I’d have a statue of Rommel. Just like I’d have one of Genghis Khan, Caesar, Napolean, or other great leaders. Imagine whitewashing history and language of all influences from any less than a saint. Couldn’t even have a Caesar salad without guilt.
My God, Northerners are so holier than thou! The whole of the US was complicit in slavery from the earliest times. As Samuel Johnson put it so succinctly at the time of the Revolution, “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?”.
Leave the statues of historical figures alone or if you must tear them down then tear them all down, leaving only the few statues of American Indian figures. It is the rankest hypocrisy to single out only the South
Instances of statues removed, schools renamed or flags no longer flown on public land have occurred because local communities made those decisions. Times change. These decisions will continue.
Opinions from other parts of the country–or even other countries–are irrelevant. Whether they are recommending the statues be removed–or remain.
Except of course that’s not what’s happening. If people were appreciating their achievements, the fine and noble ones, that would be of no concern to me. I support that. But what they’re doing is appreciating the person. Or the army, or the government, or whatever. The totality of that thing, rather than the achievements. And I have significant issue with someone appreciating the entirety of a brave, heroic slave owner when the possibility so clearly exists to just appreciate the brave acts, the heroic acts, without having to appreciate even second-handedly the slave ownership (or bad thing in question).
Like you say,* some* patriots owned slaves. Why celebrate them all - when we can single out the ones who were brave, heroic, and didn’t own people?
Where have I given orders? Not only am I just saying this is what should be done, not “Hey, go out and do all this, I command it”, I’ve even pointed out several times that I have zero expectation that what I think will be put into practice.
And surely my being British has no particular impact on whether my arguments are good or not? If you’re looking to suggest hypocrisy, or that I should focus my efforts on my own nation, I’ve already had an attempted attack on that point earlier in the thread, to which I pointed out that certainly this is just as much a problem over here. I’m not saying this is an American problem; I think the only reason people are focusing on America is that the OP went with Confederate figures as their talking point. It’s an everyone problem, I’m sure. I do not give my country a free pass while attacking yours.
The art isn’t objectionable. The appreciation, and/or celebration, is. A school name isn’t “art”, but that’s equally problematic. And actually the kind of thing you describe earlier in this post is happening in the UK, too. Here’s an example of a statue of Cecil Rhodes.
Are you somehow under the impression that history is primarily learned by looking at statues? No one’s arguing to take them out of the history books.
Lee is one of the most whitewashed proponents of human flesh trafficking (a.k.a. slavery) in the whole history of the CSA. Like most southerners, he was aware that the civilized world looked down upon the US for allowing slavery. On the other hand, slaves were the most valuable property in the country at the time. The four million slaves in the south were worth more than the railroads, the factories and the banks put together. A slave was, economically speaking, equivalent to a bulldozer or a sixteen-wheeler truck. And abolitionists were proposing that the southern economy be suddenly stripped of these four million expensive pieces of heavy equipment upon which their agricultural economy depended.
So the way southerners soothed their conscience was with sanctimonious bullshit about the will of God. Here below is a quote from a letter Lee wrote in 1856. The first sentence will be familiar to a lot of people because it makes Lee sound as if he were anti-slavery. But read on.
… 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. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence.
— Robert E. Lee, to Mary Anna Lee, December 27, 1856
Don’t you love the line about “painful discipline”. Lee knew full well that the only way to force people to give you free labour for their entire lives is with terror, pain and torture.
Say, do you suppose that Sherman’s march through Georgia could be regarded as " painful discipline necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things." Just wondering.
I like statues of great people. Even great people that did terrible things. Who wants to see a statue of random peasant or serf 103020. The interesting bust is that of Stalin or Lenin.
Hell we have memorials to things that kill people. Might as well leave the statues of great leaders alone if we don’t melt to scrap battleships, tanks, and planes at memorials.
I wonder if Thomas Jefferson had any of his slaves disciplined in ways that are unacceptable today. Should every reference to Jefferson be restricted to history books now?
More valuable than railroads and the industry of the north? I doubt that.
But yes, Sherman’s March was a necessary discipline. And it’s sad we have forgotten how effective that method of warfare is.
I have a solution for you; put up statues commemorating great acts or deeds or words of those figures you find great. All the interest of having someone you recognise; none of the moral iffiness of supporting their lesser deeds. In one stroke you get everything you want without any moral concerns! The only problem with this solution (aside from the practical) would be if someone actively wanted to celebrate those bad acts.
I like the statues of the people. When I go to London or Rome or wherever I want to see statues of the people I’ve read about. I also seriously dislike this ridiculous behavior of the a present minority deciding what others can see. I don’t need left wing censors deciding what’s appropriate.
Is this an aesthetic preference? I’m curious what’s weighing down on the scales that’s tipping against “alternatively, no moral problems” for you.
For myself, for example, I can imagine that there are theoretical situations where I would be prepared to celebrate slave ownership, but they’d be a “better of two evils” situation and there would have to be no good alternative. I can’t actually think of any real-life situations where I’d do it, though. “I want to see statues of people I’ve read about” for me, personally, doesn’t outweigh the “celebrating slave owners” part.
I’m not seeking to censor. I’m saying that generally people shouldn’t celebrate or commemorate slave ownership, or any number of terrible things, when options to celebrate only the good readily exist. You are free to do those things if you wish. In fact, I heartily prefer it if you (or anyone, really) make your/their feelings known on these matters.
I’m not celebrating slave ownership when I look at Lee or Caesar. I’m not celebrating fascism if I look at a portrait of Hitler or Rommel. I’m not celebrating communism when I have stuff that has the Hammer and Sickle or a picture of Stalin on it. I’m not celebrating Satanism if I look at a picture of the devil or if I have a miniature toy demon. I’m not celebrating Titanism when I look at a copy of the Titan, Kronos, devouring his children.
True. It’s the unwillingness to replace those statues or commemorative/celebrative objects with equally commemorative/celebrative objects dedicated to the noble deeds or words of the people/beings in question that becomes, well, commemoration or celebration.
Your bringing in of simply pictures, toys, and so on is a misunderstanding of my point. I have no concerns about seeing those things. Textbooks, pictures, toys, whatever, I have no problem at all with. It’s when you get to commemoration or celebration of totality including the bad that it becomes something I personally find to be immoral.
If you are in favour of having statues dedicated to, say, Lee, replaced with a statue dedicated to, let’s say a fine piece of generalship (I’m not very up on my American history, as you might guess) he performed, then we have no quarrel at all. If you’d rather see statues dedicated simply to him, then, sadly, that’s where commemoration of slave ownership and the defence of same comes in.
I disagree. Furthermore, what is satisfying to one’s interpretation of what’s celebration of this or that is very personal and subjective and leads to ridiculous censorship and whitewashing. If I watch Dukes of Hazzard I want to see it how it was.
We’re actually very lucky in this case that such a simple alternative exists; celebrate or commemorate fine and noble deeds or words, not the whole person/group. Quite literally all the advantages with none of the disadvantages, and I’d argue that it’s also more likely to result in a greater knowledge of the subject. The opposite of censorship and whitewashing, in fact; a person might very well walk past a statue of someone and have no clue at all that they might have done something terrible unworthy of adulatory recognition today. Change those to commemoration of those fine things, and not only do you have a more immediate understanding of why they’re worthy of respect, but also that (since the dedication is not to the person/group as a whole) that there might well be something unpleasant in their history, too.
So to the contrary; it’s simply having a statue dedicated to a notable figure, or notable group, that whitewashes and censors history. Simplifying history, ignoring the bad to commemorate the good, is poor behaviour simply on a learning and knowledge level, not just moral.
I’ve never seen Dukes of Hazzard, I have to admit. What are you suggesting my arguments mean for it?
How is crushing your enemy ever a “good” thing other than you crushed them? And great generals who did great crushing were responsible for the deaths of vast numbers of people. Many of whom probably didn’t need or deserve crushing. But we live in a world in which we celebrate conquest and vanquishing foes.
Hell, that’s what the people want. In London I’ve been on a Jack the Ripper tour. You think the draw for all the tourists are the victims?
I can think of a few ways, but I think they all essentially amount to “if it prevented a greater evil”. There’s more to it than that, of course, but that seems like a good place to start.
You lose me on “need”, though certainly that’s a debate in itself. I would argue that there have been deaths that were “necessary”.
Can I ask what this tangent is about?
I couldn’t say. You were one of them; were you there to commemorate or celebrate Jack the Ripper, or were you there because he and his actions interested you? If the latter, more power to you and your learning. I would be greatly surprised if “what the people want” is to celebrate or commemorate the guy, but if that was the impression you got from your fellow tourists, you have more knowledge about them than I.
I went because I was in the area. I find it interesting that humans are fascinated by terrible figures like Jack the Ripper.
Fascination can be a good thing, even with the terrible. It can lead to motivated learning, and that’s almost always going to stick with someone longer than when they’re uninterested.
Did you have a point in bringing it up that connects it to this debate?