Vae on 18/8/2017 at 17:15
Quote Posted by heywood
I'm a history buff and it makes me angry when history gets hijacked by a political or cultural movement far removed from it. Or when history gets re-interpreted in a one-sided way to justify some modern day cause. Or when supposed "historians" falsify history to fit a politically correct narrative. All of that is happening now.
I agree. It is Orwellian in nature, and as such, it is a disservice to humanity.
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In my opinion, the benefit of having these public symbols such as statues, memorials, etc. is so that people don't forget their history, and sometimes they inspire people to learn it. My impression is that most of the people who advocate purging the country of public symbols of the Confederacy don't know jack shit about it, and don't WANT to know jack shit about it, which is sad.
You are correct. The value of these monuments are multi-dimensional, as a service to civilization...As opposed to the incomplete one-dimensional perspective that is being reinforced by partisan propaganda.
heywood on 18/8/2017 at 17:16
It's not surprising that there is a counter-reaction. Up here we've had Holocaust memorials being vandalized this week.
And in other news, apparently Steve Bannon is out of his White House job, but I just read he submitted a resignation back on Aug 7.
heywood on 18/8/2017 at 17:20
Quote Posted by Nicker
Vae. You are creating a false equivalence between monuments to national heroes and celebrations of traitors.
One person's hero is another person's traitor. This country was founded by traitors after all.
Kolya on 18/8/2017 at 17:36
Pretty sure the problem aren't the statues themselves but the persistent racism in those areas which they have come to represent. We have statues of Prussian emperors, the Italians hold their ancient Roman ruins in high regard (although Romans held slaves!), etc.
And it's not a problem. Because no one here is dreaming of bringing back the Prussian emperor and the Italians don't dream of sailing over the Mediterranean and taking Nubians from Africa.
But it would seem in the American South there are a lot of people who dream of bringing back segregation and of reversing any societal progress that the US have made in the past 150 years.
And that's why some want statues to be removed and others want them to stay. Either way, the symbol will not solve the problem.
Slasher on 18/8/2017 at 17:41
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When I saw the mob in North Carolina tearing down the statue of a Confederate soldier, I immediately thought of three other examples in recent history: the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad 2003, the destruction of Lenin statues in Ukraine starting in the 1990s, and demolition of the Buddhas of Bamiyan by the Taliban in 2001. The first was a war-time act and the statue was of a ruthless dictator that was still alive, so I have no qualms about that one. The second occurred in a post-independence transition period, and although I personally didn't want to see them destroyed, I think it's somewhat understandable considering Ukrainians had literally just thrown off communism and emerged from under the thumb of the USSR. Finally, the destruction of the Buddhas was just senseless destruction of historical art because it wasn't politically correct in modernity. By invoking the term "politically correct" here I'm referring to the fact that modern Afghans don't tolerate non-Islamic religions even though the region of Afghanistan was once multi-religious. The Buddhas seemed like the closest analogy to what I saw in North Carolina.
Really, you pick that one? Look, here's a statue of an oppressor people want to get rid of. Which does it most closely resemble?
a.) people getting rid of a statue of an oppressor
b.) people getting rid of a statue of an oppressor
c.) people blowing up ancient religious symbols
Nevermind that various rulers had literally been trying for centuries to deface and destroy the Buddhas. The Taliban succeeded where others failed.
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I'm a history buff and it makes me angry when history gets hijacked by a political or cultural movement far removed from it. Or when history gets re-interpreted in a one-sided way to justify some modern day cause. Or when supposed "historians" falsify history to fit a politically correct narrative. All of that is happening now. In my opinion, the benefit of having these public symbols such as statues, memorials, etc. is so that people don't forget their history, and sometimes they inspire people to learn it. My impression is that most of the people who advocate purging the country of public symbols of the Confederacy don't know jack shit about it, and don't WANT to know jack shit about it, which is sad.
Memorial removal notwithstanding, where is history being reinterpreted? Also how, and is it a new phenomena?
Nicker on 18/8/2017 at 17:41
Quote Posted by heywood
One person's hero is another person's traitor. This country was founded by traitors after all.
It was not founded by traitors to the USA. Are you done with the semantics (I ask, knowing that you likely are not)?
Renzatic on 18/8/2017 at 17:47
Quote Posted by Kolya
...But it would seem in the American South there are a lot of people who dream of bringing back segregation and of reversing any societal progress that the US have made in the past 150 years.
And that's why some want statues to be removed and others want them to stay. Either way, the symbol will not solve the problem.
If anyone thinks this is hyperbole, (
http://dixienet.org/rights/2014/secede_billboard_in_florida.php) it's very much not. For a select few, those statues aren't merely a record of our history, but are symbolic of a struggle that's still ongoing.
nickie on 18/8/2017 at 18:10
Quote Posted by Starker
Maddow Show
Yes, I saw that one. I watch quite a lot of her stuff. She's lucid (even while scrabbling for a word) and funny and her voice doesn't grate.
Quote Posted by faetal
Combination of stupidity and people scrabbling for a reason to feel superior to others which doesn't involve them having to make any effort or achieve anything.
That explains the bully in the playground. I find it beyond bizarre that some people seem to have a fundamental belief that an accident of birth makes them better than someone else. The question of why has plagued me for the last 30 years. And I haven't yet found a satisfactory answer. There probably isn't one. Undoubtedly stupidity (sorry Renz) and ignorance is part of it but I don't see how it can be the whole.
I wish it would stop raining.
heywood on 18/8/2017 at 18:41
Quote Posted by Slasher
Really, you pick that one? Look, here's a statue of an oppressor people want to get rid of. Which does it most closely resemble?
a.) people getting rid of a statue of an oppressor
b.) people getting rid of a statue of an oppressor
c.) people blowing up ancient religious symbols
Nevermind that various rulers had literally been trying for centuries to deface and destroy the Buddhas. The Taliban succeeded where others failed.
The reason I picked that one was because of the historical significance. In the case of the Saddam statue, it wasn't a historical symbol by any stretch of the imagination. It was a symbol of the present government which is being toppled. In the case of the Buddhas, they were obviously historical symbols. It seemed to me like it was a good example of purging symbols of your own history because they are distasteful to your present day culture. Taking down the Lenin statues falls somewhere in between.
May not have been the best analogy, but that was what popped into my head when I was watching the video from NC.
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Memorial removal notwithstanding, where is history being reinterpreted? Also how, and is it a new phenomena?
It's not a new phenomenon. History is being reinterpreted all the time. Re-interpreting history given new knowledge is fine. Re-interpreting history such that you distort it to fit a politically correct narrative is not.
I'll give you an example. A current politically correct view, mainly held by left-leaning Civil War historians, is that there were no black Confederates. This is held despite the fact we have primary source evidence, including writings of Frederick Douglass, that there were regiments of free blacks fighting in the Confederate army, on the order of maybe 5000 soldiers. These accounts were used to press the Union army into accepting black soldiers. Also, blacks were the backbone of the Confederacy, working in arms factories, building forts and railroads, providing food and supplies to the Confederate army, etc. Most of them were conscripted slaves, but also some free blacks.
Quote Posted by Nicker
Not by traitors to the USA.
What difference does that make? Read the histories of Washington and Lee and tell me what difference is there between them that justifies celebrating one as a hero and the other as a traitor who shouldn't be memorialized? One won his war of independence and the other lost his war of independence. If that is enough to call one a good guy and the other a bad guy, that's absurd.
heywood on 18/8/2017 at 19:06
Quote Posted by Kolya
Pretty sure the problem aren't the statues themselves but the persistent racism in those areas which they have come to represent. We have statues of Prussian emperors, the Italians hold their ancient Roman ruins in high regard (although Romans held slaves!), etc.
And it's not a problem. Because no one here is dreaming of bringing back the Prussian emperor and the Italians don't dream of sailing over the Mediterranean and taking Nubians from Africa.
But it would seem in the American South there are a lot of people who dream of bringing back segregation and of reversing any societal progress that the US have made in the past 150 years.
And that's why some want statues to be removed and others want them to stay. Either way, the symbol will not solve the problem.
The statues are also reminders that we once fought a bloody civil war that killed up to 750k Americans according to recent estimates, or about 2.5% of the population, and destroyed many cities and towns of the South. Besides their historical significance, maybe they make some people think twice about going down that road again. To use George Santayana's trite little saying, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
By the way, I wish the problem was confined to the South. We seem to have white supremacists coming out of the closet all over.
