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10 hours ago
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Historical note: Martin Luther
Martin Luther was born on this day in 1483. Luther was the father of the protestant reformation. He disputed the validity of "indulgences" in his most famous act of nailing his Niney-Five Theses to the church door in 1517. He also broke with the Catholic church on marriage by priest and translated the bible into German. He is a serious contender for Man of the Millenium.
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Some other contenders for, umm, Person of the Millennium:
ReplyDeleteWilliam Shakespeare, for contributing to the dominance of the English language.
Isaac Newton, for contributing to the dominance of science.
Charles Darwin, for contributing to the dominance of the idea of the natural order of things and to the cleaving science and religion.
Abraham Lincoln, for contributing to the dominance of democracy. (Am I wrong to view him as more important than any of the earlier generations of our country's founders?)
Who am I missing? (Freud for revolutionizing how we think about the mind, Einstein for revolutionizing how we think about space and time, Washington for firmly settling a young and restless democracy, Al Gore for inventing the internet...)
In the earlier parts of the millenium women did not have equal opportunity. Therefore, "person" of the century would give a false impression that men were superior since they would surely dominate that competition. Consider Rob's candidates for example.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, although I'm sure Rob has the best of intentions, it should now be clear that we should have a man and a woman of the millenium because "Person of the Millenium" would be sexist.
You have to be alert to avoid being an ist.
Boy... darned if you do, darned if you don't.
ReplyDelete(And by "boy", I didn't mean anything sexist, I just meant, "Aw, man." And by "Aw man"... sheesh, just forget it.)