Confederate statues are being pulled down or removed in Virginia
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Lilith — 5 years ago(June 08, 2020 12:47 AM)
I called it.
Ever see the movie DEMOTION MAN?
We're moving to that society where we're eradicating unpleasant parts of history instead of using them to teach and moving forward as tools and learning implements so we do not repeat them.
"Your emotional state is not my responsibility." – Warren Smith -
Corwin — 5 years ago(June 08, 2020 12:56 AM)
why not just put the statues in a museum, then?
besides, those statues are not about reminding people about the horrors of slavery or the Civil War. they were sculpted and placed in parks and plazas to celebrate the cause. -
Lilith — 5 years ago(June 08, 2020 01:00 AM)
They were initially put there for that reason. We can repurpose them.
Just like the movie DEMOLITION MAN, everything in that futuristic society that's found distasteful gets hidden from view and locked away and people don't see it.
When's the last time you went to a museum?
Regardless of where it is, the message remains; We use the opportunity to teach our children, and so forth, about the atrocities of our history. We don't rewrite it so our kids grow up unaware of names or visuals.
Do we always just remove things that make us uncomfortable, and lock them away? Or do we become stronger by learning how to deal with them and teach our kids just what the truth is behind them?
I'm not a fan of revisionism.
"Your emotional state is not my responsibility." – Warren Smith -
Corwin — 5 years ago(June 08, 2020 02:38 AM)
Lol. I can just see driving by a big ol' statue of Goebbels in Paris or Heydrich in Prague.
I will tell you a little story. In the early 2000s for a few years I had to visit the UN in Vienna every 6 months or so (tough gig). There was a huge picture of former Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, an Austrian and a former Nazi military officer, in the lobby. I had to traipse by that picture of that goddamn Nazi every morning, and i began to loathe it, and I am not even Jewish. It was not 'history' that had the Austrians and the UN keep his gigantic photo up at the front - it was a choice. There were and are many alternatives that could have greeted visitors and staff every day. -
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尺ロㄈにモイ-ら凡几 — 5 years ago(June 09, 2020 04:30 AM)
You can teach children about this country’s awful history without having statues of people who fought against this country. Statues should only be erected to commemorate and memorialize people whose achievements shaped this country for the better. A general for a rebel force whose sole purpose was to fight to keep slavery is no hero, even if he was personally not in favor of slavery.
I live. I die. I live again. -
Platonic_Caveman — 5 years ago(June 08, 2020 01:50 AM)
We can't hold the great people of the past to today's standards. Julius Caesar owned slaves and was a dictator. I'm quite sure George Washington was a raging homophobe. Lol. So? Should we tear down any reference to them as great men?
It's quite provincial and quaint to hold everyone who ever lived to 2020 standards of virtue.
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Platonic_Caveman — 5 years ago(June 08, 2020 02:00 AM)
Genghis Khan was a genocidal maniac who killed far more people than Hitler. So? We can still dispassionately observe him through the lens of history. Khan certainly deserves a statue though. Few men had such an impact on history.
This is all such bourgeois feel good self-righteous nonsense - the tearing down of Robert E Lee's statue.
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Platonic_Caveman — 5 years ago(June 08, 2020 02:49 AM)
The white power structure is obviously caving in. Virginia is not as conservative as most the South. But it's still a state which usually votes Republican. They're not exactly wild-eyed progressives.
I understand African-American distaste for men like Robert E Lee. But again, they're not putting it in historical perspective. Lee was probably more liberal on race issues than George Washington. Again, we need to judge these men by the standards of their own times, not ours.
I would wager that Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman would have reviled me for being queer. So? Should I tear down their statues?
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Corwin — 5 years ago(June 08, 2020 03:11 AM)
No, but look at it this way - you put up a statue of a person in a park or plaza to commemorate them, to praise them, if you will. That's the whole idea of putting someone 'up on a pedestal'.
That's why your idea of putting a statue of Genghis Khan, as cool as that sounds, may not fly outside of Mongolia. Khan is a world-historical person, no doubt, but there's a lot of countries that may not look on him over-fondly.
So when we put up somebody's statue it's not a hstory lesson in stone or a complex and subtle message about an event, it's a society saying 'this guy was important, and what he did and what he represented is important'.
That's why your comparison with the Founding Father slaveoners is actually very apt. Those are complicated and ambiguous figures that still, though, did clearly positive things for society or the country.
A Rebel General…yeah, personally, I am not so sure. And all he represents is the Confederacy. -
Platonic_Caveman — 5 years ago(June 08, 2020 03:28 AM)
I did a bit of googling on Lee. He believed slavery was evil.
Lee wrote this:
"In this enlightened age, there are few, I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any country,"
Of course he was hypocritical. But as I've argued, like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, he was entwined in the establishment of his time.
Don't you acknowledge that Harriet Tubman, the great abolitionist, would have said I will burn in hell for being queer? My point is that you can't judge these people's greatness as human beings or importance by current moral standards.
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Corwin — 5 years ago(June 08, 2020 03:49 AM)
Jefferson thought slavery an evil too - didn't stop him from buying, working, and owning slaves, nor did it stop Lee. Here's an article for you:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-myth-of-the-kindly-general-lee/529038/
I definitely take your point about Douglass and Tubman, though I don't think homophobia was their big legacy, while defending slavery was Lee's. But if there is a big statue of Tubman near you, which I sincerely doubt, but if there is, have at her!
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