Posted on 01/14/2025 2:39:26 PM PST by Borges
Numerous German streets are named after him, as are hundreds of schools, universities and hospitals. Albert Schweitzer — scientist, doctor, philosopher, theologian, author, musician and Nobel Peace Prize winner — was long revered for his humanitarian work in Africa.
The clinic he set up in Lambarene in present-day Gabon in West Africa earned him the moniker, "jungle doctor."
But Schweitzer was also a product of his time. Born in 1875 in Alsace, then part of the German Empire, and today eastern France, he was influenced by the ongoing and brutal colonialization of large parts of Africa by European countries.
Schweitzer, marked by his flowing mustache and thick head of white hair, was a paternalist who saw himself as being on a kind of "civilizing mission" in Africa. He felt called upon to make the population — which he described as "children without culture" — not only healthy but also "civilized."
The doctor's fame at home earned him the attention of the National Socialists — despite his early criticism of Hitler.
Later, an invitation sent to Gabon by Joseph Goebbels is said to have been politely declined by Schweitzer.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
When I was a kid in the 60s I read a biography of Schweitzer. He just seemed like a nice guy who practiced medicine. I guess that book was FULL OF LIES!
Love the scare quotes.
> But Schweitzer was also a product of his time. <
And that’s the key point. Liberals will agree with that, but only when it suits them.
Liberals:
George Washington held slaves. He was a product of his time. No matter. George Washington was a monster!
Martin Luther King thought homosexuality was a mental disorder. He was a product of his time. So let’s forgive him, and focus on the good he did.
He “…was a paternalist…”
If he did it in the b-tt, he would have been called “a great guy.”
They have to create “conflict” everywhere.
This man is a humanitarian and hero.
He wasn’t a politician and didn’t get involved in every issue like many today do in order to virtue signal.
He was a minister and doctor a healed people. He dedicated his life to this.
Everyone famous has to be gay today, and all great humanitarians or statesmen need dragged through the mud by some asshole trying to get their 15 minutes of fame with trash like this.
That describes all the European colonizers, who sent Christian missionaries and doctors into the Dark Continent, and to Asia and the Americas.
The French wanted to make all colonials "Frenchmen."
The British enthusiastically pursued Kipling's "White Man's Burden," seeing it their duty to educate, civilize, and uplift the "wogs."
Whatever one thinks about his views Albert Schweitzer spent many agonizing years in various hellholes of Africa tending to sick people and ended up dying there.
Here is the real link to the actual source.
I used to point out to people that Schweitzer, who had been such a great figure and a well known hero of good and charity and self-sacrifice of our youth, had suddenly been disappeared from history.
Isn’t this the “Dr. Livingstone, I presume” guy?
No. It was Henry Stanley, but I admit I had to look that up. However, I do remember being taught, ‘Stanley and Livingstone’.
Evidently it was a movie, a 1939 film “Stanley and Livingstone” with Spencer Tracy and Sir Cedric Hardwicke, and I’m thinking probably an interesting one.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/almanac-dr-livingstone-i-presume/
Yeah. Thanks.
I had to look it up after I made my post.
I’m not sure why I thought it was Schweitzer.
Of course Stanley and Livingstone.
Well, no, the British didn’t really push “the white mans burden”. Of all the colonizers the British had the least ideological baggage.
That line comes from Kiplings poem, “The White Mans Burden”, which is sarcastic and ironic, with reference to the new imperial ambitions of the US. Kipling himself wasn’t sold on the value of empire, or of its beneficial effects on its subjects (or that there was a possibility of it), and wrote mainly on its costs.
Boh Da Thone was a warrior bold:
His sword and his rifle were bossed with gold,
And the Peacock Banner his henchmen bore
Was stiff with bullion, but stiffer with gore.
He shot at the strong and he slashed at the weak
From the Salween scrub to the Chindwin teak:
He crucified noble, he scarified mean,
He filled old ladies with kerosene:
NO. That was Stanley, a long time before Schweitzer
Yeah. Thanks.
Another dead white man!
Those are all bad.
Schweitzer plays Bach: https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7Cvh4l1GL9mXodkrP8dyMO1KeaXs1hod
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