[michaelt]

> if you put identifiable humans on a banknote people start to mistake their inevitable flaws for a desirable property

Does the same logic extend all elevated positions? A person in a national portrait gallery, a person with a statue, a person with an olympic medal or a nobel prize, a person with a fancy title like president or queen?

Or is there something specific about bank notes that makes them more problematic?

[crote]

They are Euro bank notes. They are supposed to represent all of the EU. If there's even the possibility of someone getting upset over a specific portrayal you have failed at your one task.

I can't exactly get upset over "the concept of Renaissance architecture". I can get upset over, say, Beethoven fighting his sister-in-law to get the custody of her son.

[tialaramex]

You may have noticed that all the people on these banknotes are, much like on US banknotes, dead. So that insulates them from a lot of things which happen to living people if we reconsider them.

We can and do take away honours from living people, you might remember that Paula Vennells had an OBE, but that was removed because while she hasn't and likely won't ever be actually prosecuted for it, it's obviously her fault that so many UK subpostmasters were convicted of crimes they didn't commit and in some cases even committed suicide.

Likewise the present King of England's brother would in the ordinary course of things be a pretty important guy with the title Prince and so on. But he's not, he's just Andrew because even though again he's unlikely to face prosecution it does seem like he fucked an underage girl trafficked by Epstein so the King took away his titles.

But for example Oscar Pistorius has several medals for running - not just in paralympic events but straight up against people with both legs and no running blades. The medals weren't retracted when he murdered somebody or even when he was sent to prison for the murders. Oscar still ran really fast and the medals stand. But hopefully we are clear that "Was very fast" and "Is a terrible person" are compatible ideas.

[suddenlybananas]

Everyone on these banknotes are dead too?

[applfanboysbgon]

They literally said they consider statues more problematic.

> a person with a fancy title like president

"President" is not a fancy title. It is, in fact, a title specifically chosen to be boring and unglamorous.