Poll of the Day > Confederate statues/symbols

(+) Yeah! (+)

Nichtcrawler X posted...

And? History is history, putting a tarp over it and pretending it no longer exists does not make it go away.
History needs to be remembered, even if just to keep it from repeating.

Weird how the statues are predominantly in areas with the most neo confederates.

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adjl posted...

istory is indeed complicated, which is why statues don't do a very good job of teaching it on their own. Pair them with an explanatory placard in a museum, and you've got a much more effective vehicle for education. Statues in public places pretty much exclusively suggest that the subject of the statue should be celebrated (specifically that those who erected and maintain it feel that it should be), even if there's a plaque attached to it that explains the nuance (most passers-by don't bother to read the details, after all).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8Rc0OfEkRE

The pretend-nuance argument is ridiculous. Humans are complex so nobody is going to be perfect. You can celebrate people for the good they did.

adjl posted...

And Auschwitz was designed to massacre people, not memorialize them. Times change, acceptable behaviours change with them, and objects (or regions, in the extreme example of Auschwitz) that were once used for behaviours that are no longer acceptable should be either destroyed or repurposed for more acceptable behaviours.

Which is a shitty argument suggesting that nothing should ever be done because times could change because attitudes will inevitably change. The only thing that's truly repulsive is your attitude, which I hope will some day be consigned to the dustbin of eternity.

adjl posted...

ndeed. It's also learned in schools, libraries, archives, online... Museums are just the best venue by which to educate using statues and monuments. It's rather hard to fit a statue on a bookshelf, after all.

Quite simply, when a city erects a statue, it's not doing so for the purpose of educating people on history. It's doing so because it values the statue's subject and wants to honour them. The only way a statue can educate people is through a plaque, which is inevitably going to be a very narrow snapshot of the relevant history that does little to explain the necessary context and significance, limited pretty much to "this guy did this one neat thing so here's a statue." There are far, far better ways of teaching people history that tell a more complete story and can be presented without lauding somebody who doesn't necessarily deserve praise.

No, statues are in many ways the best way to educate somebody about history because they're a visual reminder. Compare that to kids in school who, by the end of the semester, have no fucking clue what they learned because it went in one ear and out the other, often not even staying long enough to help them during a test. The only reason I learned about the history of some towns and cities is because I saw a cool statue.

adjl posted...

And because you're you, I'm sure you're going to interpret that as BLM collectively deciding that Grant was somehow evil and not as an act of random vandalism by people that don't really care about BLM's goals or intentions.

And, because you're you, you're going to pretend that BLM has coherent, congruent goals and intentions despite having no central organization, leadership, and a membership almost as tenuous as Antifa's. And you're going to pretend that vandalism caused by multiple BLM members doesn't reflect BLM because... reasons? despite the fact that BLM has repeatedly been tearing down monuments and it very well could be ideologically motivated given far-left zealots.


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Nichtcrawler X posted...

And? History is history, putting a tarp over it and pretending it no longer exists does not make it go away.
History needs to be remembered, even if just to keep it from repeating.

as we all know people learn history primarily from statues in parks and shit

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Zeus posted...

No, statues are in many ways the best way to educate somebody about history because they're a visual reminder. Compare that to kids in school who, by the end of the semester, have no fucking clue what they learned because it went in one ear and out the other, often not even staying long enough to help them during a test. The only reason I learned about the history of some towns and cities is because I saw a cool statue.

This makes plenty of sense.

Also, why do we have statues of Martin Luther King Jr when he was a womanizer(a person who regularly cheats on their wife) and even laughed and did nothing while a woman was raped and even laughed about it?


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No. They should be moved to museums at the most.
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They are going to have a really fun time taking down landmarks when the figure out the early Northerners also owned slaves.
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I stand by what I have always said: If something has been around longer than you have, leave it alone.

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Fierce_Deity_08 posted...

I stand by what I have always said: If something has been around longer than you have, leave it alone.

thats just stupid

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Mead posted...

thats just stupid

Could you explain why?

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thedeerzord posted...

Could you explain why?

It's pretty obvious. Just because something is old doesn't mean it's useful. In fact, most stuff becomes less useful over time and should be replaced or removed.

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Fierce_Deity_08 posted...

I stand by what I have always said: If something has been around longer than you have, leave it alone.

Lol this is a silly thing to say. You don't believe in updating bathrooms or kitchens in an old house?

thedeerzord posted...

Could you explain why?

some of the dumbest things are very, very, old

like when we look at human history, we just now discovered all lot of stuff we consider basic today like basic medicine and nutrition

you go back not that far from now and people werent necessarily stupid, but damn was there some basic shit they were utterly clueless about and that extends to many of their moral views

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Mead posted...

some of the dumbest things are very, very, old

like when we look at human history, we just now discovered all lot of stuff we consider basic today like basic medicine and nutrition

you go back not that far from now and people werent necessarily stupid, but damn was there some basic shit they were utterly clueless about and that extends to many of their moral views

Some of those views only existed because of people dying early.
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Revelation34 posted...

Some of those views only existed because of people dying early.

okay

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__poi_____ posted...

They are going to have a really fun time taking down landmarks when the figure out the early Northerners also owned slaves.

Rename Washington state and Washington DC, George Washington owned slaves.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5b_-TZwQ0I

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**** those statues and people who support them.

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Zareth posted...

Rename Washington state and Washington DC, George Washington owned slaves.

Is that all he did? What he is primarily known for?

Take them off public pedestals and put them in some sort of "Museum of the World's Most Elaborate Participation Trophies For America's Most Butthurt Treasonous Losers."

Confederate statues are not history; they are revisionist aggrandizement built for people pissy about the fact that they didn't have their own human chattel anymore and lost a war.

You care about history? Why aren't you protesting the degradation of public libraries or the revisionism in schoolbooks? No, let's all get our panties in a twist over Slaver Mcwhipsalot losing his historically inaccurate propaganda installment post-mortem. They're lucky I think they should belong in a museum and not be sent the way of post WW2 Nazi statues.

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Zareth posted...

Rename Washington state and Washington DC, George Washington owned slaves.

They already tore down Washington's statue. Gandhi, Francis Scott Key, and Cervantes of all people have gotten similar treatment.

https://nypost.com/2020/06/19/george-washington-statue-in-portland-toppled-set-on-fire/

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So I understand why people keep saying museums, but these statues largely have no artistic or historical value. There are exceptions of course, but a decent number were just put up as part of the segregation era. They just need to be sold off, I'm sure the KKK or some neonazi groups would be happy to buy them.

BlackScythe0 posted...

So I understand why people keep saying museums, but these statues largely have no artistic or historical value. There are exceptions of course, but a decent number were just put up as part of the segregation era. They just need to be sold off, I'm sure the KKK or some neonazi groups would be happy to buy them.

If it's a professionally done statue then they definitely do. The historical value is self explanatory.
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Revelation34 posted...

If it's a professionally done statue then they definitely do. The historical value is self explanatory.

... Plenty of people can "professionally" do art and the don't merit positions in a museum.

Historical value is not self explanatory.

You are just attempting to take bare minimum standards for your statement which makes it nonsense. Some of these statues do hold some artistic value, but most are unknown artists holding little renown.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_B._Taney_(sculpture) is an example of a statue that was taken down and did not hold any value beyond honoring a man who has the dred scott decision has his sole legacy around 180 years after his death.

adjl posted...

Generally speaking, they should be moved into museums. They're artworks of historical significance, which makes exhibiting them a good idea for educational purposes (both in terms of artistic and historical value), but they're generally not depicting things that are worth celebrating and therefore don't belong on literal pedestals in public spaces.

Eeyup.

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The vast majority of these statues were created long, long after the civil war as a protest against civil rights. If they were made during the 19th century, they might have some historical significance. But almost all of them were just made because some racist hicks didn't like black people. Toss them in the trash. They don't even belong in a museum. The Confederacy lasted four years. It's nobody's heritage.

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BlackScythe0 posted...

... Plenty of people can "professionally" do art and the don't merit positions in a museum.

Historical value is not self explanatory.

You are just attempting to take bare minimum standards for your statement which makes it nonsense. Some of these statues do hold some artistic value, but most are unknown artists holding little renown.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_B._Taney_(sculpture) is an example of a statue that was taken down and did not hold any value beyond honoring a man who has the dred scott decision has his sole legacy around 180 years after his death.

I see nothing wrong with that statue. Whoever created it was talented.

Whargarble posted...

The vast majority of these statues were created long, long after the civil war as a protest against civil rights. If they were made during the 19th century, they might have some historical significance. But almost all of them were just made because some racist hicks didn't like black people. Toss them in the trash. They don't even belong in a museum. The Confederacy lasted four years. It's nobody's heritage.

Definition of museum in English:

museum
Translate museum into Spanish

Pronunciation /myoozm/ /mjuzim/
NOUN
A building in which objects of historical, scientific, artistic, or cultural interest are stored and exhibited.
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Zeus posted...

The pretend-nuance argument is ridiculous. Humans are complex so nobody is going to be perfect. You can celebrate people for the good they did.

That, or make statues to celebrate and honour events, not individuals. That way, you end up with more interesting art (seriously, realistic human sculptures haven't been cool or novel since before the Greeks stopped making them) and you don't have to worry as much about honouring something that doesn't deserve honour. Win-win.

Zeus posted...

Which is a s***ty argument suggesting that nothing should ever be done because times could change because attitudes will inevitably change.

Uhh, no. That's not in any way what that suggests. I'm saying that things may be repurposed to reflect changing times and attitudes and that that is okay. No idea where you grabbed that particular insane reach from.

Zeus posted...

No, statues are in many ways the best way to educate somebody about history because they're a visual reminder.

A visual reminder of an incredibly narrow oversimplification of history. Retention is not the only measure of education's quality.

Zeus posted...

Compare that to kids in school who, by the end of the semester, have no f***ing clue what they learned because it went in one ear and out the other, often not even staying long enough to help them during a test.

Yes, the current lecture-focused education paradigm is rather bad at giving students useful information. This is not news. That doesn't mean statues aren't too limited in scope to give a decent understanding of history, it just means education as a whole needs some pretty radical reforms.

Zeus posted...

The only reason I learned about the history of some towns and cities is because I saw a cool statue.

By which you mean "I don't actually care about this history enough to put any actual effort into learning about it, but this one statue had a bit of neat trivia on it so now I know that trivia and not much else." You learned less about those towns and cities from those statues than you could have learned in 30 seconds on their wikipedia page. That your entire suite of knowledge regarding those towns comes from their statues is not a testament to how effective statues are at educating people about history, it's a testament to your laziness and how little you care about history.

Zeus posted...

And, because you're you, you're going to pretend that BLM has coherent, congruent goals and intentions despite having no central organization, leadership, and a membership almost as tenuous as Antifa's. And you're going to pretend that vandalism caused by multiple BLM members doesn't reflect BLM because... reasons? despite the fact that BLM has repeatedly been tearing down monuments and it very well could be ideologically motivated given far-left zealots.

I like how you explicitly state that BLM lacks a unified ideology then go on to suggest that tearing down monuments that have no pro-racism significance is consistent with their ideology. Here, let's try this again:

Do you really think that anything close enough to a majority of BLM protesters have been committing these acts of vandalism that attributing the vandalism to the movement as a whole is reasonable?

Revelation34 posted...

I see nothing wrong with that statue. Whoever created it was talented.

It's a pretty generic bronze statue. Talent went into making it, sure, but it's nothing particularly special. The artist's works are also featured in multiple museums (including several within Baltimore), so it's not like taking that one down means he stops being recognized.

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adjl posted...

It's a pretty generic bronze statue. Talent went into making it, sure, but it's nothing particularly special. The artist's works are also featured in multiple museums (including several within Baltimore), so it's not like taking that one down means he stops being recognized.

It's pretty clear he is just trying to troll at this point. I really don't see how "I see nothing wrong with it" is a reasonable response in the context.

I'm curious to know if Zeus would fight tooth and nail to defend the statue of Lenin that was erected in the German city of Gelsenkirchen a few days ago: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-53123947.

It's obviously a monument of historical significance. We can't just erase history, and statues like these -- erected by the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany in front of its headquarters -- add real value to the education of schoolchildren.

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BlackScythe0 posted...

It's pretty clear he is just trying to troll at this point. I really don't see how "I see nothing wrong with it" is a reasonable response in the context.

It's consistent with his usual posting style, which is to be absurdly rigid in his thinking and try to shoehorn every new piece of information he gets into the first opinion he forms on the matter (that or ignore conflicting information). Far as I can tell, he's actually incapable of any sort of mental flexibility.

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Remove them all at once. Destroy them, preserve them in museums, whatever. The history argument makes no sense to me cause 1) many people don't know who the history of the statues they're seeing anyway unless it's a big name 2) they teach revisionist history and represent supremacy/lost heritage, and 3) we have so many sources and accounts for Civil War history that these monuments simply do not tell us. Unless society collapses and libraries are all burned and the internet get wiped out, we'll be mostly fine if all of these statues suddenly disappear.

Hell, the very threat of a second Civil War will forever be on America's consciousness.

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adjl posted...

Generally speaking, they should be moved into museums. They're artworks of historical significance, which makes exhibiting them a good idea for educational purposes (both in terms of artistic and historical value), but they're generally not depicting things that are worth celebrating and therefore don't belong on literal pedestals in public spaces.

Yeah I agree with this sentiment.

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From public/open/government spaces. Definitely.

Though I do think some of them should be moved to museums or other situations where they can be removed from a context of 'glorifying' the statues, and more in the context of using the statues as learning tools or just historic appreciation. Personally, I'm in favor of maybe opening an outdoor museum where the statues are on display all in one place, similar to places that hold a lot of Soviet/Stalinist monuments in Russia and Eastern Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallen_Monument_Park

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There already was a South Park episode about this.
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madadude posted...

Personally, I'm in favor of maybe opening an outdoor museum where the statues are on display all in one place, similar to places that hold a lot of Soviet/Stalinist monuments in Russia and Eastern Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallen_Monument_Park

I really like this idea purely because the name sounds so cool.

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Just put them all in Mississippi in some warehouse and call it the Jim Crow Museum for Ignorant Diptarts

$60 entree fee and they get their choice of Hot Pocket at the cafe

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ForteEXE3850 posted...

There already was a South Park episode about this.

Weird how racism wasn't solved by South Park telling us it wasn't a problem

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Blightzkrieg posted...

Weird how racism wasn't solved by South Park telling us it wasn't a problem

That's not what the episode was about.
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Sorry not fully caught up on the Gospel of Trey

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Blightzkrieg posted...

Weird how racism wasn't solved by South Park telling us it wasn't a problem

no one said that

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Oof

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BlackScythe0 posted...

It's pretty clear he is just trying to troll at this point. I really don't see how "I see nothing wrong with it" is a reasonable response in the context.

I guess you're far more talented than any artist if you think that I'm trolling or that's bad art.
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adjl posted...

Generally speaking, they should be moved into museums. They're artworks of historical significance, which makes exhibiting them a good idea for educational purposes (both in terms of artistic and historical value), but they're generally not depicting things that are worth celebrating and therefore don't belong on literal pedestals in public spaces.

This sums up what I think too.

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Yeah, there is no way that statues are built in public spaces as a history lesson. It's meant to honor the individual you are making a statue of.

The reason we have former presidents on US currency is to honor them period. If the Lakers build a statue of Kobe Bryant outside their building someday it will be 100% to honor Kobe period. It won't exist as a history lesson about Kobe especially because in 200 years those wanting to learn about Kobe would need to do a lot more research, reading and watching to actually learn about him.

After reading a bit more of the posts...

While it is true that several of the statues might not have much historical significance and several are not even artistically interesting; I would still rather preserve most of the "good" ones for museums and maybe thrashing/selling the others.


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Revelation34 posted...

if you think that I'm trolling

dude if you arent trolling with your posts, not just the ones in this topic, then you are have just the worst opinions and views on pretty much any subject

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