At this point, I feel like we should replace the popcorn with pretzels.
Actually, a Moebius strip, because even master German pretzel makers can’t twist this much.
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We’ve gotten to the point where museums are relegated to existing only as exhibits within other museums.
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But does “commemoration” mean that people should be remembered only positively? It seems to have taken on that connotation, for better or worse. Remembering mistakes has at least as much value as heroism for personal and cultural learning. That can be done with CSA monuments by changing their presentation, their contemporary context. That instantly deflates that daft arguments some make that taking down a statue of a bigot “destroys history”. I would rather show them to my kids in a museum of racism than proudly displayed in the town square. The framing provides the history.
Just because we are not literally putting these people on pedestals does not mean that we can’t learn from their mistakes. I can think of at least 152 ways we can remember and learn from the past in ways that avoids respecting people who don’t deserve it.
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You can find many an article tut tutting the newest museums as entirely too focused on babysitting the young. Or attacking the museum for other reasons.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/arts/design/29identity.html?ref=nationalmuseumoftheamericanindian
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I hate this disingenuous “don’t erase history” line that these guys throw out there. Like somehow it’s just a coincidence that many in the South (and elsewhere) still revere these awful men… On it’s face, it’s a compelling stance though, so I see why they use it (what about Isis blowing up ancient Roman ruins, man?). I’ve even heard some of my left-leaning friends repeat it, suggesting that we should instead put plaques under statues for “context”. To me, the more appropriate context for the confederate monuments is melting in a fucking crucible.
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That would be Wrong Learning, which is Revisionist and Bad, silly.
When they tore down statues of Stalin in the former Soviet Union were they erasing history or finally facing up to it? I’d argue the latter.
The US needs a similar reckoning with its history. Tear the fuckers down. Now.
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Grant got the job done-- unlike McClellan.
Putin’s ideological preferences are lining up with those of American Conservatives more and more often these days.
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In the case of these Confederate monuments in the US yes they are currently there painting those people in a positive light. I am 100% for not destroying those monuments, they have historical and artistic value and should be placed in an appropriate context like a museum or park that properly conveys what those monuments used to mean and contrast it with the progress we’ve made.
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Think “pretzel logic” on a stick, could be a real winner.
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Maybe he learned his history from books like this - https://splinternews.com/publisher-to-recall-whitewashed-textbook-claiming-first-1819121949
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Zinke said removing the statues will inhibit the U.S. from being able to “learn” from history.
“I think we should never hide from our history or erase our history. I think we should embrace the history and understand the faults and learn from it. But when you try to erase history, what happens is you also erase how it happened and why it happened and the ability to learn from it,” Zinke said.
So… let me get this straight… he’s perfectly willing to let the south keep there monuments to ‘preserve history’ yet… we stole this land from the people that lived here before us, imprisoned them, killed them… putting them in concentration camps… conveniently overlooking the fact that what we did to the people who were already here before us is far worse than anything that happened with the war of the North and South… and he wants to spout nonsense about “forgetting history”? we stole an entire continent from another nation/s.
I sure as hell don’t hear him spouting off about anything to those regards. The country pretty much whitewashes the fact that we Europeans were the invaders. But then history has always been dominated by the party that won, not any of the ones that lost.
So he’s trying to give relevancy to the losers… a bold, unexpected choice… but it’s still not going to happen short of the south successfully succeeding the US.
The victor always gets to “rearrange history” as has been done so many times in the history of the planet.
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“Erasing history”. . . ?
Let us imagine for a moment that NO memorials to Confederate soldiers had EVER been erected.
Does that mean kids in school would have never learned about the Civil War?
Nope.
In the USA we don’t have statues memorializing the Napoleonic Wars, Juluis Ceasar, or a host of other people and events, and yet somehow kids are still taught this stuff.
Or maybe the fact that I was never taught about the Crimean War in my high school means we need to erect a statue to Tsar Nicholas I of Russia ASAP.
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As a British person, I demand that every American city has a statue of King George III, Lord North and General Cornwallis. You might forget about how you became independent if they aren’t immediately put up.
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Americans should remember both Grant’s heroic work as an extremely drunk General in our Civil War,
I thought Grant wasn’t a drunk, and that it was a historical misunderstanding. Grant suffered from migraine headaches, so he would frequently vomit and stay in bed(due to his migraines).
People assumed he was hungover. He wasn’t. Grant also didn’t mind the misunderstandings because being a drunkard was considered “disrespectable”, but being a migraine sufferer was considered a physical defect.
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As a Canadian, I also believe that at least Washington D.C. should have a statue of General Robert Ross who burned down the White House in response to the American invasion of Canada in the War of 1812. He could hold a torch that lights up at night.
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Only if Niagara on the Lake erects statues to Dearborn, Scott, and Perry.
