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This Present Time Has Changed From Yesterday’s Presentism
My article on Bill Maher and presentism has sparked debate
Roaring Rivers
Unpopular Strong Opinions by Christyl Rivers
A while back Bill Maher did a show where he laments how people today are so “woke” that he is ready to cancel them. Is it irony, sarcasm, comedy, or pathetic?
I think it’s all of the above.
Presentism is the idea that people in the past were evil and exploitative and we can’t honor them as heroes.
Oh my! People are so judgmental just because George Washington still has a whole state and DC district named after him when he was an actual owner of many exploited human beings.
It’s true. He does.
Some people want to rename Washington state, Columbia. But, wait, wasn’t Columbus a savage monster? I prefer the name Cascadia, or maybe the name of that tiny baby the teenager had when she led Lewis and Clark to find my native state here in the PNW.
Yet, we cannot judge people of the past, our ancestors for every mistake they made because they were uninformed, ignorant, and locked into systems of abuse and exploitation just by being social creatures who naturally…