Regarding The Flap Over Confederate Statues

[FatAndFaithless]

(Also museums are for history as well.. there's 20+ pages of the "statues are history" argument that I doubt anyone feels like re-hashing.)

[Mister Agenda]

My problem is with the Manichean outlook endemic to both sides of the controversy: I mean, the whitewashed view of history by many of those who support the monuments s pretty clear. The thing I've spent all this time arguing against is that a lot of us seem to have decided to react to that ideology not by looking at the nuances that might make their legacies complex, but by taking the old paradigm and simply inverting the places of the heroes and villains.  

Personally, I'd like to think that they can be reclaimed by history buffs, BUT, and this has proven to be a much bigger but than I previously assumed, we evidently haven't reached the point where we can do that yet, and both sides of the argument are demonstrating this.

In Russia there is a park filled with statues moved from their original places. It's quite poignant. They were moved because they no longer represent what Russia is about (they're mostly communist monuments and the like). In what way is nuance lost if a monument to a confederate general, usually erected with the political motivation to support white supremacy, is moved from the public square to a confederate graveyard or museum? I believe a great deal of much-needed and long overdue nuance would be gained from such a project.

[The Grand Nudger]

So by that reasoning we should put up statues of Hitler, Attila, and Tamerlane?

They were traitors.  Traitors in most countries get hung, they do not get statues.

I seem to recall offering the damnatio memoriae option in another..identical..thread.  That's the form our monument to Benedict Arnold took.  The purported joke around camp being..that we'd put a medal on his leg and hang the rest of him as a traitor.

So we did. At least in memory. The same could be done for confederate "heroes". We did as much to their union counterparts...so why not?
(rhetorical, I know why not, it would hurt the racists fee-fees to have their dear leaders even obliquely referred to as traitors and terrorists, no one wants to face confederate history less than a neo-confederate sympathizer)

[Mister Agenda]

See we have this things called books Benny.....

Books don't stand in public places stimulating attention and / or resentment worth learning about and discussing, for the most part.

The point of some statues is to keep resentment alive. It would be awful if that resentment were to be diminished in the slightest, huh?

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Holy fuck, guys, learn when you've won your fight.

Perhaps conceding gracefully instead of whining would have gotten you the respectful response you apparently desire. In fact, it would have made you seem like the kind of man who can acknowledge when he's wrong and move on. However, you chose a different route.

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The statues are a part of history though, seems to me it's important to keep them up.

Here we go again.

[Rev. Rye]

My problem is with the Manichean outlook endemic to both sides of the controversy: I mean, the whitewashed view of history by many of those who support the monuments s pretty clear. The thing I've spent all this time arguing against is that a lot of us seem to have decided to react to that ideology not by looking at the nuances that might make their legacies complex, but by taking the old paradigm and simply inverting the places of the heroes and villains.  

Personally, I'd like to think that they can be reclaimed by history buffs, BUT, and this has proven to be a much bigger but than I previously assumed, we evidently haven't reached the point where we can do that yet, and both sides of the argument are demonstrating this.

In Russia there is a park filled with statues moved from their original places. It's quite poignant. They were moved because they no longer represent what Russia is about (they're mostly communist monuments and the like). In what way is nuance lost if a monument to a confederate general, usually erected with the political motivation to support white supremacy, is moved from the public square to a confederate graveyard or museum? I believe a great deal of much-needed and long overdue nuance would be gained from such a project.

That actually sounds like the perfect solution. Something that puts them into their proper context, certainly better than my previous "plaque" idea. A convenient graveyard for those monuments we regret, but in a context where we can remain mindful of what bigotry can lead to. This is something the history buff in me can certainly appreciate, and I suspect most people should be able to see it as a good solution, except the sort of people who used Charlottesville as an excuse to riot, but I think we can all agree they don't deserve to be made happy. Now I think this is a much better solution than just keeping them where they are. 

Let's hope someone can find a plot of land big enough to put them and create a Fallen Monument Park USA and put them in the context they deserve to be put in: relics of a bygone era and case studies of a time we really need to move beyond.

[The Grand Nudger]

Thing is, it's not just the "charlottesville types" who object to this, and who object with exactly the same arguments.  The organization most notably responsible for the majority of these statues, by the by...has been quietly facilitating their relocation for some time (daughters of the confed).

In a nutshell, this is the trouble that the kerfuffle over the statues have made to obvious to ignore.   People who aren't wearing hoods......are saying the same shit, about the same things, as people who are.  

How did that happen, I wonder? At what point did racism become "just another opinion"...and at what point did an absolute and uncompromising stand against racism become contemptible violence to ideas, in at least some segment of the non-hooded public opinion?

[paulpablo]

Books don't stand in public places stimulating attention and / or resentment worth learning about and discussing, for the most part.

The point of some statues is to keep resentment alive. It would be awful if that resentment were to be diminished in the slightest, huh?

---

Holy fuck, guys, learn when you've won your fight.

Perhaps conceding gracefully instead of whining would have gotten you the respectful response you apparently desire. In fact, it would have made you seem like the kind of man who can acknowledge when he's wrong and move on. However, you chose a different route.

---

The statues are a part of history though, seems to me it's important to keep them up.

Here we go again.

I was only joking.  Just incase that was taken seriously.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

The statues are a part of history though, seems to me it's important to keep them up.

So put up statues of all of the Moors who ruled Portugal.  It's important for history, right?

[Minimalist]

Yeah, these fucktards are really into "history."  I bet none of them got more than a D- in it in school.... if they went to school.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/09/i-hope-n...all-costs/

‘I hope nobody loses their lives’: Armed neo-Confederates descend on Virginia to defend statue ‘at all costs’

I guess these shits are supposed to promote "white pride?"

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Yeah, these fucktards are really into "history."  I bet none of them got more than a D- in it in school.... if they went to school.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/09/i-hope-n...all-costs/

‘I hope nobody loses their lives’: Armed neo-Confederates descend on Virginia to defend statue ‘at all costs’

I guess these shits are supposed to promote "white pride?"

Those are some of the people who would gladly go back in time to kill Union soldiers and enslave black people and exterminate American Indians.  I would love to have a time machine and be able to whisk them back to 1862 Mississippi so that their dreams could come true.