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And for that matter, if the people it was stolen from decided it wasn't worth preserving who are you to decide they're wrong? It's the height of colonial arroga

And for that matter, if the people it was stolen from decided it wasn't worth preserving who are you to decide they're wrong? It's the height of colonial arrogance to assume we know better, that we can value the works of other cultures better than they can. That our enjoyment is more important than their history and self-determination.

Ansil849 4y ago
> if the people it was stolen from decided it wasn't worth preserving who are you to decide they're wrong? Huh? Where did I "decide they're wrong"? In this hypothetical you're concocting, you're saying someone "looted" something from someone's trash? That's not what looting typically means. Looting typically means taking things the people from whom they were taken from deemed valuable.
- stormbrew 4y ago
  I'm agreeing with you ("and for that matter..." as in "yes, and..."). The 'you' is general, to the people arguing that enjoying the thing in the museum is a morally neutral thing, and I'm bringing it back to the broader topic where we're talking about looted goods.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
bawolff 4y ago
What's the actual harm here? If one group doesn't want something and another group finds the item interesting, who is hurt by the second group valuing it? If nobody is hurt, then where is the sin?
- stormbrew 4y ago
  the harm is that usually the decision about whether the "one group" wanted it was made by the "another group", probably without actually consulting with anyone in the first group. And you know what, maybe they don't in the moment. But essentially none of these things ever get repatriated even when the people they came from explicitly say they want them back. And you can see the logic that justifies this ongoing theft all over this comment thread: "the people who stole it are dead so it's ours now." This is the problem with all of these after-the-fact justifications. In order for them to exist, the things have to have been taken before the destruction. If I steal your TV and then your house burns down, have I "saved" your TV even though I still won't give it back? Am I now in the moral right? These small analogies are obviously not perfect, but I think they illustrate the order of causality when we talk about "harm".
  - bawolff 4y ago
    > If I steal your TV and then your house burns down, have I "saved" your TV even though I still won't give it back? What if you die and i buy your tv at an estate sale, and then later your ancestors change their mind? [I'm mostly just posing this as a thought experiment, i dont think its exactly the same as this either] I mean there is a lot of nuance involved. Sometimes i think repatriating artifacts is the right thing to do. However, if we were talking about say Roman artificats i would say that the modern descendents are so far removed that their claim is no more legitament than anyone else. But there are certainly cases where modern descendents have compelling claims.
    - stormbrew 4y ago
      Rome is a very particular case. I suppose some friction in this whole comment blob might be from people trying to limit their scope to the artifact in the article. But really, for the most part Roman artifacts are in Rome or Italy or the descendants of Roman client states they came from. Rome was never really looted like Africa or the Americas or even much of Asia were over the colonial power era. Likewise, neither were the colonial powers themselves, so there’s no real culture drain being helped along by holding on to a Roman or British or French or Spanish artifact. For the most part when conversations need to be had about restoring artifacts, it’s that period we’re really talking about.
Dylan16807 4y ago
The importance of "self-determination to have something become trashed specifically because you don't care about it any more" is extremely low.
__turbobrew__ 4y ago
I have a hard time categorizing ISIS destroying thousands of years old ruins and artefacts as “self-determination”. If I had the choice between stealing these artefacts and putting them in a museum versus letting a radical group of religious fundamentalists destroy a valuable part of ancient history I would chose the former.
- stormbrew 4y ago
  You can have a hard time categorizing it all you want, that's still what it is. People making choices and doing things that have consequences. You just don't like it, and that's fine. I can't say I really like it either. But it doesn't mean it's your job to fix it or that you have a right to just take the things preemptively. Continuing to perpetuate colonial abuse is not going to somehow Magically Fix Everything This Time For Sure, it's just going to keep making things worse.

Ansil849 4y ago

> if the people it was stolen from decided it wasn't worth preserving who are you to decide they're wrong? Huh? Where did I "decide they're wrong"? In this hypothetical you're concocting, you're saying someone "looted" something from someone's trash? That's not what looting typically means. Looting typically means taking things the people from whom they were taken from deemed valuable.

stormbrew 4y ago
I'm agreeing with you ("and for that matter..." as in "yes, and..."). The 'you' is general, to the people arguing that enjoying the thing in the museum is a morally neutral thing, and I'm bringing it back to the broader topic where we're talking about looted goods.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

bawolff 4y ago

What's the actual harm here? If one group doesn't want something and another group finds the item interesting, who is hurt by the second group valuing it? If nobody is hurt, then where is the sin?

stormbrew 4y ago
the harm is that usually the decision about whether the "one group" wanted it was made by the "another group", probably without actually consulting with anyone in the first group. And you know what, maybe they don't in the moment. But essentially none of these things ever get repatriated even when the people they came from explicitly say they want them back. And you can see the logic that justifies this ongoing theft all over this comment thread: "the people who stole it are dead so it's ours now." This is the problem with all of these after-the-fact justifications. In order for them to exist, the things have to have been taken before the destruction. If I steal your TV and then your house burns down, have I "saved" your TV even though I still won't give it back? Am I now in the moral right? These small analogies are obviously not perfect, but I think they illustrate the order of causality when we talk about "harm".
- bawolff 4y ago
  > If I steal your TV and then your house burns down, have I "saved" your TV even though I still won't give it back? What if you die and i buy your tv at an estate sale, and then later your ancestors change their mind? [I'm mostly just posing this as a thought experiment, i dont think its exactly the same as this either] I mean there is a lot of nuance involved. Sometimes i think repatriating artifacts is the right thing to do. However, if we were talking about say Roman artificats i would say that the modern descendents are so far removed that their claim is no more legitament than anyone else. But there are certainly cases where modern descendents have compelling claims.
  - stormbrew 4y ago
    Rome is a very particular case. I suppose some friction in this whole comment blob might be from people trying to limit their scope to the artifact in the article. But really, for the most part Roman artifacts are in Rome or Italy or the descendants of Roman client states they came from. Rome was never really looted like Africa or the Americas or even much of Asia were over the colonial power era. Likewise, neither were the colonial powers themselves, so there’s no real culture drain being helped along by holding on to a Roman or British or French or Spanish artifact. For the most part when conversations need to be had about restoring artifacts, it’s that period we’re really talking about.

Dylan16807 4y ago

The importance of "self-determination to have something become trashed specifically because you don't care about it any more" is extremely low.

__turbobrew__ 4y ago

I have a hard time categorizing ISIS destroying thousands of years old ruins and artefacts as “self-determination”. If I had the choice between stealing these artefacts and putting them in a museum versus letting a radical group of religious fundamentalists destroy a valuable part of ancient history I would chose the former.

stormbrew 4y ago
You can have a hard time categorizing it all you want, that's still what it is. People making choices and doing things that have consequences. You just don't like it, and that's fine. I can't say I really like it either. But it doesn't mean it's your job to fix it or that you have a right to just take the things preemptively. Continuing to perpetuate colonial abuse is not going to somehow Magically Fix Everything This Time For Sure, it's just going to keep making things worse.