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.

I don't want RightThink and mad superimposing of modern nutjobbery (trans nit comb) hammered over my head when I walk around a museum or NT place. I don't want the enforced woke scolding everywhere, I don't want this rammed down my throat everywhere I go because the righteous think it's good for me.

And once the usual mad emotional manipulation starts (if you don't accept mad woke scolding and Elizabeth 1 was a TM you are agreeing with slavery ffs....!) I get even more aware of why my gut instinct for this stuff is that it's gone way too far, it's mad and it needs to stop. And if it takes some extremists to swing the pendulum back from other extremists, then whatever, because reasonability isn't working.

As for the 'you care more about where you pee than about slavery' - oh get a grip ffs. Either you know damn well it's vastly about more than that or you have managed to completely avoid listening to a single voice or explanation of any of this and it's time to educate yourself. As I think the saying goes.

I don’t know if I’m remembering correctly but didn’t the NT do some research a few years ago which showed that one of the things visitors to its properties were looking for was “food for the soul”, drinking in the beauty of landscapes, architecture and beautiful things and stepping out of their everyday lives and worries? Yes, it’s important to acknowledge the realities of how society worked in the past but it’s also important not to be heavy handed and leave people feeling irritated, patronised or depressed.

past schmast

anyone who thinks the beautiful houses being created now by the ultra rich aren’t being funded by exploiting other humans is fooling themselves

but yes

after a bereavement the place I went to bring some balm to my wounded soul was the beautiful garden of my local NT property

Nobody wants to hammer you over the head- just an acknowledgment in the interpretations provided that the wealth that created these houses was often connected to gross exploitation. From outright slavery to the conditions endured by the British working class.

If we don't acknowledge those people, that is real eradication.

It's perfectly possible to appreciate the beauty of NT properties and their real histories. This isn't about "fashionable" anything, it's about historical accuracy.

I'm a big fan of the latter, beaten it out of my clothes often enough.

And to be honest, sanitised history is fucking boring. Try running an open day for kids- they want the gruesome bits, the skeletons and layers of shit

As for the 'you care more about where you pee than about slavery'

There's a whole historic context to the provision of safe and private places for women to pee which is just as important as slavery.

There are still many countries where women have nowhere safe to go for a pee without severe risk of rape or sexual harassment and abuse.

Here in the UK we have had a century or more of mainly safe public provision and workplace provision and provision in shops and eating places etc which women and women's organisations and philanthropic organisations fought for. Maybe if we all knew that history we'd be a bit more reluctant to just throw it away.

Perhaps the NT could do a display?

I don't agree that 'sanitised' is the same thing at all as 'bashed over the head with mad woke stuff'.

In the same way as having an issue with trans nit combs does not immediately equate with not caring about slavery. This black and white thinking isn't helpful, and the ramming of this stuff is hitting the point of being an active turn off to many. Which is not helpful either in trying to share historical context with people visiting a site for a day out.

There's people on this thread who really do want the sanitised version, they want the theme park.

It's a lie.

What is so terrible about reading an info board in a beautiful NT garden (and I've seen this) which states that, many of the beautiful plants you can see here were brought over from the sugar plantation which the family owned and provided much of their wealth, an est 3,000 enslaved people died at that plantation.

It's perfectly possible to read that, appreciate and acknowledge it AND, appreciate the aesthetic beauty of the garden in front of you. It gives it even greater gravitas if you understand the context.

Quite! The continual erosion of the boundaries between public and private leads people to be more interested in the intimate details of people's lives rather than in their public record.

Because it is a fixed agenda with a political motive -which seeks to shoehorn in information everyone is already aware of at every given turn.

There are thousands of 'contexts' in any given set of circumstances. If we read every contextual detail about every historical person, or even about every contemporary person, we'd be at each information plaque all year.

There is such a thing as simply enjoying beauty and aesthetics too - not every situation has to be one is which we forcefully seek to 're-educate' everybody.

I don't know how much you know about archeology @DatumTarum but you know nothing about plants

People don't like having things forced down their throats at every turn. It tends to make them rebellious. It also insults peole's intelligence and asssumes that nobody is aware that empires existed, or that plants, food stuffs, animals, and even human beings were 'brought back' from other countries and cultures.

All history is political - that's history/arch degree 101.

I want some accuracy, particularly for kids. In my experience, if you want kids (teenagers in particular) to engage with the past you cannot and should not, patronise them with a nice, fluffy version of the past.

They (and therefore society at large) need to understand where we came from. All of us, not just the rich white men who ran the Empire.

Good post!

So many 'contexts', so little time.

Green houses, my dear 😎

Agree strongly with @DatumTarum here - RT are just Tufton Street oil money - and to think that they are feminists is so wide of the mark it’s almost laughable. They are just wading into culture wars for own agenda

Ooh which NT property is that with the beautiful garden inside a greenhouse?

I'm not sure about you but I was learning about the 'triangular trade' in the 1970's at junior school. We know where sugar, tobacco and cotton came from - and how it was grown. I live in Liverpool and it has had a slavery museum since the 1980's, and black history months and walking tours for as long.

This recent push originates in american critical social justice studies - and in itself it feels like an act of colonisation.

Wars tend to happen when one side tries to forcefully impose itself on another.
This attempt at compensation and equity is part of the current american civil war we are witnessing, and it is you who is trying to impose it.

It takes far more than a simply greenhouse to grow tropical plants in the UK and that is quite different from saying ‘many of the beautiful plants you see here’ on a board in a garden.

It's depressing isn't it? They've been linked to fracking at one point.

Their campaign feels like the pro-Brexit one.

Not trying to impose anything - everyone has the right to vote to protect the things most important to them. We just all need to pay attention to what rights we inadvertently give away at the same time- will be massive in the next GE - water, climate, nature, freedom from poverty, education etc etc. I worry

No one said that. Some of us are historians, or studied history in university.

That doesn't mean that any of us, everyone goes to have a walk in a beautiful garden or home in order to dig into the sex life of someone who happened to live in said place. Especially when it's presented according to a modern agenda.

In any case, it's difficult to take seriously comments about history from someone so heavily immersed in modern social theory.

Which NT property @DatumTarum?

Very well put.

With the pushing of you must pick a side, one side is all good and the other side is all evil, and if you question anything on the 'good' side then you are committing all evil....

it's beyond tedious now. And yes, I find it highly ironic that it's this American led culture that spends so much time ranting about evils such as colonisation, completely unaware that it's very much their own philosophy. There's no real awareness or interests in the values, they're just empty words and learned rhetoric as an identity.

Todays Specials

Potato Soup and leek soup. Potato’s were bought to Europe by the Spanish Conquistadors. Their actions, together with the spread of European diseases is estimated to have caused 20 million deaths.

Spiced tea cake. Spices such as these were traded from the far east. In 1347 trade ships brought the Black Death to Europe from the east. Over the next few years approximately 50% of the European population died from the plague. It took 200 years for the population to recover.

Enjoy your soup!