Slander or history?

[St_Annes]

Thoughts from a Catholic perspective, please?
Is there anything wrong with sharing shortcoming of people who are no longer living (e.g., history) in an article?
I don’t think so, but don’t want to be doing something wrong, either.

 

[Estevao]

Just look at King David and Saul of Tarsus. It’s all in the Bible, eh? In fact I’ve heard Muslims say they don’t believe the Old Testament is scripture because of the sordid tales that are told of the saints in there.

I think if it’s already public knowledge, well the cat is already out of the bag, and if the person is an important person, historically speaking, that may be of interest. But you are right to be concerned. The dead have rights too. They should not have their dirty laundry aired. It is all going to come out at the final judgment though.

I don’t know it’s an interesting question and it’s something that I think is what makes a good historian, being able to come up with some idea of what to do. This is a great interaction point between ethics and history that I don’t think gets considered enough.

My problem with history today is that it seems to me to be all about condemnation and not about understanding the past. Perhaps airing dirty laundry can still be helpful to understanding the past.

“Every act of historical understanding is an act of empathy.” - Robert Louis Wilken, Historian and Catholic

 

[Mary_Estelle]

Just don’t name names, places and events that could identify someone to family or friends. And remember the “plank in the eye” story. Peace.

 

[Beryllos]

I have wondered about this. The teaching of history, so that we might not repeat it, might be a valid reason.

Also I wonder if it may be presumed that the deceased would have consented. Would I consent to the disclosure of some of my faults and failings, to be a lesson to others, years after it could adversely affect me or my descendants? Maybe. Why not? Then again, in my case, who could possibly care?

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

Not so fast. In the US it was declared criminal to say “bad things” about an elected official. The question: “but what if it is true?” the law said, “if it is true then it is an even more serious crime”. It took a jury nullification to throw out a case against a journalist, who provoked a trial just to “test” the law. Fortunately, the jurors agreed, and declared the law unconstitutional.

 

[venite_adoremus]

Not so fast. In the US it was declared criminal to say “bad things” about an elected official. The question: “but what if it is true?” the law said, “if it is true then it is an even more serious crime”. It took a jury nullification to throw out a case against a journalist, who provoked a trial just to “test” the law. Fortunately, the jurors agreed, and declared the law unconstitutional.

You speak of the trial of John Peter Zenger, still the harbinger of American law…on LIBEL. We were talking about slander, but now let’s clarify. Libel is a published false statement that is damaging to a person’s reputation; a written defamation, according to Webster. Slander is the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person’s reputation, again according to Webster, Note the difference here, Published, versus non-published. False, in both cases.

I believe the OP meant libel, not slander. For libel, the defense is the truth.

Does a person still have a reputation after they are deceased? Of course. Is it the business of historians to “let the facts speak for themselves?” Ideally, yes, and if those facts are contained in primary source historical documents, so much the better. Consider professional ethics as published by the American Historical Association as your guide, and know that they are still being debated. You’ll find them here: historians.org/search-results?Keywords=ethics

 

[Clevus]

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