People in the face of their values, vices
October 30, 2017
People are great, but the ideas they lived their lives for are timeless and paramount in comparison. We are never going to find out that Liberty was a slave owner or that Equality raped potentially dozens of women.
When we name our buildings after people, we have to make a compromise: that their significance and achievement outweighs their vices.
But when those vices are antithetical to what we believe, the compromise falls short. And this really is not an if; dig deep enough into any revered figure and you will find the darkness that is within any human.
Lincoln could be accused of white supremacy, Dr. King of homophobia, Gandhi of pedophilia and racism, Mother Teresa of medical malpractice.
My point is not to strike our heroes down, but to acknowledge that we humans often fall short of our ideals. In the process of renaming our buildings, perhaps we should consider our values rather than figureheads for them. Of course, to name our buildings after a collection of mostly wealthy white men and a set of beliefs is still in some way a poor representation of our value for diversity, but there is surely a middle ground to be found.
Alex Grejuc
Pre-computer science
Sophomore