San Francisco may rename school named for Washington

[San Lumen]

Nah. New York is better. I guess we will also be changing the names of a number of cities and state capitals including, Washington, DC, Columbus, Denver, Albany, (New York), Jefferson City, Jacksonville, Austin, Houston, Dallas, Charleston, Annapolis and likely many others.

All the ones named after horrible people.

But you have no alternatives for any of those as its easier to make ridiculous statements and attempt to erase memorials to people who were products of their time and ignore their contributions and instead focus on bad things they did in accordance with modern standards.

Again, that's completely irrelevant.

All of those are horrible people? Do you even know who some of them are named for? I bet you don't.

Its not irrelevant at all. You have no alternatives and would rather make grandiose statements to sound woke and edgy and instead you come of as a far left radical that has zero credibility by displaying total ignorance of history.

[Fahran]

I'm really not tht PC, but thank you

It's still a bad take, but consistency is good and so you may have one cookie.

[Fahran]

we don't need to have names prepared
we could pick random fucking words from the dictionary for all I care

Psh. Name things after me. It'll be fun and not at all confusing.

[San Lumen]

we don't need to have names prepared
we could pick random fucking words from the dictionary for all I care

Psh. Name things after me. It'll be fun and not at all confusing.

How about we name things for fictional characters? Gandalf High School has a nice ring to it.

[Fahran]

How about we name things for fictional characters? Gandalf High School has a nice ring to it.

Gandalf helped to carry out a genocide on the orcs.

[Kowani]

we don't need to have names prepared
we could pick random fucking words from the dictionary for all I care

Psh. Name things after me. It'll be fun and not at all confusing.

you can have one town in Utah, as a treat :^)

[Atheris]

How about we name things for fictional characters? Gandalf High School has a nice ring to it.

Gandalf helped to carry out a genocide on the orcs.

Ulfric Stormcloak University.

[San Lumen]

How about we name things for fictional characters? Gandalf High School has a nice ring to it.

Gandalf helped to carry out a genocide on the orcs.

Ok how about Lois Lane or Clark Kent?

[Fahran]

Ok how about Lois Lane or Clark Kent?

Someone who literally called himself Superman and lied compulsively about a second life he led? Doesn't seem very egalitarian or honest, and it recalls Nazi philosophy.

[Fahran]

you can have one town in Utah, as a treat :^)

I... I wanted Dallas or Austin or something that didn't suck.

[Kowani]

Gandalf helped to carry out a genocide on the orcs.

Ok how about Lois Lane or Clark Kent?

Superman? Ugh, no. Genocide of the Parademons, wholesale destruction of solar systems, and hoarding of advanced medical technology.

[Kowani]

you can have one town in Utah, as a treat :^)

I... I wanted Dallas or Austin or something that didn't suck.

...
i feel bad now
Austin it is.

[San Lumen]

Ok how about Lois Lane or Clark Kent?

Superman? Ugh, no. Genocide of the Parademons, wholesale destruction of solar systems, and hoarding of advanced medical technology.

Darn. I guess since no is perfect we can’t name things for people.

[Kowani]

Superman? Ugh, no. Genocide of the Parademons, wholesale destruction of solar systems, and hoarding of advanced medical technology.

Darn. I guess since no is perfect we can’t name things for people.

I mean
I'm not opposed to that
Is this supposed to scare me?

[Atheris]

Superman? Ugh, no. Genocide of the Parademons, wholesale destruction of solar systems, and hoarding of advanced medical technology.

Darn. I guess since no is perfect we can’t name things for people.

You should've realized by now that if someone genuinely believes in what they're saying they'll always double down.

[Des-Bal]

This is stupid and it gives credence to the slippery slope arguments of the guys insisting statues erected to menace black people should stay up.

[Salandriagado]

So rename all the things named after past presidents because it's boring to have so much shit with the same handful of names.

That’s a stupid reason to rename something.

Confusing names are an actual practical problem, and avoiding them is pretty much the best possible reason to rename things.

[Salandriagado]

So why should the US be required to honor people who committed treason against it?

i didnt mean that they have to require it . i was just saying that taking down statues, renaming cities, and renaming highways should not happen becuase americans should look at the situation this way: the confederates did a lot of bad stuff but they also fought for their cause really hard and people just look at the bad side of life and they should look at the bright side of life.

Fighting hard for slavery is not a good thing.

[Salandriagado]

I've read history books, which is how I learned this to begin with.

Or do you want me to read one of those propaganda books they show third graders about how the settlers and the natives were happy and the founders were great and benevolent? I was made to read plenty of those in school, but then I grew up and accepted reality.


Yes.

I guess we will be renaming New York City then as its likely King James II who was the Duke of York before becoming King likely doesn;t hold up to your standard.

It's not named after the person. It's named after the city.

[San Lumen]

I guess we will be renaming New York City then as its likely King James II who was the Duke of York before becoming King likely doesn;t hold up to your standard.

It's not named after the person. It's named after the city.

Im sorry? NYC was named for the Duke of York specifically the future King James in 1664.

[Loeje]

i think that the we should honor people for what good things they did , not for the bad things they did.
for example, we should honor the confederates for fighting really hard but not for the bad things they did.

No. We can honor people who were mostly good and had some flaws, sure. But the Confederacy stood for something that is the opposite of what America believes in, and "fighting really hard" for that makes it worse, not better. We should not be honoring them.

[Albrenia]

i think that the we should honor people for what good things they did , not for the bad things they did.
for example, we should honor the confederates for fighting really hard but not for the bad things they did.

Lol no. Fighting hard in the service of slavery is nothing to be lauded. They should be condemned as traitors and slavers forevermore.

[Fahran]

Lol no. Fighting hard in the service of slavery is nothing to be lauded. They should be condemned as traitors and slavers forevermore.

Some of these people may well be lauded for reasons beyond their tacit support for slavery. The context does matter here though. Putting up a statue of Robert E. Lee in the middle of a state capital would not be appropriate. Putting up a statue of Robert E. Lee in a military museum, Confederate graveyard, or on a military base might well be appropriate.

[Albrenia]

Lol no. Fighting hard in the service of slavery is nothing to be lauded. They should be condemned as traitors and slavers forevermore.

Some of these people may well be lauded for reasons beyond their tacit support for slavery. The context does matter here though. Putting up a statue of Robert E. Lee in the middle of a state capital would not be appropriate. Putting up a statue of Robert E. Lee in a military museum, Confederate graveyard, or on a military base might well be appropriate.

Museum or graveyard would be fine. US military bases shouldn't be lauding traitors.

[A-Series-Of-Tubes]

OK. Maybe I got you confused with the other posters dismissing the school board intention as "virtue signalling". Dismissing x as trivial then later finding reasons against it is pretty common with poor debaters who enter knowing nothing.

You and I at least accept that the unknown long-term effects of changing school names could be significant.

I would argue it is virtue-signalling, but virtue-signalling, while often not intended to have a serious impact, often does change the nature of the conversations we have because it puts novel ideas and value systems out there.

If you knew how long I've waited to hear someone try to define "virtue-signalling".

So people who don't like virtue-signalling, consider it frivolous and not intended to change anything, but bad anyway because it might "accidentally" change something. That's the gist?

Well I'm a virtue-signaller then. If something I say happens to change the world, I'm at liberty to disavow that if I don't like the change that occurred. "I was just virtue-signalling, I didn't mean anyone to take it seriously".

This is exactly what I meant when I said people shouldn't dismiss something as unimportant AND argue about the harm it might do. That's giving up the argument both ways.

This was one of the assertions made by T. S. Eliot when he stressed the importance of conservative intellectuals participating in the Great Discourse in defense of the good, the true, and the beautiful.

Yet he was a poet. The 200 geographical locations (alone) with the same name in the US, is more like spam than poetry. I see nothing good, true or beautiful about it.

Yes that's a serious objection. Not to Washington's name be used at all, but to it being used so much. It's a relic of an age when people didn't go far beyond the nearest city (or out of that city for that matter) and when they did, they appreciated the reminder that they were still in the US. There is nothing good, true or beautiful about parochialism.

Very well then. I think "pillar" is meaningless in the context of describing society, which is a deeply complex web with no pillars identifiable in it. If it actually means something, perhaps you can define it.

I'm inclined to disagree here. A foundational pillar of society can often tell us quite a bit about the social dynamics, social conventions, and value systems that animate and define that society. They provide structure, context, and meaning. As an example, in my recent studies of pre-Islamic Arab civilization, the emphasis on relationships between members of extended kinship networks and the function of those relationships was paramount to understanding that society.

So it's reductionism. X feature "higher" in society relies on X-1 feature "below" it.

So adult society should "naturally" be built on the child's experience of family. Because that will be a good, true and beautiful society, I'm sure.

Or ... privilege and oppression defined by status at birth. This is so horrible, that Islamic theocracy might have been an improvement.

No wait. Saudi Arabia has both.

Additionally, you'd need to understand subsistence - principally the importance of horses, camels, and sheep - and how this fit into the broader picture. A failure to understand these foundational pillars often leads to fundamental misunderstandings about the society in question and when foundational pillars are toppled or replaced, for any reason whatsoever, the changes can be quite dramatic.

But not necessarily dramatically bad.

This is why, when you're in the business of deliberately playing with these pillars, it pays to understand why they are the way they are and what changes will occur when you shift or replace them.

Oh believe me I'd love to "replace" some pillars. But it's a foolishly rash thing to attempt: for instance removing the modern equivalent of "subsistence" would be an unconditional living wage for everyone (so no-one is compelled to work to survive) and while I have faith the results would be good in the long term, I would not dare to predict the work ethic of the future, productivity, family structure, consumed culture or participatory culture that ultimately must be created by people together.

The only worth I can get from this concept of "pillars" is that material conditions, family arrangements etc held widely in common, are the bottom levels of pillars on which traditions and culture grow. Removing or moving the bottom does not "topple' the pillar so much as remove (or move) one level, making the pillar shorter and less founded. The fault is with the analogy, not society, that social pillars don't fall over catastrophically, destroying other pillars and causing chaos.

For example, the option for women to earn their own income before marriage, has changed the foundations of family. Not destroyed the concept of family, but broadened it and made the "breadwinner, housewife, children" model less substantial: it's still quite common, but it's much less apparent as the only option for young women and men. It used to be deeply disgraceful for either spouse to desert the other, leaving young children. Now it's rightly recognized as preferable in some cases, as a single parent (looking for another partner or not) is better for children than an unhappy marriage and the abuse all 'round which often follows from that.

(Btw, I agree with the principle of Child Support, as there should still be a 'social' penalty for leaving a partner with the children, but there is too much of a moralistic element in government being so eager to tack on fines and interest when an absent parent does not pay the agreed amount. If they can't pay, government should, so the remaining family get the money without any moral burden on themselves. If the absent parent gets busted with a pile of money, then they owe that with CPI interest but no fines, to government)

If I read the recommended authors, will that equip me to offer a defense of traditionalism?

Potentially, yes. I was not setting out to defend conservatism - traditionalism is usually associated with folks like Evola - so much as to explain that the conservative argument has very seldom been an intransigent opposition to change for the sake of sameness and the status quo. It's almost universally about the preservation and upholding of the good. In fact, Burke mentions famously that a society without the means to change is without the means to its own preservation.

Sure. I made the point later that there are 'weak' conservatives who are really just for the status quo and quickly take the side of whoever won. Strong conservatives have views based in solid ideology, and sometimes what they seek to conserve I do respect.

Washington is grossly over-exposed for someone whose major contribution was leading an army. Don't you think we could name more things after the Founding Fathers who didn't keep slaves and didn't kill anybody? Ben Franklin apparently did keep slaves, though he freed them. He was also immensely bright and no doubt fact-checked a lot of the ideas he's not credited with.

Having FEWER things named after Washington does not at all remove him from history or even seek to suppress his memory. Even converting every school in SF wouldn't create a Washington-free zone: there will still be parks and such.

It is a means of consciously denying a national hero honors he was previously afforded, and, in fact, that's the entire intention of renaming the school. The obvious reason one would resort to this, in the absence of good aesthetics, is a belief that those honors were undeserved.

Or the discovery that beyond one's home town, there are innumerable memorials to Washington. And it's not a choice between One or None: one town opting out does not mean the first step on a slippery slope where they all do.

Such a suggestion then puts us squarely into a place where we can discuss what makes one deserving or undeserving of honors and esteem. I'm not certain I accept the premise that a historical person's ownership of their fellow human beings makes one singularly unworthy of honors when their conduct in other respects would otherwise make them worthy of honors.

With the exposure that each town gets through media, I think there's a more compelling case than ever before to honor local heroes in the names of public buildings.

In the case of a school, it might be more realistically inspiring for students too. The chances of any of them becoming President are one in a billion. The chances any of them will gain the historical place of George Washington, are zero. Why not honor the small business-person who founded the first paper mill? Or the mayor who first organized the dredging of the harbor?

"Change bad". I don't see why I should be more pompous than that. You have all these repeated cultural references to just a few "great men of history" and you have no intention of defending that other than by "there needs to be a good reason to change". The issue, you say, is that among all the iconoclasts are some who have bad ideas and intentions, therefore none of them should be allowed to change anything.

No, I stated, and will state quite clearly again, that the toppling of these figures

"Usurping" might be a better word. You used "toppling" for pillars, it's confusing.

and stripping them of their public honors is suggestive of an overt attempt to not only deny them honors they were previously afforded and believed to deserve but to impose upon the political community a novel set of values and mores that I perceive as problematic, often ill-vetted, and invariably ill-conceived.

Even the claim they were "believed" to deserve the honors then, is dubious. Was it a democratic decision, or some bureaucrat without the imagination or initiative to choose anything but The Most Famous American? Even if it was a committee decision, it was probably some dumb first-past-the-post vote ... those tend to favor Name Recognition.

"Slavery bad" seems pretty clear to me. So it used to considered acceptable? Even ten years ago, it was considered excusable? Well that's change for you: old people die and their old attitudes die with them.

My position is "let the parents of the kids currently at the school decide, and why not school staff too since there aren't many compared to students". Arguing why this should even be allowed, is you and me flagrantly failing to mind our own business. Neither of us have any ownership of Washington's name, nor any connection with the school. It's not them virtue signalling, it's us. You and me.

Well, I never intended to argue that it shouldn't be allowed. I simply argued that changing the name would reflect a political ideology that I don't broadly perceive as good or logical. They may do as they like, and we may comment on it as we like. There's no sense in indulging in either interference or in communal subjectivism in this instance.

Well we seem to have agreed that virtue-signalling can sometimes have real effects, good or bad. If we could just agree that good (or to other people bad) effects are the purpose and intent of the virtue-signaller, then neither of us need feel bad about getting that label.

I'm "diverging" from it because it's wrong. Women had to virtue signal for decades to get their voting rights: they had to persuade at least half the men to dilute their own vote 50%. Gays and lesbians had to "virtue signal" for decades to get their rights (and they're not finished yet). When the majority disagrees with you, you will lose in the court of public opinion but you have to hang in there. If you're right, you will win in the appeals court of public opinion.

There are instances when virtue-signalling has been effective. That does not mean that there aren't limits to it. If you virtue-signal in a manner that people find kooky or exceedingly pernicious to their own interests and sense of identity, you wind up fueling reactions that swing the political processes against you.

Oh sure. Burning vacated buildings can be effective. I'd prefer if it wasn't, but my point is that endangering, harming or threatening actual people is completely counter-productive. It's making other people feel personally threatened by your cause, which has no good effects. Destroying stuff shouldn't work either, because it's threatening to everyone's private property. I guess it plays well with people who don't own any property.

I believe that is likely to happen if progressives embrace the denial of the Founders on a large-scale while participating in a political process that is in many ways defined by them in much the same way that it has happened to conservatives who have taken to championing the pro-life movement.

OK. Those are reactionaries not conservatives, but fair enough.

Progressives are progressing just fine. Maybe a little bogged down in the wide open spaces between social policy and economic policy, but when the right has to resort to blatant and systematic lying it's a sign we could be on the brink of a massive breakthrough in public opinion.

Where are we progressing too exactly?

I can't tell you even vaguely, let alone exactly. The intention is more-equal opportunity, fewer crimes against the person, plenty of education and healthcare for everyone, a supportive and understanding environment for immigrants, and maximum scope for pursuit of happiness by those who can achieve it without infringing anyone else's rights. If even one of those progresses without other problems arising, I will be happily surprised!

Change is inevitable. Even without new technology, even without any change in the modus operandi of capitalism. Even with the most conservative and non-interventionist government ... there will still be change. If you want to be on the side that loses a little bit more with every passing day: be a conservative.

Conservatives don't just oppose change.

Status-quo-ers oppose change. I guess conservatives oppose change in what they see as bad directions, but they need to express support or at least acceptance of some other change, or they look just like status-quo-ers.

You for instance, support greater income equality. But I've only seen you mention it defensively. Higher taxes on the rich would obviously be necessary, which concords with my own conservatism on government borrowing. But I doubt we'll ever agree on the best way to raise taxes on the rich because you don't like the look of any kind of tax which hasn't been tried before. If you want to present yourself as a nuanced, or hybrid, conservative, I think you should give more thought to the kinds of change you're prepared to accept, or even support.

I will say though, that you're one of the most reasonable conservatives I've ever met, and it's probably because you understand that change will happen whether government tries to guide it or not.

The perception that the good, the beautiful and the true are better expressed by old ideas, than by new ideas built by those who already knew the old ideas, denies civilization, science and all high culture. I'm starting to think you're more of a reactionary than a conservative.

Are you familiar with recent work on aesthetics? Because that probably illustrates the point I'm making best when it comes to the rejection of objective and discerning subjective systems of valuation in favor of blind subjectivity and the maxim of equality. Mind you, the conversation does become more complex when we address technological shifts and their impact on art, but the point remains largely relevant. An inability to value things, to say this is good and this is bad, this is beautiful and this is not, in an analytical and insightful way is the death of aesthetics. I'm not arguing that these ideas are bad because they're new. I'm arguing that they're bad because they're predicated on largely faulty philosophical premises and derived through unbridled reason rather than by wisdom, observation, experience, moral imagination, or even right reason.

"Visual art" in the old sense is a tiny fraction of the produced and consumed art nowadays. I frankly don't care what they're doing in the niche of still pictures. Even sculpture is crippled by seeing the two-dimensional representations before seeing the real thing, so public sculpture I just find sitting there is the only kind which ever impresses me.

Movies half-obsoleted visual arts, and television finished the job. "Artists" work mainly in off-screen roles of producing moving-pictures now and it really does not matter how much money changes hands over "fine art" because the art of an era is measured by the eyeballs it attracts.

Arguably music is a significant sector of art, but personally I've never put it in that category.

Indeed. Your side is all good and beautiful, my side (besides exceptions) is bad and ugly. That's beyond ... well, something.

I mean... Do you find my side good and beautiful?

I don't find either side of politics (or ethics) beautiful. Ugly or beautiful seem like emotional reactions which, if I even felt them, I would try to avoid.

Good as in well-intentioned? No. You personally perhaps.

I miss the days when artists had no interest in politics. They made better art for one thing.

This reminds me a bit of the argument right-wing gamers make when someone puts LGBT+ representation into video games.

I pretty much bailed out of new video games because 'artistic' content was just distracting me from playing the game. And annoying me with the mixture of incompatible styles. Perhaps the deadlines are too short for what they're trying to do, or perhaps the art teams are too big. Anyway, video games aren't something I can give an objective opinion about.

Maybe I should have been more pompous. But sorry, "aspiration" is about as pompous as I get.

Nice that you support my idea of honoring Ben Franklin more than currently. Or maybe Jefferson or Adams are your guy?

Since Washington ran unopposed, it's fair to call him America's first King. Another reason to not honor his name quite so much.

He ran unopposed because the political class at the time perceived him to be the ideal choice as an executive power.

Yeah. Point against him IMO. The President is supposed to be chosen by the People. Adams must have run "against" Washington, to get VP, but he didn't get any recorded votes. Washington (the first time) was appointed by the "political class" and his historical stature has no doubt biased the People towards voting for rich and famous men endorsed by the political class.

If Donald Trump was still President you could say that tradition had been broken. But he's not.

He also gave up power after two terms, something that does not commonly occur in recently established polities. Toussaint Louverture and Simon Bolivar, for all their great accomplishments, do not enjoy that same virtuous distinction. The former proclaimed himself a dictator, albeit to safeguard the revolution, and the latter became increasingly prone to despotism until he was forced out of office.

Sure, I'm not saying Washington was a sack of shit

You missed the point. We won the argument and we got it done. By conservative reasoning that means we were right all along.

I was getting more at the "why" behind the victory. And, again, that's not conservatism. It's a strawman of conservatism.

Yeah, a strawman, or a false generalization from a subset of conservatives. I should have said the "statusquo-ist reasoning" which endorses anything, right or wrong, once it becomes the status quo. The NRA is an example, I'm sure there are others.

There's a pretty strong pattern in US federal politics. Democrats are going to lose some time, so why not lose fighting FOR something?

Because some of the things you're fighting for are openly at odds with what people want or value and actively hurt your chances of implementing the other things you're allegedly fighting for.

I went through this. Great leaders propound unpopular causes sometimes. If they win and popular opinion follows them, they look even greater. If they win and popular opinion stays against, they get voted out. And if they lose it could go either way. Trying and failing strengthens the conviction of their followers (sometimes in negative ways like "it's a conspiracy") and may even weaken the opposition with triumphalism and subsequent complacency. If the leader never tries at all because the polls say they will lose ... well they're not Great after all.