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There is an interesting argument for tearing down all statues of powerful people. There are precious few examples where someone powerful is worth idolising - ti

by roenxi 2y ago

There is an interesting argument for tearing down all statues of powerful people. There are precious few examples where someone powerful is worth idolising - titles like "the Great" are often short for "the Great Number of Needless Deaths". Any king stands, necessarily, in opposition to a fully democratic process. And I think it goes well beyond the English speaking nations that most people got their land by their ancestors invading and conquering some other people. I'd be on board with this if we stick to statues of people who made scientific or philosophical contributions. People who gave their lives to governing or deciding who owns what land should get at most grateful obelisks. Their contributions, good or bad, aren't that worthy in the long run and it is usually ugly work papered over by a veneer of motivated reasoning and nationalism.

readthenotes1 2y ago
Most great men were not good men, not even by the standards of their day.
- tbrownaw 2y ago
  So, what direction does the causation point?
labster 2y ago
Shall we destroy or take down Michelangelo’s David, then? A statue of a king who waged religious wars against the natives of Palestine, conquering Zion to make his capital city. Seems like a cause du jour, right? The problem with iconoclasm is when to stop. The article deals with this as well — people want the Cecil Rhodes statue gone, but not renaming the building or the scholarship. But the argument for tearing all of something down ends in a bonfire of the vanities, followed by some years of sheepish disavowal of the fire.
- roenxi 2y ago
  > Shall we destroy or take down Michelangelo’s David, then? A statue of a king who waged religious wars against the natives of Palestine, conquering Zion to make his capital city. Seems like a cause du jour, right? Yes. For the reasons you outline.
- eesmith 2y ago
  Your example distracts from the issue by broadening the topic from Cecil Rhodes, who we know was a real person, with plenty of historical evidence about what he did, to a Biblical figure with precious little other supporting evidence. Take your assertion that he was "a king". That's certainly the general cultural interpretation. Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David#Historicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David#Historicity > Biblical evidence indicates that David's Judah was something less than a full-fledged monarchy: it often calls him negid, meaning "prince" or "chief", rather than melek, meaning "king"; the biblical David sets up none of the complex bureaucracy that a kingdom needs (even his army is made up of volunteers), and his followers are largely related to him and from his small home-area around Hebron. It then lists some of "the full range of possible interpretations" for the Biblical account: "a heroic tale similar to King Arthur's legend or Homer's epics", "a political apology—an answer to contemporary charges against him, of his involvement in murders and regicide", "a brutal tyrant, a murderer and a lifelong vassal of Achish", and "the creation of those who lived generations after him". If the real David didn't do what the Bible says he did, then your question does not need to be answered. Did Goliath exist, and was he "six cubits and a span" - nearly 3 meters - tall?
  - labster 2y ago
    I understand your argument and it’s a good one, but I just disagree. A statue is a nothing but a giant symbol, and the symbolic actions matter far more than any real actions of a person in deciding to maintain that symbol. Most objectionable statues are of people that have passed out of living memory, and aren’t about the person per se; the statue symbolizes something, and people object to that something. In this case, colonialism. What you said about David and how historical he was is interesting and I love secondary analysis. But I’m terms of the argument I was making it’s neither here nor there, because the historical record is only important in how people interpret its meaning in current day. David’s actual role during his life does not change that he’s been a royalist symbol for the past two millennia.
    - eesmith 2y ago
      Are you suggesting we take down statues of Darth Vader? It's a giant symbol of someone who ordered the genocide of the population of an entire planet. That's the sort of question you invite when you broaden the topic. When it's just a distraction from the actual issue, which is about one specific person rather than a general framework of rules which can be applied to a broader range of statues.
tbrownaw 2y ago
"Those who fall to remember history are doomed to repeate it." Excising everything ungood from memory doesn't help with this.
- roenxi 2y ago
  I don't think anyone is suggesting excising Rhodes from history. That'd be a completely different matter. But I don't think we should have statues of people who were, effectively, politicians. There are some politicians who are better than others but as a class they aren't the sort of people who should get special commemoration over the long term. Even above-average politicians tend to be a bit scummy.

by roenxi 2y ago

readthenotes1 2y ago

Most great men were not good men, not even by the standards of their day.

tbrownaw 2y ago
So, what direction does the causation point?

labster 2y ago

Shall we destroy or take down Michelangelo’s David, then? A statue of a king who waged religious wars against the natives of Palestine, conquering Zion to make his capital city. Seems like a cause du jour, right? The problem with iconoclasm is when to stop. The article deals with this as well — people want the Cecil Rhodes statue gone, but not renaming the building or the scholarship. But the argument for tearing all of something down ends in a bonfire of the vanities, followed by some years of sheepish disavowal of the fire.

roenxi 2y ago
> Shall we destroy or take down Michelangelo’s David, then? A statue of a king who waged religious wars against the natives of Palestine, conquering Zion to make his capital city. Seems like a cause du jour, right? Yes. For the reasons you outline.
eesmith 2y ago
Your example distracts from the issue by broadening the topic from Cecil Rhodes, who we know was a real person, with plenty of historical evidence about what he did, to a Biblical figure with precious little other supporting evidence. Take your assertion that he was "a king". That's certainly the general cultural interpretation. Quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David#Historicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David#Historicity > Biblical evidence indicates that David's Judah was something less than a full-fledged monarchy: it often calls him negid, meaning "prince" or "chief", rather than melek, meaning "king"; the biblical David sets up none of the complex bureaucracy that a kingdom needs (even his army is made up of volunteers), and his followers are largely related to him and from his small home-area around Hebron. It then lists some of "the full range of possible interpretations" for the Biblical account: "a heroic tale similar to King Arthur's legend or Homer's epics", "a political apology—an answer to contemporary charges against him, of his involvement in murders and regicide", "a brutal tyrant, a murderer and a lifelong vassal of Achish", and "the creation of those who lived generations after him". If the real David didn't do what the Bible says he did, then your question does not need to be answered. Did Goliath exist, and was he "six cubits and a span" - nearly 3 meters - tall?
- labster 2y ago
  I understand your argument and it’s a good one, but I just disagree. A statue is a nothing but a giant symbol, and the symbolic actions matter far more than any real actions of a person in deciding to maintain that symbol. Most objectionable statues are of people that have passed out of living memory, and aren’t about the person per se; the statue symbolizes something, and people object to that something. In this case, colonialism. What you said about David and how historical he was is interesting and I love secondary analysis. But I’m terms of the argument I was making it’s neither here nor there, because the historical record is only important in how people interpret its meaning in current day. David’s actual role during his life does not change that he’s been a royalist symbol for the past two millennia.
  - eesmith 2y ago
    Are you suggesting we take down statues of Darth Vader? It's a giant symbol of someone who ordered the genocide of the population of an entire planet. That's the sort of question you invite when you broaden the topic. When it's just a distraction from the actual issue, which is about one specific person rather than a general framework of rules which can be applied to a broader range of statues.

tbrownaw 2y ago

"Those who fall to remember history are doomed to repeate it." Excising everything ungood from memory doesn't help with this.

roenxi 2y ago
I don't think anyone is suggesting excising Rhodes from history. That'd be a completely different matter. But I don't think we should have statues of people who were, effectively, politicians. There are some politicians who are better than others but as a class they aren't the sort of people who should get special commemoration over the long term. Even above-average politicians tend to be a bit scummy.