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Sadiq Khan Sets Up A Commision For Vandalising London...
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https:/
no doubt it will be filled with a load of TROB hand wringers. Does the Mayor's office have this power? Will they also be taking down statues to Terrorists? EG: https:/
no doubt it will be filled with a load of TROB hand wringers. Does the Mayor's office have this power? Will they also be taking down statues to Terrorists? EG: https:/
Answers
jim360 - // There is a clear gulf between statues celebrating people who, perhaps, should not be so celebrated, and between the buildings their ill-gotten gains have provided. // Actually, there isn't, quite the opposite in fact. If you start analysing philanthropy based on the income source, where on earth do you stop? Are you going to say that millowners...
17:35 Tue 09th Jun 2020
looks like Robert Milligan is next....
https:/
"The Canal and River Trust said it "recognised the wishes of the local community concerning the statue of Robert Milligan" - So they took a vote did they? Bovine Faeces they just caved into mob rule.
https:/
"The Canal and River Trust said it "recognised the wishes of the local community concerning the statue of Robert Milligan" - So they took a vote did they? Bovine Faeces they just caved into mob rule.
Perhaps these moronic imbeciles would like to tear down the Oxbridge colleges that have benefitted from the proceeds of slavery, and how about the homes that were built for the poor and the hospitals, and schools, and the major art galleries and stately homes? History cannot and should not be eradicated - ever. There are lessons to be learnt from history. Learn them.
There is a clear gulf between statues celebrating people who, perhaps, should not be so celebrated, and between the buildings their ill-gotten gains have provided. Nor is it clear that the lessons have been learned from history previously, with the statues, anyway. What does the presence of Confederacy monuments in the US teach us, except that some people never quite got over their crushing defeat?
jim, good point, interesting that they chose to vandalise Lincoln's memorial, what with him being the guy largely responsible for the defeat of the South and the abolition of slavery. Is there a message I missed or rather than some noble cause could it be just a case of indiscriminate destruction and looting by moronic imbeciles who don't even know who their friends are?
There's only been limited targeting of the Lincoln Memorial in the recent protests, but I would suspect that the defacing of the Lincoln Memorial is in part because he didn't, in the protesters' eyes, go far enough. Whether this is fair or not is a judgement that is extremely difficult to make. My own understanding is he went as far as he was reasonably able to, given that the response to the steps he tried to take was a Civil War, and that trying single-handedly to undo the damage Slavery had wrought is to great a task for any one man.
You know something, I am sick to death of people moaning and complaining about MY country and demanding that this that and the other symbol of whatever be destroyed to appease them. It all happened so long ago in a different time. WHY ARE WE PANDERING TO THESE PEOPLE (sorry for shouting, but I am mad)!
jim360 - // There is a clear gulf between statues celebrating people who, perhaps, should not be so celebrated, and between the buildings their ill-gotten gains have provided. //
Actually, there isn't, quite the opposite in fact.
If you start analysing philanthropy based on the income source, where on earth do you stop?
Are you going to say that millowners who paid their workers slave wages and let them work in seriously dangerous conditions are going to have the buildings they endowed torn down?
Because surely, if we start demolishing the statues that commemorate such people, you can't stop there, we have to dig deeper and start erasing every trace of them walking the earth before our ludicrously retrospective social conscience in appeased.
// Nor is it clear that the lessons have been learned from history previously, with the statues, anyway. What does the presence of Confederacy monuments in the US teach us, except that some people never quite got over their crushing defeat? //
That's a perspective, and on that basis, we can start destruction in the morning.
As naomi points out, the essentiall point to remember in all this post lock-down 'we can all go out now, let's smash something and let off steam' activity - is that history cannot and should never be eradicated.
Our history is all around us to remind us of where we came from, how we got here, what we got right, and more importantly, what we got wrong.
Just because a statue erected two hundred years ago does not reflect modern attitudes is no reason to destroy it. Rather, it should be relocated in a museum as part of an exhibition in social history, with appropriate context to show how it came to be made and erected.
That is how future generations will learn that we didn't always get it right, because we are human and fallible, and those are valuable lessons that history has, and always will, teach us about ourselves.
This fatuous nihilismm of a demented few who think that destroying an image of something means that it never happened is utterly naïve, and should be stopped for the nightmare '1984' activity that it clearly is.
History is not always pretty - but that does not mean that it does not belong to us - it has made us who we are.
Actually, there isn't, quite the opposite in fact.
If you start analysing philanthropy based on the income source, where on earth do you stop?
Are you going to say that millowners who paid their workers slave wages and let them work in seriously dangerous conditions are going to have the buildings they endowed torn down?
Because surely, if we start demolishing the statues that commemorate such people, you can't stop there, we have to dig deeper and start erasing every trace of them walking the earth before our ludicrously retrospective social conscience in appeased.
// Nor is it clear that the lessons have been learned from history previously, with the statues, anyway. What does the presence of Confederacy monuments in the US teach us, except that some people never quite got over their crushing defeat? //
That's a perspective, and on that basis, we can start destruction in the morning.
As naomi points out, the essentiall point to remember in all this post lock-down 'we can all go out now, let's smash something and let off steam' activity - is that history cannot and should never be eradicated.
Our history is all around us to remind us of where we came from, how we got here, what we got right, and more importantly, what we got wrong.
Just because a statue erected two hundred years ago does not reflect modern attitudes is no reason to destroy it. Rather, it should be relocated in a museum as part of an exhibition in social history, with appropriate context to show how it came to be made and erected.
That is how future generations will learn that we didn't always get it right, because we are human and fallible, and those are valuable lessons that history has, and always will, teach us about ourselves.
This fatuous nihilismm of a demented few who think that destroying an image of something means that it never happened is utterly naïve, and should be stopped for the nightmare '1984' activity that it clearly is.
History is not always pretty - but that does not mean that it does not belong to us - it has made us who we are.
Your entire post is a "slippery slope" argument that contains every single one of the flaws inherent in that fallacy.
The answer to the question "where we stop" is quite simple: we stop once we are open and honest about our history, and when doing so isn't seen as some sort of affront to society. Statues are a visual symbol of the distinction between the two.
Take Colston's statue as an example. A more desirable alternative to tearing the statue down would have been, for example, a plaque explaining why the statue was erected along with why it perhaps shouldn't have been: "Colston was a man who gave much to the city of Bristol, but in doing so took much away from the slaves whose lives he traded." But that plaque never went up, despite years of trying, because any mention of his involvement in the Slave Trade was seen by some as an affront.
The answer to the question "where we stop" is quite simple: we stop once we are open and honest about our history, and when doing so isn't seen as some sort of affront to society. Statues are a visual symbol of the distinction between the two.
Take Colston's statue as an example. A more desirable alternative to tearing the statue down would have been, for example, a plaque explaining why the statue was erected along with why it perhaps shouldn't have been: "Colston was a man who gave much to the city of Bristol, but in doing so took much away from the slaves whose lives he traded." But that plaque never went up, despite years of trying, because any mention of his involvement in the Slave Trade was seen by some as an affront.
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