We move forward as a society by recognizing that jackasses in history participated in jackassery, and by learning that some of those jackasses were framed as “good” or “leaders” or “briliant” or whatever were, in reality, pretty fucked up individuals, so that we may understand our history isn’t as flawless and unbloody as we maybe learned as children.
For instance, I was taught throughout my childhood that Henry Ford was a revolutionary leader and the inventor of the automobile. Found it a bit odd that, later on, they moved the goalpost, so that instead of having invented the automobile, he invented the assembly line! He didn’t even do that.
In fact, Henry Ford was an antisemitic jackass that took the money he made by exploiting people at the right time with the right technology, and poured it into the stupid concept of a town in South America, exploiting/displacing natives to produce rubber. Something atleast The Deuce had the sense to dismantle, but only after decades of trying and failing.
Acknowledging the darkness in our history instead of pretending it’s not there is how we admit that we’ve done some fucked up shit as a species, and how we know we still have a long way to go, how we know there is yet work to be done, how we move forward as a species.
If you’d like a TL;DR, here you go:
Everyone needs their own Messiah. But sooner or later, he’s getting nailed up, and how you deal with that is a measure of your maturity.