[Bones McCoy]

Over on another site I read, the resident conspiraloon reckons that

...blacks are being used as proxy warriors to spread anarchy so that order could be created out of chaos. Now, they're planning a Charlottesville type of false flag in Britain which will lead to racial violence and further tension. Both sides are being manipulated and controlled, BLM is funded by George Soros.

If I recall rightly, the same argument as used by the Illinois Nazis in the Blues Brothers film.

For anybody who hasn't had the pleasure:

[The Red Arrow]

Just to add to the mix, a couple of interesting threads on Baden-Powell, should you meet meet one of his defenders. Interesting stuff.

You should see what he said about bees being a "model society. They revere their Queen and kill their unemployed"...

Do you think we give the Boer Wars enough credit for forming a long-lasting national neurosis, like Vietnam did for the USA?

[Malcolm Armsteen]

English pubic schools?

Fnaar Fnaar...

Is that actually, really real?

[mattomac]

On the often quoted rewriting history, the Colston statue and many others like it were in themselves a rewriting of history, the Colston statue goes up in 1895.

It was hardly put up when slavery hadn’t been abolished. Though with eugenics all the fashion at that time you can probably see the mindset of those who wanted to rewrite him as a “great man”.

[WTF?]

Aren't historians constantly rewriting history? Isn't that what they do?

[The Weeping Angel]

The American statues were erected in the 1960s, very much in a "don't get any ideas, boy" way. The British ones were products of their time. The intention behind them was to honour local worthies (by the standards of the time), rather than to intimidate people.

Actually they were erected largely in the 1890s and 1900s, but that was the sentiment. My own take is I'm concerned that is fuelling the far-right.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... 1591817886

Also I'm not happy with a number of choices Sir Robert Peel, Nelson Gladstone aongst others not only were they not slave owners but in some cases opposed to slavery.

[Bones McCoy]

I see an important movement, that should be focussed on flesh and blood people, getting diverted by statues of bronze and films on celluloid.

How easily we are pacified.

[The Red Arrow]

[Tubby Isaacs]

Johnson, doubtless relieved not to be talking about Covid or Cummings:

“We cannot now try to edit or censor our past,” he said. “We cannot pretend to have a different history. The statues in our cities and towns were put up by previous generations. They had different perspectives, different understandings of right and wrong. But those statues teach us about our past, with all its faults. To tear them down would be to lie about our history, and impoverish the education of generations to come.”

You don't have to be one of the 13% who supported toppling the Colston statue to think he's talking absolute bollocks. Per his spokesman, he is open to statues being taken down by democratic means- is that censorship?

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Right-wingers have a huge problem understanding history, because they don't experience empathy, it's one of their defining characteristics. To them history is a simple exercise in tabulation, not in attempting to understand the past and thereby learn from it.

That's why Gove took Historical Empathy out of the History National Curriculum level descriptors.

[The Red Arrow]

Johnson, doubtless relieved not to be talking about Covid or Cummings:

“We cannot now try to edit or censor our past,” he said. “We cannot pretend to have a different history. The statues in our cities and towns were put up by previous generations. They had different perspectives, different understandings of right and wrong. But those statues teach us about our past, with all its faults. To tear them down would be to lie about our history, and impoverish the education of generations to come.”

You don't have to be one of the 13% who supported toppling the Colston statue to think he's talking absolute bollocks. Per his spokesman, he is open to statues being taken down by democratic means- is that censorship?

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Read this and worry:

https://www.psypost.org/2019/09/people- ... inds-54369

https://bigthink.com/surprising-science ... belltitem1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_a ... rientation

[Boiler]

Right-wingers have a huge problem understanding history, because they don't experience empathy, it's one of their defining characteristics. To them history is a simple exercise in tabulation, not in attempting to understand the past and thereby learn from it.

That's why Gove took Historical Empathy out of the History National Curriculum level descriptors.

Interesting, I never looked at it that way before but it explains why on some forums I read the RWers are all very much of an "I'm all right, Jack" attitude and enjoy gloating at others.

[Tubby Isaacs]

See also Spain, where General Franco is now completely unknown, after the statues were taken down.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Reflected in much research if you have a look at the articles I referenced. Plus years of experience.

Example: Southern Exam Board (in the 90s) set a piece of work in which pupils were asked to empathise with a concentration camp guard - in other words why did that guard think that what he or she was doing was right or necessary. The answer would involve their being indoctrinated in both the long and medium term by general antisemitism and Nazi propaganda, their nationalistic feelings (Nazi prop again) and practical considerations, desensitisation to the fate of 'others' and so on. A very useful exercise.

Cue right-wing outrage - they saw this as 'teaching kids to be nazis' - no comprehension at all of the point of the exercise because such insights and understanding were beyond them. All kids had to learn were the facts - no need for comprehension. Which is a feature of right-wing thought on education, and policy making.

Not all are so limited, of course, think Richard Starkey who is right-wing and an empathic historian, but they are in a diminishingly small minority. For illustration see 'Seven Ages of Britain' by Dimbleby and compare it to the series of the same title by Bettany Hughes.