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Major road to be renamed

lionking said:
I’ve said this in other similar threads about statues and so on, if you judged every historical figure on today’s standards, no statues would survive. Churchill? Nasty piece of work, sexist, probably racist. Out with you. Every royal, general, admiral and political leader prior to the 20th century? Racists, autocrats, bullies all of you. No statues, no names.

History shouldn’t work like that.
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Sure it should. Why on Earth shouldn't it?

People of future generations shouldn't be forced to honor the people we honor today if they decide there's a good reason not to honor them; it's entirely their prerogative. Taking a statue of somebody down or taking their name off a building or street doesn't remove their name from the history books.

Statues aren't "history", they're not about history. They're about our (the people who erect them) opinion of a person. It's okay to remove a statue when opinions of that person have changed.
 
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lionking said:
“Allegedly” the key word. We can’t have post mortem trials, but it looks like we can have post mortem convictions.
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Who's being convicted? The guy's dead. Also, his sexual assault of minors is pretty well established as fact. The impetus for the name change wasn't some random politician, it was a submission to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. And it wasn't some nameless nobody politician who announced the decision, it was Mick Gentleman, who is a veteran MLA and quite well-regarded in the community.

Sideroxylon said:
What is a stake here? What is the cost of a name change?
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Actually there is a fairly substantial cost to changing the name of a major road as all signage, maps and related records need to be updated.

ETA but that's obvious so I'm not sure why I mentioned it. Maybe I'm in a bit of a **** mood tonight as well.
 
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Sideroxylon said:
We gain not commemorating abhorrent people. As far as evidence goes it need not be Pell level.
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A lot of Churchill’s attitudes, behaviours and decisions are abhorrent by the contemporary standards of some. Like Slim, he was a war hero. You have judged Slim to be not appropriate to be commemorated on the basis of an untried allegation. What about Churchill?
 
lionking said:
A lot of Churchill’s attitudes, behaviours and decisions are abhorrent by the contemporary standards of some. Like Slim, he was a war hero. You have judged Slim to be not appropriate to be commemorated on the basis of an untried allegation. What about Churchill?
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Like I said, there's really not a lot of doubt that Slim was a kiddy fiddler. Sure, he can't be tried because he's dead. We can't try Hitler either (oh no, have I Godwinned the thread already), but we pretty universally recognise that we don't want to name a street after him.
 
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lionking said:
A lot of Churchill’s attitudes, behaviours and decisions are abhorrent by the contemporary standards of some. Like Slim, he was a war hero. You have judged Slim to be not appropriate to be commemorated on the basis of an untried allegation. What about Churchill?
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He didn’t do the Anzacs any favours. Lets find a good local indigenous name.
 
Sideroxylon said:
He didn’t do the Anzacs any favours. Lets find a good local indigenous name.
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At least you’re consistent. ;)

You will need to rename a hell of a lot of places, including a quite pleasant Gippsland town.

Whoops, Gipps was racist, wasn’t he?
 
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lionking said:
At least you’re consistent. ;)

You will need to rename a hell of a lot of places, including a quite pleasant Gippsland town.

Whoops, Gipps was racist, wasn’t he?
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I am thinking National Highway Number One could do with a change too. Theres one to ruffle more than a few feathers. The old track holds great deal of sentiment to me and I read the Stuart diaries.
 
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lionking said:
I’ve said this in other similar threads about statues and so on, if you judged every historical figure on today’s standards, no statues would survive.
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This is not only not true, but it is a known method of damage controlling racism and sexism by racists and sexists.

Historically there have always been good people. At no time in history did educated well meaning people not know that racism and sexism are bad. And many of them, believe it or not, practiced it.
 
This is The End said:
This is not only not true, but it is a known method of damage controlling racism and sexism by racists and sexists.

Historically there have always been good people. At no time in history did educated well meaning people not know that racism and sexism are bad. And many of them, believe it or not, practiced it.
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Justified as divine will, the natural order.
 
cullennz said:
So the bloke was only ever "accused"?

Seems a tad silly
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For the third time, No-one really doubts it.

Since it's clear that I'm going to have to spell it out because no-one's looking at the link I provided, Slim was the patron of Fairbridge Farm, which at the time was assisting with several child migration programs. In 2007, several people came forward to say that they had been sexually abused by Slim at the farm, and by 2014 it had been referred to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

According to one report, up to 60% of children who went through Fairbridge Farm were sexually abused.
 
This is The End said:
Historically there have always been good people. At no time in history did educated well meaning people not know that racism and sexism are bad. And many of them, believe it or not, practiced it.
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This is utter nonsense, unless you define “educated and well meaning people” to be a few saints and exclude the entire ruling royal and religious classes of every nation prior to the 20th century.
 
Checkmite said:
Well he's a little dead, which precludes the possibility of a typical legal process.
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arthwollipot said:
For the third time, No-one really doubts it.

Since it's clear that I'm going to have to spell it out because no-one's looking at the link I provided, Slim was the patron of Fairbridge Farm, which at the time was assisting with several child migration programs. In 2007, several people came forward to say that they had been sexually abused by Slim at the farm, and by 2014 it had been referred to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

According to one report, up to 60% of children who went through Fairbridge Farm were sexually abused.
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So "alleged" means guilty?

Been listening to any Michael Jackson tunes lately?
 
lionking said:
This is utter nonsense, unless you define “educated and well meaning people” to be a few saints and exclude the entire ruling royal and religious classes of every nation prior to the 20th century.
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I find the question in open and interesting one. Got any solid references here? Anyone else out there?
 
Until they rename Washington I will treat this selective renaming, hypey, wiping out of history for the touchy feelies with the disdain it deserves.
 
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