Word: moralizers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
However, Yardstick does protest the unfortunate fact that, because Columbus has his own holiday, he is a rich target for coarse cartooning. Yardstick also protests that it is ahistorical to view Columbus through the lens of today’s moral standards. It is the kind of work that pop historians have done for years with their Troubled Genius biographies: Kepler was a nut, Hemingway was a drunk, and don’t get us started on Rousseau...
Fine. But Yardstick has the temerity to venture further: Columbus did not commit any acts that were immoral by the standards of his day. Of course, in 1492 there were some who thought it morally wrong to enslave the native people of Spain’s conquered lands, just as there are some who today think it is morally wrong to drive SUVs—a debate Yardstick will leave for another column. But timid and sporadic discussion does not a moral consensus make. In fact, according to the eminent social historian Anthony Pagden, the debate was a question...
Like virtually every other cultural critic, Yardstick can relate this question to the awful national experience of Sept. 11. Here we have an act that nearly every human on the planet finds morally repugnant. People are saying that Sept. 11 saw the Death of Irony, but Yardstick tenders that Sept. 11 also saw the Death of the Agenda. Who will be morally outraged at events that took place 500 years ago, when so many people were massacred just a month ago? Christopher Columbus may very well be a symbol of immoral behavior, but these terrorists are real and they...
...anthrax and the little pocket of utter immorality in Afghanistan. This is the kind of historical bowel-loosener that makes Columbus (or logging in Alaska or animal cruelty or violence on television) seem like a pretty pathetic target for protest. Now that Sept. 11 is the official symbol of moral anachronism, Columbus Day can finally claim its rightful place in the constellation of holidays as a celebration of the adventure and accomplishment that spawned the deeply moral society we have today. For Columbus’ long weekend, the climate was finally right, not for protest, but for careful consideration...
...There is always pressure on the U.S. to be part of peacekeeping missions, and seeing as how we've just bombed Afghanistan to smithereens there may be some moral obligation to take part. It's too early to tell how the Bush administration will deal with such a request. The Pentagon obviously wouldn't like it; they don't like peacekeeping missions. But that's also why they don't get a big vote in these decisions...