Recs: Columbus Day

[winkingstar]

Here in the U.S., we observe [ Columbus Day ] on the second Monday in October, in celebration of Columbus first arriving to the "New" World in October 1492. The day is observed as a holiday for most federal government employees, the Post Office, and most public elementary school systems (institutions of higher education pick and choose whether

Comments

[winkingstar]

Oh, I am totally down with the magic of discovery. I took a class on Renaissance Travel & Discovery in my undergrad and it was one of my absolute favourite classes. Narratives of travel and discovery are one of my geeky interests. And that magic of discovering new things is also one of the reasons I'm a space geek.

That said, I really think the things that came after are entwined with the man, because really it started as soon as he got here. I read Columbus's narratives for that class and they're not all pretty. I don't think we should celebrate a person who was so disrespectful of native cultures, even if that was the societal norm at the time.

Which isn't to say we shouldn't celebrate the encounter at all. Because, as you said, that moment of discovery was significant to Europe. And it most definitely had an impact on the Americas. For good or for ill, that moment shaped our Western civilization irrevocably. We are what we are and mostly I think that's pretty cool. But we also need a day (well, more than a day, but at least one official day) to remember the culture that was lost on that day in 1492.

That's what I think Columbus Day should be. Not a celebration of a man of dubious worth, but rather a nod to the magic of discovery and a remembrance of things that were lost.