I've been saying essentially the same thing for decades. This essay zeroes in on the hypocrisy of an ideology that creates its 'science' out of its own imaginings rather from facts and research.
I have a strong physical science background. I made my living from manipulating physical reality. Being a legend in my own mind does not pay well. Getting the job done, right the first time, pays the bills.
In my world, pontificating gets you laughed at. Coming in on budget gets respect and admiration.
When will people realize this "game" of renaming things is un-winnable? There is no person, thing or organization that will ever be moral enough to please the un-pleasable. (Un-pleaseable was just auto-corrected to "unappeasable" which is actually true as well.)
Magellan was a man of his time, but not an ordinary one. Even if his circumnavigation was not the FIRST it is surely the first which we have the documentation for. Even if he is not a man we would celebrate today, his accomplishments certainly are. Will the future judge our profligate deficit spending and unwillingness to defend our borders at least as harshly as we judge "slavers and colonizers" in our own history? Will the late 20th and early 21st centuries be thought of as a Golden Age to those in the future? A time of legend and myth that serves only to highlight our hubris and how badly our generation served the ones that come after? With US debt accounting for a sixth of the total money supply on the planet, "unsustainable" seems like almost British understatement.
Humans gotta human. They lie, steal, conquer and enslave. They also innovate, show compassion and sow peace. Like the differences between individuals, some groups tend to be more or less toward either extremes in behavior, and we do seem to have record of those who have been on the tapering ends of that bell curve. I would agree that the “decolonizers” are showing themselves to be heavily on the negative side of that graph, and are using sly techniques for their imagined righteousness.
Well, this moment makes me sad. I need to take a break from supporting this Substack, at least for a while. Because it looks very much like you have fallen for exactly the same type of fallacy you're criticizing, Heather. Not the Noble Savage, but the Noble Israel. Why else, when reviling all the current evils in the world do you waste not one word on the horror of bombing civilians, many of them children? Is that not in any way at least as bad as tearing down posters?
Your larger point is sound enough, but it may be time to examine the plank in your own eye. In the mean time, I really can't face having to suffer the grief and frustration of watching you take the side of a genocidal nation without even examining the possibility that you may have been misled. You of all people should have some skepticism of the narrative of the mainstream press, but on this it seems you do not. I hate this, but I can't watch any more.
If we grant that the idea of the noble savage is an extension of our desire to exercise dominion over the world by perfecting man (the bloodiest of recurring themes in history) than I think it is fair to say this ethos has found it's audience once again in the 21st century as woke.
Decolonization practically defines woke. Woke purports to perfect everything, but always, incrementally and superficially, relabelling everything into submission, never arriving at the destination - dodging all measurements.
But more than that, woke, sneaking in the door as the noble savage, has been tooled as a philosophical and legal cudgel to implement the UN global sustainability goals. This process can be traced to at least 1990 in a global meeting a year ahead of the UN Rio Summit - where the 'liberators' bulldozed the interests of the 'savages' in their own bankyard while rolling out their 'enobling goals'.
'Appeal to the Noble Savage' is exactly the right term. And after reading your piece I wonder if idealizing a historical version of the noble savage is both a clever ploy to re-colonize our world and also our unconscious desire to find proof of concept for the promised land, where there simply is none.
Ancient history is as maleable as the perfection we are promised beyond the horizon. It is the perfect place to point to and say 'See! Look at those stars, it worked then, it will work tomorrow.'
Thank you Dr. Heying for reporting on Megellen renaming threat. As I type this, I am seated in my apartment that is located 0.4 miles north of Hastings Law School- the premier law school on the west coast. Our governor Newsom has stripped the name “Hastings” so that it is now “College of Law” because California’s first supreme court justice was not woke by 2020 standards and for alleged but not evidenced harm to American Indians (what they actually call themselves). I have observed that city and state and institution members of Rockefeller-funded Equity Program are engaged in renaming to counter colonialism effect on indigenous. I can relate to that concern as I am indigenous to SF Bay Area and I am fighting to repel the Equity Program colonization. That you for observing “prior” vs. “first” status of inhabitants. I also made same correction in letter to SF Supervisors.
I am going to invoke Jordan Peterson as I mention the importance of rules to guide downstream activity. The “renaming” enthusiasts cite reasons, not rules. This is ill-advised because anyone can conjure up reasons for glass half-empty/full. When I find myself in a philosophical dilemma, I try to construct a rule for forward direction.
Magellan went on his famous 43,000 mile tour in 1519 to ~1521/22 (Google highlights). Maybe this professor could do the same thing (up the game---same technology!) and then she could name this astrological gem after herself. He didn’t make it--but if she does...
Perhaps you've also heard of the American Ornithological Society's project to rename English bird names? From their website: "The AOS commits to changing all English-language names of birds within its geographic jurisdiction that are named directly after people (eponyms), along with other names deemed offensive and exclusionary, focusing first on those species that occur primarily within the U.S. or Canada." The downward spiral of supposedly scientific organizations is awful. They'll soon rename the Bald Eagle since everyone with alopecia is surely upset by this humiliation. Please keep up the good fight!
Silly people making spurious arguments. Respond to this as one would any wailing child throwing a tantrum in the store; their emotional heft is on that level.
I've been saying essentially the same thing for decades. This essay zeroes in on the hypocrisy of an ideology that creates its 'science' out of its own imaginings rather from facts and research.
I have a strong physical science background. I made my living from manipulating physical reality. Being a legend in my own mind does not pay well. Getting the job done, right the first time, pays the bills.
In my world, pontificating gets you laughed at. Coming in on budget gets respect and admiration.
When will people realize this "game" of renaming things is un-winnable? There is no person, thing or organization that will ever be moral enough to please the un-pleasable. (Un-pleaseable was just auto-corrected to "unappeasable" which is actually true as well.)
Magellan was a man of his time, but not an ordinary one. Even if his circumnavigation was not the FIRST it is surely the first which we have the documentation for. Even if he is not a man we would celebrate today, his accomplishments certainly are. Will the future judge our profligate deficit spending and unwillingness to defend our borders at least as harshly as we judge "slavers and colonizers" in our own history? Will the late 20th and early 21st centuries be thought of as a Golden Age to those in the future? A time of legend and myth that serves only to highlight our hubris and how badly our generation served the ones that come after? With US debt accounting for a sixth of the total money supply on the planet, "unsustainable" seems like almost British understatement.
Humans gotta human. They lie, steal, conquer and enslave. They also innovate, show compassion and sow peace. Like the differences between individuals, some groups tend to be more or less toward either extremes in behavior, and we do seem to have record of those who have been on the tapering ends of that bell curve. I would agree that the “decolonizers” are showing themselves to be heavily on the negative side of that graph, and are using sly techniques for their imagined righteousness.
Well, this moment makes me sad. I need to take a break from supporting this Substack, at least for a while. Because it looks very much like you have fallen for exactly the same type of fallacy you're criticizing, Heather. Not the Noble Savage, but the Noble Israel. Why else, when reviling all the current evils in the world do you waste not one word on the horror of bombing civilians, many of them children? Is that not in any way at least as bad as tearing down posters?
Your larger point is sound enough, but it may be time to examine the plank in your own eye. In the mean time, I really can't face having to suffer the grief and frustration of watching you take the side of a genocidal nation without even examining the possibility that you may have been misled. You of all people should have some skepticism of the narrative of the mainstream press, but on this it seems you do not. I hate this, but I can't watch any more.
If we grant that the idea of the noble savage is an extension of our desire to exercise dominion over the world by perfecting man (the bloodiest of recurring themes in history) than I think it is fair to say this ethos has found it's audience once again in the 21st century as woke.
Decolonization practically defines woke. Woke purports to perfect everything, but always, incrementally and superficially, relabelling everything into submission, never arriving at the destination - dodging all measurements.
But more than that, woke, sneaking in the door as the noble savage, has been tooled as a philosophical and legal cudgel to implement the UN global sustainability goals. This process can be traced to at least 1990 in a global meeting a year ahead of the UN Rio Summit - where the 'liberators' bulldozed the interests of the 'savages' in their own bankyard while rolling out their 'enobling goals'.
'Appeal to the Noble Savage' is exactly the right term. And after reading your piece I wonder if idealizing a historical version of the noble savage is both a clever ploy to re-colonize our world and also our unconscious desire to find proof of concept for the promised land, where there simply is none.
Ancient history is as maleable as the perfection we are promised beyond the horizon. It is the perfect place to point to and say 'See! Look at those stars, it worked then, it will work tomorrow.'
Thank you Dr. Heying for reporting on Megellen renaming threat. As I type this, I am seated in my apartment that is located 0.4 miles north of Hastings Law School- the premier law school on the west coast. Our governor Newsom has stripped the name “Hastings” so that it is now “College of Law” because California’s first supreme court justice was not woke by 2020 standards and for alleged but not evidenced harm to American Indians (what they actually call themselves). I have observed that city and state and institution members of Rockefeller-funded Equity Program are engaged in renaming to counter colonialism effect on indigenous. I can relate to that concern as I am indigenous to SF Bay Area and I am fighting to repel the Equity Program colonization. That you for observing “prior” vs. “first” status of inhabitants. I also made same correction in letter to SF Supervisors.
I am going to invoke Jordan Peterson as I mention the importance of rules to guide downstream activity. The “renaming” enthusiasts cite reasons, not rules. This is ill-advised because anyone can conjure up reasons for glass half-empty/full. When I find myself in a philosophical dilemma, I try to construct a rule for forward direction.
LMAO!! This is what comedians used to do! Love the irony!
"Perhaps Amherst should rebrand."
Ah, the twist back! The boomerang always returns to the hurler.
Yes, perhaps Amherst should. And Yale. And ____.
But the finger pointers and cancelers do pride themselves on their diplomas showing off these very same institutions.
Magellan went on his famous 43,000 mile tour in 1519 to ~1521/22 (Google highlights). Maybe this professor could do the same thing (up the game---same technology!) and then she could name this astrological gem after herself. He didn’t make it--but if she does...
Perhaps you've also heard of the American Ornithological Society's project to rename English bird names? From their website: "The AOS commits to changing all English-language names of birds within its geographic jurisdiction that are named directly after people (eponyms), along with other names deemed offensive and exclusionary, focusing first on those species that occur primarily within the U.S. or Canada." The downward spiral of supposedly scientific organizations is awful. They'll soon rename the Bald Eagle since everyone with alopecia is surely upset by this humiliation. Please keep up the good fight!
This is an excellent article. I want to double my subscription right now!
From a university the name of which celebrates the inventor of the smallpox laden blanket ...
This professor will leave her position because of “toxic work place” and “feeling she doesn’t belong” You watch...
Silly people making spurious arguments. Respond to this as one would any wailing child throwing a tantrum in the store; their emotional heft is on that level.
Now just wait a second, or perhaps a few herded thousand years. I've been bumping into Neanderthal factoids lately.
If we can believe scientists using genetics in their investigations, it would appear that homo sapiens
interbreed with Neanderthal, generically appropriating, as they colonized across Eurasia. to the point of extermination of our cousins.
If Lucy were alive today, and of a woke persuasion, might she feel justified in her feeling that 5 million years worth of succession should be erased?
Personally, I'm not feeling a lot of remorse.