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Savile's View in Scarborough was named after...you guessed it.

The council renamed it. Have they erased history?

There are campaigns to rename streets that were named after people who were heavily involved in the slave trade. Would renaming those streets be erasing history, as many claim?

Streets names are not there to teach us history just to help find a location...
If street is named after someone it is a form of high prise for theirs achievements... If we no more think those achievements are worth it then we change the name...
there are thousands other ways to teach history even that uncomfortable one - just my 3 cents.

Street names , statues , place names are all historical memoirs .

They are however looked after by the present. Should the democratic will be they are changed , they must be changed.

There is however a world of difference between a slave trader in the 17 and 18 century and being a peadophile in the 20 century.

The founding fathers were some of the most democratic ,insightful and impressive people to have lived ( the American constitution) they were also involved in the slave trade.

Abhorrent as it was the slave trade was of its time and it’s unfair to judge 17centuary people by 21 Centaury moral code. I would want to be judged on now , not the zeitgeist in 200 years time

The issue is pedestals, not statues nor even less history.
I’d say naming a street after someone is an honouring; a pedestal of sorts. We should put our own values on pedestals, and not be bound by who or what our predecessors deemed worthy of honouring.
Our successors will do the same 200 years from now: Take down our statues from the pedestals and set up their own statues and road names instead. Rightly so.
The statues, the artefacts, the history (including the details about the changing of road names and the removing of statues from pedestals) should all be kept. But history is very different to honouring. Placing, and keeping, a person on a road sign or a pedestal performs a different function.

How do you keep a street name or a statue without inadvertently or otherwise honouring the person.

The only way is to eradicate the name in the future.

Daniel Quinn wrote: ↑Sun Dec 05, 2021 1:53 pm Street names , statues , place names are all historical memoirs .

They are however looked after by the present. Should the democratic will be they are changed , they must be changed.

There is however a world of difference between a slave trader in the 17 and 18 century and being a peadophile in the 20 century.

The founding fathers were some of the most democratic ,insightful and impressive people to have lived ( the American constitution) they were also involved in the slave trade.

Abhorrent as it was the slave trade was of its time and it’s unfair to judge 17centuary people by 21 Centaury moral code. I would want to be judged on now , not the zeitgeist in 200 years time

All fair points. But does renaming a street really erase history?

Daniel Quinn wrote: ↑Sun Dec 05, 2021 3:13 pm How do you keep a street name or a statue without inadvertently or otherwise honouring the person.

The only way is to eradicate the name in the future.

Hence the careful wording of the last sentence of me previous.
I agree. Keeping / choosing not to change a name is an act of honouring something. Possibly the person, possibly (small c) conservatism.

savvypaul wrote: ↑Sun Dec 05, 2021 3:14 pm

Daniel Quinn wrote: ↑Sun Dec 05, 2021 1:53 pm Street names , statues , place names are all historical memoirs .

They are however looked after by the present. Should the democratic will be they are changed , they must be changed.

There is however a world of difference between a slave trader in the 17 and 18 century and being a peadophile in the 20 century.

The founding fathers were some of the most democratic ,insightful and impressive people to have lived ( the American constitution) they were also involved in the slave trade.

Abhorrent as it was the slave trade was of its time and it’s unfair to judge 17centuary people by 21 Centaury moral code. I would want to be judged on now , not the zeitgeist in 200 years time

All fair points. But does renaming a street really erase history?

No.
Unless you have first eradicated all books and the internet.

Edit: when I studied history at University, no lecturer ever took us out to look at road names, and to my knowledge, neither the department library nor the central university library had any road signs on their shelves.

It eradicates it from cultural life.

For me street names, statues etc are just tokens, I care little if statues are taken down or streets renamed. What I do care about is history both how and what is taught being adjusted to suit the narrative of the 'current' times. To view the past in the light of our current morals is inevitable, but I believe we should be taught all there is to know about the slave trade, holocaust, purges, year zero etc, etc because if we allow the sanitising of the past we will continue to repeat the same mistakes, or allow our masters to repeat and emulate the worst of history and human nature.

Also I would venture that the great majority of people have no idea what, where or whom road names relate to.