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[WealthyRadish]

Removal from their original placements, destruction, defacement, and worst of all, revisionism after the fact, are all crimes against history.

Is moving something to a museum really a crime against history?

[Neonivek]

Which must be weighed against all the people who look at those icons and say "yes, please, again, now and forever", as was their original intent.

Which one?

we've never really had the kind of reconcillation with our past that other countries have had with theirs. Kind of almost we don't want to reconcile with it.

Because you don't... Your politics are based around what happened.

In fact I wonder if the US history shames people far more than any other country in existence.

Removal from their original placements, destruction, defacement, and worst of all, revisionism after the fact, are all crimes against history.

Is moving something to a museum really a crime against history?

Intentionally burying something with knowledge that no one will see it... So you can put it in a curated environment where you can lambast and demonize it? I dunno...

[wierd]

Something we are ashamed of, is still something we can draw strength from, as we can look at those icons, and say "Never again", and the constant reminder of that tainted past will constantly compel us to a better future.

Which must be weighed against all the people who look at those icons and say "yes, please, again, now and forever", as was their original intent.

It is a mistake to believe that you can forcibly change another person's perspective or beliefs. You can kill them, and in so doing, prevent propogation of that belief structure through cultural genocide, but you cannot make that person into a mirror of your own beliefs through force, and it is idiotic to entertain the idea.

Best you divorce yourself from it now.

[wierd]

Removal from their original placements, destruction, defacement, and worst of all, revisionism after the fact, are all crimes against history.

Is moving something to a museum really a crime against history?

Egypt thinks so.
https://www.cemml.colostate.edu/cultural/09476/laws10egyptenl.html

[smjjames]

Removal from their original placements, destruction, defacement, and worst of all, revisionism after the fact, are all crimes against history.

Is moving something to a museum really a crime against history?

Depends on whether the context of said thing was preserved.

Which must be weighed against all the people who look at those icons and say "yes, please, again, now and forever", as was their original intent.

Which one?

we've never really had the kind of reconcillation with our past that other countries have had with theirs. Kind of almost we don't want to reconcile with it.

Because you don't... Your politics are based around what happened.

In fact I wonder if the US history shames people far more than any other country in existence.

I'd say EVERYBODY's politics are based around what happened. It's something that happened to US, it's OUR history, you can't understand it without understanding the politics as well. If it happens in another country, it's easier to separate politics from it as it's not OUR politics or history.

Obviously there are plenty of things that require understanding the politics of the time, it's just more visceral to us as it's our history. I mean, would we ever get as worked up over the French Revolution?

[WealthyRadish]

Is moving something to a museum really a crime against history?

Egypt thinks so.
https://www.cemml.colostate.edu/cultural/09476/laws10egyptenl.html

That's a completely different issue of one country plundering artifacts from another, and is only relevant in the sense that both issues relate to museums.

[Neonivek]

I'd say EVERYBODY's politics are based around what happened.

Sorry I didn't mean YOUR politics... I meant your as in... the USA.

It isn't that other countries don't inform themselves through history, or that others aren't just as bad or worse. So much that the USA is very... History Centric a lot of the time.

THAT is why the USA is still trying to make sense of the American Civil war today... and needs to constantly revise it and put it into modern context and pave over parts of it they don't like.

[wierd]

How simplistic your must think history or historical significance is.

Placement is never chosen arbitrarily! By moving an artifact, you destroy that careful decision making, and destroy future generations the insight into the minds of the people who erected those monuments.  In egyptology especially, the ritual placement of the artifacts is as important as the artifacts themselves!!

[smjjames]

Being a (relatively) young country probably contributes to that.

Not sure if any other countries are as History Centric as we are, or at least in the same way we are.

How simplistic your must think history or historical significance is.

Placement is never chosen arbitrarily! By moving an artifact, you destroy that careful decision making, and destroy future generations the insight into the minds of the people who erected those monuments.  In egyptology especially, the ritual placement of the artifacts is as important as the artifacts themselves!!

That's why archaeologists record everything BEFORE they move it to a museum. Though a lot of Egyptology was done before archaeology became the meticulous science it is now.

[wierd]

If the work can be done without disturbing the site at all, modern archeologists dont disturb the site at all.  Disturbing the site destroys evidence, destroys historical records. Nowhere is this MORE apparent than in the history of egyptology, where digs have destroyed immense wealth of antiquity.

[smjjames]

If the work can be done without disturbing the site at all, modern archeologists dont disturb the site at all.  Disturbing the site destroys evidence, destroys historical records. Nowhere is this MORE apparent than in the history of egyptology, where digs have destroyed immense wealth of antiquity.

Which is why what you see in museums are often reproductions of things, if possible.

True, and a good deal of egyptology was done before archaeology became the meticulous science it is now.

[Dunamisdeos]

Are there people who, if they had not seen this statue, would not have become white supremacists? Are we going to prevent future white supremacy by removing a monument that reminds us of that time where hate was allowed to reach its logical end and fields upon fields were filled with the resulting dead?

I think that the white supremacists venerate the statue, not the statue to the supremacists. By taking it down I think we are depriving future generations a tool with which to remember. If we remove the incident from the public eye, it is only a matter of time when it will be forgotten and allowed to happen again.

In essence, it should be kept specifically because it is jarring to our current society.

[Max™]

I'm not sure another country will briefly form within and then attack the rest of the US due to people taking down a statue, even if they forget what it was for in the first place, and it would kinda require the internet be destroyed for it to actually be forgotten completely at this point. The internet never forgets.

In fact I wonder if the US history shames people far more than any other country in existence.

Been busy crafting drums and shit and only checked in a couple of other sites but I did catch that image of the county flag being burned before it apparently vanished, so those who think they saw it can take comfort that if it wasn't real although I'm at least as crazy as you are, I'm not crazy enough to delve into the "it's a massive left wing conspiracy" garbage.

Regarding shame, the US still hasn't come to terms with the fact that it had an empire and kinda still does even if all you look at is the land under our bases around the world. We still haven't come to terms with the fucking horrible shit that has gone down in Central and South America either due to us directly, or due to our enabling shit because we wanted something else.

We have no real certainty of how many native americans lived here, and there isn't much interest in finding out exactly how much of their blood soaked into the ground this nation sits on. Similarly, Neo had a point earlier about Rushmore which as I recall was supposedly going to be a monument for and honoring the tribes there... and instead, well... yeah.

Bonus: I saw some pictures of neonazis being silly string'D and glitter'D which is just as hilarious as you expect it would be!

[Rolan7]

Is moving something to a museum really a crime against history?

I've been won over to this solution.  The idea of constantly building new layers onto ancient monuments has some merit, but also issues (practical and political).

There's always going to be some bias or "revisionism" when presenting the past, but that doesn't mean leaving monuments where they are for all time.  Monuments barely even teach - they're mostly a piece out of history, with maybe a little explanation.  By placing them in museums we can provide modern context and much more explanation.

Which might sound like "revisionism" or even "demonization", but the Civil War museums I've visited (and there were several) never demonized the soldiers of either side.  Maybe certain Union generals...  and high praise of a Confederate one...  But primarily they've always humanized the people involved.  A big theme is how the conflict split families apart, setting brother against brother.

That's just my experience growing up in the South with parents who liked museums.  Maybe there was revisionism I just didn't notice, but I feel like it was pretty good.

"It belongs in a museum!"

[smjjames]

Are there people who, if they had not seen this statue, would not have become white supremacists? Are we going to prevent future white supremacy by removing a monument that reminds us of that time where hate was allowed to reach its logical end and fields upon fields were filled with the resulting dead?

I think that the white supremacists venerate the statue, not the statue to the supremacists. By taking it down I think we are depriving future generations a tool with which to remember. If we remove the incident from the public eye, it is only a matter of time when it will be forgotten and allowed to happen again.

In essence, it should be kept specifically because it is jarring to our current society.

Thats.... definetly a good point there.

The dillema though is that the white supremacists/nationalists/neonazis are using it to their own ends, so, how do you stop them from doing that, short of simply removing the statue itself?

Regarding shame, the US still hasn't come to terms with the fact that it had an empire and kinda still does even if all you look at is the land under our bases around the world. We still haven't come to terms with the fucking horrible shit that has gone down in Central and South America either due to us directly, or due to our enabling shit because we wanted something else.

Had an empire? Unlike Great Britian, we never lost any of it. Yes, we let the Philippines go their own way, but really, most of our 'empire' comes from islands gained during WWII. For all intents and purposes, we're still an 'empire', even if all of our 'colonies' (insert jokes about Britain here) are islands.

And yeah, there's a lot of shit we did in the Cold War that we haven't reconcilled with the targeted nations over.