The removal of statues

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Cannot see the attachment or is it that white? Anyway, I bet there are "a lot of good people" under those masks.

Huh, it's there when in edit mode.

View attachment 12196

Let me try it again.

View attachment 12197

I can see it now. It looks like a Normal Rockwell.

 

[Sarpedon]

Oh, I thought it was a joke too. Now its much less funny.

 

[repoman]

Statues of triumphant Civil War general placed next to courthouses should be placed elsewhere. No political or war statues should ever be near a courthouse.

Statues of Confederate soldiers (chump grunts dying for rich people - same as vietnam war soldiers) should mostly be left alone. Ones that convey a sense of war's evilness of a soldiers sadness should stay up.

The oldest on site Gettysburg statues should not be touched.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

We should put a statue of Sherman in the middle of downtown Atlanta.

 

[KeepTalking]

We should put a statue of Sherman in the middle of downtown Atlanta.

Only if you put a statue of Mr. Peabody next to him. He would have been nothing without that dog.

 

[TV and credit cards]

I think for Robert E. Lee, it's not about the man. He was not "scum of the earth" or "human waste". He was not pro slavery but pro Virginia. It's about the statue and what it reminds people of. It is not Robert E. Lee being torn down but another symbol of slavery.

 

[DrZoidberg]

No, it isn't. It becomes part of the scenery, the background. It does fuck all to educate anyone about the glorious or the deplorable past.

USA already suffers from people being spoon fed culture. The moral of a story is usually more effective if it's not spelled out. Let people figure it out by themselves.

You're stepping on your own point, here. You can't simultaneously criticize Americans for what they do, and defend keeping statues because of what you'd hope that Americans would do.

I mean, I agree that US citizens do not go and look things up, by and large. We wait for someone to tell us if a historical figure was or was not to be admired.

The statues are there and they aren't reading history on their own. So keeping the statues up for them to learn about the guy is a nonstarter.

1) they are pretty. Yes, they are. Prettiness matters. Less statues, less pretty. Ugly is bad. Remove the statues and people will probably dislike whatever force removed them.

2) If people don't wonder about them or ask questions, that's fine. But having them there will mean that they might. It's better to keep things visible, ready and waiting for the curious to wonder about it. We can't beat people over the head with facts. Nobody spoon fed ever learns shit. If somebody isn't inquisitive, there's nothing to be done about it.

One of my favourite activities has been wondering around cities and looking at monuments and googling the people named. London is full of that. Most of their biggest imperial heroes are stuck on a massive plinth in a tiny little square in some alley. Because these heroes came late in the empire, and all the good real estate was already taken by lesser and earlier heroes. They're all obscure. And they all represent a value, imperialism, which we find reprehensible today. The only real difference between the British empire and the Third Reich is that England won. That is interesting. These monuments still proclaim victory and glory for an empire which does not exist any longer. That is interesting. I'm happy the English people are keeping the statues.

Same goes for wondering around any city with monuments. Angkor Wat and Angor Tom where both built when the Khmer empire was collapsing. The Khmer empire was extremely oppressive. I'm happy it's allowed to stay and be restored.

I can't think of many monuments today that don't represent something reprehensible. Most are horrendous. Only a few are positive. I like all of them.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Still waiting for Zoid to explain how relocating a statue is tantamount to erasing history.

It depends where it's relocated to. If it's moved to a less prominent spot, then history is less visible. If it isn't, then why move it?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Why not erect a Manneken-Pis next to it? The racists get to keep their statue and the rest of us get a good laugh. No history is revised, the statue is unmolested and we get more beauty.

 

[repoman]

Pyramids built with slave labor. Just like the white house. Knock em both down.

 

[repoman]

 

[DrZoidberg]

Pyramids built with slave labor. Just like the white house. Knock em both down.

Hmm... the pyramids were built by well paid free laborers. We've found salary lists. They were decorated by well paid specialists. I've been in their personal tombs. There they depict how the pyramids were built.

The main reason for the Egyptian monuments is that while the Nile is flooding, there's fuck all for anybody to do all day. They were their days computer games.

 

[Keith&Co.]

1) they are pretty. Yes, they are. Prettiness matters. Less statues, less pretty. Ugly is bad. Remove the statues and people will probably dislike whatever force removed them.

But none of the statues under contention were raised for beautification. No one's marching in the street because the city or street or park will be ugly if the statue is removed.
They were raised to spoon-feed lies. They promote white nationalist values, and imply the state/city endorsed/endorses the white nationalist agenda. Sometimes correctly...
Statues of southern heroes raised for the express purpose of fighting civil rights movement are not pretty if they make you think of ugly things.

The Fremont Troll is a neighborhood beautification project that shows originality, whimsy and a serious dedication to concrete. Nowhere on the list do we find the Klan. So, nowhere do we find anyone marching in Seattle, demanding that the troll's time is over.

2) If people don't wonder about them or ask questions, that's fine. But having them there will mean that they might.

But they're not there to promote education, even by accident.
Confederate heroes are honored in places they did not fight, did not live, did not own property, for the express purpose of an agenda which is not "an appreciation of history."

I can't think of many monuments today that don't represent something reprehensible. Most are horrendous. Only a few are positive. I like all of them.

I really don't think that applies to this particular argument. A memorial at any given battlefield, for the Revolution, the Civil War, the Indian Wars, the Cola Wars, is raised for an entirely different reason than the statues raised as propaganda in the 50's.

 

[repoman]

But none of the statues under contention were raised for beautification. No one's marching in the street because the city or street or park will be ugly if the statue is removed.
They were raised to spoon-feed lies. They promote white nationalist values, and imply the state/city endorsed/endorses the white nationalist agenda. Sometimes correctly...
Statues of southern heroes raised for the express purpose of fighting civil rights movement are not pretty if they make you think of ugly things.

The Fremont Troll is a neighborhood beautification project that shows originality, whimsy and a serious dedication to concrete. Nowhere on the list do we find the Klan. So, nowhere do we find anyone marching in Seattle, demanding that the troll's time is over.

2) If people don't wonder about them or ask questions, that's fine. But having them there will mean that they might.

But they're not there to promote education, even by accident.
Confederate heroes are honored in places they did not fight, did not live, did not own property, for the express purpose of an agenda which is not "an appreciation of history."

I can't think of many monuments today that don't represent something reprehensible. Most are horrendous. Only a few are positive. I like all of them.

I really don't think that applies to this particular argument. A memorial at any given battlefield, for the Revolution, the Civil War, the Indian Wars, the Cola Wars, is raised for an entirely different reason than the statues raised as propaganda in the 50's.

These statues had a huge pulse of production in the 1910s and 1920s when the Klan was huge.

When this immigration law passed:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924

 

[Keith&Co.]

Why not erect a Manneken-Pis next to it? The racists get to keep their statue and the rest of us get a good laugh. No history is revised, the statue is unmolested and we get more beauty.

Why do the racists get to keep their statue? Why do they get to keep their statue on public land? Why is that a consideration?

And still, removing a statue is not revising history. It's not even making history less accessible. They can put the statue in a MORE prominent spot, if they want, with spotlights and flags, and a marching band at 0800, noon and 1700, as long as they move if OFF of public property and onto private property.

 

[LordKiran]

Still waiting for Zoid to explain how relocating a statue is tantamount to erasing history.

It depends where it's relocated to. If it's moved to a less prominent spot, then history is less visible. If it isn't, then why move it?

Because money, they wanted to move it to a less visible spot because they know visitors and tourists wouldn't approve. And really why would they? "Oh, you guys had this confederate statue built next to what used to be a courthouse. That's pretty douchey."

If you ask me, Buildings of law should have enforced a zone of iconoclasm. The institution of law should stand alone, universal and timeless and not subject to the petty symbols of the day.

 

[Elixir]

Who really gives a fuck about statues, when there are actual living people afflicted by Nazi white supremacists?
Certainly not El Cheato. He'd like to remove the statue of fucking liberty!

 

[DrZoidberg]

But none of the statues under contention were raised for beautification. No one's marching in the street because the city or street or park will be ugly if the statue is removed.
They were raised to spoon-feed lies. They promote white nationalist values, and imply the state/city endorsed/endorses the white nationalist agenda. Sometimes correctly...
Statues of southern heroes raised for the express purpose of fighting civil rights movement are not pretty if they make you think of ugly things.

The Fremont Troll is a neighborhood beautification project that shows originality, whimsy and a serious dedication to concrete. Nowhere on the list do we find the Klan. So, nowhere do we find anyone marching in Seattle, demanding that the troll's time is over.

I've seen pictures of the statue. It's pretty. No, it's doesn't promote nationalist values. Art promotes whatever values you project onto it. The idea that a work of art can only have one interpretation is idiotic. Who gives a shit who put it up and who paid for it? They don't get to decide how a work is interpreted.

And if somebody is offended by it.. I'm sorry, but they're just looking for something to be offended by. It's pretty. It's historically significant. It has every reason to stay, even if you don't agree with the values of the people who put it there.

I really don't think that applies to this particular argument. A memorial at any given battlefield, for the Revolution, the Civil War, the Indian Wars, the Cola Wars, is raised for an entirely different reason than the statues raised as propaganda in the 50's.

All the more reason to keep it, to remind us of how horrible things were.

 

[DrZoidberg]

It depends where it's relocated to. If it's moved to a less prominent spot, then history is less visible. If it isn't, then why move it?

Because money, they wanted to move it to a less visible spot because they know visitors and tourists wouldn't approve. And really why would they? "Oh, you guys had this confederate statue built next to what used to be a courthouse. That's pretty douchey."

If you ask me, Buildings of law should have enforced a zone of iconoclasm. The institution of law should stand alone, universal and timeless and not subject to the petty symbols of the day.

There's loads of art free of symbolism. Abstract art? I think all public buildings should be decorated the fuck out of them. It's art for the people.

Swedish courthouses tend to be decorated with busts of famous lawyers judges. Pretty. But we've got a thousand years of history to draw upon.

I think a building without art is a tragedy.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I've seen pictures of the statue. It's pretty. No, it's doesn't promote nationalist values. Art promotes whatever values you project onto it.

You need to make up your mind.
You think one should see a statue and look up the history. Looking up the history of that statue reveals white nationalist propaganda, counter-civil rights symbology.

The idea that a work of art can only have one interpretation is idiotic.

Where did i say there's only one interpretation? That's actually the problem. One interpretation is the history of the statue, one is the current lie that it was to honor history or culture.

Who gives a shit who put it up and who paid for it?

Make up your mind.

And if somebody is offended by it.. I'm sorry, but they're just looking for something to be offended by.

Okay. I'm offended by the alt-right, who would cheerfully exile my family at the very least, and condemn me as a race traitor. But i'm not just looking to be offended by the statue their forebearers put up for their agenda. A better term would be 'noticed.'

It's historically significant.

No, it is not.

It has every reason to stay, even if you don't agree with the values of the people who put it there.

I have to disagree. It has no reason to stay ON PUBLIC GROUND if it does not reflect the values of the city/state/country. Move it to a shrine somewhere else, where they can love it and beat off to the thoughts it inspires in their hearts. It doesn't belong where it is.

I really don't think that applies to this particular argument. A memorial at any given battlefield, for the Revolution, the Civil War, the Indian Wars, the Cola Wars, is raised for an entirely different reason than the statues raised as propaganda in the 50's.

All the more reason to keep it, to remind us of how horrible things were.

No. Statues are raised, at least in my culture, as a mark of honor.
We don't need to honor horrible things.
We really don't need to use city land to honor horrible things.