Planned Parenthood in N.Y. Disavows Margaret Sanger Over Eugenics

[catsudon]

21. i did not know about

woodrow wilson until i read about it last night wow....

This is a great example of how we conceptualize our heroes.

There seems to be some basic desire to have our heroes be flawless in all dimensions. Which is completely unreasonable. Heroes, no matter how we memorialize them, are human. No human is entirely bad or entirely good. They are very often products of their time and upbringing.

Lately, its been fashionable to denounce historical figures who are flawed, and to demand that we eliminate their memorials, whether real or virtual. But they are all flawed, from the most narcissistic plutocrat down to the boy scout who helps old ladies cross the street.

Margaret Sanger did much that deserves the acclaim of history. She also had her flaws. Bill Gates was a rapacious capitalist, and then eventually matured into the worlds greatest philanthropist. Fritz Haber enthusiastically developed poison gases used during WW1 and the holocaust, yet also developed the chemical process for fixing nitrogen, which a vast proportion of our food supply depends on.

The list could go on for hundreds of entries.

I don't really care whether we either erect or tear down statues of these people, but I think we should consider very carefully what heroism really means in the context of history. The way we do that says as much about us as about them.