Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I don't have any problem with removing the monuments, but I found the footage very upsetting where a statue was roped, and yanked down so that the whole statue buckled.
I was thinking they should be treated the way that today we'd treat a sculpture of Nero or Caligula. That is, sell them to any museum that wanted them. They still have some artistic and historical value.
Robert E. Lee, by the way, would have been against these monuments, having said in 1869 that it would be wiser “not to keep open the sores of war..."
There is a lot of emotion engendered by Civil War monuments, on both sides.
Art does not exist in a vacuum, it represents aspects of our society and people have feelings, sometimes very strong feelings, about what it is representing.
How do I feel about the "art aspect"? Art does not exist as art alone, it is not neutral, what it represents is in the eye (and heart and mind) of the beholder. I think the local citizens have the right to remove art that is no longer meaningful to their area. That's what Charlottesville citizens did, their elected council decided to remove the Civil War statues. Outsiders, namely white supremacists, then came in and started the whole shebang because they did not like the local decision.
Times have changed except in very Deep South towns where Time stands still and all the intelligent children have moved to better jobs and lives, leaving the old folks to stew in their bitterness. Statues of men on horseback? Irrelevant and not really artistic. That's my opinion. They aren't making any new ones are they?
I am surprised by the sheer number of Confederate monuments. The South is large, but 1,500+ seems excessive.
There were several foundries that mass produced the statues. The same soldier with his musket was sold in the north and south alike, with only the initials on his belt buckle differing.
This statuary was cheaply cast out of zinc-lead alloy and were pretty cheap to buy. The Daughters of the Confederacy, a group that was very active in placing Confederate monuments, purchased a lot of them, but other groups did as well, and they were cheap enough that they were affordable to someone who wanted one for a relative's grave. The bronze color was just a patina, and the patina was a low-cost option.
They became so common that they got a nickname; Old Joe.
Later on, the same Old Joe was sold after the Spanish-American war with a different hat. That Old Joe was sold as a monument in the Indian wars as well.
After WWI, a new Old Joe was created, and he was sold all over the nation in another spate of memorials, and then in the 1920s, the KKK underwent a huge resurgence and the Confederate Old Joe re-appeared once more, and continued to be sold until the outbreak of WWII, when the metal shortage finally stopped the production for good.
There were some real quality monuments that were produced, but the statuary that the famous sculptors created, such as those seen in Washington D.C. and some of the larger cities, was a rarity in comparison and was much more expensive. Many of those became projects that went on for years.
The Grant Memorial in front of the Capitol took almost 25 years to complete, and it became the sculptor's life's work. He died before he ever saw the completed monument.
There is a lot of emotion engendered by Civil War monuments, on both sides.
Art does not exist in a vacuum, it represents aspects of our society and people have feelings, sometimes very strong feelings, about what it is representing.
How do I feel about the "art aspect"? Art does not exist as art alone, it is not neutral, what it represents is in the eye (and heart and mind) of the beholder. I think the local citizens have the right to remove art that is no longer meaningful to their area. That's what Charlottesville citizens did, their elected council decided to remove the Civil War statues. Outsiders, namely white supremacists, then came in and started the whole shebang because they did not like the local decision.
Times have changed except in very Deep South towns where Time stands still and all the intelligent children have moved to better jobs and lives, leaving the old folks to stew in their bitterness. Statues of men on horseback? Irrelevant and not really artistic. That's my opinion. They aren't making any new ones are they?
I am surprised by the sheer number of Confederate monuments. The South is large, but 1,500+ seems excessive.
I've never been to the south, so I wouldn't know - but that's really fascinating. Perhaps a psychologist would say that that's how they dealt with the trauma of losing the Civil War? By making memorials extolling their bravery and promoting the idea that people were revered and didn't die in vain?
There is a lot of emotion engendered by Civil War monuments, on both sides.
Art does not exist in a vacuum, it represents aspects of our society and people have feelings, sometimes very strong feelings, about what it is representing.
How do I feel about the "art aspect"? Art does not exist as art alone, it is not neutral, what it represents is in the eye (and heart and mind) of the beholder. I think the local citizens have the right to remove art that is no longer meaningful to their area. That's what Charlottesville citizens did, their elected council decided to remove the Civil War statues. Outsiders, namely white supremacists, then came in and started the whole shebang because they did not like the local decision.
Times have changed except in very Deep South towns where Time stands still and all the intelligent children have moved to better jobs and lives, leaving the old folks to stew in their bitterness. Statues of men on horseback? Irrelevant and not really artistic. That's my opinion. They aren't making any new ones are they?
There are a number of factors at issue. I agree that art does not exist in a vacuum. I have serious reservations however about the removal of certain art, especially by small groups of local citizens or officials. The fact that times change can indeed be the very reason WHY it is important not to remove representative art, no matter how discomforting it is.
Factor one:
Your argument has an ultimate expression in the work of ISIS, which blew up giant historical Buddhist statuary. Why? Because that art did not represent its ideology, and by destroying it they felt that they were doing the work of their religion. I doubt that there is a scholar around that wouldn't agree that the ultimate purpose was to enforce their values and rewrite history for the average person.
If you have any reservations about the loss of historical art to the whims of whatever generation happens to currently be alive, then your position has fatal flaws. Grand Central Station was scheduled to be demolished by the officials of one generation, because it was prime real estate. The British attempted to burn the White House. Rome destroyed the Temple on the Mount. The hanging gardens of Babylon no longer exist.
The phrase that "history is written by the victors" is both a fact and a warning that justice is not served by avoiding it or attempting to re-write it, but by staring it in the face and then resolving to do better.
The German concentration camps are as much an affront to a group of people as can be imagined. Instead of their being torn down, they are preserved. Are there neo-nazis that look upon them as a representation of something positive and the power that their ideology once held? Of course.
Factor two:
A major problem within the U.S. is that we have become a nation of people that has completely forgotten the Biblical interdiction on worshiping idols. We might not worship golden calves... although the statue of the bull on Wall Street is an adult golden calf... we do hold flags as idols and fetish objects, and we hold various symbols as sacred to our ideology and identity, without regard or consideration for conflicting views.
If you are firmly of the opinion that the statuary should be removed as a symbol of oppression that no longer represents our <cough> enlightend society, then please explain your emotional reaction when I suggest this: Mount Rushmore and the giant Presidents shown there are on land the Indians consider sacred, and are an affront to their religion. I propose that we do as ISIS did and blow those busts up. They are very much a symbol of the ongoing oppression of the remaining natives, who had their birthrights stolen by the power of the United States. If you don't want Rushmore blown up, please explain why.
Factor Three:
Continuation of viable historic districts. There are a number of smaller towns in the south that are just now revitalizing their downtowns. Core to the ambiance of those places is the experience of walking back through places not overwhelmed by McDonalds or WalMart or attempts to raze and remold the areas into the newer, cheaper version of mixed use development, as dictated by developers with only an eye for profit. You can't have real historic districts if you don't adhere to the concept of history and what was considered art AT THAT TIME.
Factor Four:
Education is sorely lacking in this country. There are these devices called "plaques" that are placed around historical areas for those who can still read. Those plaques are used to educate and place what is being seen in context. Where destruction and removal sweep the dirt of history under a sanitized lumpy rug, education places them in context and makes those who read and understand more wise.
Having grown up in the north, the first time I saw Stone Mountain in Georgia I was appalled. When I read further about Sherman's march to the sea, and the total devastation and destruction upon civilians, I better understood the nose-thumbing that it, in part, represented.
In short, the removal of statuary is ill-considered and likely more divisive than leaving the statues in place.
Times have changed except in very Deep South towns where Time stands still and all the intelligent children have moved to better jobs and lives, leaving the old folks to stew in their bitterness. Statues of men on horseback? Irrelevant and not really artistic. That's my opinion. They aren't making any new ones are they?
So... all of the intelligent people have left the south and all that are left are old folk stewing in their bitterness? Wow. Just, wow.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
