Nature magazine has run a piece titled — brace yourself, it’s ridiculously bad — “Removing statues of historical figures risks whitewashing history”. It is subtitled “Science must acknowledge mistakes as it marks its past”, just to make it a little bit worse.
The objection is that people are clamoring to tear down a statue of a doctor and scientist, J. Marion Sims. How dare they question the honoring of a scientist?
The statues of explorer Christopher Columbus and gynaecologist J. Marion Sims stand at nearly opposite corners of New York City’s Central Park, but for how much longer? Both monuments have been dragged into a nationwide debate about memorials to historical figures who have questionable records on human rights. The arguments are long-standing, but were thrown onto the world’s front pages last month when protests against the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia, produced racially charged violence.
Last week, the Central Park Sims statue — one of many that stand in numerous US cities — was vandalized. The word ‘racist’ was spray-painted alongside his list of achievements, which include life-saving techniques he developed to help women recover from traumatic births. Yet many protest about the lionization of this ‘father of modern gynaecology’ because he performed his experiments on female slaves.
Yes, let us remember that Sims did save women’s lives. Sims pioneered a surgical treatment for vesico-vaginal fistulas (VVF), a common outcome of difficult labor that produced tears between the bladder and vagina and led to constant leakage of urine into the vagina. It was debilitating and shame-producing. Sims worked out a way to close off the fistulas. We don’t want to forget that!
Another thing we don’t want to forget is how it was worked out. That little line I highlighted up there, “because he performed his experiments on female slaves”, is minimizing what he did, and that also is a whitewashing of history, and failing to acknowledge a “mistake”, if we can call willful infliction of pain on unconsenting people a “mistake”. If we’re going to talk about the good that he accomplished, we also have to consider the evil of his method. I’ve read some justifications for his surgeries that say that because black slaves also suffered from VVF, it was legitimate that he experimented on them — they benefited too from his work! But let’s not forget that the reason he operated on these women is that he did not have to get their consent, and that part of his excuse is the belief that black people are less sensitive to pain.
And what he did was horrendous. Even acknowledging that all surgeries in the early 19th century were horrendous, he treated women like experimental animals. Here’s an account of his first experimental subject:
The enslaved women were not asked if they would agree to such an operation as they were totally without any claims to decision-making about their bodies or any other aspect of their lives. Sims used a total of seven enslaved women as experimental subjects; permission was obtained from their masters. They were in no way volunteers for Dr Sims’s research.
Nevertheless, Dr Sims was so positive that he was on the verge of making an astounding medical discovery that he invited local doctors to witness his first operation and what he thought would be a historical event. He performed his first operation on a slave-woman named Lucy.
Lucy was operated on without anaesthetics as Sims was unaware of the advances which had been made in this area of medicine. The surgery lasted for an hour and Lucy endured excruciating pain while positioned on her hands and knees. She must have felt extreme humiliation as twelve doctors observed the operation. Unfortunately, the operation failed as ‘two little openings in the line of union, across the vagina … remained although the larger fistula had been repaired’.
Lucy nearly lost her life, due to the experimental use by Sims of a sponge to drain the urine away from the bladder, as she became extremely ill with fever resulting from blood-poisoning. In recounting the episode in his autobiography, Sims says, ‘I thought she was going to die . . . it took Lucy two or three months to recover entirely from the effects of the operation’.
Sims’ method belongs in the history books, and no one is proposing erasing this protocol from the annals of medicine. But ignoring the suffering and degradation of the women in this experiment, as we have to do to think Sims deserves the honor of a prominent monument, erases a shameful era in our history, all while Nature protests that those who understand the full range of Sims’ actions are the ones doing the erasure.
It’s embarrassing, too, because whoever wrote this ought to know that the work of scientists isn’t honored with statuary. It’s honored with the work of those who follow afterwards.
Let the statues of Sim stand, I say. Just put memorials of his victims next to them.
Pretty much the entire problem here IS the ‘whitewashing” of history. Gleaming statues of whites put up to celebrate the horrible things they did.
Seriously, is there any other country on the planet that erects statues, monuments and names schools and highways after TRAITORS who fought a war to keep humans as livestock?
If they’re ‘reminders of history’:
Where are the monuments glorifying Tojo or Hitler in this country, or the statues heralding the bravery of the Wehrmacht in WWII?
Where are the schools named for Generals Gage or Ross?
How many highways in this country bear Benedict Arnold’s name?
They deserve nothing but being melted to make something useful, like a chamberpot…
Brucej @2
Ooooh! If I could afford it, I would sooooo commission a statue of Benedict Arnold! It wouldn’t even be all that sarcastic as he was a hero who saw the error of his ways during the American Rebellion and joined with his rightful king to fight against the insurgents led by that traitor to the crown, George Washington!
Pretty much the way some men feel about all women today. Unfortunately, a number of those men are in positions of power, making similar callous decisions that affect the lives of large numbers of women.
Next to the one for Sims, can we put up a statue to Dr. Mengele? Really, is there any difference in the arguments?
@Tabby Lavalamp:
There already is a monument to Benedict Arnold: it’s called the Boot Monument, and commemorates the injury he served in one of the battles he fought and won. It then doesn’t actually name him.
Jesus, those poor women. I’ve had a breast opened, a 2.5″ incision and about 18 inches of wick inserted without anaesthetic, and I can only imagine what those women went through. There’s no excuse. Sims would never have dreamed of doing this on a white woman; and let’s be honest – he wasn’t pioneering this in order to help slaves, or any other brown women.
WHAT?!?!? That’s like tearing down a statue of Dr. Mengele!!
Oh. There aren’t any statues of Mengele? Wow.
So, I feel like this is slightly more complicated.
A statue of Robert E Lee probably doesn’t deserve to be in public space because, generally speaking, it is a statue specifically venerating his work as a general of the Confederacy, attempting to preserve the institution of slavery. A statue of Washington or Jefferson probably does, because while we should remember that they were flawed, and that they owned slaves and did terrible things, they also have legitimate reasons to be celebrated as founders of the country.
But if your accomplishments entail your tragedies, it doesn’t seem intuitively obvious that either rule applies. I’m not sure the statue should come down, but I’m not sure it should stay up either.
Haven’t you see the statues of Charles Dawson in the front and Sir Arthur Woodward in the back of Nature’s London office?
You know, it’s funny, Germans seem to remember their history without a single statue of Hitler in sight.
Almost like history is written in books or something.
Ugg…yeah, the article is a bit of a mess. They could perhaps have celebrated the vandals for correcting the error, for starters. Worse, they make a point at the end that actually defeats their argument (as weak as it was to begin):
I’m not sure what they mean by that part I bolded of “a million miles away.” In my mind, it highlights how ineffective their proposal of monuments to the controversy would be. I read that as saying that, though the monument is nearby, no one is going to know it’s even there. This is why I suspect they mean something else by “a milling miles away,” and I suspect they are trying to note a sharp contrast. I’m not buying it.
To state this another way, my feeling about all of this is it is all about how people interpret the monuments. Putting up monuments recognizing controversy or the darker parts of history won’t do jack shit if people ignore those.
Even NATURE pulls the “erasing history” gambit, over removing statues?
“Erasing history” is redacting history books etc all references to the character being “erased”
Statues “glorify” a person, honoring their achievements. Their mistakes do need to be honored, simply record them in documents about the person.
I’m reminded of Session’s weird argument against removing Civil War General’s statues.
To paraphrase, he said the only argument for removing them is too focused on the past, we need to keep eyes on the future. Not realizing ( or trying to deflect) that keeping the monuments is itself remains focused on the past and refusing to accept the present.
Re 13
Typo: dropped a word
” Their mistakes do *NOT* need to be honored, simply…”
@ Caine #7 : It seems that Sims rarely used anesthetics. Historicalyl this is based on his own attitudes, practices, and documented timing of use of anesthetics which make it more likely he operated on white women all the same.
How is it that this blog is so out of touch with reason!?
How do Ftb thinks it is right to look back through history and overlay our current moral and ethical enlightenment to other time periods!? Overall is seems all of Sims practices were customary for the time period in which they were performed. This would be no different than Ftb being for the usage of ex post facto laws.
I think the slippery slope is that people who are against the statues are really against just any commemorative icon because it is unlikely that any historical person with a notable contribution does not have something that TODAY we find repugnant.
So, we are just against statues of any kind because if you look hard enough into anyone’s past you will find something to give reason not to commemorate especially farther back in history as acceptable culture norms were very different. Even today the world is full of decadence… kids sexting, mayors leaving hotels with hookers, city councils money laundering, and judicial bribes. If I want to use someone’s character flaws against them then you simply need to follow them for a while and interview some of their childhood acquaintances.
People against some of these statues need to find something better to do.
#15
Perhaps the one piece of useful wisdom the Bible has to offer is its condemnation of graven images. Not that they are necessarily bad, but are often far too vague to encompass very complicated historical figures.
By the way, your intentional obtuseness deserves no serious reply.
Abhorrent practices like owning slaves and using them as experimental guinea pigs don’t stop being abhorrent just because they were “socially acceptable” in the past. No one here is talking about opposing statues over minor misdeeds. We’re talking about statues praising the works of horrible people who did horrible things. That their horrible deeds were “socially acceptable” or proved beneficial after the fact don’t make them not horrible.
Not sure why you felt the need to put “kids sexting” in that list. It’s hardly comparable to money laundering or bribes. And I would say that yes, a statue honoring a mayor who was laundering money or a judge who was taking bribes should be taken down because such a person is not someone that should be honored, regardless of what good they may have done.
Because things like enslavement and forced surgical experimentation are not travesties, they’re “character flaws”, amirite?
Sure, those all do sound comparable to performing torturous medical experiments on non-consenting women because their race made them property! Every age has its faults, and I guess for some reason we close our eyes to what they are.
It’s all well and good to talk about judging people by what was “customary for the time period”. That’s something every sensible historian should take into account. But it can be a trickier thing than you might realize – not everyone in the 1800s saw black people as inferior animals to be treated without regard to their suffering; there was an abolitionist movement fighting to get them treated as equals for a reason. And a memorial statue isn’t just relating them to their time, but upholding them as an example for ours.
It’s not out of touch with reason to pay attention to such things. It is to use “nobody’s perfect” to make minor and major harms the same thing, as if positive results mean nothing else a person does matters.
Fucking Nazis… they’re everywhere.
ctech:
Totally. How do Ftb thinks that. Word.
So … when are we going to put up all of the statues of kids sexting and judges receiving bribes? Should we do it now, or should we wait 50-100 years?
I call bull shit on all of the argument about history and what they did in the past and why we should keep the statues because what ever. No one I have ever heard of is protesting that we should restore any statues to Nero nor King George.
The complaint boils down to the desire of some to continue to honor those who are depicted by the statues by keeping them as monuments and not just art work of what ever quality in some museum or other. Some people do not seem to be able to accept the fact that what people care to memorialize can and does change over time.
uncle frogy
I blame the Enlightenment.
You know, these ideas about liberty and equality, consent and autonomy, respect for all human beings. We’ve been soaking in those things for so long that we take it for granted, and no longer have any sympathy for stuff like slavery and torture, even if there was a time when many people thought that poking people with knives or setting them on fire or making them work without compensation until they dropped dead were A-OK.
It is a deplorable limitation to which I freely confess.
Statues can be very dangerous. This one, for instance.
Siobhan @ 11,
Hitler was certainly a controversial figure, but it would be wrong to judge him by today’s standards. Sure, he was responsible for the deaths of 6 million+ people, but Stalin killed more. Also, he was fighting for nations’ rights, not for mass murder. Tearing down his statue is whitewashing history. And the swastika flag is heritage, not hate. The Reich will rise again!
@ themadtapper : Kid sexting is actually a serious offense as most are under 18 and considered possession of child pornography and some district attorneys are charging. Also, the DA can give a charge for each photo so on some of these kids phones it is very easy to get to quite a lot of charges which can amount to some serious penalties.
I am simply saying it is unfair to judge a person’s actions in the past that was culturally accepted then but not culturally accepted now. My other point is that if you not honor people’s accomplishments because of some fault in their past then no one will likely ever be honored. I mean we can find shady dealings with Mother Teresa right or even the disruption of commerce and goods from philanthropic efforts in Africa. So, we should also make sure no one mentions Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation because it is causing economic unrest in Africa.
We can call a practice abhorrent today but that does not mean you would feel that same way if you were born in the era. Most things are still subjective and you nor I have authority over what is abhorrent. We can agree on some things but just as you think sexting is “not that bad” and possibly acceptable, however, I think it is a crime and well most state law tends to agree with me.
@ 24:
And let’s not forget Der Fuhrer’s main man Benito Mussolini. Sure, he was brutal fascist dictator but he also fought against the mafia and they were really bad. Hell, Hoover didn’t even take on the mob and he has a building named after him
We’re a legislative assembly now? Why do I never get the memos?
I am well aware that there are some stupid fucking laws and DAs that treat children as pedophiles and pornographers for taking pictures of themselves. It’s still not comparable to slavery and forced vaginal surgery.
I am simply saying it is unfair to judge a person’s actions in the past that was culturally accepted then but not culturally accepted now. My other point is that if you not honor people’s accomplishments because of some fault in their past then no one will likely ever be honored. I mean we can find shady dealings with Mother Teresa right or even the disruption of commerce and goods from philanthropic efforts in Africa. So, we should also make sure no one mentions Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation because it is causing economic unrest in Africa.
No one is saying we should “not mention” the Gates Foundation or Mother Teresa. Indeed, I would argue that no one should ever forget the odious message of salvation through misery and suffering that Mother Teresa promoted. But I wouldn’t support building statues in their honor either, especially statues that praise them while conveniently neglecting to mention major harm they’ve done.
We can call a practice abhorrent today but that does not mean you would feel that same way if you were born in the era. Most things are still subjective and you nor I have authority over what is abhorrent. We can agree on some things but just as you think sexting is “not that bad” and possibly acceptable, however, I think it is a crime and well most state law tends to agree with me.
I’ll point out again that your example practices are not even remotely equivalent to slavery. And if you think sexting should be a crime, that kids should literally be treated as criminals for taking pictures of themselves, your moral compass is not just broken but most likely non-existent, and I am done talking to you. You’re either a moral reprobate or a troll, and I have time for neither.
blockquote fail. Apologies to the readers.
reposting in a more readable fashion. apologies to PZ if that’s considered spamming.
I am well aware that there are some stupid fucking laws and DAs that treat children as pedophiles and pornographers for taking pictures of themselves. It’s still not comparable to slavery and forced vaginal surgery.
No one is saying we should “not mention” the Gates Foundation or Mother Teresa. Indeed, I would argue that no one should ever forget the odious message of salvation through misery and suffering that Mother Teresa promoted. But I wouldn’t support building statues in their honor either, especially statues that praise them while conveniently neglecting to mention major harm they’ve done.
I’ll point out again that your example practices are not even remotely equivalent to slavery. And if you think sexting should be a crime, that kids should literally be treated as criminals for taking pictures of themselves, your moral compass is not just broken but most likely non-existent, and I am done talking to you. You’re either a moral reprobate or a troll, and I have time for neither.
@25 ctech
Mate, that’s an indictment of your shitty laws and the shitty people you employ to pursue them, not on the teens expressing themselves sexually in a way that is nowadays routine.
@PZ #22: Reasoning being that the people in the community on this blog believe it is correct to overlay that enlightenment to norms in other historical time periods. It is no different than you using ex post facto laws to incarcerate an individual.
No one is debating those ideas but they don’t apply to a time period when those ideas were different. Your sympathy is irrelevant. We know you don’t like it. Hell, I don’t like it but it seems you want to ignore any acknowledgment about the difference in time periods. The simple fact is that it was acceptable AT THAT TIME to operate on slaves without their consent but african americans do not have the monopoly on slavery. Every color has been a slave at one point or another in history. They were not slaves because they were black. They were slaves because they were slaves and slaves have no rights. That is why we agree that slavery is wrong and bad. However, if slaves did exist in our culture today… they would probably get treated like slaves and judging someone for treating a slave like a slave over 100 years later is, as I have stated, wrong to do and quite frankly I credited you with more brains than that.
We all currently mostly agree with all those ideas. There are contradictions on some and those ideas sometimes conflict with one another, for example, how is something autonomous that deals with more than 1 individual but also does not violate the right to consent? It sounds like a situation where someone’s rights, liberties, and equality could come into question. So, the ideas are sound but putting them into practice is difficult regardless liberal or conservative. But that is a different topic. My only point is that it is wrong to judge someone from a pre-enlightened period with our same cultural beliefs, but Sims probably wouldn’t care because his profession was a joke back then so was probably used to opposition. He is being honored for fixing a pretty big problem and forging the medical expertise of gynecology. Maybe you can find worse things but he didn’t artificially create the ruptures in order to repair them. So, his crime in the year 2017 is that he operated on women in order to treat a condition without consent. If he was alive we could probably get a med mal case but can’t you see that commemorating him also honors the slaves. Now, that it is a story all these folks are reading about him and his methods. They can think what they want but that doesn’t erase the work he did.
I mean how many liberal assholes drive mercedes benz and we give them a whole football arena to put their nazi symbol on. Reading the history of the petrol car indicates that German literature was rewritten and credit given to daimler and benz instead of siegfried marcus. So, the company was not just being forced to serve the nazi regime but they benefited greatly from it.
I think the Sims statue should come down but we should not stop there. We should destroy everything with a questionable past that does not hold up to our enlightened standard. Everyone with a benz should have to drop it off at the junk yard.
Lacking a time machine, I have no plans to arrest Sims.
Of course we are allowed to now criticize the ethics of individuals in the past. That they lived in a culture that took horrible actions for granted does not mean that we have to cast aside our ethics when looking back on them. We’re pretty explicit: given our current views on equality and freedom, Sims did something unconscionable. I cannot look at his work now and abandon my principles and give him a pass, nor should we.
@30 and @31: Wow! The kids are just expressing themselves…. wow. I don’t even know what to say except wow. Yes, the laws and the DA are stupid for following the laws governing child pornography and what is funny is you say my moral compass is non-existent. Wow. If you think it is right for young kids to express themselves sexually especially with photography then you are oblivious to some of the harm that can be caused and you should be ashamed to look at yourself in the mirror. It is those statements that give liberals a bad name but those are just Siobhan and themadtapper and not necessarily liberal policy as I am sure many liberal lawmakers are not trying to pass easier child pornography laws. The laws and the DA are fine. It is terds like you who think it is not a big deal and don’t discuss the issue with your child and then cry when your son has to register as a sex offender the rest of his life because his girlfriend sent a nude pic to him. That’s the law. Don’t cry when you break the law. It sounds like you want special treatment so some people can look at underage girls while others can’t look at photos of underage girls. Wow. I guess while we making subjective laws I would like my speed limit to be 65mph.
I am not sure if there is an instance where underage sexting is appropriate. So, yes for your sake this conversation should be over. There is no justifying kid sexting.
Kids sexting with an adult is a problem.
Two 14 year olds sexting each other is not, unless an adult exploits their messages.
Id like to see a statue of Lucu next to the one of Sims. A dignified one with a plaque describing what he did to her.
@PZ 33: That is just not the issue. You don’t have to abandon your principles. If you think so then you can’t honor anyone at all because most things/people are tainted. No one should think because you commemorate someone for a specific accomplishment that you somehow now condone their entire life. That is just an absurd thought if someone would do that. However, you certainly have the right to feel how you want about the man and his work but it doesn’t change anything and you being a scientist yourself should actually be worried about that as well even in 150 years how animal rights could change and you could be viewed as a monster for having a zebrafish in a fishbowl. I would think it would be wrong 150 years from now just as I think us faulting a man in the 1800s for not living up to OUR principles is wrong now.
Also, most post facto laws are unconstitutional so even if we had a time machine we still couldn’t arrest him. Making the argument that what happens in his time period stays in his time period even stronger because there is not much you can’t do with a time machine.
Ugh. Their use of the phrase “racially charged violence” is a way of both acknowledging and disavowing the violence directed at minorities. “Racially charged violence” is one of those terms of equity, one of “both-sides”. They should have said “White supremacist violence.” But no. Fuck Nature.
@35 PZ: That is not the issue either that sexting is okay between 14 year olds. This is just getting creepy. The issue is with the protection that a 14 year old may not understand all the implications of sending a nude photo to someone else and can definitely be detrimental to young girls as there is a double standard if the boy then resends or shows his friends. Nude photos are pornography and 14 year olds are not allowed to purchase it either. The law is meant to be fair and just so if an adult can’t receive nude photos from a 14 year old then a 14 year old is not allowed to receive nude photos either. There is no… “it is okay for some but not for others”.
I understand you teach college kids. Please don’t try your hand at high school if that is your thought. I am not sure how you can even remotely think 14 year olds sexting each other is okay.
So now we’re getting the freeze peach version of ex post facto. “Expose factors” perhaps?
# 2 brucej
Where are the schools named for Generals Gage or Ross?
I could not find any schools.
General Gage?
Gagetown, New Brunswick was named in his honour; the Canadian Forces base CFB Gagetown consequently carries his name.
General Ross
He is commemorated by a 99-foot granite obelisk near the shoreline of Carlingford Lough in the Ross home village of Rostrevor, County Down in Northern Ireland, as well as by a monument in St Paul’s Cathedral in London, England.
The inscription on the monument reads:
DEDICATED AT THE PUBLIC EXPENSE TO THE MEMORY OF MAJOR GENERAL ROBERT ROSS WHO HAVING UNDERTOOK AND EXECUTED AN ENTERPRISE AGAINST THE CITY OF WASHINGTON, THE CAPITAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WHICH WAS CROWNED WITH COMPLETE SUCCESS WAS KILLED SHORTLY AFTERWARDS WHILE DIRECTING A SUCCESSFUL ATTACK UPON A SUPERIOR FORCE NEAR THE CITY OF BALTIMORE ON THE 12TH DAY OF SEPTEMPTER 1814
3 Tabby Lavalamp
If I could afford it, I would sooooo commission a statue of Benedict Arnold!
Let’s not get carried away. We did not even get West Point. A couple of tasteful plaques honouring his return to the King’s service and his rightful allegiance is probably sufficient.
Evil people rarely think of themselves as evil, so judging them by their own moral standard makes no sense.
Judging them by the standard of the oppressing classes at the time makes no sense either, they didn’t think they were evil either.
The only standard other than one’s own that could be relevant would be the standard of the victims.
I’m pretty sure they considered being tortured to be a rather evil thing.
Posts like these is the reason I stopped following Nature News and Comments on Facebook. I also used to follow their book reviews and recommendations in their ‘Books and Arts’ section- until I started seeing books like Nessa Carey’s Junk DNA (and other equally dubious ones) featured there.
ctech:
It’s fascinating that you think everyone at the time (or at any time) had the same norm, in this specific case that medical experimentation on slaves (or on anyone against their will) was acceptable. Doubly so, because the time in question happened after a long period (the “enlightenment”) when many moral/political philosophers (Locke’s a nice early example) had been expressing so many diametrically opposed ideas about liberty and autonomy and so forth, which resulted in political revolutions and various other profound social changes.
Did I say “fascinating”? I meant really fucking stupid. I think you just had a really fucking stupid and ignorant excuse handy, so you used it in the most mindless possible way.
And it’s no different from unicorns riding bicycles, if by “It is no different than” you mean “duuhhh-derp-derp-derpy-derp,” which is presumably what you meant.
There is no reason why anyone ought to have a statue of J. Marion Sims. If you think you’ve got a reason, and we’re all “out of touch with reason,” then it could (hypothetically) be useful if you actually attempted to do some valid reasoning. However, I don’t predict anything like that will happen.
always nice to hear razors misunderstanding of the discussion.
@43 i think you have ran into the dilemma of determination of the authoritative judgment of evil. Most evil and the justice doled out is subjective and ambiguous which law attempts to correct but it is not perfect but its the best we got. Although it seems like the general attitude of most on here is that they are the authority on all that is moral, just, and ethical. However, your point makes sense within the same timeframe and culture but less so when you get to 150+ years removed. In a sense, hindsight is 20/20.
@Corey Fisher: I think you are looking at it basically correctly.
1. The issue of Sims’ legacy is a little more complicated than presented here because according to Sims own writings, he would not operate without the consent of the patient as well as the slaveowner.
2. At the time of these operations, anaesthesia was only just being invented. Sims fistula repairs experiments were 1845-49. The very first surgical anaesthetic was 1846. So when people criticise Sims’ lack of anaesthesia, it should be pointed out that at the time almost nobody had surgery under anaesthesia. Even when Sims later moved to New York and operated primarily on white women, he still did not use ether anaesthesia out of concern for its potential dangers (this is hard to defend, but it does show that Sims was not choosing to inflict pain on slaves while sparing whites).
3. Having said that, it doesn’t let Sims off the hook. There’s a reason he experimented on slaves but not slaveowners even though fistulas affected women from all walks of life. The argument that fistulas are terrible and this was the only hope of treatment and that many of the experimental subjects chose to have the procedure, while true, does not address the central problem that white slave-owning women who also had fistulas were not considered for surgery until Sims had refined his technique on slaves. In other words, Sims’ experiments exploited the reduced ascribed value of slave lives and autonomy.
4. Although not often commented on, Sims has also been criticised for performing unnecessary genital surgery on women for libidinous behaviour without their permission. If this is true, then it’s another huge black mark against his reputation. (The claim does seem to conflict with some of Sims’ writings, and I can’t access the paper that makes the claim [Shingleton HM, The Lesser Known Dr. Sims, ACOG Clin Rev 14(2):13-6, March-April 2009] to make an assessment of its merits.)
5. “Judging a person by the standards of their time” is, to me, only useful for trying to understand why a person held certain views. It has little weight as a moral defence and even less weight as a guide to who should be publicly celebrated. Cultural and moral standards change. We shouldn’t maintain honors like public statues just because people used to think the subject was deserving.
6. Saying Sims should not be judged by Enlightenment values is especially absurd since Sims started his research more than 150 years into the Enlightenment, in a nation that wrote Enlightenment values into its constitution (although it didn’t often live up to them), and which had an active abolitionist movement dating back decades before Independence.
Wow, you really are a servile piece of shit, aren’t you?
Acquire a mind, then make it up.
Those words have a meaning. Fuck off.
Today I learned that ctech thinks it right and just that a teenager “has to register as a sex offender the rest of his life because his girlfriend sent a nude pic to him”.
Fuck that noise you piece of shit.
A suggestion: amend the monuments, so they’re not just telling one side of the story. This is what’s been done to at least one monument here in Australia (in Fremantle, to be exact) – a plaque has been added, telling the Indigenous version of what is commemorated on the monument as a bit of colonial derring-do and so on. It doesn’t take away from the monument to do this – in fact, I feel it adds to it, because it makes the point telling a story about the past isn’t the same thing as telling the story about the past.
So, for example, the Sims monument could be amended to acknowledge the identities of his experimental subjects, and the fact they were experimented on without their consent or permission, due to their status as slaves. That they were experimented on without anaesthesia, and that their lives were put at risk by the experimentation. It could acknowledge their sufferings were part of a wider tradition of racist practice in medical experimentation which included such things as the Tuskegee syphilis experiment.
Oh the high and mighty moral authority here seems to fail when it comes to them jerking their dicks to kiddie porn. It seems you covet your kiddie porn as much as conservatives covet their guns.
It is laughable to hear anyone on this site say they have principles or a set of moral code because it is clear those values are completely malleable and appear to conform to the activity after the fact. I would guess that most of the dipshits here just go about their lives and then create a set of moral principles that justify the majority of their current behavior. I find it hilarious that you all are so disjointed that you think everyone else in the world is wrong. Your foundation is not on the rock or the sand. You shitheads are in the quicksand and steadily sinking. Your principles have about as much value as trying to hatch rabbit shit in front of a heater.
The simple fact is that the only relevant judgement is by his own time period and not by ours over 150 years later and as pointed out without a time machine there is not much you can do but we are all affected by doing things we think are acceptable TODAY but then being judged later because ideals change. Also, there is a stark difference between the syphilis experiments and using individuals as test subject who are already afflicted in order to create a surgical procedure. Perhaps, he manufactured some of his test subjects by giving them a rupture and then trying to repair it. That would be abhorrent. Otherwise, he was simply using the resources he had available at the time and it IS wrong… not WAS wrong. The statue simply commemorates his contribution to gynecology. It all deals with the past. His methods, his contribution, everything. Hating the man would be implying that you think, should he had been born in this era that he would still maintain his practices and methodology of 1840s. It is idiotic to hate a guy for existing in his own time period that was abiding by norms and practices for his time in order to contribute to women’s healthcare.
PZ:
ctech:
ctech gets a D- in reading comprehension.
Yes, I figured most of you all are 14 year old virgins jerking your dick to kiddie porn because a picture of a nude 14 year old is kiddie porn. There is no amount of justification for it and as I have pointed there are several implications that the morally inept on this site have missed. One of those implications is that 14 year olds are not mature enough to understand everything involved with sexting as even teacher’s still regularly lose their job for spouting some personal opinion on facebook and they forget the construct on which social networking is built which is to share everything. These same kids have access to all types of media as well as the idea of revenge porn. If you think that a 14 year old sending another 14 year old a nude photo stays just between those 14 year olds then you are a fucktard, a non-contributing factor to society, and a complete waste of space. The law defines child pornography and kids sexting photos fall under that category. When your daughter’s photos end up on a Ukrainian porn site then you will probably have a different opinion or more likely when your daughter dreads going to school and starts getting bullied and I don’t have to tell you how some of those stories have ended for those children. You shitheads are sick and morally bankrupt to think there are situations where sexting is okay. Also, if you don’t like the law then change it but until then it is the law and 14 year olds are subject to those laws just as an adult. Being underage does not give you a free pass to possess child pornography. How can you be so idiotic!?
You could possibly get punishments changed for underage offenders and set some precedent on how the DA should handle these cases but you are not going to get states to reword the definition of child pornography. However, they are offenders and if they are guilty then the penalty can carry registering as a sex offender. If you don’t like the penalty then first I would recommend not sexting, otherwise, you can start trying to petition your lawmakers to change sex offender laws.
Overall, it will be difficult because politically it comes across as trying to make less strict rules for child predators and those issues are some of the most taboo in our society. So, good luck with that.
Anyone in favor of sexting is missing the point. The fact that some kid has to register as a sex offender is not the worst that could happen in that situation.
“14 year olds are not mature enough to understand everything involved with sexting”
So giving them a lifelong criminal record for it is A-OK?
criminally they are mature by most federal and state laws. I am talking about why sexting is wrong not just criminally. They don’t understand the other consequences of sending nude photos. Ignorance of the law is not a good excuse but that is the law. I didnt create those laws but i will abide by them regardless if i think they arw dumb or not. The maturity is more of an issue of other damages that can happen from sexting. The law deems 14 year olds mature for legal undersrandings.
Obligatory xkcd. See in particular the lines,
ctech
Gosh. These are definitely the words of someone I should listen to when it comes to morality.
I just went through this entire thread trying to find a point in what you’re saying, ctech, and the nearest I can get is that you feel projecting modern morals on historical figures is wrong because in a hundred years time vegans might condemn you for eating a cheeseburger. Again and again, I note, your focus is on condemnation being wrong, but not on who is doing the condemning and who carries the scars of the past.
When we talk about those who committed atrocities against enslaved people and the standards of their times, do you think their victims thought these things were acceptable and all right? You talk a lot about how none of us know how we’d feel back then because of the different cultural standards, and yet completely fail to consider that a number of commenters you’re engaging with would be seen as subhuman by those cultural standards. And, yes, they would abso-fucking-lutely find that wrong. People generally do not generally enjoy that, regardless of the time period.
This isn’t a difficult dilemma of moral relativism and us unfairly projecting our sanctified modern standards on another time and culture. It’s the most basic implementation of empathy and recognizing the full humanity of black women.
chrislawson @ 48: A good bit of context for the conversation, thank you. However, Sims saying he wouldn’t do anything without the consent of the women he was experimenting on isn’t very meaningful, because they were enslaved and he was a white man. This is not a situation without duress.
@Mellow monkey: I didn’t start the name calling nor did I say anyone has to follow any of my morals. This was another point that all the people on this site you agree with can name call all they want because they are “in your club”. They do not appear to get dinged for their forceful moral interjections.
So, it absolutely boils down to relativism. Your post is not surprising because that is what your club members do. I find it sad that not one of the swarming vultures have come out and actually agreed that children sexting is wrong. There is just no way this whole user base is that misguided and will blindly walk off a cliff because a few have said that sexting is okay.
You disagree with me so you try to use my action of resorting to name calling to diminish my moral fortitude. However, I am not forcing my morals or principles on anyone except to say that sexting is wrong but that is backed by, I’d imagine, all state law. People that disagree with current state law and think that sexting is okay should probably be called a name especially when they don’t recognize their own hypocrisy as being the ones that keep trying force their morals on everyone.
The commenters I am engaging with are irrelevant because they were not alive during that time period. Yes, victims have a different perspective but the victims during that time are one that society had rules about. I can say all day long that I agree that what he did is wrong but that is through the lens of living in a completely different culture and time period. Is that so hard to understand? Actually the Bible deal with judgement and it is a topic that is usually not well understood about christians judging and being hypocrites. Paul wrote a letter to some christians condemning their behavior with the idea being that if someone subscribes to being a christian and then they do not uphold those values then I can absolutely call them out. Meaning, if an atheist does something unchristian like then I can’t judge them on that standard because they never committed to those standards. The same thing applies to Sims and his practices.
If there are no laws dealing with child pornography then you can sext as a 14 year old all you want. We can argue about the moral principles and one of us can try to force our morals on the other but breaking a law is always immoral. At best, at the time of Sims practice it could be considered questionable not wrong and therefore ambiguously immoral. NOW, it can be considered wrong and immoral but he need not be judged by our standards for us to benefit from his contributions.
I once technically stole someone’s cat. Right in front of them. That is breaking the law.
But the reason I stole the cat, or rather, refused to give her kitten to her, is because it was a very shy/scared kitten and she was about to take it to a high kill animal shelter where it would have been euthanized almost immediately because of its behaviour.
After I explained why I refused to give her cat to her, she agreed to surrender her cat to me. I found the cat a new, loving home 3 days later and got updates for many years about how how happy and loving he was.
I do not at all feel that what I did was immoral even though I broke the law.
Why have you all lost sight of the very serious problem of ?
@58 PZ: Yes, funny point and probably right in a lot of sense. However, the effects of a nude photography are much more far reaching than having safe private intercourse.
To my knowledge I don’t think there are any laws that says two 14 year olds can’t have sex but that is different than nude photography. There are laws that govern technology use as well as pornographic materials and just because “everyone is doing it” does not make it okay when there is a law governing its use.
So all those lunch counter sit-ins in the ’60s were immoral?
ctech, that shovel you have in your hand? You might want to drop it.
@61 Rowan: This is a perfect example of what I am talking about. Stealing is immoral regardless of your reasons. You’ve justified your actions so you can cope with stealing but that does not make stealing any more or less moral. Most animal lovers will agree you did a great service but cat’s do not have rights and you took someone’s property.
Thousands of animals are killed every day. Why not go stand outside the animal shelter and ask for the animals as people bring them into the shelter? Ultimately, those shelters are killing animals because there is nothing else to do with them. You may feel better about yourself but in reality you did nothing to solve the problem. If the home you found for the kitten was going to rescue a pet anyway then all you did was substitute one cat for another. So, you may think it is immoral for a shelter to kill animals and so you decided to save this one kitten but the shelter is following the current laws governing the rights of cats.
One day cats may get more rights and at that time everyone can judge the atrocities of the shelter even if the shelter developed life saving surgeries for stomach dilatations.
ctech, see that part of my name that says ‘vet tech’? I *work* at an animal shelter, a low-kill one and a ‘model’ shelter. I help save thousands of animal lives every year And while I actively know you can’t save them all, and shouldn’t even save them all, this individual cat was one I could actively save in that moment. And that is a moral act. Ignoring it when I was easily able to help (up to and including keeping it myself) would have been immoral. For some people, not saving the cat would not have been immoral, because they were not in a situation able to help. That is okay. But unlike you, I’m able to see nuance in situations.
@64: Lunch counter sit-ins were peaceful, lawful protests which is why they were allowed to sit there all day until the store closed without the police forcibly removing them. The protest was not breaking any laws.
Also, just for added stuff, about 80% of the animals we bring in to my shelter are from rural, very high-kill shelters. We do that because we are in a situation where we are able to help, and those shelters are grateful and the end result is that more animals are saved overall.
@66: saving the cat by stealing it is immoral. You likely were just holding the cat until you could speak to the owner and ask for ownership. There should have been a way to resolve saving the cat’s life without having to steal. However, you said you stole it right in front of the owner. Why not speak to the owner then and discuss a solution? The discussion seemed to have worked at a later time. To say saving a cat was a moral act would be to indicate that everyone putting cat’s down are performing immoral acts. There are no morals here except the one where you stole property. You simply did a good deed for the cat and possibly the new owners who can now enjoy the pet. You did prevent another possible cat from dodging death so your act was entirely good at least not to that other cat who would have been adopted.
@68: I agree. I think high kill shelters if given other options would take those.
ctech
“Fucktard” is based on an ableist slur. No one else has used slurs. This is different from name calling.
Civil rights leaders throughout history and across the world pushing back against their own oppression were immoral? Slaves running away were immoral? Jewish refugees hiding from Nazis were immoral? Any time a law exists, it’s automatically immoral to break it? And if a law doesn’t exist, well, gosh, we can’t judge someone for torturing, raping, murdering, or just plain owning other human beings?
So when a dehumanized group whose oppression has been codified into law is violated, their violation isn’t as important as the violation of those whose rights are legally recognized? If Sims had forced experimentation on white women against the moral and legal code of his society, it WOULD be wrong and you WOULD support removing his statues? It’s only that his victims were not legally protected that means he still deserves the statue?
Actually… no. She told me what she was going to do with the cat, I picked up the carrier, put it behind the counter and said, to her face. “You can’t have him back.”
So I stole him. No regrets. Not immoral. One can do a moral act in a neutral situation. This woman was unable to keep the kitten (neutral act) and she didn’t have the time to try to find a rescue (neutral situation, which I discovered after) so I prevented her from leaving with the kitten (moral act) because I was in a situation to save it. Could I have explained that first? Prooobably. But my first, instinctive, moral act was to protect that kitten. And thankfully, she was understanding. Even if I had gotten in trouble, or gotten fired, I would and always will feel that I did the right thing.
P.s. That same logic applies to any time any animal is adopted and is therefore stupid and pointless. I’m raising a bottle baby kitten that someone found at 1 day old. Because we didn’t euthanise it out of hand, it will go up for adoption and ‘take the place’ of another adoptable animal. The only way to get around this is to literally kill every stray animal, which is immoral and frankly stupid. So you can stop trying to pull that bullshit argument.
ctech,
The people who conducted the lunch-counter sit-ins were trespassing, and over 1500 were arrested. Also, the Freedom Riders were breaking the law by using integrated buses. Were they acting immorally?
And how about this: until 2003 several states outlawed sodomy. So in those states, was gay sex immoral?
You need to figure out the job of the police and the courts. Can individual’s enforcing laws act immorally? Absolutely. Those arrested for the sit-in for trespassing would have been interesting cases because it was public property and there is not much in the link but logically the protests would not have allowed to continue if they continued to break laws, turn violent, etc etc. The protests were mostly allowed so it is more believable the protesters were morally right based on laws. Just because someone is arrested does not mean they are right or wrong. That is for the courts to decide and the Freedom riders were protesting in favor of a federal ruling that made their actions legal. So, even if you want to pull specific instances of laws that at time were bad laws such as segregation laws those laws were eventually ruled on and corrected by the courts and legislation, however, at the time if you are breaking a law then you are performing an immoral act. It doesn’t matter that I think I am doing a good deed or that the law is stupid or that the law is unconstitutional. That is for the judge to decide. I can be arrested and being arrested has no bearing on the morality of the situation. If I am found guilty then I committed an immoral (wrong) act. Morals govern right and wrong behavior and are not limited to only social justice, civil rights, and human equality. I think when you hear the word morals you immediately think of the big ticket human rights topics which causes you some confusion.
Speaking of gay sex that would be a sexual preference. If a law doesn’t govern it and no law is being broken then you can argue the ethical principle. If it was against the law then yes oral or anal sex was immoral simply based on the legalities at the time. I can’t discuss gay sex but if a state has anal sex laws and you perform anal sex then it is immoral so you need to just keep it in your own bedroom and with consenting adults. I think you miss the point of the law and how it works. It is the same with marijuana. Many lawmakers and judges probably smoke weed or have in the past but they know it is wrong because it is against the law. It is simply wrong and immoral to break the laws of your society. If you want to smoke weed then you need to move somewhere it is legal.
Legal ethics was a primary idea behind and premise MLK and peaceful protest was to juxtapose the hate up against noticeable exhibitions of law-abiding moral behavior.
Legal does not equal moral. Illegal does not equal immoral. If you are simply an authoritarian, just come out and say that you literally think might (the law) makes right.
I mean, honestly, by your logic if the law says it’s okay to beat your child to death or to rape someone, that doing so is not ‘immoral’. That is some fucked up bullshit and the ‘moral code’ of a terrible person. I sincerely hope I am never in your vicinity because I do not think you are a trustworthy or good person.
Jesus. Fucking. Christ. Seriously? Martin Luther motherfuckin’ “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws” civil disobedience KING?
The whole point of those protests was to break the law:
Forgive the quote mining, but I’m trying to understand what you’re saying in your word salad.
So it’s only immoral if you don’t get away with it?
You’ve been given several examples of laws which would seem to be unjust, and the breaking of which would seem to be not just not immoral, but in fact moral. But they mostly focus on civil rights issues, and for some reason you seem uncomfortable dealing with such issues. If I were uncharitable I might conclude that you realize that you’ve painted yourself into a corner in which you will have to defend the notion that acts of civil disobedience are by definition immoral. But let’s look at another situation, which doesn’t seem to involve civil rights. A while back, Singapore outlawed chewing gum. Did it then become an immoral act to chew gum in Singapore (while remaining perfectly moral across the border in Malaysia)?
More generally, what is the moral system you’re operating under which equates illegality with immorality?
It’s immoral only after being found guilty by the judge.
Someone is confused here and it ain’t Rowan.
@75, 76: Luckily most laws forbid that behavior. Yes, by no means just doing legal stuff will be completely moral but abiding by all the laws is a start. Illegal does equal immoral unless a judge rules it. So, the moral implications can change with different societal norms, technology, political parties, time periods etc etc but breaking a law is immoral. The law is not arbitrary for the people to decide. It is for the judges. They are an elected official most of the time so you can have some say in the interpretations of your laws.
Also, most laws don’t tell you what is okay. They tell you what is wrong to do and punishment. There is no “by my logic” argument because your hypothetical situation just does not make sense.
@77 Mellow: Well, who exactly determines if a law is just or unjust? Most of the civil rights laws were already getting favorable rulings by federal courts so civil rights were forcing changes at the state level to honor the rulings but there was an authority on what was just and unjust. So, the civil rights movement had momentum on the argument over what was just and unjust. Someone asked if they were immoral and the answer would be no because they had rulings that said they were right. My personal thoughts are irrelevant even though I think they were morally justified. Although, you clearly misunderstood about what I was saying about peaceful protest. Some of the protest could break some unjust laws. However, this was all started because people on this site don’t think child pornography is against the law as long as kids are doing it and it doesn’t involve adults and so they think that law is unjust and so the users are trying to argue from a civil right movement on laws and morals. I don’t see child pornography laws getting changed and there are not any recent rulings that are alleviating the moral implications of the offense that unlike the civil rights movement will provide a court ruling to rally behind the unjust law of child pornography.
@79: Yes, if you are talking about something that is morally ambiguous. I would think once a judge has ruled that your behavior was wrong or bad that there would be no more argument over whether or not you were right. You can appeal and appeal and maybe it will change but during that process your actions were immoral.
If there was no law to punish beating a child to death, and therefore no judge to declare it ‘wrong’, then yes, by YOUR logic and YOUR ‘moral’ code, beating a child to death is not immoral.
And regarding breaking immoral laws…. how about, say, a law that says you have to report any people you discover to be (insert currently despised minority here)? And that you know once you report them they will be carted off and killed, because the law effectively says that *being alive while (minority) is illegal.
Again, by YOUR logic and YOUR moral code, not reporting them is immoral… even though you know they’ll be killed if you do report.
Judges do not the law, they interpret it.
Are judges elected anywhere but in the USA?
@83: Yes, I agree. A judge makes a decision. So, I may have used the word decide but you are right they do not create the laws or enforce them.
I don’t know but some judges can be appointed here in the US.
@84: I’m sorry that is just not what I am saying. You are just creating a completely fictional situation and then reversing the logic and trying to say that I am for killing children. Shame on you. I never said doing something that is not against the law can’t still be wrong. I said DOING something that IS against the law is wrong until interpreted differently by a judge. However, if no law exists for something as egregious as murder then in that society there would obviously be ambiguous discussions on the moral turpitude. So, you want to create a completely hypothetical situation and operate in fantasy land in that fictional situation the society can be whatever it needs to be. Eagles and bears can speak english and killing children is only frowned upon. Sounds like a pretty entertaining story. I actually do want to see the remake of Lord of the Flies.
ctech
Laws do not tell you what is ‘wrong’, they tell you what is ‘illegal’.
.
If you copy/paste the name if the person you are responding to, you can avoid stupid errors like addressing your own comment number with an incoherent rant.
I’m still waiting to hear whether or not chewing gum in Singapore is immoral. If I thought for one moment there was a coherent ideology behind ctech’s comments and not just hasty ad hoc excuses, I’d be fascinated.
There are several states that still protect parents from murdering their children by withholding care because of dearly held beliefs. How are those murders somehow not immoral because they are not illegal?
MattP,
ctech never claimed that an act which is legal is necessarily moral; in fact, they specifically rejected that claim. If you want to hoist them, their own petard is plenty powerful; no need to create a new one.
Ah. Apparently I have no reading comprehension today.
ctech, you have ignored my point, with a historical basis, on laws requiring you to turn in minorities whom the government then kills. Supposedly breaking this law is therefore ‘immoral’ in your eyes.
Your commenting on other points but not this is very much noted.
And of course I get back to find that ctech has gone full blown “you must all be kiddie porn lovers” because apparently that’s the only reason someone could possibly have to oppose using anti-pedophile laws to punish the kids those laws supposedly protect.
Rowan – thanks for saving that kitten.
@86 Mellow Monkey: If you live or visit Singapore then you should obey their laws. The coherent ideology is that it is wrong to break the law. Obviously, there are extenuating circumstances that can exonerate someone after the fact. Law is not arbitrarily malleable.
Romans 13:1-7