Should confederate monuments be destroyed?

[Mechanicalsalvation]

But then we end up without any statues. I agree with not idolizing anyone, but I disagree with iconoclasty. Imagine if Rome or Florence started pulling down their statues... Would the world become a better place for that? No, it would be duller and uglier.

And again, we can admire Julius Caesar as a general and writer and understand his historical importance without being ok with enslaving the gaulois.

Ceasar didnt enslave the Gauls that much as he brought the Pax Romana to them. They paid the Rome and stop killing each other.

 

[luiz]

Ceasar didnt enslave the Gauls that much as he brought the Pax Romana to them. They paid the Rome and stop killing each other.

After Alesia Caesar took at least 40,000 slaves from among the vanquished.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

After Alesia Caesar took at least 40,000 slaves from among the vanquished.

Yeah he ment serious business and eventualy brought peace to the Gauls. They may have been one or two more rebelion ater that and then peace for 300 years. Thing to note he didnt act tough out of perversed pleasure but out of necessity.

EDIT: Funny thing is that Ceasar completely understood the celts fighting for their independence and even agreed with the cause but also viewed himself to be in position to exploit their weaknesses and disunity so he did just that.

 

[metalhead]

But then we end up without any statues. I agree with not idolizing anyone, but I disagree with iconoclasty. Imagine if Rome or Florence started pulling down their statues... Would the world become a better place for that? No, it would be duller and uglier.

And again, we can admire Julius Caesar as a general and writer and understand his historical importance without being ok with enslaving the gaulois.

It's not iconoclasty. Statues of people aren't problematic simply because they're statues of people. People from long-defunct societies don't distort anything - the fact that they are from defunct societies itself pretty much contextualizes the statues on its own. The problem isn't actually the statue itself, it's the presentation of a statue without context that is problematic.

Why not monuments to ideas instead? To great works of art? To moments in history? A plaque commemorating a scientific discovery made at a particular lab, or outside a building where a famous band recorded their seminal works, or a famous artist had a studio, is to me worth thousands of times more than a statue of a president. While Jefferson was a terrible human being, his contribution to our modern society is unquestionable. I'm sure we can figure out a way to honor those contributions without celebrating the man himself. Considering how important he and the other Framers are to our national identity, I think it is important to place him in proper context rather than simply put up a statue.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Jefferson was a terrible human being doing good things for others?

What amuses me is that you not only think you have the only objectively correct opinion but you probably think that it should be used to brainwash others and force upon them. "Take down these statues! Your silly brains are weak and too prone to your false subjective pov. Here is the context and the objective truth! Memorize it since you dont need individual opinion anymore!"

History knows thinkers and ideologies of this kind. Especialy history of defunct societies.
Now Roman civilization may be long gone but its influence is still powerful. Ceasar is long dead but his achievement absolutely outstanding.

Also people are more then ideas. You may try to be ideological-puritan and try to separate man from his thoughts and actions but with it you are taking life out of their achievement and belittle it. We dont need to manipulate people into right thinking we need to educate people, teach and learn positive/progressive critical thinking an encourage people to use it. We dont need safe spaces but brave minds.

 

[Gori the Grey]

They are not skilfull considerers of human things, who imagin to remove sin by removing the matter of sin; for, besides that it is a huge heap increasing under the very act of diminishing, though some part of it may for a time be withdrawn from some persons, it cannot from all, in such a universall thing as books are; and when this is done, yet the sin remains entire. Though ye take from a covetous man all his treasure, he has yet one jewell left, ye cannot bereave him of his covetousnesse. Banish all objects of lust, shut up all youth into the severest discipline that can be exercis'd in any hermitage, ye cannot make them chaste, that came not thither so: such great care and wisdom is requir'd to the right managing of this point. Suppose we could expell sin by this means; look how much we thus expell of sin, so much we expell of vertue: for the matter of them both is the same; remove that, and ye remove them both alike.

John Milton, Areopagitica

 

[Kyriakos]

Destroy ALL THE MONUMENTS

 

[luiz]

It's not iconoclasty. Statues of people aren't problematic simply because they're statues of people. People from long-defunct societies don't distort anything - the fact that they are from defunct societies itself pretty much contextualizes the statues on its own. The problem isn't actually the statue itself, it's the presentation of a statue without context that is problematic.

Why not monuments to ideas instead? To great works of art? To moments in history? A plaque commemorating a scientific discovery made at a particular lab, or outside a building where a famous band recorded their seminal works, or a famous artist had a studio, is to me worth thousands of times more than a statue of a president. While Jefferson was a terrible human being, his contribution to our modern society is unquestionable. I'm sure we can figure out a way to honor those contributions without celebrating the man himself. Considering how important he and the other Framers are to our national identity, I think it is important to place him in proper context rather than simply put up a statue.

I like monuments too, but statues are pretty much a part of our shared human identity. From ancient Egyptians to the Chinese, to the Greeks, romans and etruscans, they all represented their great and mighty in statues.

It's true that many of the finest statues come from civilizations long defunct, but a lot of the statues that embellish the likes of Rome or Paris are actually from the same period as the US Founding Fathers. Or even more recent, like the omnipresent Vittorio Emanuele and Garibaldi statues in Italy, or Napoleonic stuff in France. In fact on Napoléon's tomb he is quite literally depicted as god. Note that he is the dude that re-authorized slavery in the French colonies, among other pecadillos - hardly a Saint (there are no saints among the leaders, and perhaps nowhere).

I don't think context is necessary for anyone with a healthy dose of cynicism. Everybody has moral failings, and often times the great leaders have the biggest ones. But still, they shape who we are today, so they get statues. In Brazil we learn in school just how big bastards our early leaders were. The first president would threaten to bomb congress when they displeased him, the second one beheaded his opponents by the hundreds. Yet they all got their statues, and nobody wants to bring them down. They are part of who we are, but that doesn't mean we idolize them. You'll be very hard pressed to find a Brazilian with a positive opinion of Deodoro da Fonseca, the general who deposed the emperor and became the first president. He is pretty much universally disliked, when not outright reviled (I revile him). Yet his statues abound. How could they not? I certainly want them to stay where they are.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

I reckon they all did stuff that made Thomas Jefferson look like Mother Theresa.

Mother Theresa did stuff that makes most people look like Mother Theresa.

 

[Berzerker]

they should replace those statues with civil rights heroes starting with the abolitionists

on second thought, they'd just become targets for vandals

 

[Evie]

Monument to idea lack the power to inspire and remind us of our own human potential that statues to the people who championed those ideas do.

We tell the tale of heroes (and raise statues to them, and write great men versions of history focused on them, even though historians largely agree now that's not how it went) to remind ourselves that we, too, may be great. That one person can make a huge difference.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

We tell the tale of heroes (and raise statues to them, and write great men versions of history focused on them, even though historians largely agree now that's not how it went) to remind ourselves that we, too, may be great. That one person can make a huge difference.

This is not a very progressive view, comrade.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

This is not a very progressive view, comrade.

Well what is progressive view then? The only thing I see coming from the uber progressives are the negation of the old views together with extending of the old ideas ad absurdum loosing their essence in process. Nothing original if you ask me.

 

[Ryika]

Thriving for greatness is not progressive, as it will make people who are not so great, feel small.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

If there's a huge difference to be made, then we each need to make one seven-billionth of that huge difference. No one individual should be doing it alone.

 

[Ryika]

I am sorry, but are you saying that oppressed black people have to do exactly the same amount of work that privileged white people do? That's racist.

Please include the privilege-modifier next time you calculate the amount of impact a person needs to make. It's 7 for white people (so 1/1.000.000.000 of an impact), and 0.33 for black people (so 1/21.000.000.000).

Consider yourself educated.

 

[Berzerker]

I imagine plenty of people invented the wheel in their head, not as many figured out a decent axle

 

[Gori the Grey]

It's 7 for white people (so 1/1.000.000.000 of an impact), and 0.33 for black people (so 1/21.000.000.000).

What happened to the old multiplier of 3/5?

 

[Ryika]

What happened to the old multiplier of 3/5?

That one's outdated now that Obama has been replaced by Trump.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

We celebrate his daring navigation, which inaugurated the great exchange that is ultimately responsible for the very existence of the vast majority of people in the American contient today (arguably virtually everyone, except some isolated Amazonian tribes).

So Columbus is ultimately responsible for the existence of the native North Americans who were not European immigrants/refugees, but rather the descendants of the people who walked over the Bering land bridge over 10,000 years ago?

Did he have a time machine in his pocket, or something? Was he the only European explorer who got into a boat and came here?

Of course not.

After Alesia Caesar took at least 40,000 slaves from among the vanquished.

I have never heard of "Alesia Caesar."