Video essay about Columbus, bad but not pure evil?

[repoman]

This is an interesting and seemingly fair video about Columbus.



What is interesting about this video is that he contends that the events around the time of Columbus and shortly after him did happen that Columbus' name was used as a dumping ground for the records of these terrible acts to save the reputations of the true actors. Was it easy then for these explorers to pass out terrible acts on an immediate predecessor?

So let's say that Columbus was a 2 on the evil scale of his time but a 8.5 for our current scale should statues come down? What if was an 8 for his time and a 9.6 for our time?

As a background on the guy who made the video, he is usually a bit to the left, his videos on current immigration I think skews left as well as the one about guns. He seems to hang with a somewhat left crew as well. I think that the more removed the topic is from our time the more unbiased he seems.

Finally, despite the status of Columbus being seen as a fairly decent man or a sick, evil man will have political implications now, it is better to try and find out what he was like with as little bias as possible.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

It is an excellent and accurate speech. And he cuts through the myths. Very much enjoyed watching it.

 

[Underseer]

How unsurprising to find Jolly enthusiastically agreeing with something posted by someone who is openly fascist. Really, I'm shocked. Can't you see how shocked I am? This is my shocked face. OK, you can't see my face right now, but I assure you that it looks really shocked. Like this:

​

Anyway, i'm not going to bother clicking on one of Repo's links. The last time I did that, I had to sit through an interminably long and rambling video that didn't admit to the topic of discussion until near the end. I'm just don't have the patience for fascist arguments or even the nature of fascist arguments.

Disclaimer: Before any conservatives or libertarians (who are completely different, it's just a coincidence that they tend to take the same positions on the same topics using similar arguments) get their panties in a wad, I recognize that by criticizing fascists, that proves that I am the real fascist here. Because only a fascist would be horrible enough to say anything bad about fascists.​

Columbus Day is a holiday largely because Catholic-Americans wanted a holiday that celebrated a Catholic. At the time, Columbus was the most popular Catholic historical figure thanks to the poorly researched ramblings of some novelist who thought that Columbus was the one who "discovered" that the world is round. Seriously, they could have and should have picked any other Catholic[ent]hellip[/ent]



[ent]hellip[/ent]OK, almost any other Catholic and have been better served. Instead, in an age when everyone is yelling about the Catholic church molesting children, we are talking about Columbus and his buddies giving each other underage female slaves as gifts and/or party favors. Columbus is perhaps the one and only historical figure Americans can point at and say "Wow, that guy was really horrible to indigenous people" without being laughed out of the room for rank hypocrisy.

 

[skepticalbip]

^^^

Columbus day was not instituted to glorify Catholics. It was a day for Italian-Americans - the Italians generally happened to be Catholic but then so were the Irish but the Irish got St.Patrick's day. Neither was for their religion but for their country of origin.

 

[repoman]

^^^

Columbus day was not instituted to glorify Catholics. It was a day for Italian-Americans - the Italians generally happened to be Catholic but then so were the Irish but the Irish got St.Patrick's day. Neither was for their religion but for their country of origin.

Thanks for the info

 

[rousseau]

Whether Columbus himself, specifically, was evil is a non-sequitur toward the argument of whether his statues should come down.

One way or another he symbolizes the conquest and massacre of an entire culture of people for the profit of Europe. If you were a native looking at his statue you wouldn't think: it's cool, he was one of the few European explorers that didn't brutally massacre and enslave my ancestors.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

How unsurprising to find Jolly enthusiastically agreeing with something posted by someone who is openly fascist.

I also agree that trains should run on time. So did Hitler. Oh the horror.

Had you actually watched the video, you would have seen that the guy in it agrees with pretty much everything you said.

 

[repoman]

How unsurprising to find Jolly enthusiastically agreeing with something posted by someone who is openly fascist.

I also agree that trains should run on time. So did Hitler. Oh the horror.

Had you actually watched the video, you would have seen that the guy in it agrees with pretty much everything you said.

I am more of a Nazbol.

 

[Trausti]

How unsurprising to find Jolly enthusiastically agreeing with something posted by someone who is openly fascist.

If repoman is a fascist than Underseer is a pedophile. Words mean whatever we want them to mean, right?

 

[steve_bank]

How was Columbus singulary evil compared to all the rest in the world, and where on Earth including the Americaas where there was something different?

American native cultures were violent and warlike. They wared on each other and had whatto us toaday grotesque rituals in some cultures.

It is easy to bash Columbus et al. Much harder to take an objective balanced view.

 

[untermensche]

Nobody really cares about the level of evilness of Columbus.

He had no soul to judge.

What he brought was genocide.

 

[Trausti]

Nobody really cares about the level of evilness of Columbus.

He had no soul to judge.

What he brought was genocide.

'Cause before Columbus came, Amerindians had a monolithic culture which promoted peace and understanding. They eschewed violence. Damn Columbus.

 

[untermensche]

Nobody really cares about the level of evilness of Columbus.

He had no soul to judge.

What he brought was genocide.

'Cause before Columbus came, Amerindians had a monolithic culture which promoted peace and understanding. They eschewed violence. Damn Columbus.

Before Columbus and what followed shortly were millions more alive and many less in slavery.

 

[Bronzeage]

Taken in context, Columbus was probably like any other man, only more so.

Also taken in context, the greatest mistake the Native Americans made was letting any European return to Europe alive.

 

[Politesse]

Taken in context, Columbus was probably like any other man, only more so.

Also taken in context, the greatest mistake the Native Americans made was letting any European return to Europe alive.

They did (sensibly) burn Columbus' first colony to the ground when they realized it was the source of the plague that was killing everyone on Hispaniola. But it was too late.

 

[zorq]

Surprisingly, the video that Repoman posted is really good. I mean, the you-tuber who made the video actually makes a lot of really good videos. It is only surprising to me that repoman was able to identify it as a good video. (sorry, repoman )

I actually wasn't first linked to this video from the OP. I first watched it when it was linked as a response to a video by Adam Ruins Everything. Adam usually has some good videos but this one seemed suspicious so I investigated further.

Anyway, Columbus wasn't nearly as evil as many people these days believe he was. Nor was he nearly as stupid as mostly the same people believe he was. I recommend the video too. If you haven't seen it, you should watch it.

Columbus does get a lot of undeserved hate, and has been the victim of some unfair smear campaigns, but he was no saint either. So the question in the OP is, "Should the statues come down?" Eh? I don't think so. Europe is littered with monuments to rulers and warlords who likely rank a lot higher on any evil scale, but just like Columbus, their contributions to history were and are significant.

I'm still a little torn on a lot of the confederate statues though. Some should stay. Some should go. eh...

 

[Politesse]

Surprisingly, the video that Repoman posted is really good. I mean, the you-tuber who made the video actually makes a lot of really good videos. It is only surprising to me that repoman was able to identify it as a good video. (sorry, repoman )

I actually wasn't first linked to this video from the OP. I first watched it when it was linked as a response to a video by Adam Ruins Everything. Adam usually has some good videos but this one seemed suspicious so I investigated further.

Anyway, Columbus wasn't nearly as evil as many people these days believe he was. Nor was he nearly as stupid as mostly the same people believe he was. I recommend the video too. If you haven't seen it, you should watch it.

Columbus does get a lot of undeserved hate, and has been the victim of some unfair smear campaigns, but he was no saint either. So the question in the OP is, "Should the statues come down?" Eh? I don't think so. Europe is littered with monuments to rulers and warlords who likely rank a lot higher on any evil scale, but just like Columbus, their contributions to history were and are significant.

I'm still a little torn on a lot of the confederate statues though. Some should stay. Some should go. eh...

"Unfair smear campaigns"? Two centuries of unearned lionization and public ceremony in his honor?

I am interested: in terms of choosing who to honor, how much genocide rape theft and slavery is too much genocide rape theft and slavery? Like, at what point do you think someone should be condemned for their actions?

 

[Eldarion Lathria]

Taken in context, Columbus was probably like any other man, only more so.

Also taken in context, the greatest mistake the Native Americans made was letting any European return to Europe alive.

So genocide is good if white not people of no color subhuman cave beasts are the victim? Columbus brought multiculturism and diversity to the Americas. Aren't they good things?

Eldarion Lathria

 

[Trausti]

Taken in context, Columbus was probably like any other man, only more so.

Also taken in context, the greatest mistake the Native Americans made was letting any European return to Europe alive.

So genocide is good if white not people of no color subhuman cave beasts are the victim? Columbus brought multiculturism and diversity to the Americas. Aren't they good things?

Eldarion Lathria

He was all for open borders; which the Woke say is a good thing.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I think what is happening here is that apologists set the bar too low by comparing Columbus to emperors' imperial conquests, enslavements, etc. A similar thing is done when trying to put slave owning founding fathers into "historical context" to excuse their slave owning. Somewhere in there, it is completely forgotten that many individuals did not take part, nor never wanted to take part in owning or murdering human beings en masse. Who we ought to chose to honor are those people who stood up against the trend, who did not say "well, everyone else is doing it," and chose to fight against it in some way: the abolitionist movement for example or people who came up with theories on civil government, civil rights, human rights, made legal arguments against slavery or moral arguments against mass murder. Those persons exist and if we don't know it, it's because we focus too much on the wrong people in our cultural learning through these very celebrations under discussion. Celebrate the Magna Carta, John Locke, Harriet Tubman, John Adams. And the reason I bring up the Magna Carta as an example is because the history of fighting for fairness even under despotism and understanding fairness to other human beings is a longer history than Columbus. Let me put this another way. Would you expect Germans to celebrate various military personnel from their Nazi German past while saying "he was not really a terrible person because everyone was doing it," or would you expect them to honor the Germans who stood up to the mass evil of the time such as Hans and Sophie Scholl of the White Rose Society? Sure, it makes sense to learn about Columbus because his existence was impactful, but not to celebrate him.