Redacted Squad - offensive route names on MP

First Lastwrote:

It's been said before but I'll say it again for the people in the back. The Gunks community decided to omit Shockley's name from The Ceiling. MP users changed the name and description to match. You (and the white supremacists who have come to hold him up as their darling and champion) can continue to call it whatever you want.

Repeat it as loudly as you want, it won’t change the fact that your “gunks community consensus" is no more real than your MP username. Although there were some “compassionate" men in the 30’s who did say something about repeating big lies enough times… if that’s the kind of thing you’re going for.

I wouldn’t ask for Shockley’s name to be removed. But I think the case for it isn’t that his name is traumatizing, it’s an attempt at punishing his legacy for the way he chose to live his life. He’s not above that sort of punishment, but whether removing his name does much good is a question.

He was an important scientist who went on to use his notoriety-the influence his name had-to advocate for particularly racist eugenics for decades. He knew it was quite controversial at the time, went on TV and argued it, took grant money in service of the ideas, and stood behind it up to his death. Even centering a run for US Senate on the idea that the government should take an active role in disincentivizing black Americans from having children.

It doesn’t seem fair to suggest the meaning of his name has been hijacked or that a relatively small part of his private life is being blown out of proportion.

The comments I saw arguing that the name should remain mention that he was a supporter of eugenics, but don’t seem eager to discuss the specifics. Suggesting Shockley’s version of eugenics is similar to those of Hellen Keller or Planned Parenthood is extremely ignorant. The idea that the name is going to spur on important conversations among climbers seems overly optimistic.

It’s a total vibe killer to feel compelled to discuss that I don’t support eugenics at the base of a climb. So, if the choice is: original name you need to contextualize, or change the name and you’re freed from that duty, I’m tempted to choose the latter.

Sometimes it’s important to have a very thoughtful conversation about human character, and sometimes saying “it used to be called Shockley’s Ceiling, but now it’s just called The Ceiling cause fuck that guy” says all I really care to say.

Lou Pwrote:

It’s a total vibe killer to feel compelled to discuss that I don’t support eugenics at the base of a climb. 

How about when you travel on George Washington bridge in your volkswagen beetle, sipping coca cola, pressing on the gas with your puma shoes, while wearing adidas sweatpants? Do you feel the need to disavow Washington’s slave ownership? How about the beetle handrawn by Hitler, and produced with the help of his best friend Porsche: do you need to disavow their antisemitism? How about coca cola, do you feel the need disavow their financial profit from the holocaust? Or Adidas and Puma, how about them? How about when you stop at the ExxonMobil gas station, or when you snap a picture of the bridge with your Kodak camera? Both used slave labor during the third reich. Would you rather we just purge all of history just so you don’t personally feel compelled to disavow eugenics, antisemitism, and slavery?

No one’s compelling you Louis. The only people who are compelling are those who are erasing and censoring other people from viewing history plainly: a dirty ordeal where good and evil spring forth alike from one source alone, the human being. Trying to cover all that upis completely antithetical to “Never forget."

So, if the choice is: original name you need to contextualize, or change the name and you’re freed from that duty, I’m tempted to choose the latter.

How about the both? Change the name AND a whole feature “history” section indicting him. This false dichotomy is simply dishonest, especially in the context of the internet. Download a profanity browser blocker, or simply appeal to MP to add a safespace feature where you can choose to close your own ears. But telling everyone else that they must close their ears makes you egocentric, controlling, and naive.

Lou Pwrote:

I wouldn’t ask for Shockley’s name to be removed. But I think the case for it isn’t that his name is traumatizing, 

Ah, here we have the root of the issue. The people advocating for the removal of his name use this justification, that it is TRAUMATIZING, first and foremost, and this claim is 100% abject bullshit.  Knowing that someone had caustic, racist, white supremacist views undergirded by a late-life interest in eugenics isn't "traumatizing" any more than your lunch was "amazing."  

People who claim to be traumatized by things people SAID long before they were even born are full of shit.  And if they're not, then they're going to have miserable lives every day, for history is chock full of people who have said and espoused repugnant ideas.  Hell, people are still doing it today.  Now, should we celebrate this guy?  No.  But claiming that someone's words who died before you were ever born "traumatizes" you, is the height of hyperbole and full-throated embodiment of victimhood culture, and that shouldn't be celebrated or encouraged either.  I don't have any problem with renaming routes.  I do have a problem with this constant ramping up of emotional rhetoric because it's intellectually dishonest.  It also infantilizes people.  Really?  Reading a name causes trauma?  I'm sorry, but that's just ridiculous.  It conjures an image of a person trembling at the base of a route, unable to even walk the approach trail back out.  Is this really occurring?  Nope, it isn't.  

So, change your route names, rewrite history in a manner that dismisses everything a person did that wasn't negative or could be considered abhorrent today, wave your flags of tolerance and justice, and call attention to repulsive beliefs held by prominent historical figures.  Go nuts.  Applying today's lens of "justice" to people long gone in order to get an accurate accounting of who these people were, so that we're not venerating scumbags is fine.  Do it until you're blue in the face, but please, for fuck's sake, don't pretend that merely reading a name or another word causes people to have prolonged and severe emotional distress, for that is what trauma *actually* is.  I simply cannot believe that.  And if that is true, the people that have this reaction are outliers and should seek help, because normal, well-adjusted adults simply cannot afford to be walking around trembling, unable to cope or forget about these horrific historical occurrences in which they had no involvement directly, because you know, we have responsibilities and shit to do. 

I just cannot imagine that there are people walking around that see things like the word "slut" and are suddenly overwhelmed with emotional distress to the degree that it ruins their whole day, trip, week, month, or whatever (I used this example because it comes up pretty often).  I'm pretty sure that even the people most offended by these types of things, this route name in particular, continued to climb there that day and have a good time.  If I'm mistaken and someone has an anecdote that contradicts that, I'm all ears.  But until that's produced, I'm sorry, but we're not talking about TRAUMA here.  Redefining words to make them fit simpler and less severe occurrences isn't a good idea.  It's like crying wolf.  The words that are supposed to carry weight behind them should be used sparingly, lest they lose their meaning and impact.  If that's the route you wanna go, fine, just expect fewer people to give a shit over time because endless repetition of the most emotionally charged words- wait for it- makes the words lose their emotional impact.  

For example, I'm not traumatized by this: 

Some White People May Have to Die

Or this: 

White People Killed the Body Positivity Movement

Or this:

These people are still alive and well and walking around, and are prominent voices in their respective communities, and are referencing a bit more than inferiority, and I'm not traumatized.  Try taking things in context and not turning into puddle every time you read something you don't like.  You may find that you're more productive, more resilient, and happier.  Or not.

Besides the name calling, this is a really good thread. I actually believe both sides of this argument may actually be learning from each other, I hope so at least.

Learning from history is about all we have to learn from, erasing it is definitely something to think twice about. It's OK to be offended, similar to fear, it's what keeps us safe and moving forward. 

This has never been about justifying the names of routes. That is a dead end. 

This is about the fact that none of you people have the right to edit the contributions submitted by others. its not right, and it will never be right. 

As a group, as an owned website I think MP has the proper control to accept, OR DELETE any given route, for whatever reason they want. They do not have the right to take someone's work, change it and call it their own.

The people who advocate for control of the works of others are freeloaders and book burners.

Even in science, there will always be more to discover, always some that will remain unknown for lifetimes to come.  Wherever human judgment is involved, it will be even messier and more often impossible to completely untangle (e.g., history is written by the victors).

David W, I am sorry to see this consuming so much of your time without much hope of imparting change.  Even this - my post - could do that to someone. All it takes is an assumption of dishonesty, some shaming to dissuade everyone, summary dismissal, and then thereby feel justified to pivot back to an extreme view.

If it is any consolation, I’m struggling myself with not going down a different rabbit hole: OnX and user-provided content versus wilderness management plans / rules. I’m hoping I can just peek down that rabbit hole, inform the appropriate organization(s), and leave it to them to decide whether anything needs to be done.

Some things are worth attempts at being a hero despite the risk of a collective label of being a fool. Others are not, though this also is frought with messy human judgement .

Gloweringwrote:

Shockley the white supremist and eugenicist died in 1989. I don't think not offending him is a top priority. 

You are using Shockley as a strawman, I'm referring to myself, among others. I'm not contributing to this database anymore, even though I haven't been personally redacted. Onyx attitude of catering to those who whine the loudest is just off-putting in general..

Jake, is this not a straw man argument? Can you show us where Shockley's name was said to be traumatizing?

As it stands, the route page in question hasn't erased Shockley's name and history. It teaches the controversy, as does his Wikipedia entry, which I have not and will not attempt to purge from the collective consciousness. For all the fuss about the slim fraction of route names, statues, etc that have been reconsidered, the people advocating for reconsideration of the prominence we give certain names and ideas are not typically book burners. Mike Morley made a strong, good faith argument for the original name. He is right that we should continue to confront ugly histories and learn from them. And I think we can do so while simultaneously choosing to remove a name from a prominent placement.

David mentioned Planned Parenthood and it's an excellent example. Their about us page makes no secret of Margaret Sanger's troubling legacy of both benefit and harm. They don't claim that the good grants her immunity from criticism, but nor do they erase her name and contributions. In fact, the litany of examples David provided of historical figures and innovators whose contributions have not been disowned just goes to show that progressive overreach is more phantom and fear mongering than fact. Another straw man that doesn't align with the empirical reality of a few, fairly restrained adjustments.

It sounds like David wasn't personally consulted about Shockley's Ceiling. So what? That hardly refutes the idea that the climbing community drove the decision. I can at least show my sources: https://gunksapps.com/Renaming.html

Jay, David Weisberg and you that agree with him are whining loudest.

First Lastwrote:

Jay, David Weisberg and you that agree with him are whining loudest.

Nobody is whining, or slinging insults, I'm just letting Onyx know the effect they are having on certain contributors

 the revisionists are the ones initiating the action.

Honestly, Firstlast, have you ever, even once, established a route? Or are you just trying to police others? Go put up some climbs and name them whatever you want; White Men Suck, Small Dick Energy, whatever

Also, I have literally a hundred routes I have yet to name... I'll open them up to the highest bidder... you too, can make your statement for the right price.

First Lastwrote:

It sounds like David wasn't personally consulted about Shockley's Ceiling. So what? That hardly refutes the idea that the climbing community drove the decision. I can at least show my sources: https://gunksapps.com/Renaming.html

“I’ll say it again, for those in the back,” the gunks apps is an online paid guidebook service. Just because they have the word “gunks” in their name doesn’t make them the arbitor of route names or are any kind of representative of the climbing community, no more than “The People’s General Secretariat’s” decrees are the will of the people. The gunks apps can publish any articles they want on their website. Like if they published an article on a guidebook author’s decision to chip holds on Shockley’s Ceiling, FA’d 70 years ago, that doesn’t make it the will of the Gunks community. The objective reality is they made an executive decision after cherrypicking their own DIE committee. Calling it a “community driven” is just disingenuous and saying I have to “refute” it is too. The burden of proof is on you that this is some overwhelming majority will of the community, rather than the hostile takeover many FA’s and climbers I personally have talked to in the gunks see it as. And so you have produced no evidence to that end. Because in fact, just like MP, they self-admittedly used a DIE-style committee, a collection of ideologically and politically motivated radicals.

Redacted Redactbergwrote:

 DIE committee. 

It's actually DEI, stands for Destroy Everything Intentionally.... Hmmmm There's a route name right there 

First Lastwrote:

Jake, is this not a straw man argument? Can you show us where Shockley's name was said to be traumatizing?

Yes it is, so thank you for calling me out.  Please allow me to correct my statement, as I was merely attempting to generalize, but was too specific, which resulted in what you noticed.  The overarching argument in many cases, even if not this one specifically, for removing names, tearing down statues, etc. is that it is traumatizing.  If you'd like me to find specific examples I can.  I'm hoping this point can be conceded because I don't think anyone who wants to be taken seriously can honestly say that they've never seen the word "trauma" used in these instances, and has never seen it applied as a justification for these types of changes.  It's been used quite liberally.  But your point is well taken, nonetheless.

As it stands, the route page in question hasn't erased Shockley's name and history.

This is also a strawman.  Please quote where I said "it erases history".  I did not say that.  If you want to get specific, let's get specific. What I said was " rewrite history in a manner that dismisses everything a person did that wasn't negative or could be considered abhorrent today," What this means, if you'll allow me to contextualize the words that I wrote, is that by removing names, tearing down statues, etc, nuance is utterly obliviated.  Columbus is a good example.  Was he an absolute cunt of a human being? Maybe.  Probably even.  Does you and I being able to have this conversation hinge upon his voyage to North America from Spain?  Yes.  The same can be said about the founding fathers.  Did they own slaves imported against their wills from Africa?  Yeah, they did.  Know who else did?  The entirety of the Arab world and most of the Asian world.  It is often purported that Europeans went into Africa, ripped these people from their homes and families then killed half of them on the way across the Atlantic due to the cruel, torturous conditions they had to endure in the bellies of those ships. The truth is that these poor souls' journeys started with rival African tribes capturing and killing them, imprisoning them, and then selling them to European AND ARABIC slave traders.  Even more slaves went east to Arabic and Asian countries than west, but they don't have subsequent generations to recount these atrocities because the male slaves transported east were castrated.  This is left out of almost every single conversation about past atrocities because it inconveniently implicates people other than white Europeans as culprits.  I digress.  My main point here is that if we are to account for history, we should do it across the board, but that's rarely the case.

 It teaches the controversy, as does his Wikipedia entry, which I have not and will not attempt to purge from the collective consciousness. For all the fuss about the slim fraction of route names, statues, etc that have been reconsidered, the people advocating for reconsideration of the prominence we give certain names and ideas are not typically book burners.

No, just people that have an affinity for censorship.

 Mike Morley made a strong, good faith argument for the original name.

Cool, did you read the part where I said this?  

"Applying today's lens of "justice" to people long gone in order to get an accurate accounting of who these people were, so that we're not venerating scumbags is fine."

 He is right that we should continue to confront ugly histories and learn from them. And I think we can do so while simultaneously choosing to remove a name from a prominent placement.

If he is right, so am I.  Please read very slowly the bolded sentence above, so that you don't make the mistake of missing it twice.

David mentioned Planned Parenthood and it's an excellent example. Their about us page makes no secret of Margaret Sanger's troubling legacy of both benefit and harm. They don't claim that the good grants her immunity from criticism, but nor do they erase her name and contributions. In fact, the litany of examples David provided of historical figures and innovators whose contributions have not been disowned just goes to show that progressive overreach is more phantom and fear mongering than fact.

Oh?  So there hasn't been any attempt by a sitting president, his campaign, or his administration to silence political opposition through various means?  Interesting.

Figment of our imaginations I guess

 Another straw man that doesn't align with the empirical reality of a few, fairly restrained adjustments.

You're attacking an argument I'm not making.  Guess what that's called?

It sounds like David wasn't personally consulted about Shockley's Ceiling. So what? 

Indeed!  So what? Please find for me and quote where I said he should have been consulted and quote it in your next ad hominem comment. Can you comprehend what's been written fully or not?  How long would you like to play these language games?  All day?  Four posts until we both get cut off?

That hardly refutes the idea that the climbing community drove the decision.

Dude, where did I say the climbing community drove anything?  Who are you arguing with?  It's not me.

 I can at least show my sources: https://gunksapps.com/Renaming.html

Jay, David Weisberg and you that agree with him are whining loudest.

I mean fine, if that's what you want to call it.  I'm merely commenting on the hyperbole and heavy breathing that is often required to justify changing words, removing names, calling for censorship, etc. in the first place.  GENERALLY.  

Now, I'll wait while you misquote me, assume my perspective incorrectly, and ardently argue points I never made.  I have conceded where you were correct and I wasn't.  Will you correct where you're wrong? I'm skeptical.

Edited to add:  I post from my real name and location because I don't lack the courage of my convictions.  You must be the other guy.

Jay Crewwrote:

It's actually DEI, stands for Destroy Everything Intentionally.... Hmmmm There's a route name right there 

I like DIE because… yer gonna DIE (there’s another route name). But I actually coined the DIE acronym before it was cool in early 2020. I remember them talking about diversion, equity and inclusion all the time, and when I saw them intentionally go for the awkward DEI, I knew they switched that E and I order on purpose.

When will Slow Children at Index be renamed? I can't believe that one hasn't been done yet, especially in a place like WA where people claim to be progressive?!

Redacted Redactbergwrote:

1. I don’t think MP forum users are representative of the climbing community.
2. Voting on censorship is oxymoronic. By definition, free speech is to protect minorities, no matter how small, even if you are a minority of 1. If the people voted on allowed speech in the early 1960’s, there would be no Civil Rights movement.

You're all over the place, David. Which is it? Is a vote necessary to prove an overwhelming majority, or is it oxymoronic? Are MP forum users representative when they agree with you, and non-representative when they don't? You're welcome to challenge the legitimacy of the Gunks Apps process with them, but MP accepting the claim that Gunks Apps included meaningful community engagement (or that the Gunks Climbing Coalition's involvement meets a reasonable standard of community participation in the Gunks Apps renaming effort) is not the same as MP proactively authoring new route names.

@Jake Jones - the only part of my post that was directed at you specifically was the first line. The remainder of the content was in response to other posters in the thread, so yes, it is quite literally attacking an argument you didn't make. You have lost some credibility with your twitter files link, though. Which is a nice segue to another point about who is whining, which is that there's a strong correlation between the emergence of dumpster fire threads about route name redactions and election years. And since it's an open secret that this is a culture wars thing, it seems fair to point out that when you attack progressive politics, you align yourself with a political movement with a demonstrably poor record of consistency in defending free speech. It isn't typically progressives who are removing books from school libraries, threatening journalists, and deliberately building media and technology misinformation machines.

First Lastwrote:

@Jake Jones - the only part of my post that was directed at you specifically was the first line.

Learn to quote then.  It'll help other readers avoid the confusion you create by not doing so.

 The remainder of the content was in response to other posters in the thread, so yes, it is quite literally attacking an argument you didn't make.

Again, that was unclear. You mention my name as the very first word in your comment, and you don't mention any other names until the third paragraph.

 You have lost some credibility with your twitter files link, though.

How so?  Elaborate or your statement is empty and means nothing.  Which journalist said something misleading, incorrect, or false?  Which documents in the files are you referring to?  Surely you're not saying that the whole thing is an elaborate fake, are you?  If so, elucidate, so I can take you seriously, because right now, I cannot.

 Which is a nice segue to another point about who is whining, which is that there's a strong correlation between the emergence of dumpster fire threads about route name redactions and election years.

Correlation does not equal causation. But I don't care about the correlation either way.  This thread has been going on for over 2 years, so that doesn't really corroborate the point you're trying to make.

 And since it's an open secret that this is a culture wars thing, it seems fair to point out that when you attack progressive politics, you align yourself with a political movement with a demonstrably poor record of consistency in defending free speech.

Oh, yeah.  I see what you mean.  You can dismiss evidence that's been collected by NUMEROUS credible journalists that flies directly in the face of what you're saying, but the poor record, of which you care to offer no evidence for, that's the truth here.  Got it! 

 It isn't typically progressives who are removing books from school libraries, threatening journalists, and deliberately building media and technology misinformation machines.

Which books were removed and why?  Which journalists were threatened and by whom?  Which media and technology misinformation machines are you referring to?  Also, misinformation is a tricky one.  Here's a few that were considered "misinformation" that people were fired from their jobs for saying or believing:

Not all cops are racist.

Black people aren't being hunted by the police en masse.

The vaccine doesn't stop transmission.

Covid was engineered in a lab.

Biological sex isn't on a "spectrum"

etc, etc, etc, etc. ad nauseum, ad infinitum

Typically, it wasn't conservatives suspending accounts and trying to get people fired (sometimes quite successfully) for reports on things that were true.  Do I lose credibility by posting this too?  I can provide examples and evidence for every shred of what I'm saying.  I don't think that will matter to someone that refuses to read and just say things like "you have lost some credibility" without ever explaining why.  Please let me know if you'd like an extensive report of why I say the things I say and what evidence I have for making the claims that I do.   

Redacted Redactbergwrote:

Oh the Irony! The desire to purify history in your moral image IS the egocentrism.

You continue to try to make this about "purifying history", not what it's really about which is removing offensive names from prominent places which indicates approval. 

According to your black and white view all the places that were named after Adolf Hitler in Germany that had their names changed after WWII were purifying history and they should have left them as they were.

Hey, we worked Hitler into the conversation. Who would have guessed?

DIE initiatives are not evil as some make them out to be (which is a preposterous proposition), but are done with the idea of increasing fairness, inclusion, and equality. Do they sometimes go too far? Do they sometimes lead to unfair outcomes? Are they sometimes abused in ways that lead to unjust outcomes? Do some people disagree with them? All yes of course, and it's good to be on the lookout for negative consequences. But as soon as someone claims their main purpose is evil or they can somehow control other people's thoughts you realize you can't have a productive dialogue with them because they are looking at it in a way to justify what they want to believe.