Topic: Is it moral to name a sportteam after the Vikings (or the Pirates)?
This could be in the History section, but hey. Here are 2 opposing views:
Against:
"It's ironic that people pick the Vikings as team mascots. They were incredibly cruel, expansionist, colonialist, and murdered untold numbers of people wherever population centers could be reached by navigating up river. That would be like someone centuries from now naming their mascot after the Nazis for their famous weapons technology and aggressive expansionism, or the communist guerillas for their infamy in spreading revolution. If we find naming a group after the Nazis revolting, we should (if we knew history) find it just as revolting to name any team mascot after the Vikings, or the Moors, or the Spartans, or any vicious warlike group. Heck, there's even a chain of mongolian barbecue restaurants named "the Great Khan's". If you realize that Ghengis Khan's armies killed or caused the starvation of tens of millions of people, naming a restaurant after him is akin to naming a German sausage shop after Hitler. Only general amnesia about the history of these peoples makes these mascots acceptable."
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There are lots of good points in the above paragraph. Now here is the For:
"The Vikings get a bad rap, but they were really more like -- say -- the Phoenicians rather than the Romans or the Nazis. Vikings who settled Normandy and later conquered England via William did a lot of good for that country, conducted the first census since Roman times, and all that. The Vikings served and contributed greatly in the Roman Eastern Empire as Vangarian guard and all that... They were all over the map, I guess.
The Vikings and Germanic "barbarians" are really misrepresented in pop-culture. The truth is, they often paraded around in togas, drank wine, and put on the fascade of being "civilized" because they wanted to inherit Romantic culture, not annihilate it. The Saxons and all them who they terrorized in England did the same exact kind of "evil" when they stole the land from celts, scotts, and romans who lived in the land before them."
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And one more against it:
"Well sure the vikings did lots for England, but the Nazis did a lot of good for Germany too. You just had to hope you were on their side or you'd have problems. OP left out pirates too. Murderers, thieves, rapists, and all; we get Johnny Depp playing them."
Mod Note: This topic is closed for lack of source reference links. Please refer to the Forum Rules, Regulations, and Recommendations (v2.3) to review rules pertaining to copy-and-paste and plagiarism (see section 7).
This could be in the History section, but hey. Here are 2 opposing views:
Against:
"It's ironic that people pick the Vikings as team mascots. They were incredibly cruel, expansionist, colonialist, and murdered untold numbers of people wherever population centers could be reached by navigating up river. That would be like someone centuries from now naming their mascot after the Nazis for their famous weapons technology and aggressive expansionism, or the communist guerillas for their infamy in spreading revolution. If we find naming a group after the Nazis revolting, we should (if we knew history) find it just as revolting to name any team mascot after the Vikings, or the Moors, or the Spartans, or any vicious warlike group. Heck, there's even a chain of mongolian barbecue restaurants named "the Great Khan's". If you realize that Ghengis Khan's armies killed or caused the starvation of tens of millions of people, naming a restaurant after him is akin to naming a German sausage shop after Hitler. Only general amnesia about the history of these peoples makes these mascots acceptable."
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There are lots of good points in the above paragraph. Now here is the For:
"The Vikings get a bad rap, but they were really more like -- say -- the Phoenicians rather than the Romans or the Nazis. Vikings who settled Normandy and later conquered England via William did a lot of good for that country, conducted the first census since Roman times, and all that. The Vikings served and contributed greatly in the Roman Eastern Empire as Vangarian guard and all that... They were all over the map, I guess.
The Vikings and Germanic "barbarians" are really misrepresented in pop-culture. The truth is, they often paraded around in togas, drank wine, and put on the fascade of being "civilized" because they wanted to inherit Romantic culture, not annihilate it. The Saxons and all them who they terrorized in England did the same exact kind of "evil" when they stole the land from celts, scotts, and romans who lived in the land before them."
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And one more against it:
"Well sure the vikings did lots for England, but the Nazis did a lot of good for Germany too. You just had to hope you were on their side or you'd have problems. OP left out pirates too. Murderers, thieves, rapists, and all; we get Johnny Depp playing them."
Mod Note: This topic is closed for lack of source reference links. Please refer to the Forum Rules, Regulations, and Recommendations (v2.3) to review rules pertaining to copy-and-paste and plagiarism (see section 7).
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