Today was Columbus Day. Around the country, activists, protestors, and pubic officials have been toppling statues of Columbus in an attempt to negate or disavow his place in Western history.
But, since we’re interested in historical fiction, let’s speculate. What would world history actually look like without Columbus?
All that remains of this Christopher Columbus statue after protestors tore it from its pedestal and threw it into Baltimore’s inner harbor on July 4, 2020.
I wonder, with all these people looking at the past and their preconceived notions of what life should have been like, rather than what it actually was like, who among us can say what is right and what is wrong? The past is there for us to learn from, and we don't do that very well, do we? With all that's wrong in the world today, they want us to look 500 years into the past and say it wasn't right? Okay, it wasn't. I get it. In the meantime, it took 500 years to come to that realization. In today's world, there are children in Africa working in mines so they can make lithium batteries for electric cars, smartphones and laptops. We don't seem to have a problem with that, though. Three hundred years from now, ours will be the society that is vilified because we failed to act. We failed to act in Ukraine; we failed to act with Climate change; we failed to clean the oceans. Instead of looking backwards, we should be looking ahead, and trying to save the future. The past will always be questioned, the present taken for granted, with the future being tomorrow's problem.
Well said, Ben! I think you've hit the nail on the head here in that we do have far more pressing concerns but no one has the will to really buckle down and tackle them or--gasp!--make sacrifices to see them through.
What they ARE willing to do is make empty symbolic gestures that are ultimately meaningless but emotionally cathartic. Smashing an idol is like killing a scapegoat. It lets a community cast all of its fears, failures, guilt, sins onto an object or person and then ritually "kill" it so they can relieve themselves of THEIR collective shame. Only, it does nothing to change reality or the facts of history. Meanwhile, the real and pressing problems of the present are ignored... the more problems mount, the more idols will fall, but practical solutions will remain scarce.
I wonder, with all these people looking at the past and their preconceived notions of what life should have been like, rather than what it actually was like, who among us can say what is right and what is wrong? The past is there for us to learn from, and we don't do that very well, do we? With all that's wrong in the world today, they want us to look 500 years into the past and say it wasn't right? Okay, it wasn't. I get it. In the meantime, it took 500 years to come to that realization. In today's world, there are children in Africa working in mines so they can make lithium batteries for electric cars, smartphones and laptops. We don't seem to have a problem with that, though. Three hundred years from now, ours will be the society that is vilified because we failed to act. We failed to act in Ukraine; we failed to act with Climate change; we failed to clean the oceans. Instead of looking backwards, we should be looking ahead, and trying to save the future. The past will always be questioned, the present taken for granted, with the future being tomorrow's problem.
Well said, Ben! I think you've hit the nail on the head here in that we do have far more pressing concerns but no one has the will to really buckle down and tackle them or--gasp!--make sacrifices to see them through.
What they ARE willing to do is make empty symbolic gestures that are ultimately meaningless but emotionally cathartic. Smashing an idol is like killing a scapegoat. It lets a community cast all of its fears, failures, guilt, sins onto an object or person and then ritually "kill" it so they can relieve themselves of THEIR collective shame. Only, it does nothing to change reality or the facts of history. Meanwhile, the real and pressing problems of the present are ignored... the more problems mount, the more idols will fall, but practical solutions will remain scarce.