A positive good.
One could reasonably make an argument that it is unfair to impose modern moral standards on a man dead for a hundred and sixty years, and I’d agree that yes, John C. Calhoun was a product of his time and place, the antebellum South. However it is also unfair to expect that antebellum Southern standards be respected in 21st century America — it works both ways. Yale made the right decision to rename the building after Grace Hopper.
The debate might not have gone on so long if everyone had known that the decision would also drive Geraldo Riviera to sever ties with the university.
Resigned yesterday as Associate Fellow of Calhoun College at Yale. Been an honor but intolerant insistence on political correctness is lame.
Political correctness.
There’s a phrase that has become a solid tell for reactionary idiocy. I’ve never seen the words used for anything but to complain about reasonable actions by people with some degree of empathy. I imagine Riviera, if he’d lived at the time, would have called the Emancipation Proclamation a politically correct
document, as if there were no moral force behind the liberation of slave and that it was just Ol’ Abe virtue signaling
.
At least Yale has managed to purge two assholes at once with one action.
When I see the name “Geraldo Riviera ” i always think it refers to the conductor of a light dance orchestra from the 1940’s.
That Geraldo might have been a nicer person.
There is also lexicographical correctness. As when Geraldo Rivera, slimeball TV personality, does not want to be confused with Geraldo Riviera, conductor of a light dance orchestra. In that case Rivera’s complaint would be justified.
Ever notice that whenever someone complains about “political correctness” you can usually substitute the words “common courtesy” without changing the real meaning of what they said?
While I applaud Yale for getting rid of the Calhoun name, and congratulate them on losing that slimeball Rivera, I’d advise them to do some soul-searching about the name of their university. After all, Elihu Yale, their founder, made his money as a slave trader. Once you start something, where do you stop?
:cough: Hopper vs Calhoun.
royhilbinger #4
Elihu Yale was not the “founder” of Yale, he donated some stuff which the actual founders sold to raise funds.
You can now add to Rear Admiral Grace Hopper’s extremely impressive résumé “very effective stone”.
“”Political correctness.” There’s a phrase that has become a solid tell for reactionary idiocy.”
I was at a food co-op meeting in the early 1980’s and heard someone refer to another person as ‘politically correct’ because of their repetitive over-insistence on being sure that everything was natural/organic/etc. The ‘pc person’ was listened to, and productively influenced the decisions the meeting made, there was not a disagreement with their goals, just with the continual argument that person was making (i.e. ‘would not take yes for an answer’). So I took the term to mean ‘someone who was a bit too doctrinaire about their efforts to do good’ (i.e. commendable, but a bit problematic). Which was confusing when ten to twenty years later when the term started being ‘a tell for reactionary idiocy’.
Elihu Yale was a pretty nasty guy as well. He profited from the Slave trade and was, overall, one of the more corrupt individuals in the British East India Company. He was, for a while, Governor of home state of Madras and was sacked for his corrupt ways. From what I understand, he wasn’t much of a philanthropist either.
From Wikipedia:
An article that year in American Heritage magazine rated Elihu Yale the “most overrated philanthropist” in American history, arguing that the college that became Yale University was successful largely because of the generosity of a man named Jeremiah Dummer, but that the trustees of the school did not want it known by the name “Dummer College”.
Much as I despise Elihu Yale, I understand why they would want to keep that name. ‘Dummer University’ would absolutely *not* be an attractive alternative. ?
– RM
Dateline 2087:
Progressives rejoiced when the name of Martin Luther King was finally removed from the academic building that bore his name since 1977. One celebrant put it this way: “Yes, it’s hard to imagine that so many people ate the flesh of dead animals in our not-so-distant past. And yes, MLK shouldn’t be judged by the horrific culinary standards of his day. But that doesn’t mean we should honor a man whose misguided diet gave support and succor to industries that not only enslaved our brothers and sisters in the animal kingdom but actually fattened them up in preparation for their bloody slaughter, all in the name of profit.
That analogy is not weak, it’s helpless.
Well, you may be right. On the other hand (even if accurate in this case) the cheap practice of the abrupt dismissal of an analogy as weak (helpless), game over man, victory is mine! is itself an exceeding weak tactic used by those without an actual argument.
I’ll stand by my point, that when society judges the morals of our time, we will be found lacking, and some of our heroes will be relegated to the trash heap. And at the moment, when I try to imagine what practice widespread today has the potential of being utterly abhorrent in the future, then only possibility I can imagine is eating meat. There will be others– the nature of the question suggests that such things are hard to imagine at the time.
???
Bill Buckner @ # 12: … when I try to imagine what practice widespread today has the potential of being utterly abhorrent in the future, then only possibility I can imagine is eating meat.
Building a brutal empire, with weapons capable of devastating all life on the planet, while inducing catastrophic climate change and oppressing major segments of the empire’s interior population, just doesn’t register?
You are missing the boat. There is not, at least among progressives, any shared view that those who enable what you just described are heroes. I was looking for a practice that was common among those we do consider heroes, such as MLK, and try, as an exercise, to imagine what happens when what is considered acceptable practice in their time becomes repulsive in the future. Eating meat is all that I can imagine–perhaps because we are in the nascent period of such a shift.
leaving aside the Small Matter that if eating meat ever becomes that level of anathema — could happen, I suppose — that wipes out pretty much EVERY historical figure prior to this century.
also the Small Matter that slavery was NOT “considered acceptable practice” by most of the civilized world, even in Calhoun’s day (hint: the British Empire outlawed the slave trade in 1807 and abolished slavery in its dominions by 1833; Spain’s ban dates from 1811).
If, in 2087, the killing of animals becomes the great moral crisis of the century, who are you to dictate how our descendants respond? Shall we also bring charges of maiestas against all citizens of the world in 2017 who have failed to maintain a bust of the Emperor Augustus in an appropriately reverential place in their homes?
I would hope all people could be appreciated for the good they’ve done, as well as the wrongs they commit. History shouldn’t be about sweeping our mistakes into the dustbin.
Why leave it aside? It’s sorta the point.
That’s debatable. In Calhoun’s environment and in his (American) culture there was significant acceptance of the institution in his time. What do you mean by the “civilized” world? Is that just a question-begging “those countries that outlawed slavery?” Slavery was widespread in Africa, in the east, and in the Arab world. Were they all uncivilized?
Perhaps, in spite of the fact that I never said so, you have the mistaken impression that I am not in favor of renaming Calhoun College. I am in favor of it. Perhaps, in spite of the fact that I never said so, you have the mistaken impression that I am making an equivalency between slavery and eating meat. I am not. I find slavery in all forms– in the Americas, in Africa, in the east, it is all utterly abhorrent. And, by the way, I eat meat.
I simply brought up the notion that, unless you believe that we have evolved to a steady-state of superior and immutable morality, the same kind of value judgements might be made, in the future, regarding our heroes. I find the possibility weirdly fascinating. If you don’t, that’s cool.
Bill Buckner @ # 15: … a practice that was common among those we do consider heroes…
Such as paying taxes to support a brutal empire … ?
Perhaps you should look up the word dictate. It is not a synonym for speculate.
I don’t grasp your point. Are you providing an example (ad absurdum) that, in the future, maintaining a bust of Emperor Augustus might become a moral imperative? I think my speculation that eating meat might come to be viewed as immoral is slightly more credible. However, we can run with your example. If in a hundred years the mores of the day include the necessity of a bust of Augustus in every home, then indeed some heroes of the modern era might be re-evaluated for their turpitude.
I am not aware of anyone arguing that it should be. My comment is about what might, to our surprise, come to be viewed, in the future, as our mistakes.
Bill Buckner @ # 15: … we are in the nascent period of such a shift.
At least per Kage Baker’s “Company” stories.
You maintain an awesomely rosy view of our civilizational prospects…
Now that I understand, I think you have a great point, and it was I who was missing the boat. The fact that our heroes of today paid taxes that supported brutality and mass killings of civilians could conceivably come to be viewed as such a moral failure as to view them as morally culpable in those atrocities. That is a better example than eating meat.
They were regarded as backward at the time. One might reasonably debate how “civilized” the European powers truly were given the various atrocities they committed over the course of the 19th century, but the point is nobody in the West, and particularly nobody in the US, was looking to Africa or the Arab world as an exemplar of “acceptable practices”. The folks who were defending slavery came up with other, more abstract, ways to justify it. The antebellum South was an outlier in continuing to defend slavery for as long as they did and they did it simply because it was insanely profitable (same goes for other outliers like Brazil).
If you go back and read my original post (16), you may notice that all I did was point out flaws in your analogy. Your defensiveness is your affair.
Hum, 22 comments (as I type this), of which precisely two mention Hopper by name. This observation seems like it could be an example of something(s?)…
wrog,
You wrote in #16
which, reasonably I believe, I took to be a meaningful comment only if I was making an equivalency. Hence my clarification in #18.
So what? Nor were they looking to Europe to justify slavery. You are the one who brought up the
“civilized” world. I thought you meant Europe. It now appears, based on this comment, to be vanishingly small.
I frigging hate when people make a comment like this. Or its cousin “kind of sensitive, aren’t you?” It has no substance and is intended only as a kind of cheap, back-handed insult. Fuck that.
PZ, A residential college at Yale such as
CalhounHopper, is not a “building”. It’s a courtyard with several buildings in it, mostly dorms; in one case (Berkeley Residential College) TWO courtyards connected by a tunnel.@Bill Buckner
Say that hypothetical does happen – so what? The entire point of the progressive movement is to raise societal standards for those within the society, and that means that successes will cause previous heroes of the movement to fall short of the newer and better society. That’s a good thing. Future generations should be looking back on our generation and those previous with the attitude that we were different than they will be because we were in a different and worse time.
It’s besides the point for Calhoun anyways, as he was never a hero among progressives in the first place, but the whole idea that we shouldn’t distance ourselves from the atrocities of the past because future civilizations will distance themselves from our atrocities is ridiculous. We should, and so should they.
Bill Buckner I am not sure what your original post means or why you posted it.
Were you by comparison criticizing the name change? By your replies maybe not or maybe yes?
I am not so sure about your choice of eating meat and MLK as a representative example of “political correctness” however. It would seem more accurate to think that it is not eating meat which seems to be something that humans have been doing at least as long as we have been recognized as a separate line of evolution but in how we manage it.
I would make more sense that it would be how we raise “meat” that would fall into disrepute and it would be the renaming of things named after huge agribusiness conglomerates like Archer Daniels Midland.
That aside I still do not know why bother with a critique?
uncle frogy
My first question is why it was named after this person in the first place? Was it donated by this person, or simply named posthumously to honor an individual? If it’s the latter it’s simple. This is a statement, if you no longer can stand behind that you are of course free to change this. If donated one should at least tell the whole story, good and bad so we can learn from past mistakes. Make the area a reminder of the cruelty this person supported.
Even if we accept that we all are products of our times, we cannot completely get rid of the stain. Right is right, wrong is wrong.
Knabb @27: We obviously read Bill Buckner’s comment very differently.
That was, I believe, exactly Bill’s point.
Of course it is. Who said otherwise?
@30
so you say but I may be wrong but from the comparison I do not get that.
Calhoun was not just some one who lived at the same time as slavery and just owned slaves himself but he was a famous and influential defender of slavery and its associated racism While while MLK may have enjoyed eating meat I do not remember any speeches in which he advocated eating meat, defending feed lots nor praising slaughter houses so I missed the point.
the follow up explanation sounds strange
uncle frogy
unclefrogy @31: When you actually come across a perfect analogy, let me know, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen one.
yah well that one seemed just a little bit more than just imperfect to me. It seemed to me that MLK was chosen as was meat eating for the emotional reaction and motivated not by the follow up explanation but from a reaction to changing the name other wise I do not see the point of making the critique at all as no one else was.
if the point was truly the follow up it did not work very well and It looked like it was just to get a rise out of some.
uncle frogy
Good for Yale. Nobody is sweeping Calhoun under the rug or making him an unperson Trotsky-style – they’re just changing the name of a building that wasn’t build and named after him until the 1930s. And Calhoun was genuinely a toxic influence on the country, a staunch promoter of slaveholder rights and nullification by South Carolina (one of the few good things that Andrew Jackson did was clamp down on nullification and tell Calhoun to knock it off or he’d be hanged for treason). It wasn’t like he was just a deeply flawed person who nonetheless had a net positive impact on our country’s history.
Bill, indirectly, by making a comment for which no other intelligible reason for bothering to make it, let alone phrasing it as he did, can be divined
Racism is a product of our time and place as well, sadly.
Erlend Meyer, the naming was purely an honour, not the result of a donation or anything similar. They wanted to name the colleges after “great” alumni of Yale, and picked Calhoun as one of them
wrog, #23
Ancient China and the Arab world at the height of its power in the Middle Ages weren’t regarded as “backward”.
If I may rephrase Bill’s line of argument: no one is perfect. Whoever we revere now, or hold up for praise, it is pretty much guaranteed that they have a dark side of some kind that might be held against them in the future. It is too easy to pick faults with someone, eg. sure Bill Gates spent a lot of his money to help people in Africa and other charities, but he drove gasoline-powered cars. PZ worked for tirelessly to fight against inequality and social issues, but did he ease his conscience by just sending money to Greenpeace or Friends of the Earth instead of joining the Sea Shepherds ramming whaling ships?
Just thoughts to consider. Is renaming a building whitewashing history? Could your legacy be erased because of a bad habit you had, or a behavior that no one thinks much about now but future generations might condemn? Is renaming a building that important?
http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/43087620460/i-was-reading-a-book-about-interjections-oddly
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/this-google-chrome-extension-replaces-political-correctness-with-something-more-accurate_us_55c82605e4b0923c12bd4a91
If I were a lexicographer, I would be strongly tempted to include this as one of the primary definitions of the phrase “political correctness” along with a note about the speaker’s intended meaning vs the actual meaning.