Destroying History

[katarn]

It's trendy right now to destroy historic symbols you don't agree with. From ISIS to AntiFa historic symbols are coming down. Where do we stop ? How do we handle historic symbols that represent ideals we don't support ?

It's recently been suggested that Mount Rushmore come down.

Should the Lincoln Memorial come down because of the Mankato Massacre?
Should FDR be scrapped for Japanese internment?
Woodrow Wilson for segregation?

Should statues of Lenin and Stalin be scrapped in modern day Russia and former USSR countries? Different countries, same principle.

I don't understand the notion that a statue needs to be of historical persons that are 100% good, represent 100% virtuous people, who did or said dozens of things and one has believe and agree with ALL of it. We have dozens of statues of medieval and rennaisance kings and generals in this country who - by modern standards - oppressed everyone not a noble and who believed in absolutely none of modern day values. Most people here would say that they were creatures of their age. That respecting someone from the past does not equal solidarity with them. We also have a statue not two minutes walk from here of the rebel who supported the Catholic pretender in our post-Reformation civil war, even though virtually no one's a Catholic here and we're taught in school about the moral corruption of the Catholic Church and the virtue of Martin Luther's reformation. He's still a city hero because he was the last (initially) succesful non-noble leader of a peasant rebel army in the region.

I don't see how one can equate a 20th century bronze statue with the historical destruction that ISIS carried out. Destroying the actual Confederate artifacts, books, notes, documents, etc. from the Civil War era, otoh, that would be destruction of history. Tearing down a modern statue because people don't feel it represents them anymore... I can understand the former USSR countries' citizens when they do it to their old Communist historical symbols, so I can also understand why there'd be Americans who'd want the same thing done to historical symbols that don't represent them anymore. It's not like the Communist or Confederate past is wiped out because someone pulls down a statue of some Communist or Confederate figure, is it?

Showing some respect for even the traitors of one's country, that the individuals of history like the individuals of today, are multi-facetted people, who may have owned and fought for the ownership of slaves, but that that was not the entirety of their beings, or probably even the entirety of their social impact down the generations. Yet... if my country had been subject to decades of Communist rule, and then Communism fell, then I'd be willing to pull the symbols that the earlier regime held in high regard. Not in favor of destroying such statues, but pullling them down and either selling them or putting them in a museum and also not favoring the destruction of unique historical artifacts and documents that offer historical insight for future historians interested in the era.

If you want some solutions, then in answer to your question, ask yourself this:

"Does the confederate historical figure I want to represent in statue-form truly represent more than just fighting to preserve slavery to me?"

Then look at the old Soviet statues and honestly ask yourself if you think anyone wanting them to remain in their parks, want to do that for some other reason than glorify Communism, as opposed to honor the Lenin or Stalin's individual positive sides. If you can't imagine anyone wanting to keep such statues for other purpose than casting Communism in a positive light, why would you expect alot of people to look at Confederate statues and see anything but "glorification of slavery"?

The way you learn to handle it, could be:

By learning that a modern metal statue of a historical figure coming down has never erased the history of the person being depicted. The taking down of a statue by itself is not the same as book burnings or the destruction of Palmyra.

By learning that history is not supposed to be a "moral lesson". History is like nature. It shapes your society and it shapes you. Like erosion. It is the passing of time recorded down or memorized, and it speaks to how the past became shaped the way it is. It does not "teach".

By going cold turkey on victimhood culture as a nation.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... re/404794/

By learning to be, acknowledge others as, and think like, individuals. Lots of collective guilt bullshit going on these days, and lots of thinking that one must be in either Camp A or Camp B. A society that limits itself to thinking in terms of just two opposing absolutes, is a society with an unfree mind. A mind that cannot allow itself to think it has choices.

Increase the quality of, and quantity of, history education. Not history education as a set of rote memorization of dates, names and events, but learning to use historical sources directly (source criticism and historical method), learning that even the bad guys didn't do things because they were super-villains cackling maniacally in their underground villains lair.

Dropping guilt by association thinking and strawmanning when someone speaks well, or even simply non-condemning, of historical figures popularly regarded as... "bad".

But even getting to that all that requires that people scale down on that whole "facts are what mah feelz says they are" bullshit. So.... probably need to deal with that whole thing first.

The inability to respect portions of a person, especially a historical figure, and denounce others is the problem many have, and the root that I've seen in this since I heard about it. Worse of all though, is that it doesn't seem to be that any major character flaw can disqualify one for memorialization. Only certain traits, like racism, do. Of course, this is self-defeating because nearly everyone in the past (specifically America) was racist to one degree or another.

Hence, the first problem is an inability to divorce good from bad to admire the good, and the second problem is an inconsistency bordering on hypocriticism (an certainly crossing that line in other issues).

[ssu]

For people statues and memorials are important as to what the mean for people today, not what they ment earlier for people or for those who built them. The fact is that we don't respect statues and memorials as objects of a historical era. Usually statues won't survive so long that we have no thoughts on what the stand for. And some times a whole era can be condemned.

Every statue or memorial is typically a tools for some political agenda, which creates many times a heated debate around them. Hence it's no wonder that the politics can continue a lot longer.

[StCapps]

Leave the statues up and fuck the whiners. That's the way to handle it.

[Speaker to Animals]

It really just comes down to the fact that what we are calling the far left right now really amounts to nothing more than the political manifestation of the tendency of late-stage civilizations to degenerate and self-destruct. These people who join these groups are not very different from the kinds of Romans that joined up with Dionysian cults and revolted, destroying Roman culture and trying to burn the political order to the ground. The Servile Wars were really more accurately described as Dionysian Cult Wars.

These are people who inherited dysfunction and psychological disorder from a degenerating family and social fabric. They were unable to overcome that detriment and therefore became what we call "the left". The left is a more barbaric state of human nature in which humans have no real purpose in life. Their goal is the pursuit of pleasure and the minimization of pain, no different than the animals. This is the source of their moral degeneracy. They want to destroy the civilization that gave birth to them because at some level they realize the fundamental axioms of that civilization reject their degeneracy -- as all such axioms must, since "the left" represents the destruction of civilizations themselves rather than a coherent alternative civilization or new moral order.

All their talk about "justice" and whatnot is ALWAYS a rationalization for these basic truths that most of them don't want to admit even to themselves. This is the reason that every single nation on this Earth that was overrun by these people turned into a genocidal hell. This is why Venezuela is on fire right now. It's why Cuba lives in the 1950s.

The reason they want to destroy these statues is that they utterly detest our civilization and want to destroy it. Robert E. Lee was an easy target for them, as is any historical figured remotely tied to the Confederacy. But fear not. They would destroy them all if they could. I wasn't really joking before about them wanting to erase history itself in order to usher in their utopia.

One can see this play out in history on numerous occasions. Their intellectual forebears did these same things in the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and really all the way back to the Roman Republic.

[Speaker to Animals]

Rush Limbaugh gets it:

https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2017 ... om-within/

That really should be heard. He's been on the ball with respect to the left for a long time. It took a long time for me to realize it. I think a lot of people are waking up to this now, though.

[GloryofGreece]

With reference to the Roman Republic are talking about the Gracchi brothers? And with your line of thinking do you believe all "reform" is rooted in negativity b/c it wants to upturn the status quo? That there is hardly no way to genuinely revive a society by changing when necessary?

[Speaker to Animals]

I am referencing the servile wars and also all the moral degeneracy that came with the rise of those counter-cultural hedonist cults. They literally had to kill or exile them to keep their civilization going.

[katarn]

With reference to the Roman Republic are talking about the Gracchi brothers? And with your line of thinking do you believe all "reform" is rooted in negativity b/c it wants to upturn the status quo? That there is hardly no way to genuinely revive a society by changing when necessary?

Not talking about the Gracchi. At least, not their political pursuits. Those were pretty needed at the time.

[Speaker to Animals]

Livvy:

186 B.C. A Hellene of mean condition came, first, into Etruria, a low operator in sacrifices, and a priest of secret and nocturnal rites. These mysterious rites were, at first, imparted to a few, but afterwards communicated to great numbers, both men and women.

To their religious performances were added the pleasures of wine and feasting, to allure a greater number of proselytes. When wine, lascivious discourse, night, and the intercourse of the sexes had extinguished every sentiment of modesty, then debaucheries of every kind began to be practiced, as every person found at hand that sort of enjoyment to which he was disposed by the passion predominant in his nature. Nor were they confined to one species of vice---the promiscuous intercourse of free-born men and women; but from this store-house of villainy proceeded false witnesses, counterfeit seals, false evidences, and pretended discoveries. From the same place, too, proceeded poison and secret murders, so that in some cases, not even the bodies could be found for burial. Many of their audacious deeds were brought about by treachery, but most of them by force; it served to conceal the violence, that, on account of the loud shouting, and the noise of drums and cymbals, none of the cries uttered by the persons suffering violence or murder could be heard abroad.

The infection of this mischief, like that from the contagion of disease, spread from Etruria to Rome; where, the size of the city affording greater room for such evils, and more means of concealment, cloaked it at first; but information of it was at length brought to the consul, Postumius...There was a freedwoman called Hispala Fecenia, a noted courtesan...who gave a full account of the origin of the mysteries. "At first," she said, "those rites were performed by women. No man used to be admitted. They had three stated days in the year on which persons were initiated among the Bacchanalians, in the daytime. The matrons used to be appointed priestesses, in rotation. Paculla Minia, a Campanian, when priestess, made an alteration in every particular, as if by the direction of the gods. For she first introduced men, who were her own sons, Minucius and Herrenius, both surnamed Cerrinius; changed the time of celebration, from day to night; and, instead of three days in the year, appointed five days of initiation, in each month.

From the time that the rites were thus made common, and men were intermixed with women, and the licentious freedom of the night was added, there was nothing wicked, nothing flagitious, that had not been practiced among them. There were more frequent pollution of men with each other than with women. If any were less patient in submitting to dishonor, or more averse to the commission of vice, they were sacrificed as victims. To think nothing unlawful was the grand maxim of their religion. The men, as if bereft of reason, uttered predictions, with frantic contortions of their bodies; the women, in the habit of Bacchantes, with their hair disheveled, and carrying blazing torches, ran down to the Tiber; where, dipping their torches in the water, they drew them up again with the flame unextinguished, being composed of native sulphur and charcoal. They said that those men were carried off by the gods, whom the machines laid hold of and dragged from their view into secret caves. These were such as refused to take the oath of the society, or to associate in their crimes, or to submit to defilement. This number was exceedingly great now, almost a second state in themselves, and among them were many men and women of noble families. During the last two years it had been a rule, that no person above the age of twenty should be initiated; for they sought for people of such age as made them more liable to suffer deception and personal abuse."

Postumius represented the affair to the Senate, laying before them the whole circumstance, in due order; the information given to him at first, and the discoveries gained by his inquiries afterwards. Great consternation seized on the Senators; not only on the public account, lest such conspiracies and nightly meetings might be productive of secret treachery and mischief, but, likewise, on account of their own particular families, lest some of their relations might be involved in this infamous affair. The Senate ordered that the officials in those rites, whether men or women, should be sought for, not only at Rome, but also throughout all the market towns and places of assembly, and be delivered over to the power of the Consuls; and also that proclamation should be made in the city of Rome, and published through all Italy, that "no persons initiated in the Bacchanalian rites should presume to come together or assemble on account of those rites, or to perform any such kind of worship;" and above all, that search should be made for those who had assembled or conspired for personal abuse, or for any other flagitious practices.

Postumius then addressed the assembly of the people: "Romans, to no former assembly was this solemn supplication to the gods more suitable or even more necessary: as it serves to remind you, that these are the deities whom your forefathers pointed out as the objects of your worship, veneration, and prayers: and not those which infatuated men's minds with corrupt and foreign modes of religion, and drove them, as if goaded by the furies, to every lust and every vice....That the Bacchanalian rites have subsisted for some time past in every country in Italy, and are at present performed in many parts of this city also, I am sure you must have been informed, not only by report, but by the nightly noises and horrid yells that resound through the whole city; but still you are ignorant of the nature of that business. Part of you think it is some kind of worship of the gods; others, some excusable sport and amusement, and that, whatever it may be, it concerns but a few. First, then, a great part of them are women, and this was the source of the evil; the rest are males, but nearly resembling women; actors and pathics in the vilest lewdness; night revelers, driven frantic by wine, noises of instruments, and clamors. The conspiracy, as yet, has no strength; but it has abundant means of acquiring strength, for they are becoming more numerous every day....

Of what kind do you suppose are the meetings of these people? In the first place, held in the night, and in the next, composed promiscuously of men and women. If you knew at what ages the males are initiated, you would feel not only pity but also shame for them. Romans, can you think youths initiated, under such oaths as theirs, are fit to be made soldiers? That arms should be intrusted with wretches brought out of that temple of obscenity? Shall these, contaminated with their own foul debaucheries and those of others, be champions for the chastity of your wives and children?....The impious assembly at present confines itself to outrages on private citizens; because it has not yet acquired force sufficient to crush the commonwealth; but the evil increases and spreads daily; it is already too great for the private ranks of life to contain it, and aims its views at the state....

"How often in the ages of our fathers was it given in charge to the magistrates, to prohibit the performance of any foreign religious rites; to banish strolling sacrificers and soothsayers from the forum, the circus, and the city; to search for, and burn, books of divination; and to abolish every mode of sacrificing that was not conformable to the Roman practice! For they, completely versed in every divine and human law, maintained that nothing tended so strongly to the subversion of religion as sacrifice, when we offered it not after the institutions of our forefathers, but after foreign customs...."

On the assembly being dismissed, great terror spread throughout the city; nor was it confined merely within the walls, or to the Roman territory, for everywhere throughout the whole of Italy alarm began to be felt, when the letters from the guest-friends were received, concerning the decree of the senate, and what passed in the assembly, and the edict of the consuls. During the night, which succeeded the day in which the affair was made public, great numbers, attempting to fly, were seized, and brought back by the triumvirs, who had posted guards at all gates; and informations were lodged against many, some of whom, both men and women, put themselves to death. Above seven thousand men and women are said to have taken the oath of the association. But it appeared that the heads of the conspiracy were the two Catinii....

Those who, as it appeared, had been only initiated, and had made after the priest, and in the most solemn form, the prescribed imprecations, in which the accursed conspiracy for the perpetration of every crime and lust was contained, but who had not themselves committed, or compelled others to commit, any of those acts to which they were bound by the oath--all such they left in prison. But those who had forcibly committed personal defilements or murders, or were stained with the guilt of false evidence, counterfeit seals, forged wills, or other frauds, all these they punished with death. A greater number were executed than thrown into prison; indeed, the multitude of men and women who suffered in both ways, was very considerable....A charge was then given to demolish all the places where the Bacchanalians had held their meetings; first in Rome, and then throughout all Italy; excepting those wherein should be found some ancient altar or consecrated statue.

The entire Spartacan revolt was, essentially, a Dionysian revolt. Spartacus' wife was a preistess of Dionysus. His army was made up of former slaves and Romans who wanted to overturn the order of Roman civilization.

Plutarch writes:

The insurrection of the gladiators and their devastation of Italy, which is generally called the war of Spartacus,11 had its origin as follows. A certain Lentulus Batiatus had a school of gladiators at Capua, most of whom were Gauls and Thracians. p337 Through no misconduct of theirs, but owing to the injustice of their owner, they were kept in close confinement and reserved for gladiatorial combats. 2 Two hundred of these planned to make their escape, and when information was laid against them, those who got wind of it and succeeded in getting away, seventy-eight in number, seized cleavers and spits from some kitchen and sallied out. On the road they fell in with waggons conveying gladiators' weapons to another city; these they plundered and armed themselves. Then they took up a strong position and elected three leaders. The first of these was Spartacus, a Thracian of Nomadic stock,a possessed not only of great courage and strength, but also in sagacity and culture superior to his fortune, and more Hellenic than Thracian. 3 It is said that when he was first brought to Rome to be sold, a serpent was seen coiled about his face as he slept, and his wife, who was of the same tribe as Spartacus, a prophetess, and subject to visitations of the Dionysiac frenzy, declared it the sign of a great and formidable power which would attend him to a fortunate issue. This woman shared in his escape and was then living with him.

They were interested in absolving all class and gender distinctions. All sexual mores were abolished. The law was that of the mob. Even Spartacus couldn't reign in their depravity.

I know the first Servile War was also led by Dionysians. It was started by a slave who was presented himself as a prophet of Dionysius. It was the same concept: eradicate all class and gender roles and distinctions. No hierarchy. Utopia would ensue (it didn't).

This was the ancient world's version of our marxists.


It's a mistake to conflate them with the likes of the Gracchi brothers or guys like Clodius Pulcher. Those guys were more interested in rebalancing power within the system, not destroying it entirely. These degenerates will always try to connect themselves to the more legitimate movements of the past (like feminists tried to refashion the suffragists as "first wave feminism" to confer legitimacy to what is essentially a cultural marxist hate group). Don't let them snow you.

[Speaker to Animals]

You will find similar atrocities and stories in the wake of the French revolution. Moral degeneracy led to mass violence in no time. They were so adamant about destroying civilization, they tried to invent a new religion for it, they attempted to even redefine the way we counted time and the calendar itself. The period after the French revolution was really fucking nuts, and not many people really know about it. They think it was sort of like the American revolution, which is false. It was an attempt by the degenerate left to overturn civilization and create their classless, equalist paradise on Earth, instead creating a hell on Earth.

None of this degenerate shit we have seen on the rise in recent decades is new under the sun. None of it.