You see if we remove every trace of anything that is considered objectionable, it’s like the past never happened. Therefore no guilt feelings and now we can move on in a woke existence.
Removing Historic Monuments and Statues - Does the Term "Historical" Make it Right or Wrong?
by RubaDub 41 Replies latest jw friends
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Finkelstein
To me a statue is just a symbol or reflection of history, what is happening today in are lives is what people should be more focused about.
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Hisclarkness
If you haven’t heard of attempts to have these monuments removed until now then you have not been attune to these issues. If officials had removed them DECADES ago when people really started petitioning to have them removed, then there wouldn’t be people tearing them down now. As long as I can remember, I can think of times when people wanted these things removed.Statues and monuments are symbols of honor and reverence. Now there is a difference between remembering and honoring. Should we remember all of these historical figures? Absolutely! But that’s what museums are for! Let’s put these statues and monuments and other artifacts in a museum where they belong. People can visit and see and learn all they want. But it is a different story to have a statue honoring the president of the confederacy, a rebel nation, sitting in the middle of a public park.
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millie210
It's interesting as PeteZ pointed out, the connection between the time that has passed since the perception of wrongdoing and the reinstitution of the statues for historical reasons.
The pyramids were built on the backs of slaves. Shall they be razed to the ground?
I read an interesting article about the statues controversy a while back and I cannot find the article now. In it, the writer made two points.
One was the number of tourism dollars that are negatively impacted (the author used the city of New Orleans as an example) and the volume of people who like to stroll browse and read what is on the statues - which are works of art regardless of if you like who it is depicting. The article pointed out that in countries where art and statues were removed for sensitivity reasons - tourism dropped - the cities just weren't viewed as being steeped in culture and visually as interesting. In most cases, the statues were restored.
Two was an in-depth look at what Scandanavian countries faced when the split over Viking history was a hot issue. "Viking Day" or not? Museums or not, statues or not? The end decision was to keep the Viking heritage simply as history. NOT as a venerated part of history but merely as history.
And isnt that the point? The BLM movement should be very quick to want to teach people to do better in the future. Doing better means knowing better. The way society collectively learns to do better is called history. To sanitize the history associated with the Civil War is a two-edged sword. Yes, you remove painful reminders, but you also remove the reference points that made it living and real to future generations to learn from.
White children will not have any concept of what the big deal is. Black children will hear "words" but they won't have any frame of reference to aid them to internalize the sacrifice that was involved. For all of these children of the future- its just words at that point.
Once people are acting on principle again and not just acting out using raw emotion as fuel, once they are using their heads......
I guess that is when Christopher Columbus statue in Boston can have its head put back on again.
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RubaDub
Let’s put these statues and monuments and other artifacts in a museum where they belong.
@Hisclarkness ...
After reading a lot of the comments, I definitely agree with your viewpoint.
I think "history" can be retained, but it has to be kept in its own perspective. What was acceptable possibly just a few years ago is not acceptable today, and vice versa. Society and norms change.
I remember in first or second grade in school back in the 1960's there was a song called Old Black Joe, about some cotton farmer who lived down by the river or something. Could you imagine putting that into a children's song book today? You would be in jail. But from an historical perspective, it is what it is. It is how we lived and what we were taught.
But as has been mentioned, what goes on now seems so politically charged no matter who does what. I think the definition of sincerity has become very vague and too often with political motivations.
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cofty
Should the Greeks now go around tearing down their ancient statues and ought the Italians do the same to their heritage? Both of those civilisations were built on slavery.
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2+2=5
What about Egypt? It’s full of ancient monuments built with slavery. Shall we tear down the pyramids?
Some of the outrage I can get, they want to rename a massive gorge that runs trough Western Australia, currently its the King Leopold Gorge, he had nothing do with discovering it or our colonial history, we could come up with a better name after consultation with the traditional land owners.
They’ve all ready destroyed statutes of Leopold in Belgium and other parts of the world, so the old git has it coming.
Perhaps we could rename the stunning location after George Orwell, one gets the feeling sometimes
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JeffT
Some of these people have no idea the meaning of the objects they're defaciing.
Among a few: Admiral Farragut ("damn the torpedoes") fought to abolish slavery. The 54th Massachusetts was an all-black unit (depicted in the movie "Glory"), several others have been vandalized. A memorial to three black men lynched, in Minnnesota without trial. The list goes on.
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DATA-DOG
We have a real problem with Identity Politics today, and SJW’s who think they know everything and that EVERYTHING is a Patriarchy.
Add to that, the issue of Social Media and “Likes”... So many people saying “Blank Matters” yet the real motivation is being an “Influencer” on Tick-Tock... 🙄
I really can’t wait to be that old guy that no one bothers as I live my final days behind my fence, mowing my lawn, checking my garden and telling everyone to Piss Off while I remember the old days when we had Malls and Arcades and hot girls wore leg warmers..
DD
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cyberjesus
So if we are going to remove the statues of the people who were pro slavery....
The we gonna need to get rid of all the statues of george washington, and john adams and all the signers of the declaration of independence of the usa.
and get rid of the one dollar bills..
oh but also the bible.... at least the OT and of yaweh, he loved his slaves...
and all the kings of england and spain and france and portugal, and the dutch...and any king prior to 1850
and that solves the issue. thats it no more racism and police brutality