What is a Museum?

[Gary Childress]

Thoughts?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJPLiT1kCSM

[Sculptor]

Video unavailable

[Gary Childress]

Video unavailable

Interesting. It comes through for me. Sounds like your provider must have it blocked. It's an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on Youtube.

[Sculptor]

Video unavailable

Interesting. It comes through for me. Sounds like your provider must have it blocked. It's an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on Youtube.

I'm in the UK, the US may well have a copyright restriction.

What is the Title?

I can get small clips about the British Museum's dubious acquisitions.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Oh my god. How is it possible for ANY human being to be as deeply unfunny and irritating as that person? A few seconds was more than enough.

[Gary Childress]

Video unavailable

Interesting. It comes through for me. Sounds like your provider must have it blocked. It's an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on Youtube.

I'm in the UK, the US may well have a copyright restriction.

What is the Title?

I can get small clips about the British Museum's dubious acquisitions.

The title is "Museums: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver."

My first take was to be fearful about the current climate with regard to the looting of past civilizations and their desire to get some of their heritage back from Western Museums, however, it does seem like a necessary step toward a more egalitarian world in the grand scheme of things. From there museums around the world could always ask to borrow things for temporary exhibits. In the long run I don't think there's going to be any other reasonable choice. The more we fight it, the uglier it's going to get, I think.

[Gary Childress]

Oh my god. How is it possible for ANY human being to be as deeply unfunny and irritating as that person? A few seconds was more than enough.

Oliver is certainly making some money off of the idea of returning the plunder of his forefathers. I don't think he's very funny either. He does hit a sore spot. However, perhaps it's better to hear it from him than to hear it from a contemporary person whose society was affected. My own country is pretty steeped in the same sort of thing right now with the American Indians.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Oh my god. How is it possible for ANY human being to be as deeply unfunny and irritating as that person? A few seconds was more than enough.

Oliver is certainly making some money off of the idea of returning the plunder of his forefathers. I don't think he's very funny either. He does hit a sore spot. However, perhaps it's better to hear it from him than to hear it from a contemporary person whose society was affected. My own country is pretty steeped in the same sort of thing right now with the American Indians.

Faux victimhood. It's very fashionable at the moment, to pretend to be personally affected and genuinely distressed about things that happened to people who died at least a hundred years ago BY people who died at least a hundred years ago. Faux guilt and faux victimhood. Two sides of the same self-serving coin.

[Gary Childress]

Oh my god. How is it possible for ANY human being to be as deeply unfunny and irritating as that person? A few seconds was more than enough.

Oliver is certainly making some money off of the idea of returning the plunder of his forefathers. I don't think he's very funny either. He does hit a sore spot. However, perhaps it's better to hear it from him than to hear it from a contemporary person whose society was affected. My own country is pretty steeped in the same sort of thing right now with the American Indians.

Faux victimhood. It's very fashionable at the moment, to pretend to be personally affected and genuinely distressed about things that happened to people who died at least a hundred years ago BY people who died at least a hundred years ago. Faux guilt and faux victimhood. Two sides of the same self-serving coin.

Those are fair points.

I don't think Oliver is particularly helpful, however, in the spirit of international cooperation and human equality, might it be better to do some restorative justice in order to show good will? It seems like we've come to a new realm of human awareness that was not entirely expressed or realized before. And I'm not talking about "wokism" but the notion that prior Western beliefs about the "inferiority" of "less developed" peoples was wrong.

So perhaps going back a little to restore recent past injustices we may give back at least some things such as those plundered in Africa or in North America. And I think that process is slowly happening now as we type. It need not be done overnight, in fact, it would probably be as catastrophic to Western societies as it was for the peoples whose societies were plundered to suddenly return everything. And I don't believe two wrongs would make a right.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Oliver is certainly making some money off of the idea of returning the plunder of his forefathers. I don't think he's very funny either. He does hit a sore spot. However, perhaps it's better to hear it from him than to hear it from a contemporary person whose society was affected. My own country is pretty steeped in the same sort of thing right now with the American Indians.

Faux victimhood. It's very fashionable at the moment, to pretend to be personally affected and genuinely distressed about things that happened to people who died at least a hundred years ago BY people who died at least a hundred years ago. Faux guilt and faux victimhood. Two sides of the same self-serving coin.

Those are fair points.

I don't think Oliver is particularly helpful, however, in the spirit of international cooperation and human equality, might it be better to do some restorative justice in order to show good will? It seems like we've come to a new realm of human awareness that was not entirely expressed or realized before. And I'm not talking about "wokism" but the notion that prior Western beliefs about the "inferiority" of "less developed" peoples was wrong.

So perhaps going back a little to restore recent past injustices we may give back at least some things such as those plundered in Africa or in North America. And I think that process is slowly happening now as we type. It need not be done overnight, in fact, it would probably be as catastrophic to Western societies as it was for the peoples whose societies were plundered to suddenly return everything. And I don't believe two wrongs would make a right.

Those attitudes were naturally disappearing nicely until wokism poked its moronic snout into the equation. Now it's about money and shallow virtue-signalling.

[Gary Childress]

Faux victimhood. It's very fashionable at the moment, to pretend to be personally affected and genuinely distressed about things that happened to people who died at least a hundred years ago BY people who died at least a hundred years ago. Faux guilt and faux victimhood. Two sides of the same self-serving coin.

Those are fair points.

I don't think Oliver is particularly helpful, however, in the spirit of international cooperation and human equality, might it be better to do some restorative justice in order to show good will? It seems like we've come to a new realm of human awareness that was not entirely expressed or realized before. And I'm not talking about "wokism" but the notion that prior Western beliefs about the "inferiority" of "less developed" peoples was wrong.

So perhaps going back a little to restore recent past injustices we may give back at least some things such as those plundered in Africa or in North America. And I think that process is slowly happening now as we type. It need not be done overnight, in fact, it would probably be as catastrophic to Western societies as it was for the peoples whose societies were plundered to suddenly return everything. And I don't believe two wrongs would make a right.

Those attitudes were naturally disappearing nicely until wokism poked its moronic snout into the equation. Now it's about money and shallow virtue-signalling.

I agree. I know of very respectable people whose original societies suffered under colonialism who find "wokism" obnoxious. Many would rather just go about their normal lives than be pawns in the bizare political theater that is "wokenness". I think the key thing to avoid is violence and allow free exchange. The Bush administrations did more to destroy the fabric of contemporary civilization than any other. Yes, the Obama administration continued much of the process but the original destruction was thoughtlessly initiated by the father and son Bush. May we never see anything like them again.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Those are fair points.

I don't think Oliver is particularly helpful, however, in the spirit of international cooperation and human equality, might it be better to do some restorative justice in order to show good will? It seems like we've come to a new realm of human awareness that was not entirely expressed or realized before. And I'm not talking about "wokism" but the notion that prior Western beliefs about the "inferiority" of "less developed" peoples was wrong.

So perhaps going back a little to restore recent past injustices we may give back at least some things such as those plundered in Africa or in North America. And I think that process is slowly happening now as we type. It need not be done overnight, in fact, it would probably be as catastrophic to Western societies as it was for the peoples whose societies were plundered to suddenly return everything. And I don't believe two wrongs would make a right.

Those attitudes were naturally disappearing nicely until wokism poked its moronic snout into the equation. Now it's about money and shallow virtue-signalling.

I agree. I know of very respectable people whose original societies suffered under colonialism who find "wokism" obnoxious. Many would rather just go about their normal lives than be pawns in the bizare political theater that is "wokenness". I think the key thing to avoid is violence and allow free exchange. The Bush administrations did more to destroy the fabric of contemporary civilization than any other. Yes, the Obama administration continued much of the process but the original destruction was thoughtlessly initiated by the father and son Bush. May we never see anything like them again.

I enjoy your objectivity Gary. It's very refreshing and painfully rare.