What widely-praised historical figure do you think was actually not very admirable when you scrutinize them?
What widely-praised historical figure do you think was actually not very admirable when you scrutinize them?
All of them I think. What human being doesn't suck in some way?
I still hear people praising Thomas "piece of shit reason we didn't have wireless charging a hundred years ago" Edison.
But I have to wonder if Edison's vision of a DC electrical grid might have been environmentally better in the long run, as it would have been very, very decentralized, with a small power station necessary every couple of kilometers. It might have spurred an accelerated study into renewable sources of electricity, such as wind, even decades and decades ago.
As things turned out, Tesla/Westinghouse's victory with AC allows these centralized and "too big to fail" behemoths to suck coal and spit out black smoke out of sight and out of mind for most people.
I get what your saying, but I think the benefits of DC power plants would have been short term, rather than long term.
Once scaling was introduced there's no way Edison DC power stations every block would make any sense materially, financially or societally.
I can't blame Tesla for toxic capitalism any more than I can blame the wright brothers for manipulative airline ticket prices today.
Same reason we didn't have electric cars a hundred years ago
Unregulated capitalism and undeveloped antitrust laws are the culprit with respect to centralization, not innovation.
reason we didn't have wireless charging a hundred years ago
I'm confused what's this about? Please don't tell this is about Tesla's dumb as shit "wireless energy" plan because you know that like, just doesn't work right?
All of them is most likely the most accurate answer. The tilted examples would be: Genghis Khan is widely admired as a hero by the Mongolians and almost universally hated by others. Leopold II is admired by the Belgians but would be a criminal, probably crimes against humanity, today.
A Congolese man, Nsala, looking at the severed hand and foot of his five-year-old daughter who was killed and allegedly cannibalized by members of the Force Publique in 1904, as a result of Leopold's policy.
Had a book assigned for history class that totally and forever changed my understanding of Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World I think it's called.
Dude and his empire basically singlehandedly spread the written word, religious freedom, and lots of other ideas we generally consider good today. Not saying he didn't kill a lot, because he did, but his historical impact is much more complex than "barbarian invader kills a bunch of people"
Mother Theresa, Barack Obama, Winston Churchill, and Ronald Reagan to name the first few that occur to me before coffee. I can probably think of less obvious ones later.
Edit: Y'all I miss The Before Times too and it's great we were able to get a nonwhite POTUS; I was talking about his drone strike and deportation track record more than anything else.
The stories that Christopher Hitchens told about Mother Teresa were largely made up. For example, the reason that her hospices didn't give opiate painkillers to their patients wasn't a belief that poor people deserve to be in pain ... it was that they weren't doctors, so they could not legally possess opiates. India has drug laws too!
Even ceding that, she still defended convicted sexual predators. The whole Catholic church is essentially a rogue nation shielding pederasty across the globe. Anyone they would canonize is suspect in my view.
Hot take, Washington.
I liked reading about his misadventures in youth, and he did look pretty grand sitting on a horse, but yeah. Practically every president is a terrible person
Gandhi. Seriously. Sleeping habits aside, dude was pro-apartheid.
Winston Churchill. It doesn't take a lot of digging to realise he was absolutely a racist and white supremacist little shit. Even "judged by the morals of the time" people recognised just how aweful he truly was.
Yes, his contributions to the defeat of the Nazis is undeniably great. He was a good wartime prime minister and that shouldn't be overlooked. This doesn't excuse some of the more heinous things he's said and done.
Shamefully, the British education system failed spectacularly on this point. I grew up believing he was some paragon of moral good and justice and the school system did nothing to counter this. We'd all rather believe he was a great man. If he is, as they say, "the greatest Briton", were fucked.
"I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." - Winston Churchill 1937
He was the right man at the right time. But yes, he was an utter piece of shit.
Albert Einstein. He was as misogynistic as you can w/o committing any crime.
Someone listened to the Behind the Bastards episode on him that was put out recently!
When I was young Napoleon was generally admired and considered a "great man". A guy who laid most of Europe to waste in pursuit of his personal power.
Nobody comes to mind.
Yeah, they are the worst.
Thomas Jefferson
Me I think. You’d like me if you met me, but I don’t scrutinise too well.