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Notes -
While I agree it is somewhat unhelpful to have hagiographies and anti-hagiographies of real, complicated people, I think it is immensely valuable to learn from the past in a variety of ways.
I think it is useful to have moral biographies like Plutarch's Lives of Eminent Greeks and Romans, which are written to show each figure's greatest virtues and greatest vices so that someone can learn and grow from their example.
I think it is useful to engage with parts of the past to get a real sense of the fact that "the past is a foreign country", and to understand the historical forces and major figures who shaped history on down to the modern day.
I think there's a place for discussion of figures like Anne Frank, or Hitler or General Lee within all of that.
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