LogFAQs > #959184316

America_Dude posted...

You really don't think touting his various "accomplishments" isn't in defense of him as a way of weighing out the negative things that guy did? That's... an interesting hot take if I've ever seen one.

Well, yea. Because, like it or not, he DID those accomplishments. You can't deny that. Von Braun helped the nazi's develop the V2 but he was also instrumental in getting NASA off the ground (literally) and, without him, there's a very real chance we wouldn't have made it to the moon. Amerigo Vespucci is credited with at least helming the first expedition to circumnavigate the globe but also did a lot of... questionable... things and died in a fight with native islanders. Oda was a key player in unifying Japan, Hideyoshi followed and kept order through things like launching an invasion of Korea (which helped get the feudal lords focused elsewhere instead of fighting each other), and Ieyasu followed. All three did a lot of terrible things as well; such as enacting massive isolationist policies, invading Korea because it was there, and enforcing a very strict caste system and the like. Stalin and Russia are still though of at least positively for their efforts in WWII even if we launched almost immediately into the Cold War following that.

On the other hand, Genghis Khan is responsible for the single largest empire in the history of man which resulted in a massive leap forwards but also massive amounts of death and destruction. Vlad was a massive bastion against the invading turks but also employed brutal torture methods that, quite understandably, has history remembering him as a monster. Yet if it wasn't for him the Turks would have gotten much further into Europe if they were stopped at all. The Russian Revolution was instrumental in bringing Russia out from under the rule of the Czars, but also resulted in Lenin, Stalin, and all the rest taking power which resulted in massive amounts of death and many other bad things. Was Russia better off under the Czars? Did it improve under Communism? Or did they merely trade one oppressive government for another? Plenty of people would pick any one of those three.

History, and real life, isn't as clear-cut as 'good guy/bad guy'. JFK is looked upon as a hero but, let's face it, if he was alive today he almost certainly would have been classified as a sex offender or worse. Columbus did something worth remembering, but that something also had massive negative repercussions for the natives. If you see him as fully good or fully evil than you're not admiring the man but rather the image of him and what he means to you.

This is also why I'm taking a neutral stance on him. He DID do a lot of terrible things, but he also accomplished something that shook how the world functioned and changed the course of history forever. If you don't acknowledge the bad he did then you're worshiping an idol of the man. If you don't acknowledge his accomplishments then you're deluding yourself. Especially if you attribute everything bad that the old-world nations did to the new world people to him alone. Which is exactly what you seem to be doing.