Christopher Columbus: The Pre-Modern Hitler

[A Pac]

Educate yourselves.
Christopher Columbus was awful (but this other guy was not) - The Oatmeal

 

[Quinntastic]

I had a few friends on facebook who said that Columbus Day was their "most favorite, non religious" holiday of the year. I posted that link as a comment to the status.

Columbus was a jerk!

 

[NDPhilly]

Leif Erickson day is where it's at dude

 

[Kaneyoufeelit]

"He discovered America is what he did. He was a brave Italian explorer. And in this house, Christopher Columbus is a hero. End of story."

The Columbus Day episode is one of my personal favorites.

 

[irishmarine]

Interesting article and a good read

 

[Irish Houstonian]

Judging a 15th Century man by 21st Century standards is a lot of things, but "educated" isn't one of them.

 

[Quinntastic]

Judging a 15th Century man by 21st Century standards is a lot of things, but "educated" isn't one of them.

Wait...so are you saying that slavery [the thing I'm judging him for] isn't a bad thing?

 

[Pops Freshenmeyer]

Judging a 15th Century man by 21st Century standards is a lot of things, but "educated" isn't one of them.

He was stripped of his viceroyship for tyrrany and incompetence. His contemporaries didn't think much of him either.

 

[Jebediah Springfield]

Lol I remember getting in trouble at school for walking into places and taking things on Columbus Day.

People weren't thrilled when I said I was trying to be like Columbus.

 

[Quinntastic]

Lol I remember getting in trouble at school for walking into places and taking things on Columbus Day.

People weren't thrilled when I said I was trying to be like Columbus.

If you really did this you would be one of my favorite people.

I cracked up out loud just thinking about it!!

 

[Booslum31]

Wait...so are you saying that slavery [the thing I'm judging him for] isn't a bad thing?

You might as well put Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin in that bad category too...

 

[Pops Freshenmeyer]

I'm pretty sure that John Adams was not a slave owner, if that's what you're referring to.

 

[Booslum31]

I'm pretty sure that John Adams was not a slave owner, if that's what you're referring to.

Thought he had...but it might have been cousin Sam. I do like Sam Adams beer.

 

[DSully1995]

Umm if you start doing this you will all have a lot less inspiring historical figures.

Kellog developped corn flakes to stop masturbation. Boom.

 

[swole1]

Nice read and very informative.

 

[NDBoiler]

Judging a 15th Century man by 21st Century standards is a lot of things, but "educated" isn't one of them.

Wait...so are you saying that slavery [the thing I'm judging him for] isn't a bad thing?

I don't think that is what he is saying, but rather the things we obviously know in modern times to be horrendously wrong with people like Columbus weren't as commonly viewed the same during past eras - i.e. the wrongness of slavery, cruel punishments, etc. I personally don't have a problem with making judgement by modern standards on historical figures, but you should keep in mind as well that moral and ethical standards do change over time. For that reason, it's probably not a bad idea for the government to consider modifying or even eliminating that national holiday, which would be easy to do. That does also spark an interesting debate on where do you stop with "righting the wrongs" of history too.

 

[NDBoiler]

Umm if you start doing this you will all have a lot less inspiring historical figures.

Kellog developped corn flakes to stop masturbation. Boom.

Well it sure as hell isn't working

 

[ndcoltsfan2010]

Interesting read. Times sure have changed for sure.

 

[Domina Nostra]

Judging a 15th Century man by 21st Century standards is a lot of things, but "educated" isn't one of them.

Exactly. If Columbus posted on message boards in modern America, he would have thought all the right things as well. As he lived in a much, much crazier time where death was a lot closer to everyone, civilization was in flux, and much of the world was unexplored-- you have to give him a break. He was a man in the times: a mixed bag by our standards. Like Winston Churchill.

America judges itself for slavery now. It judges itself for killing the Inidans. It judges itself for detaining the Japanese. But it still lets itself off the hook in the civil war and WWII for practicing total warfare (intentionally killing civilians to achieve military objectives). I wonder how future generations will view our nuking the Japanese? Many actually think of abortion as a good.

Go read about what Gandhi said about Africans...

 

[Buster Bluth]

Really the most important thing is to recognize that he didn't discover that the world was round. That **** makes me angry. Europeans knew it was round for a long time.

 

[Buster Bluth]

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/WH2S01I5b5Y" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Also, Louis CK on historical context...

 

[Quinntastic]

Louis C.K. is awesome

 

[BeauBenken]

Columbus Day was concocted by Benjamin Harrison to appease the heavy number of Italian and Irish immigrants coming to the U.S. As well, as a way to bring together the (then) current population with said immigrants. They needed a holiday that they could share. One in which all the Protestants could see that not all Catholics are bad because there was some huge fear and hatred for Catholics in our dominantly Protestant country.
Example:

The holiday was announced in 1892, 400 years after Columbus first sailed here, I believe. Not in 1930 like this article claims.

 

[PLACforever]

You might as well put Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin in that bad category too...

But Jefferson loved his slaves... Wink wink

 

[woolybug25]

Geez... if you guys are going to rail on a holiday, rail on "Sweetness Day".

That one not only costs money, but we also don't get out of work on it.

 

[Emcee77]

"He discovered America is what he did. He was a brave Italian explorer. And in this house, Christopher Columbus is a hero. End of story."

The Columbus Day episode is one of my personal favorites.

Oh, man I was just going to post this. Great episode.

Columbus may have been a jerk, but for better or worse he's a hero to a lot of Italian Americans, just by tradition. It puts us in kind of a crappy position. It's quite similar to slave-owning founding fathers like Thomas Jefferson (god-like where I grew up in Virginia).

 

[Jebediah Springfield]

If you really did this you would be one of my favorite people.

I cracked up out loud just thinking about it!!

I did it in HS.

It ended with me being sent to the office for inappropriate behavior lol

 

[Black Irish]

The Italian side of my family never made a big deal about Columbus Day. Pope John 23rd and Frank Sinatra were bigger cultural heroes for us.

 

[ACamp1900]

The Italian side of my family never made a big deal about Columbus Day. Pope John 23rd and Frank Sinatra were bigger cultural heroes for us.

So you're Black, Irish and Italian?? Who says we ain't cultural???


sidenote: I wonder if anyone still has the name Hitler out there... or did every single last one of them change their name??

 

[palinurus]

Well, this is nuanced piece of scholarship.

Did you know that Brown University, a few years ago, changed "Columbus Day weekend" to "Fall Weekend" because of these slave allegations? Did you also know that the founder of Brown University was actually involved, and made his money, in the slave trade?

I'm not denying people, including Columbus, have committed wrongs, but it is amusing (sort of) that people who attack Western Civilization use Western Civilization standards of human rights, natural law, and due process to do it. The Native Americans were not believers in due process. Anyway, I think we need to look at the big picture -- the good and the bad -- that came from European expansion. That's really what's fair and intellectually honest.