I can't think of a single historian who thinks of Elizabeth the Virgin Queen of England as a bad monarch. She's generally praised as being able to steer England on a moderate course as the Reformation tore up Europe and usher in an epoch of English culture that's now referred to as the Elizabethan Age. There are some who criticize her actions on occasion — she was prone to procrastinate making decisions and her steadfast refusal to name an heir could've unraveled the peace in the country — but overall most consider her to be one of the greatest rulers in English history.

I was thinking about this when the Princeton and Woodrow Wilson thing blew up. Wilson was briefly president of the university before entering politics, and Princeton honored him with several buildings in his name. Black students in the college were upset because he maintained the rule of accepting only white Christians, and felt it was racially insensitive to celebrate him.

Wilson did a lot of shit during his presidency. He helped end the First World War. He along with Clemenceau and Lloyd George practically divided up the world map afterward. He tried to found the League of Nations. He helped start the Federal Reserve. He did a lot of trust busting. He advocated for increased ages and benefits for the working class. Because of that I wouldn't say that he was a bad president. On a presidential scale I'd actually say he was a good one even if he failed on several fronts. Definitely no one would say he's shit like Harding.

Which brings me back to Elizabeth. Remember, she's in a Protestant country during the Reformation. Although she said she wasn't willing to form an Inquisition to ensure the populace was Protestant, if you were caught being Catholic it could turn out really bad. Like physical mutilation or execution bad. If Elizabeth lived in today's age, she undoubtedly would be denounced on the human rights front. But as a Catholic I'm not that pissed at her. Considering the tone of the time, again she was a moderate. And even if she weren't, that was the tone of the time. The shit Protestants and Catholics did to each other is regrettable, deplorable, and reprehensible, but I'm not angry at them. They're part of the progression of human society. We went from slaughtering an entire city of people for no reason at all, to killing someone because they believed in praying to saints but not killing his wife and kids, to today. And even today we have problems, but we're also part of the progression.

That's why I felt it was unfair on Wilson. On the racism scale in the early 1900s he wasn't terrible. Yeah, he preferred segregation and definitely didn't think highly of blacks, but he didn't want lynchings or slavery. But I'm not really expecting him to toe the line of the early 2000s. He was a person of his time. And I don't think his views on race outweighs everything else that he did. It's like Elizabeth; I wish she didn't persecute Catholics, but her other actions outshone that. If she were only known for her religious persecution like her older sister Mary, then that'd be another thing. It'd be like having a dorm in Princeton named after Hitler.

But if you start nitpicking every single person from history with our levels of morality, then there will literally be almost no one left on earth to admire. I'll admit I don't know much about Mary Wollstonecraft's views on race considering she wrote about feminism, but I'm willing to bet because she was English and lived in the 1700s she wouldn't invite them into her house. Ashoka is renowned in Buddhism for being a just king in accordance with its tenents, but he got that position by killing all of his brothers. Geronimo is hailed as one of the final warriors against the white invasion, but he's also credited with killing Mexican children. People from history haven't lived in our time. I'd be surprised if they were like us. I can frown on their actions, but I also have to look at it through the lens of that period.