(September 12, 2017 at 11:04 am)FatAndFaithless Wrote: People who think that moving a statue to a museum (or even just getting rid of it) is destroying/erasing history either haven't been to a museum before or aren't talking about history.  

The community at the time decided they wanted to memorialize certain people for certain things, and now that same community has decided they no longer want to memorialize those people for those things.  Nobody's saying remove this part of history from textbooks, or stop all exhibitions at museums at museums that they don't like, this isn't some whitewashing of history (ironically, the pro-Confederate Lost Cause narrative and subsequent statuary and monuments is whitewashing history).  It's a community coming together to say they don't want to keep a statue(s).  S'pretty simple.

The "community" was the KKK.

(September 12, 2017 at 11:21 am)Rev. Rye Wrote:

(September 12, 2017 at 11:08 am)FatAndFaithless Wrote: The problem comes when certain state legislatures have laws saying that no city can change/remove war monuments, a law which some states do have.

Once again, there's something fundamentally insane about the fact that this is hardly even mentioned in the debates. I have a problem with dismissing a great general because of his very dodgy views and a lack of understanding of historical  nuance on the part of the beholder, but I see no reason a state should force a city to keep a statue it doesn't want.

Yup, same here.  I personally would like if the statues were moved to a museum, but the community that pays for the statue has the final say either way. This isn't a constitutional issue like say, putting up a publicly-maintained statue of Jesus in a public park, so it really is down to the community to decide.

(September 12, 2017 at 11:02 am)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: People don't get their history from statuary.

Put simply: the point of a physical representation of a person is to remember that person.  When did it come to pass that only people we are fond of should be remembered?

Let a statue of Lee have this effect: those who despise him can ponder why they despise him.  Those who love him can ponder why they love him.  The rest of us can simply look and say, "Oh I know that name.  So that's what he looked like. . . "

There's something very insidious about the millennial generation who are so sure that they are right about everything that they are willing to squash free speech or expression in their effort to commit genocide on memes with which they do not agree. There is NO idea so abhorrent to me that I would give up my own right to hold unpopular ideas in order to make sure someone else can no longer express theirs.

(September 12, 2017 at 12:26 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(September 12, 2017 at 11:02 am)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: People don't get their history from statuary.

Put simply: the point of a physical representation of a person is to remember that person.  When did it come to pass that only people we are fond of should be remembered?

Let a statue of Lee have this effect: those who despise him can ponder why they despise him.  Those who love him can ponder why they love him.  The rest of us can simply look and say, "Oh I know that name.  So that's what he looked like. . . "

At what point did anyone suggest that Lee and the other members of the Confederacy be forgotten? Not memorializing them =/= trying to make society forget them

(September 12, 2017 at 12:26 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(September 12, 2017 at 11:02 am)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: People don't get their history from statuary.

Put simply: the point of a physical representation of a person is to remember that person.  When did it come to pass that only people we are fond of should be remembered?

Let a statue of Lee have this effect: those who despise him can ponder why they despise him.  Those who love him can ponder why they love him.  The rest of us can simply look and say, "Oh I know that name.  So that's what he looked like. . . "

There's something very insidious about the millennial generation who are so sure that they are right about everything that they are willing to squash free speech or expression in their effort to commit genocide on memes with which they do not agree.  There is NO idea so abhorrent to me that I would give up my own right to hold unpopular ideas in order to make sure someone else can no longer express theirs.

Ah, the good ole 'Damn kids these days' canard. And you do realize that it isn't only young people that want to move the statues...right?

And removing a statue is hardly 'genocide on a meme' or 'squashing free speech.' Open a book, go to a museum, watching a documentary, and stop being so sloppily hyperbolic.

(September 12, 2017 at 12:28 pm)TheBeardedDude Wrote:

(September 12, 2017 at 12:26 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Put simply: the point of a physical representation of a person is to remember that person.  When did it come to pass that only people we are fond of should be remembered?

Let a statue of Lee have this effect: those who despise him can ponder why they despise him.  Those who love him can ponder why they love him.  The rest of us can simply look and say, "Oh I know that name.  So that's what he looked like. . . "

At what point did anyone suggest that Lee and the other members of the Confederacy be forgotten? Not memorializing them =/= trying to make society forget them

Really, my big problem with the gung-ho anti-statue movement (for lack of a better name for the debate) is its encouragement of a Manichean view of history that simply doesn't do anyone any favours. I don't see it as much different from the old Lost Cause of the South mentality, except, of course, that the sides being demonized are swapped. It's like in A People's History of the United States; a good enough place to search for the skeletons in the closet of American History, but as a proper, complete take on the history of America, it's really poor. 

Case in point, he writes about Andrew Jackson: "If you look through high school textbooks and elementary school textbooks in American history, you will find Andrew Jackson the frontiersman, soldier, democrat, man of the people — not Jackson the slaveholder, land speculator, executioner of dissident soldiers, exterminator of Indians." He then proceeds to talk about the latter category, and uses it as an excuse to dismiss the former category out of hand, insisting it's merely a con job masking a more sinister agenda. And, because people want to split the world into heroes and villains, history is done a disservice.

It's really telling that Bloody, Bloody, Andrew Jackson, an off-Broadway musical that's short enough it can't be bothered to split into acts, and casts him as an Emo, still remains a more honest and nuanced view of history than even most history books.

I personally think that, if kept up, they should go beyond mere commemoration of generals fighting valiantly for a vile cause, and confront the unsavory reality as much as the myth.

(September 12, 2017 at 12:57 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote:

(September 12, 2017 at 12:28 pm)TheBeardedDude Wrote: At what point did anyone suggest that Lee and the other members of the Confederacy be forgotten? Not memorializing them =/= trying to make society forget them

Really, my big problem with the gung-ho anti-statue movement is its encouragement of a Manichean view of history that simply doesn't do anyone any favours. I don't see it as much different from the old Lost Cause of the South mentality, except, of course, that the sides being demonized are swapped. It's like in A People's History of the United States; a good enough place to search for the skeletons in the closet of American History, but as a proper, complete take on the history of America, it's really poor. 

Case in point, he writes about Andrew Jackson: "If you look through high school textbooks and elementary school textbooks in American history, you will find Andrew Jackson the frontiersman, soldier, democrat, man of the people — not Jackson the slaveholder, land speculator, executioner of dissident soldiers, exterminator of Indians." He then proceeds to talk about the latter category, and uses it as an excuse to dismiss the former category out of hand, insisting it's merely a con job masking a more sinister agenda. And, because people want to split the world into heroes and villains, history is done a disservice.

It's really telling that Bloody, Bloody, Andrew Jackson, an off-Broadway musical that's short enough it can't be bothered to split into acts, and casts him as an Emo, still remains a more honest and nuanced view of history than even most history books.

I personally think that, if kept up, they should go beyond mere commemoration of generals fighting valiantly for a vile cause, and confront the unsavory reality as much as the myth.

This: "...gung-ho anti-statue movement..." is a straw man. We aren't "anti-statue," we are against statues of traitors being erected and we are especially against the reasons why they were erected in the 50's and 60's in the Southern US. It isn't the person per se, but the persons who erected them, when they erected, and why they chose to memorialize the people they did when they did. Robert E. Lee statues (and engravings like that of Stone Mountain Georgia) weren't erected to teach people about Lee and the Civil War, they were erected to remind the "uppity blacks" that they lived in a world of racism and bigotry where they still didn't have the power or influence that they should have in an equal society

(September 12, 2017 at 1:02 pm)TheBeardedDude Wrote: This: "...gung-ho anti-statue movement..." is a straw man. We aren't "anti-statue," we are against statues of traitors being erected and we are especially against the reasons why they were erected in the 50's and 60's in the Southern US. It isn't the person per se, but the persons who erected them, when they erected, and why they chose to memorialize the people they did when they did. Robert E. Lee statues (and engravings like that of Stone Mountain Georgia) weren't erected to teach people about Lee and the Civil War, they were erected to remind the "uppity blacks" that they lived in a world of racism and bigotry where they still didn't have the power or influence that they should have in an equal society

Fair enough on the "anti-statue movment" line. I just wanted to put a name to the issue and think it's possible to recontextualise the statues as not only a commemoration of a historical general, but also a reminder of the darker chapters of our history now that we're at least trying to give black people the power and influence they deserve so we don't end up too complacent about our complicity in it, which I think is a legitimately dangerous consequence of this whole controversy (and on both sides, too).

(September 12, 2017 at 1:19 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote:

(September 12, 2017 at 1:02 pm)TheBeardedDude Wrote: This: "...gung-ho anti-statue movement..." is a straw man. We aren't "anti-statue," we are against statues of traitors being erected and we are especially against the reasons why they were erected in the 50's and 60's in the Southern US. It isn't the person per se, but the persons who erected them, when they erected, and why they chose to memorialize the people they did when they did. Robert E. Lee statues (and engravings like that of Stone Mountain Georgia) weren't erected to teach people about Lee and the Civil War, they were erected to remind the "uppity blacks" that they lived in a world of racism and bigotry where they still didn't have the power or influence that they should have in an equal society

Fair enough on the "anti-statue movment" line. I just wanted to put a name to the issue and think it's possible to recontextualise the statues as a reminder of the darker chapters of our history now that we're at least trying to give black people the power and influence they deserve so we don't end up too complacent about our complicity in it.

Do you not think that contextualization is possible in a museum setting, a purely educational one that involves many other darker chapters of our history? - because there are many, many people that feel that you can't re contextualize something that's already been on a literal pedestal for decades.

(September 12, 2017 at 1:23 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote:

(September 12, 2017 at 1:19 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: Fair enough on the "anti-statue movment" line. I just wanted to put a name to the issue and think it's possible to recontextualise the statues as a reminder of the darker chapters of our history now that we're at least trying to give black people the power and influence they deserve so we don't end up too complacent about our complicity in it.

Do you not think that contextualization is possible in a museum setting, a purely educational one that involves many other darker chapters of our history?

I think so. But, then again, given the size of many of those statues, I seriously question the feasibility of such an idea. And I suspect lumping them all together in one place and taking them out of their own backyard might potentially blunt the impact. But that's just me.