Pioneering ideas of tolerance, freedom and human reason, their ethos has been encapsulated in the maxim “dare to know”.
But the great philosophers credited with leading the Enlightenment now require trigger warnings, according to one university, with students alerted to their “appalling” views on race.
Modern academics have decided that classes should be cautioned before studying centuries-old texts by some of history’s most influential thinkers, including liberal pioneer John Locke and anti-slavery writer Voltaire.
By today’s standards they are racists – or were. Could well be a shock to today’s pupils to find out quite how much too. A warning that the past is another country could well be useful.
Of course, that does assume that the warning is given then the study undertaken – rather than what’s likely to happen is that all that freedom and liberty stuff be rejected because they were racists.
Well Locke goes on about people living in a natural or savage state. His only reference, as I recall ( long time since I read him ) is American Indians. I always thought that he was more of a paternalistic “noble savage” advocate.
Can’t remember Hume going on about race. Voltaire did, but he was being satirical. And French.
Writers of a couple of centuries ago tended to have the opinion that some races were superior and others inferior. Unlike those in modern times who are advocating for a handicapping system for entry into universities.
“But nature, elsewhere so self-evidently beneficent and egalitarian regarding the distribution and development of the natural faculties, appears, in the case of some races, to have decreed that their natural portion should be an absence of that sense of proportion and what is commonly known as good sense; that their development should, thereby, be ever after hindered and impeded by a false sense of grievance and a presumptuous willingness to find personal offences in the most trifling of life’s exigencies…”
Marx and Engels were quite openly racist by the standards being tested here… anyone want to take a bet on their works being cancelled or requiring trigger warnings?
At some point they’re just going to eat themselves, aren’t they? I’m sure there’s a Reddit group for philosophy where you can learn and discuss the actual ideas and without *trigger warnings* for babies. Probably more informative and for free.
I mean, philosophy from Trent Poly? You’re going to be stacking shelves at Aldi.
By today’s standards they are racists
By today’s standards, 99% of people who have ever lived – including Winston Churchill, Elizabeth I, JRR Tolkien and your Nan – were racists, but thankfully we are much smarterer than they were.
Why weren’t children/young people before current times ‘shocked’, ‘triggered’? Perhaps we weren’t such delicate flowers and wilting weeds.
TV show trigger warning: Contains violence. Use of swords.
Yikes! Swords!
Trigger warning for Downtown Abbey: Contains frequent scenes round the dinner table. Use of knives and forks.
Isn’t ‘affirmative action’ racist? It being against the law to offend someone who is Black but not White – isn’t that racist? Insisting White people alone are guilty of enslaving Black people – isn’t that racist?
Labelling people White Supremacist, White Privileged, and racist inherent by virtue of their skin colour and birth – isn’t that racist?
Yes JohnB. It is!!
Everyone’s racist; it’s part of the human condition. (That’s partly because “racist” has been used in so many ways that it’s impossible to be innocent of all of them.)
I speak, of course, about people’s actions not necessarily about their words.
Talking of idiotic warnings. I filled my motorhome up at Sainsbury’s in Norwich yesterday. The handgun for diesel had a warning on it saying that diesel contained nicotine and that nicotine was highly addictive.
. . . a warning on it saying that diesel contained nicotine and that nicotine was highly addictive.
Ahh, mock ye may, but you keep going back for more don’t you?
Remember back when Tony Blair started his push to get half the population into university, some of us objected because that many people simply aren’t capable of that kind of education, and were called… I don’t know, some kind of something-ists probably, for our trouble?
Yeah, this is the sort of thing we were talking about. If the sight of blood makes you faint, don’t try to train as a surgeon. If you don’t fancy running into burning buildings, don’t become a fireman. And if the mores of the past shock you, you probably aren’t cut out to be a philosopher or historian.
John B
Unlike the latent fantasies of bear progressives – that’s real racism and in the U.K. it is only institutionalised against Whites.
Solid racist signing in.
While I agree that all individuals should be judged and/or hired on their merits, I have no reason to expect that an African or Asian team will win the 2022 World Cup. Or that USA, SA and Malaysia for example which formally discriminate against the most successful ethnic groups will see a successful outcome to their policy.