John Audubon was a slaver outside of his contributions to birding. That's why all the "Audubon Societies" are changing their names. The rest of the birds are birds named after people and the general decree is to rename all birds named after people and never name things after people again. They'll all have descriptive names now.
> That's why all the "Audubon Societies" are changing their names.
According to the article, the National Audubon Society is keeping their name, which I think is probably for the best.
Renaming birds named after people is a good idea too, but it's nice to be able acknowledge that people can do amazing things that deserve recognition while also doing terrible things that deserve to be condemned. The blanket painting of people as either heroes or villains is childish and doesn't reflect reality or the complex nature of what it is to be human.
Renaming the National Audubon Society would make about as much sense as renaming the Washington Monument. A history of slavery is something that has tainted the pasts of human civilizations all over the globe and slavery continues to be a something we all profit from even today (which is something I think we may all be judged as "evil" for). In the US it's a very large and shameful part of our history, but I think it's probably better to face that openly rather than to try and sweep that shame under the rug by erasing anyone involved.
OTOH slavery is so morally abhorrent that it far outweighs any positive contributions a person might make in their lifetime. I think its good that society condemns it in the strongest possible manner, including by renaming
I can understand that others won't feel the same way I do.
Would you then support renaming the Washington monument? Removing any mention of his name from history books, or taking him off of our money? Should we take "Washington Crossing the Delaware" down from the walls of The Met and burn it?
I don't think that the bad things someone does should cause us to pretend that the good things never happened. We should see people for who they were, the good and the bad, even if in the end there was more of one than the other.
It might even be that the worse someone was, the more important it is that we shouldn't forget the good things. It helps remind us that everyone has the capacity for (and a history of) acts both good and evil and that even those who have done terrible things that could never be "made up for" (if that's ever even possible) are/were still capable of making the choice to do something wonderful.
Well, Washington was our first president, so he can get away with that. If chapters of the Audubon society want to rename themselves, I say let them. The living shouldn't be beholden to the dead. It's nothing but a name at this point Also he and Audubon weren't really known for upholding the cause of slavery. I think Mount Blue Sky (formerly Evans) is an example of something that ran the opposite direction. We all agreed it was better off not to commemorate a disgraced territorial governor.
> I think Mount Blue Sky (formerly Evans) is an example of something that ran the opposite direction. We all agreed it was better off not to commemorate a disgraced territorial governor.
Yeah, I don't have any problem with that one either. I'm not even sure what, if any, connection he had to the mountain. It's not like John Evans was super into mountains and inspired generations of others to get really into the enjoyment/study/preservation of mountains. It's really not clear what naming it after him was for exactly.
Changing the name of a landmark or a species may require thoughtful consideration but not an organization. Companies change names all the time and a bad name drags an org doing good work down. Why should employees have to come to work in the name of someone who doesn’t deserve it in the light of history.
It is “good that society condemns it in the strongest possible manner” and ideally never does it again. But the problem of this absolutist black-and-white view is that you’re missing a lot of details and nuance. Someone can be both good and bad, in fact all of us are. Everyone deserves to be commended for their good actions and vilified for their bad ones.
The other problem is when this all-or-nothing way of thinking escapes this kind of narrow case and seeps into the common public discourse, see the way politics are evolving in way too many western countries.
That said, renaming birds named after obscure figures is generally a good thing, descriptive names are more useful and don’t require knowledge of the historical background to make sense.
I mean, half the country thought it was fine so you can automatically remove monuments to anyone who lived in the south and some parts of the north from 1619 to 1865. And yes I know only a small percentage owned slaves but that's because they were expensive not because no one else wanted to.
When it comes to monuments it's important to consider what it is they are honoring. We can keep monuments that celebrate the amazing acts of otherwise flawed people, but (as an example) I think that those monuments by the UDC which were created to glorify people because they fought for the right to keep slaves is something very different.
I'm not okay with the idea of destroying those kinds of statues and monuments, they are still artistic and cultural works after all, but they are probably best left to be displayed in civil war and civil rights museums where they can be contextualized appropriately.
> You know what would be better than some mythical museum of context? Melting that garbage down
Do you think civil war/rights museums are mythical? I promise you that there are several and if you've never seen one you should really make the time. I'll warn you though that they are filled with many things you'd find extremely distasteful which is exactly how they should be.
Ugly as it is, it's our history. A group of KKK loving racists put monuments to their heroes up all over the place including state capitol buildings and courthouses and some remained for over a century. That actually happened.
Current and future generations should be able to see those monuments with their own eyes, the same way that they should be able to visit Auschwitz or the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. We need to confront our history and learn from it, not just erase the parts that make us uncomfortable. It would be wrong to take away that opportunity by destroying all evidence of the shameful things in humanity's past.
Where is the line drawn? AFAICT we just outsourced slavery, which is equally abhorrent. We all own electronics, clothes, and other trinkets made under duress, and knowingly. Should we all be denigrated and forgotten for turning a blind eye?
Audubon was born into a world where slavery was considered a perfectly normal part of life and widely practiced. We don't have that excuse. We're supposed to know better than this. We just try to forget about the slaves that made our iphones and give a pass to the corporations responsible.
Renaming is probably counterproductive as many view erasing history with suspicion. We could more agree to actually fight slavery today, as there are more today than in years past.
This is trolling, right? You think there’s a meaningful moral differences between whether the constituency for keeping more people locked up for longer are government employees or private sector companies?
Neither here nor there, but my alma mater (TCNJ) renamed a building a few years ago - from "Loser Hall" to "Trenton Hall". Paul Loser was the superintendent of the Trenton school system in the early 20th century, and he was in support of segregation of black people into separate school systems. So, a reasonable renaming I think. But renaming it Trenton is itself problematic - Trenton is named after William Trent, a merchant who became one of the richest men in Philadelphia by trading, among other things, literal boatloads of slaves, which seems strictly worse than believing "merely" in segregation.
I think the most silly version is that King County in Washington, named after a pro slavery vice president, was renamed… to King County, in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.
That's the least silly - it cost nothing in confusion and chaos, they slowly replaced the branding, and (almost, unless you really, really hate philanderers) everyone agrees the new subject was a great man.
It's ridiculous. If we measured all past without nuance and with the fleeting standards of some people of today, everything would be abhorrent. I'm sad to see this way of thinking permeate so deep in our culture.
