Should we see the removal of statues like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. (3 Viewers)

[TheRealTruth]

Recently CNN aired an interview where one of the guests suggested what is in the topic.

CNN's Angela Rye: Washington, Jefferson Statues "Need To Come Down"

CNN's Angela Rye called for statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson to come down Thursday on the network. "American history is not all glorious... George Washington was a slave owner. We need to call slave owners out for what they are. Whether we think they were protecting American...

www.realclearpolitics.com

I agree with the removal of confederate statues around the country, but should this also be done for founding fathers?

 

[GMRfellowtraveller]

to the OP's question - Jefferson and Washington are much more ambiguous figures that confederate generals or the like
but they're still ambiguous
so keep they statues, just include additional art work around them that fills out the picture
and do so in a way that signals that the supplemental art work with be an ongoing dialogue and are not meant to stand forever like ozymandias's feet

 

[Tony1Sainstfan]

My question is what are you accomplishing by removing the statues or renaming schools? Is that going to rewrite history or change our past? The answer is no and we’ve all heard the saying by George Santayana that those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Slavery was a dark part our past but also was the treatment of Irish and Italian immigrants. Slavery was definitely worse but we should learn from it and never repeat it.

 

[Dragon]

Wagner was going to be my example, but i push back on the 'lives on' notion
it is VERY difficult for orchestras to schedule wagner these days - the community pushback is just not worth it for arts organizations who operate on such tight and community dependent budgets
and i'm fine with it
not because i have a hardon for cancel culture (regardless of what people think), but because it forces orchestras (or museums or movie producers or book publishers, et al) to be better curators for the audience
who were the jewish composers who were overlooked when Wagner reigned?
who were the female directors who were overlooked when woody allen was #1 director?
are there other female YA fantasy writers?

and this isn't just a cancel thing - i've got no political issue with Shakespeare - it just drives me nuts that with the metric tonnage of plays out there, Shakespeare is like 95% of the theatre that most are exposed to

we need to get over artists hagiography and expose ourselves to much more varied and interesting art

I disagree with those who says that Wagner isn't important He inspired a whole nation to march and seduced a people by his mixture of old norse mythology and a musical style which spoke to every emotional level of human beings. He is important because he is a prime example of how media can (including music and theater) be abused to influence people. His works are mandatory in the musical education here precisely of that reason.

 

[GMRfellowtraveller]

 

[GMRfellowtraveller]

My question is what are you accomplishing by removing the statues or renaming schools? Is that going to rewrite history or change our past? The answer is no and we’ve all heard the saying by George Santayana that those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Slavery was a dark part our past but also was the treatment of Irish and Italian immigrants. Slavery was definitely worse but we should learn from it and never repeat it.

Statues aren’t history they are hagiography- at the very least they are honorifics
Removing them from a place of honor does not remove them from history, it fills in the story

 

[brandon]

(Response to @GMRfellowtraveller that I failed to quote)

My Wind Ensemble played Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral as the featured band at a university in 2019. It’s one of the standards of wind band literature.

Hell, OU played it in quarantine like 2 months ago.



Granted, it’s one of the few Wagner standards that are still played today by wind bands.

 

[Tony1Sainstfan]

Statues aren’t history they are hagiography- at the very least they are honorifics
Removing them from a place of honor does not remove them from history, it fills in the story

How does it accomplish filling in the story? I don’t really see statues as places of honor but more of a marker. I could see putting a plaque in front of the statue stating the truth about what the people did and what steps were taken to resolve what those people did and make sure it wouldn’t happen again.

 

[Tony1Sainstfan]

This one I would agree with taking down mainly because I don’t think any person or race should be depicted as kneeling before anyone.

 

[V Chip]

My question is what are you accomplishing by removing the statues or renaming schools? Is that going to rewrite history or change our past? The answer is no and we’ve all heard the saying by George Santayana that those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Slavery was a dark part our past but also was the treatment of Irish and Italian immigrants. Slavery was definitely worse but we should learn from it and never repeat it.

The idea that removing Confederate statues will make us forget slavery or the Civil War or the history of the US is ridiculous. It's amazing that some people actually believe this.

 

[GMRfellowtraveller]

How does it accomplish filling in the story? I don’t really see statues as places of honor but more of a marker. I could see putting a plaque in front of the statue stating the truth about what the people did and what steps were taken to resolve what those people did and make sure it wouldn’t happen again.

a local paper just posted a map showing the streets in NO that were still named after confederate generals, et al
streets that i had driven on for decades without realizing the historical context
i would consider myself passably well-informed about things, but i did not know these streets had any connection to the confederacy, thus their import as historical markers is near zero
now with the 'honoring the confederacy' controversy is bloom, the history of these people is re-exposed

 

[bdb13]

Removing monuments designed to honor traitors who took up arms against our country for the cause of defending slavery will not have a negative effect on our ability to know and interpret our history. if anything, I would imagine that it would reduce the number of individuals who are exposed to the bastageized version of it.

Edit: Just thought of this to kind of drive home the point, but we don't need statues of Bin Laden and the hijackers with box cutters in hand in order for us to remember 9/11. Tearing down monuments and statues designed to honor the dishonorable doesn't erase the history, it erases the positive spin on the wrongdoer and their cause.

 

[GMRfellowtraveller]

Edit: Just thought of this to kind of drive home the point, but we don't need statues of Bin Laden and the hijackers with box cutters in hand in order for us to remember 9/11.

who?

 

[bdb13]

who?

You know, the Middle Eastern guy with the beard. Not Jesus, the other one..

 

[Dragon]

Removing monuments designed to honor traitors who took up arms against our country for the cause of defending slavery will not have a negative effect on our ability to know and interpret our history. if anything, I would imagine that it would reduce the number of individuals who are exposed to the bastageized version of it.

Edit: Just thought of this to kind of drive home the point, but we don't need statues of Bin Laden and the hijackers with box cutters in hand in order for us to remember 9/11. Tearing down monuments and statues designed to honor the dishonorable doesn't erase the history, it erases the positive spin on the wrongdoer and their cause.

The difference being that Saudi Arabia is not a part of the US and those people were not us citizents.

Remember that some of these statues were raised in states where these people were citizents. They may have been traitors to the US government, but they fought for the people of their native state. Slavery was just one issue during the civil war, there were many others which had more to do with how much the federal government could dictate and decide in the individual states. I personally find the thought of keeping anyone in bondage extremely offensive and would fight against it any day, but as always when it comes to history there are many different sides to a story when people go to war. Try to read some of the literature - both from the south and the north and you will find the story have many more sides than you might know

 

[insidejob]

a local paper just posted a map showing the streets in NO that were still named after confederate generals, et al
streets that i had driven on for decades without realizing the historical context
i would consider myself passably well-informed about things, but i did not know these streets had any connection to the confederacy, thus their import as historical markers is near zero
now with the 'honoring the confederacy' controversy is bloom, the history of these people is re-exposed

There's a huge number of Lakeview streets that are all named for Confederate "heroes."

 

[bdb13]

The difference being that Saudi Arabia is not a part of the US and those people were not us citizents.

Remember that some of these statues were raised in states where these people were citizents. They may have been traitors to the US government, but they fought for the people of their native state. Slavery was just one issue during the civil war, there were many others which had more to do with how much the federal government could dictate and decide in the individual states. I personally find the thought of keeping anyone in bondage extremely offensive and would fight against it any day, but as always when it comes to history there are many different sides to a story when people go to war. Try to read some of the literature - both from the south and the north and you will find the story have many more sides than you might know

I realize that it wasn't just slavery, necessarily, that they were fighting over and it's not as clean as this side fought to maintain slavery and the other fought to abolish it, but I believe that absent the issue of slavery, the Civil War most likely is never fought.

I think the point still stands though that a monument honoring a confederate general or soldier wearing battlefield regalia dishonors the memory of slaves whom the Confederacy was hell-bent on continuing to enslave.

 

[CoolBrees]

Nobody is saying forget the past.

The Germans aren’t real proud of their 1930’s-1940’s history. They have abolished its symbols and hand gestures related to their former government.

But they haven’t forgotten their past. Nor are they celebrating it. They have placed it in the appropriate setting - museums and memorials at historically significant sites.

I went to Auschwitz the last time I was in Germany. That is how you memorialize something horrible.

Statues in public squares etc canonize the subject. Whether that was the intent or not.

 

[JimEverett]

I went to Auschwitz the last time I was in Germany.

Did Germany invade Poland again?