The editing of history bothers me a great deal. I am one of those that considers the burning of the Library of Alexandria as one of the worst catastrophes in human history. We have fragments of knowledge that escaped that and some of those fragments such as the few surviving works of Plato (when there were said to be many more) are works that still influence us to this day. How much of early history was stored there and documented and is lost? Could there have been historical documents and records that explain places like Gobekli Tepe and other amazing archaeological findings? Could there have been an explanation of how the antikythera mechanism could have existed at the time it apparently existed, and how did it end up on the bottom of the ocean? It is possible these answers were in the library of Alexandria and were lost. We will never know unless we invent time travel.
I have heard accounts of temples in Egypt and other parts of the world where a statue may be destroyed, a face intentionally removed, or certain glyphs on rocks having been scraped away in an attempt to erase that person from history. This leaves those of us that come later speculating and trying to solve these mysteries. I get angry thinking of the ignorance and ARROGANCE of humans and how we believe we should obliterate things from the past we don't like. Let us make certain that no one ever knows of this thing, or talks about it again.
There is that saying "Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it" yet it seems that when people seek to erase the history they don't like that they are making that doom more likely to come in the future. People that might have had an opportunity to learn from it do not even have that opportunity, because it is obscured.
Recently we have had ISIS bulldozing and destroying ancient temples from Mesopotamia, Babylon, and our ancient history. In their ignorance and arrogance they wish to wipe out the past when people believed differently than them. What does this leave? It leaves a void in the historical record.
This infuriates me when I see this idiocy and rampant marriage of ignorance and arrogance destroying the past. It cannot be recovered. Once it is done, it is gone. There are no take backs from these morons. I don't usually use such terms, but I consider it very fitting in this particular type of situation. I do not consider it an ad hominem attack here. It is a statement of fact as far as I am concerned.
It is actually worse than this. People may understand this and get outraged if they are not part of ISIS or ISIS sympathizers. They may say how bad this is. They may even agree with me on Alexandria, and all the past defacing and erasing of history.
Then we mention the Confederate Flag, statues of confederate generals such as Robert E. Lee, or other prominent members of the American past that they don't like. Suddenly, they are fine with destroying them, erasing them from history, banning any representation of them, etc. What they don't see is the pure hypocrisy in this. This is NO different from what ISIS and all of the other marriages of ignorance and arrogance have been doing in our history. It is erasing and editing history. ISIS is erasing memories from the past they don't like. Those banning the Confederate flag are doing the same thing with the same justification. It is not like the confederate flag suddenly makes someone a slave owner, or that a piece of cloth with colors on it forces someone to take an act. They don't have that kind of power or ability.
Video documenting racist past of the flag - still not a reason to ban anything.
I see this as an advancement of the SAFE SPACES doctrine which I personally find to be ludicrous and pure stupidity. It is attempting to remake reality into a fantasy ideal world. Let's pretend these things didn't exist, and didn't happen. Then it advances, let's wipe any trace of the fact it happened.
In the future maybe we will have none of these past lessons and figures from the past upon which to talk about lessons. Robert E. Lee? "Grandma, why are you angry about Robert E. Lee? I've never heard of him." Then grandma dies.
[Source: Wikipedia] - Ban my post, because I posted this image. Same concept, same ignorance and arrogant ideology.
The good or the bad lessons that might go with history are lost. Future generations are doomed to repeat things that we should have learned from the past. Why? The masses just had to have their safe spaces. They just had to virtue signal and show how GREAT they were because they destroyed some monument, or record of someone that did what they perceive as bad things sometime in the past. It offends them. Reality offends them. They should not have to EVER be offended or face things in reality that they find offensive. Just wait until what you do, say, or think offends them. We are allowing precedence to be set that it is okay to censor reality as long as someone with sufficient authority agrees that it is offensive.
Setting precedence is a slippery slope. You may be all excited and endorsing the erasing of history you don't like now. In doing so you are providing support for a mental/censoring/manipulative/fakehistory weapon that can be turned just as easily against things and ideas you like in the future. This power to censor should NOT exist, regardless of how offensive you find something. We learn from being exposed to offensive things just as much as we learn from non-offensive things. In fact, I'd even argue we might actually learn more from the offensive things.
That doesn't mean we need to FORCE the rest of the world to never expose us to offensive things.
Now to circle around. The Unite the Right Rally was not just white supremacists, it was not just racists. There were definitely some of that sort in that group. Yet, a lot of the people there were simply there to protest the recent demands to remove the statue of General Robert E. Lee. They didn't want history edited. This didn't mean they were confederates. It did not mean they were racists. It simply means they believe the history should remain available for all to study. It simply means that your right to put crosses on things, and put symbols and people you like on shirts is protected, and so should the right of other people to do the same.
The statue, the racism, Trump, mainstream media, etc did not cause the violence. That is looking for a scapegoat. That is people not taking responsibility for their own choices. That is blaming people rather than accepting guilt. When it comes to violence ultimately the choice to go that route is up to the individual. Can other sources influence them? Yes, most definitely. Yet what choice they make is not ultimately the fault of those influences. We are individuals and we must be responsible for our own choices, and the consequences of those choices.
That is another side effect of the safe space, virtue signalling, backwards world we are increasingly creating. We have an increasing number of people that seem unwilling or unable to take responsibility for the consequences of their own choice. It is the fault of anyone else but themselves.
This has to stop. If you make a choice. The consequences good or bad are YOUR responsibility and not someone else. If you don't believe this then that would logically indicate that you view yourself simply as a puppet and not an individual. Quit looking to blame people for choices you make. Own your mistakes, and your successes and LEARN from them.
Now I am going to be very blunt. If you can't handle profanity, please stop reading now.
Fuck Safe Spaces, Fuck Virtue Signalling, and Fuck anyone that wants to edit and erase history.
People need to grow the fuck up and face reality GOOD and BAD rather than trying to pretend it doesn't exist.
Could I have said that without using profanity? Yes. I didn't want to. Like I said Fuck Safe Spaces.
EDIT: One of several shares of this video. This one is from a Black Man named Anthony Brian Logan.
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