Why Do We Have To Apply Modern Attitudes To Historical Characters?

[ToraToraTora]

Anyone see The battle for British Heroes, C4?
Predictably an anti British fest by professional Racist Afua Hirsch. Does she not understand it is because of the people she hates she is allowed to spout her bigotry on TV? Things change we cannot impose modern attitudes retrospectively.

[woofgang]

“We” don’t. If someone makes a TV program indicated that “We” should, then “We” can disagree with the maker

[Old_Geezer]

Modern values/attitudes /beliefs should not be applied to other times. To do so merely invites each new generation to scorn those who went before and consider them awful, immoral, bad.

No I've not seen your mentioned programme.

[pastafreak]

I'm not so sure she's a "professional racist " or a bigot, but I do feel that to understand history, we need to see it through the eyes of those who were there. Otherwise we have less of an understanding of the hows and whys of events.

[kvalidir]

I've not seen the programme, but you get people viewing history with modern day eyes all too often. Perfectly respectable, philanthropic men could beat their wives and trade in slaves in the 18th century, it doesn't make that right but it does make it perfectly normal for the times they lived in and it does not automatically mean that they did no good in other ways, although if you start trumpeting about Hitler's achievements with German infrastructure almost everyone will disagree with you and say you can't be allowed to say anything positive, so go figure. Investigating history does involve you having to suspend your like or dislike for any single person or event somewhat, if you are to do it fairly, and that's hard to do, it's even harder if you've got 30 minutes to convey something on TV.

[dance2trance]

Hirsch is paid MONEY for the prog and gets to keep her JOB by setting the prog up and adding the prog to her CV achievements. Lytton Strachey (one of the Virginia Woolf Bloomsbury set) wrote a kiss and tell smear collection on eminent Victorians (1918). You know General Gordon was a gay drunk and Florence nightingale was a scheming ***. So the style is NOT new or innovative. In a manner of speaking one might say Hirsch is a neo Edwardian reactionary and of the same mind set as say Baden Powell who set up the Boy Scout movement. Remember TV is fun and silly even when wearing its grown up clothes and serious face mask there are scripts make up cameras champagne and nibbles and loads of money and costumes it is all DAHLING KISS KISS KISS.