Cancelling My Subscription To Canadian Stamp News

Quote from Jesse Robitaille's Philatelic Commentary, page 2
:
"I think any future stamps honouring her [QEII] legacy would be grossly disrespectful to Indigenous communities across the country - not to mention the other genocide, racism, theft of cultural artifacts, hoarding of wealth, planned famines and wars worldwide."

Such a sad display of historical ignorance!

Well, canceling a subscription because you disagree with a single editorial is obviously your choice, though I would add that the reigns of Victoria and the Four Kings probably saw much worse than anything under QEII.

talk about opening a can of worms.

why don't we stop going to ROME for the Romans invading England!!

Remember the only thing the relating to QE2 was the Suez Canal Crisis!!

I am surprised the woke as in woke culture is so uneducated in the ways of the world. If they want to cancel the history and memory of QEII or any of the prior monarchs back to Queen Victoria just write a letter, buy a stamp with your chosen despised monarch illustrated, mail said letter and the monarch will be cancelled. Repeat until one feels better. If one really has anti-colonialism badly, mail packages and then one can cancel many monarchs at once with each mailing.

The world today is exactly the way it is due to the history of the days before. You may not like the history, but you need to get down on your knees and truly thank it for allowing one, you, to be here today to complain about history. If you think history produced a wrong outcome because you are here now, change the outcome and eliminate yourself to correct history's mistakes which allowed you to live today. We do not have time travel worked out, nor do we have the vision or scope to properly view history as it was occurring contemporaneous. OP sak, send that to the writer who wishes to revision history rather than cancelling your subscription. He will have no logical response as changing history is impossible and you can still enjoy the publication.

On a personal note, however I feel today about the use of nuclear weapons going forward, I must support their prior use in ending WWII. Before I was born, my father was on a ship en route to invade Japan and the expectation was such a landing would make 6-6-1944, D-Day, look like a walk in the park. I cannot reasonably complain about the dropping of the two bombs without also complaining about my current existence now can I? However, I at least can remember those who died so I could live.

Rather than cancel your subscription, why not write a thoughtful letter to CSN expressing the reasons you disagree with his commentary? I am pretty sure they would publish it. Would discourse not be preferable to the modern concept of "cancel culture"?

While I do not embrace Mr. Robitaille's view on the matter, I support his right to express opinion.

Where is the hirtorical ignorance, sorry. Looks to me like historical awareness. What is it you disagree with?

Presentism is an important concept when discussing history.

John

"Presentism, at its worst, encourages a kind of moral complacency and self-congratulation. Interpreting the past in terms of present concerns usually leads us to find ourselves morally superior; the Greeks had slavery, even David Hume was a racist, and European women endorsed imperial ventures. Our forbears constantly fail to measure up to our present-day standards. This is not to say that any of these findings are irrelevant or that we should endorse an entirely relativist point of view. It is to say that we must question the stance of temporal superiority that is implicit in the Western (and now probably worldwide) historical discipline. In some ways, now that we have become very sensitive about Western interpretations of the non-Western past, this temporal feeling of superiority applies more to the Western past than it does to the non-Western one. We more easily accept the existence and tolerate the moral ambiguities of eunuchs and harems, for example, than of witches. Because they found a place in a non-Western society, eunuchs and harems seem strange to us but they do not reflect badly on our own past. Witches, in contrast, seem to challenge the very basis of modern historical understanding and have therefore provoked immense controversy as well as many fine historical studies."

- Lynn Hunt, 2002 (AGAINST PRESENTISM - Perspectives on History, AHA)

I have not read the article, But:

In her 70 years of being the Queen and having her picture of numerous stamps was not a problem and not a reason to cancel a subscription.

After her death her being on a stamp in the future suddenly is a problem?

If you do not agree with something/somebody, fine that is okay.

But have the guts to complain/react while somebody is still alive.

Above is my personal opinion,

The author sure likes to put things in a nutshell. Cue to peel off blinders. He could have said a thousand things about a thousand different rulers. I guess he has not benefitted in any way by being born into the Commonwealth? I would also call him a jerk.

You can argue with a spouse and still love them. You can be critical of your nation's actions and policies and still be proud to be its citizen. Benefiting from something doesn't come at the cost of blind allegiance to it.

Woke agenda for stamp collecting: (very evil to collect)
British commonwealth:evil enterprise,subjugation of minorities,theft of natural resources,agrigulture,art.....

France:Colonialists ,evil enterprise,subjugation of minorities,theft of natural resources,agrigulture,art.....

China: Evil people,no democracy,millions died under Mao....

Germany: Blond Nazis,very evil.....

Spain; Conquistadors:hate the aztecs!!!.........

Italy: To much like the Romans (avoid).

Russia: Communists ?.. evil Stalin, Goulags, (the bad guys)

USA: Slave owners,to rich,to white...

ect...ect...

In my opinion and from a historical perspective, every region/peoples of the world has been responsible for atrocities.

As John's great "Presentism " post above states, viewing history through the lens of today creates distortions. When viewing history, I try to adjust my perspective and understanding to the context of that time. When trying to understand a historical figure, I try to image what they think if they were alive today. For example, what would Thomas Jefferson believe in if he had the benefit of being raise in our times?
Don

Didn't they execute civilians, annex parts of a neighbouring country, bomb hospitals, use forbidden cluster ammunition, support gassing a civilian population in Syria?

To be fair, the USA uses cluster munitions, and plenty of countries have annexed neighboring territories, enslaved people, bombed hospitals, etc.
The point here is that philately, like people, are inextricably linked to their times, and one doesn't have to agree with the subject matter of a stamp or its issuing authority in order to collect it. If anything, it's the circumstances surrounding the stamp that makes philately (like numismatics) interesting.

My point was that you do not have to go back 30 years in time to find a reason for calling Russians 'evil.' This years history will suffice.

I really should not collect British stamps, considering what happened in 1672, and in 1830. Still, I do. I even go as far as to collect British and Irish stamps. Quite an explosive pairing.