Should Statues be torn down?
I wanted to write a short article on the question of tearing down statues. I do not think it is a very important question compared to others. But it is an amazingly easy question to answer. And people get it so incredibly wrong that I may as well say something.
1)Historical monuments are to remember something important that happened.
2)You will find that most important figures of history have also done bad things.
3)Usually those bad things were normal in their day.
For example, Thomas Jefferson did own slaves. But that in no way made him stand out from the crowd. That was normal back then. In fact all of planet earth outside of Western Europe was perfectly OK with slavery at the time. Jefferson stood out from the crowd because of his important work in founding America, the world's first modern democracy. He also had a hand in the founding of the world's second modern democracy, the French Revolution. It makes no sense to tear his monument down simply because he did some things which are considered bad today but were utterly ordinary in his day. The reason he has a monument is for the way he took the next step in pushing us forward to today.
For comparison, consider Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King was a liberal theologian who expressed skepticism about whether Jesus rose from the grave. Yet he put out a public image of a Christian preacher. Furthermore, he was a married man who slept around a bunch, a serious adulterer. Nevertheless, his monuments should not be torn down. Yes, he mistreated his own wife and by extension added to the general mistreatment of women. Nevertheless, cheating on one's wife does not make you stand out from the crowd. It's rather uninteresting and, sadly, ordinary. Dr. King is remembered in monuments not because of the bad and ordinary things he did. He is remembered because his important work in the Civil Rights movement. This is what he did to move us forward to today. That's why he is important and remembered.
On the other hand, can the same thing be said for Confederate Statues? Nope. Honestly what on earth did any of these guys do except be the bad guys in a horrible war? At best one can argue that Robert E. Lee was a brilliant general. Eventually he was outdone, perhaps largely because he had less resources. In the end, the important thing was that America fought a nasty war over the slavery question. For those of you who think the Civil War was not about slavery, then you are wrong. The southern states issued documents explaining that they were seceding because of the underground railroad and the belief that Lincoln would free slaves by force. They gave no other reasons. Then they fired on Sumter because the US Army was now considered a foreign invader. The North originally fought keep the states united. Eventually they just fought to free slaves. This war is one of the most important events in human history. England ended slavery peacefully. Then the US ended it violently. But how did the rest of the world end it? England and then later the US worked together to force all the nations across the globe to end it. So the American Civil War should be remembered because it is essential in how slavery ended on this planet. For example, China banned slavery in 1910. Saudi Arabia banned it in 1962. Japan and Germany were forced to ban it when they lost WW2.
How the Civil War should be remembered is another more artistic question. For me personally, I grew up in the south looking at such monuments all my life. I always considered these heroes as generally good people. But they lived in a time when the world was growing up and morally improving. They represent the transition of an era. I never saw them as the good guys.
But I know a lot of people, and probably the builders, who saw these guys as heroes. A lot of people saw the south as the good guys who should have won. I've heard the mental gymnastics people try to get away with all my life. It does seem that something needs to change with these monuments. The best thing is to probably add more statements to them instead of tearing them down. How about adding these words to all Confederate monuments.
'The Southern States Fought to Preserve Slavery."
That is in fact the truth. That is in fact exactly what the Confederate repeatedly said the war was about. And nobody should get away with forgetting it.
1)Historical monuments are to remember something important that happened.
2)You will find that most important figures of history have also done bad things.
3)Usually those bad things were normal in their day.
For example, Thomas Jefferson did own slaves. But that in no way made him stand out from the crowd. That was normal back then. In fact all of planet earth outside of Western Europe was perfectly OK with slavery at the time. Jefferson stood out from the crowd because of his important work in founding America, the world's first modern democracy. He also had a hand in the founding of the world's second modern democracy, the French Revolution. It makes no sense to tear his monument down simply because he did some things which are considered bad today but were utterly ordinary in his day. The reason he has a monument is for the way he took the next step in pushing us forward to today.
For comparison, consider Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. King was a liberal theologian who expressed skepticism about whether Jesus rose from the grave. Yet he put out a public image of a Christian preacher. Furthermore, he was a married man who slept around a bunch, a serious adulterer. Nevertheless, his monuments should not be torn down. Yes, he mistreated his own wife and by extension added to the general mistreatment of women. Nevertheless, cheating on one's wife does not make you stand out from the crowd. It's rather uninteresting and, sadly, ordinary. Dr. King is remembered in monuments not because of the bad and ordinary things he did. He is remembered because his important work in the Civil Rights movement. This is what he did to move us forward to today. That's why he is important and remembered.
On the other hand, can the same thing be said for Confederate Statues? Nope. Honestly what on earth did any of these guys do except be the bad guys in a horrible war? At best one can argue that Robert E. Lee was a brilliant general. Eventually he was outdone, perhaps largely because he had less resources. In the end, the important thing was that America fought a nasty war over the slavery question. For those of you who think the Civil War was not about slavery, then you are wrong. The southern states issued documents explaining that they were seceding because of the underground railroad and the belief that Lincoln would free slaves by force. They gave no other reasons. Then they fired on Sumter because the US Army was now considered a foreign invader. The North originally fought keep the states united. Eventually they just fought to free slaves. This war is one of the most important events in human history. England ended slavery peacefully. Then the US ended it violently. But how did the rest of the world end it? England and then later the US worked together to force all the nations across the globe to end it. So the American Civil War should be remembered because it is essential in how slavery ended on this planet. For example, China banned slavery in 1910. Saudi Arabia banned it in 1962. Japan and Germany were forced to ban it when they lost WW2.
How the Civil War should be remembered is another more artistic question. For me personally, I grew up in the south looking at such monuments all my life. I always considered these heroes as generally good people. But they lived in a time when the world was growing up and morally improving. They represent the transition of an era. I never saw them as the good guys.
But I know a lot of people, and probably the builders, who saw these guys as heroes. A lot of people saw the south as the good guys who should have won. I've heard the mental gymnastics people try to get away with all my life. It does seem that something needs to change with these monuments. The best thing is to probably add more statements to them instead of tearing them down. How about adding these words to all Confederate monuments.
'The Southern States Fought to Preserve Slavery."
That is in fact the truth. That is in fact exactly what the Confederate repeatedly said the war was about. And nobody should get away with forgetting it.
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