The Los Angeles City Council has made the reckless decision to end Columbus Day. Instead, Angelenos will have the opportunity to celebrate what the Council has called "indigenous peoples." This is a victory for those groups engaged in indiscriminate attacks on white men of European descent, and it's a victory for the heavy-handed tactics these folks employ to eradicate these figures from our history.
Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) was one of our early curious fellows who wanted to know what was out there in the great beyond. Curiosity is a basic characteristic of the human condition, and in some of us it manifests in an exaggerated way. These people are the visionaries who shepherd all of us into our future, for good or ill. They are among us today. Steve Jobs was unquestionably one of them. Elon Musk is another. They're all at least a little crazy, or maybe it's better to say that they are an aberration from the norm in a spectacularly important way.
In the day of Columbus long distance travel on the oceans was similar to space travel today. Risk, possible peril and ridicule are all endured in the quest to fulfill a longing to resolve a mystery. What is out there? Columbus wasn't alone on the vast seas. The Viking Leif Erikson reached the Americas in the 11th century, hundreds of years before Columbus. These figures from our history are to be remembered. That is the least we can do to not only honor them but to remind ourselves that embracing challenges and not letting the fear of the unknown deter us in our endeavor to better understand the world where we all live is the only way we escape being doomed to live in a perpetual status quo without innovation.
I think it's a grave mistake to deride visionaries from our past while using a 21st century mindset to pick apart their motives and judging the aftermath of their actions with the advantage of having a historical record chronicling the consequences. I celebrate the curiosity and the journey and ultimately the man or the woman who took risks and endured ridicule to expand all of our experience on this planet. To dismiss them is a disservice to ourselves regardless of our particular race or gender.
What do you think?
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