ronburgundy
Contributor
Columbus day is generally about explorations that led to the settlements which evolved into the United States.
Yes, the attribution of these things to Columbus is historically inaccurate, but despite the misnomer, Columbus Day is not really celebrated by anyone as a celebration of the man himself.
There were many interesting things about the largely lost cultures of the indigenous people of North America, and it's a positive thing to reflect on that. However, almost no one alive today (including most Native Americans) would choose to live in those cultures as they actually existed and would much prefer the modern US.
Thus, while we should change its name (and not focus on any single individual), it makes sense to celebrate the things that led to the creation of those settlements, which created a context that allowed the most progressive Enlightenment values and thinking of the "Old World" to flourish and form the foundation of a new society.
For all its faults, the American Revolution and the US has led to far more progress in moral and political values and practices, not only relative to the European societies that proceeded it but relative to Native American societies, which were far closer to conservative, closed-minded, authoritarian cultures of small rural towns of today, than the romanticized nonsense of Disney movies. And that doesn't include the often brutal, short lives they lived in the absence of science-based medicine and technology. It is amusing to see people who (rightly) decry the lack of sufficient medical care for some Americans, who then talk like the US is worse than those "noble cultures" that didn't have effective medical care for anyone.
Yes, the attribution of these things to Columbus is historically inaccurate, but despite the misnomer, Columbus Day is not really celebrated by anyone as a celebration of the man himself.
There were many interesting things about the largely lost cultures of the indigenous people of North America, and it's a positive thing to reflect on that. However, almost no one alive today (including most Native Americans) would choose to live in those cultures as they actually existed and would much prefer the modern US.
Thus, while we should change its name (and not focus on any single individual), it makes sense to celebrate the things that led to the creation of those settlements, which created a context that allowed the most progressive Enlightenment values and thinking of the "Old World" to flourish and form the foundation of a new society.
For all its faults, the American Revolution and the US has led to far more progress in moral and political values and practices, not only relative to the European societies that proceeded it but relative to Native American societies, which were far closer to conservative, closed-minded, authoritarian cultures of small rural towns of today, than the romanticized nonsense of Disney movies. And that doesn't include the often brutal, short lives they lived in the absence of science-based medicine and technology. It is amusing to see people who (rightly) decry the lack of sufficient medical care for some Americans, who then talk like the US is worse than those "noble cultures" that didn't have effective medical care for anyone.
