These fellows, Burton, Jefferson, et. al., were products of their time. And yes, in those times, there were once attitudes and practices that we now deem reprehensible. But I dare say that men of the past would also think quite ill of many of our modern practices. It shall be left to an oncoming posterity to rub our own long-dead noses in the dirt for our current mistakes, what.

For all their foibles, men like Burton were far superior to many of the insipid, milquetoast men of today.

In that our chum Basil mentions that Burton engaged in bizarre sexual practices, was promiscuous and was alleged bisexual, only adds to Burton’s “renaissance man” reputation, I should think. If the fellow intrepidly saved my life during a Somali spear attack, he could bugger chimpanzees daily for all I’d care. Most sports jocks, whom we fancy our modern heroes, would have shat their pants and run.

Ole Sir Richard… what a fellow and what do they teach kids in schools these days? we actually read about Sir Richard in my highschool back in the 1960s. Can’t imagine of anyone not having heard of him.

Lovely website.

Like ALL humans, this man was flawed, complicated, and real. Also, was enmeshed in systems and signs which today read as “racist” “classist” “sexist”.

We cannot, any longer, stand with our hands on our hips and scream “racism” in and “sexism” at those people of, say, the 18th and 19th centuries.

Why not? Were they not?

Sure, but, those people are dead; when we speak ill of the dead, we are in defiance of what those lessons want learned—-that we need to focus on OUR world, and OUR lives, and help push humanity closer to the light.

Those people would not even beigin to understand our scoldings, for the most part, when we speak of “institutional racism this” or “systemized sex and gender bias”, because, unfortunately, for those things, PEOPLE had to FIGHT and PROVE them flawed.

And, when we romanticize “how it oughta be”, we diminish those unnamed champions who, for instance toppled segregation in the US as a symptom of racism. Sure, MLK was a great man (flawed, as well) but what of those men and women who are not named? because fighting the evil stupidity in ourselves takes the strength of all of us. Thomas Jefferson freeing slaves would not cut the whole deal.

Finally, when we accuse the past, whether be society of the 19th century (who HAD its accusers in its day, look ) or our own past selves (useless) or own families, we haughtily pronounce ourselves as being a triumph, and suggest we have no work to do ourselves.

I believe its better to understand the past, not denounce it like a child or an undergraduate with a half read copy of the Order of Things. When we see history and its denizens as a dirty, shameful thing, we admit defeat over insurmountable forces.

When we see our history as an evolving, collective movement of a species and a civilization, we pronounce to the darkness that humanity will not stop fighting for its collective good, and that we love our victories, and that we ACCEPT our faults, and WILL achieve, some day, a way to solve these.

When we are droll and suggest that Lincoln was a racist withou qualifying it, we misunderstand Lincoln, racism, and our own place within that.

Just my two cents.