[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

Yes, this is exactly it. Because those who praise her are asked to consider a position that can't be defended in a 2022 world view. Which then becomes the conversation.

Except in some cases, the position could not be defended at the time that it was made. Or it was a decision that could be supported then but in hindsight can no longer be supported. Either way is possible to praise the overall while not defending the specific. My issue is the feeling that the position should not even be discussed at all.

Does everyone, on all sides of the political spectrum, have the same requirement? Who gets to decide when a mistake is so egregious by today's standards that apology isn't enough? Will it be enough tomorrow? Can the decision be reversed?

Many people just don't give interviews, and the world of politics is such that making an apology of any kind is seen as a fatal weakness. Or sometimes, enough time has passed that the offender is no longer with us.

And, of course, the next day, there will be a call for a new apology. Because the apology itself isn't important. It can't change history. All it does is change the topic to a position that can't be defended in the context of the day.

And this is where everything gets messy right? Do all sides of the political spectrum have to do it? No. Has that requirement been demanded of all sides of the political spectrum when it suited the other side? Absolutely. Is any side of the political spectrum prepared to give up their "right" to hold the other side to such a requirement for political advantage? Hell no. That has been the case my entire life.

You are right No one is required to give an interview. Yes in the world of politics making an apology is seen as a fatal weakness. But both of those decisions also smack of a person that lacks of humility, and is so angry and defensive as to believe they are beyond reproach. That does not mean the explanation/apology will be enough for some or guarantee that all criticism will go away. It does mean that the explanation/apology can be used to provide a bit of vital nuance to the conversation being had.

Of course. And, with humility, understand history. That times continually change, and our own evaluations are ultimately unimportant. We're supposed to learn from history, not judge it, over and over.

What we're doing is not so interesting or relevant that anyone should care about a pro/con list created on September 12, 2022.

When we erect a statue, it's not some forever judgment that a certain figure from history is the GOAT of people. It's a piece of artwork commemorating something - a moment, an idea, an inspiration. Nothing could possibly stand up to continual litigation and a changing world.

What we understand about history is that we rarely gets all the facts in one neat package. We understand that we may have one view of a moment in time based on limited information and limited perspective. As time goes on and we gather more information and perspectives from that time and from today, it makes sense that our views and opinions changes as well. Not all criticism discussed in 2022 is based exclusively on a 2022 world view. It may be rooted in information from that moment in time that we only accessed in 2022.

I've written many times that introspection is one of the more valuable traits people can have. If you're too much a product of the zeitgeist when you were first convincingly aware of the zeitgeist, that can be a problem.

So if we continually hold life as it was in the past to the zeitgeist, nothing holds up or ever will hold up. Even the best of us today won't hold up ten years from now if we don't change.

We can't commemorate anything, ever, by these standards. It's really quite unsettling how entrenched this is right now. And what's particularly worrisome is just how alone people are these days - it's so easy to tune into the Twitterverse and learn the zeitgeist, but never actually interact in person with another human being.

In short, this whole cancellation thing has become an avatar of today's overwhelming misanthropy.

Jim this is just not true. We celebrate all sorts of events and people while at the same time acknowledging that are things about those events and people that don't match 2022 standards and are worthy of criticism. To take it to the very unimportant world of sports. Some believe that David Ortiz is and should be celebrated as one of the greatest players in baseball history. Also, based on evidence found in the Mitchell report, other believe that David Ortiz's use of PEDs make him unworthy of such celebrations. For a lot of those people that decision was made when the Mitchel report came out. Based on what we know right now, David Ortiz is a HOFer who also appear in the Mitchell report as a PED user. He will be celebrated by some and not celebrated by other based on the information we have now. I have no doubt that if we found out that David Ortiz is fully exonerated or is Satan reincarnated, it will probably cause a revaluation of whether we do or not celebrate him in the same way no matter what he did on the field or how many statues have been made in his honor and rightfully so.