National Trust AGM

[PRAMtran]

I’ve received an email from the National Trust inviting me and all other members to vote in their AGM. Does anyone know if there are any things a woman’s rights advocate should vote for or against. Eg TWAW by stealth.

You haven’t engaged in rationale debate at all on this thread.

Have I not?

Did I not ask GoT to justify her enthusiastic endorsement of queer theory in schools and did I not explain why I believe it's dangerous? Did I get a response? Do you think my explanation was irrational? If so, can you explain why?

Did I not rationally explain why nobody here is particularly bothered about a Tufton Street address? Did I get a response? Do you think my explanation was irrational? If so, can you explain why?

The most rational approach to this thread would have been to bring posters' attention back again and again to why the OP started it. She wanted advice, as a NT member, to help her avoid electing the TRA. I am not a NT member and I have no voting rights. Nevertheless I have pointed out the original purpose of this thread for at least the third time now. What is irrational about that?

’twatty’ was hardly in response to a rational argument. It was 100% deserved, levelled at something you had written, rather than a personal insult (which you have made).

You said Your rather twatty gotcha at 22.04 didn’t work.

My apparent 'gotcha' was Sorry, I didn't realise you identified as a patronising scold in response to you asserting I was tone policing ... who exactly?

I am still in the dark as to why you are caping for patronising scolds among certain sections of society. No rational explanation has been provided.

Please show where I have personally insulted anyone.

I also find it interesting that you are suggesting that ‘dissenting views’ are those which cannot rationally be argued. Which, 6 posts ago, @Ereshkigalangcleg admitted was something which multiple
posters were doing in this thread and which you yourself have defended.

I am very clearly not suggesting that dissenting views are those which cannot rationally be argued. As I said, and as everyone can read in my posts above:

All sorts of people turn up here with all sorts of dissenting views. 'GC' is a huge, uncomfortable political umbrella. Dissent is normal.

When I say 'these' dissenting views I refer specifically to those which cannot be rationally argued and so quickly descend to insults such as 'twattish'.

I am not the same person as @Ereshkigalangcleg , none of us are responsible for each others posts. Nevertheless, scrolling up, I see that the only thing she has 'admitted' is that critical thinking and rational debate are good things that have happened a lot on these boards and I wholeheartedly agree.

Well I am then entitled to think you are being dishonest in claiming you have more but are just choosing not to engage in the discussion. I think you are lying just as I think @pencils was enormously backtracking with all the dissenting views crap that was posted.

The most rational approach to this thread would have been to bring posters' attention back again and again to why the OP started it. She wanted advice, as a NT member, to help her avoid electing the TRA. I am not a NT member and I have no voting rights. Nevertheless I have pointed out the original purpose of this thread for at least the third time now. What is irrational about that?

This. The thread was derailed.

Think what you like, lovey, no one here is accountable to you for how they post.

But I will always point out when people lie about something I have said, or not said.

‘lovey’.
taking the moral high ground didnt last for long.

I don't recall taking any moral high ground? More putting words in people's mouths. I couldn't begin to compete with your righteousness.

No backtracking. I reposted verbatim the relevant parts of my previous post. I stand by every word I have written on this thread.

I think it was pretty to me that the mention of humour was meant to be in general, rather than some kind of specific slavery-based humour. But I think for many intersectionalists, if certain topics are even mentioned, it then has to be a completely serious conversation.

Yes.

@pencils give over. It’s pretty clear what you actually meant by ‘dissenting views’

Come on now, you just called me 'twattish'. You cannot claim any moral high ground.

i wasn’t claiming the moral
high ground. @Ereshkigalangcleg was until the ‘lovey’ bit

@pencils are you still unclear of the difference between a noun and an adjective?

No, I wasn't. I was saying I don't like being lied about. Which you keep doing.

Come on now, you just called me 'twattish'.

Exactly. We're all good.

Yes it is very clear what I meant. Everyone can read my post.

Why are you trying to read your own odd subtexts into what people say @TheHoover ? Just assume that people mean what they say, they don't actually think something different, so aren't "backtracking". You'll get on better in debates if you approach them in a spirit of mutual good faith. Just some friendly advice.

Yes @Ereshkigalangcleg this is definitely friendly advice. And I definitely shouldn’t ever read any difference into what people say and what they mean.

i mean @pencils really genuinely had absolutely zero jot of inference towards posters on this thread when she posted that scolding, patronising humour free mental health slur.

And then failing to claim that that I was adopting that mantle was just a pleasant enquiry.

It is friendly advice 🤷‍♀️ take it or leave it. If you want to read between the lines because you think you've spotted a heinous inconsistency in someone's throwaway posts on a feminist talkboard, that's up to you. But it will probably make you look rather silly quite a lot of the time, as well as not being in the spirit of a good faith conversation. Anyway, nighty night.

i haven’t seen any data on this - have you?

But whether their members are more likely to hold these attitudes, or not, vs the overall population, it makes no difference though to the matter in hand regarding slavery connections As I’ve mentioned several times, Including this in information is a matter of accuracy.

Small c conservative attitudes might make make some feel uncomfortable with this, but the NT exists to “look after history” not to pretend events didn’t happen, censure them for delicate sensibilities, or ignore the latest biographical research into how it’s properties came to be built.

You’re a feminist, right? It wasn’t so long ago women’s history was belittled, erased, sidelined and omitted. What is your motivation for wanting to erase Black history?

So, in the middle of a discussion about the how the history of the brutal enslavement of 3.1 million people, the deaths of 400,000 on slave ships , mass rape and so on, is represented, you think it’s absolutely fine to launch in with absurdist “funny” quips and a call for more “humour” in life.

I find that callous and peculiar. Would you accept the same in a discussion of the Holocaust?

Your research was incomplete.

If you had gone back a little further you would have seen the same poster making a rather pathetic attempt to use absurdist humour to suggest that highlighting a former NT owner’s connections to slavery was somehow irrelevant or not required.

To quote them:

I’m about to visit my local CarpetRight on a nearby industrial estate. As far as I can tell the building is primarily concrete and pressed steel. Any ideas where I can seek out the provenance of the building materials, otherwise I won’t be able to choose a carpet. It’s such a problem these days …

Personally I think making jokes about how the history of slavery is represented and in the middle of a discussion about it, call for more humour (in the topic or life) to be highly distasteful.

National Trust properties have always displayed information on the occupation and sources of wealth of the families that built the properties. If new research establishes activities related to slavery and colonialism were part of this why wouldn’t you include them?

I think this thread is fast reaching its natural end but I will respond to this from GoT:

*As I’ve mentioned several times, Including this in information is a matter of accuracy.

Small c conservative attitudes might make make some feel uncomfortable with this, but the NT exists to “look after history” not to pretend events didn’t happen, censure them for delicate sensibilities, or ignore the latest biographical research into how it’s properties came to be built.*

Two things:
If history were only about ‘accuracy’, then there would be very few history books. In any narrative about the past, something will always be left out as it is simply not possible to reproduce everything in one story. All history is partial, and there is no neutral position of total accuracy that can be used as a yardstick. To assume this is historically naive.

Having read the thread, I am confident that the vast majority of posters (I would say all but I’m being careful) support including information on links to slavery in NT materials where they apply to a specific property, and that is probably because in our current historical moment, in which Britain is reckoning with its role in the world and a rapidly diversifying society (including many more British people who are mixed-race/ethnicity) this is regarded as very important.

What some posters seem to disagree with - returning to the starting point of the thread - is a) the NT’s alleged attempt to enforce a very narrow point of view, to the exclusion of other relevant narratives, b) the misrepresentation of history (example: cotton tapestries) and c) a contemptuous attitude towards NT members and audiences who are assumed to be ignorant and resistant to new interpretations, even though sometimes they might actually accurately point out misinterpretations or missing context (again, the tapestry example is brilliant as it pointed to the technological origins of the cotton boom, leading to a better understanding of slavery as an institution).

Finally, even though I support encouraging historical awareness, the way to do this is to appeal to the imagination, encourage audiences to ask questions, meet them were they are, not present history as a morality tale. And it seems from the support RT are getting that the NT risks alienating some of its audience - a dangerous place for a national institution, there for everybody.

Some time ago, I visited the historic house of a famous white male and the one exhibit I remember best is that relating to his wife and the many children she bore over more than two decades. This was the reality for many women in the past and caused huge physical strain, added to by the emotional strain of not many children surviving. Not my experience but I could relate to it. Am I a bad person now for remembering this and not something else?

Sorry for long post.

I made a not dissimilar point about 15 pages ago on the nature of history. No one has suggested history is only about accuracy.

However, in the case of owner biography, this is already an established category of analysis for creating some of the info displayed at NT properties, and so updating in the light of new research is more a straightforward matter of “accuracy”. If Lord X’s economic activities are currently said to include investing in local mining and land holdings, and it later transpires he also derived significant wealth from owning several Caribbean plantations, this can be added to the list.

No one - least of all me - has suggested history should be presented as a “morality tale”. In fact, “judging” the past or presenting “lessons” from it isn’t part of academic historical practice. That’s more a job for philosophers.