'Denaming' as Erasing Our Ugly Past

Irish philosopher George Berkeley 'owned' human beings. Now, Trinity College Dublin is ‘denaming’ the Berkeley Library to distance itself from him, but is it all just an exercise in legacy protection?

This is one of those uncomfortable Peak Notions columns, which is really what I started this Substack to do — to try to carefully and responsibly interrogate uncomfortable questions in a nuanced way. It touches on race, slavery, colonialism and cultural conflict. If any of these topics are not something you want to read about/read my writing about, this…