A longer conversation for another time, but I’ve never been too keen on the “well that was the time” argument of forgiving terrible behavior in historical figures. Especially because 1) there were real people who had to pay the consequences for those times and 2) there were other people in history who strived to become better than what their time found acceptable.

Cleaning up history removes all the nuance of what makes these people fascinating. And when you remove their humanity, you start worshipping instead of learning.