Destroying History

[C-Mag]

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?

[Speaker to Animals]

Have you not considered the possibility that we could eradicate "racism" if we erased history?

[C-Mag]

Uhhhhh NO

[DBTrek]

We had NOT considered this, dude.

[Speaker to Animals]

Well, there it is. If history were erased, nobody would have any idea what to be angry about any more. Marxist paradise ushered into existence.

[Montegriffo]

We've still got a few unwanted Margaret Thatcher statues if anyone wants them.

[Fife]

Immanentize the eschaton.

[BjornP]

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.

[Hanarchy Montanarchy]

With thinking like that we might actually get along and agree on stuff instead of freaking out and yelling at each other all the time.

What fun is that.

Bjorn? More like Bjoring!

[SuburbanFarmer]

With thinking like that we might actually get along and agree on stuff instead of freaking out and yelling at each other all the time.

What fun is that.

Bjorn? More like Bjoring!

No shit. Who appointed him Mr. Good Poster. Fucking madman.