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[Trekkin]

I'm pretty sure having confederate monuments and buildings named after confederate generals only serves to honor the confederacy.  They don't actually teach you the details of those negative parts of history; they only serve to try spinning those parts as positive, something to be respected and emulated.

Needless to say, the Confederacy should be neither respected nor emulated.

Not to mention that most of those monuments were built fifty years after the fact by Lost Cause of the South cultists specifically to whitewash history and edit slavery out of the reasons for the Civil War. You will note they never saw fit to immortalize Robert E. Lee's penchant for having brine poured on the freshly-whipped backs of his slaves, for example, or Senator John C. Crittenden's last-ditch effort to stop the imminent Civil War by amending the Constitution to permanently acknowledge slavery -- and which the Southern senators very much liked, despite the Lost Cause's persistent promulgation of the idea that slavery had nothing to do with the War.

The monuments and the schools and all the rest of it aren't about history, except insofar as they are the products of a concerted effort to misrepresent history.

[SalmonGod]

Which all isn't the specific aspect of that history the preservationists are concerned about losing, right?

[WealthyRadish]

Thanks for that rant on the internet, Frumple.  I didn't have it in me at the time to write something similar, but that's basically how I feel about it.

I think the primary limiting factor on human advancement has always been ability to communicate, and there's only two developments in history that approach the internet's level of importants on this front -- written language and the printing press.  Both of which directly coincided with massive upgrades to the human condition, but also a great deal of temporary instability as new establishments rose to conflict with old.

Unless the end result is that we actually communicate less.

I think that's impossible, at least as it currently exists in this part of the world. Just by skimming a single typical wikipedia article, you're taking advantage of thousands of communications mushed together, on topics that a person may never find in a paper encyclopedia (if they ever opened one) and could easily go their entire life without encountering in conversation or reading.

Mass manipulation getting easier is my bigger worry, but it's not a forgone conclusion. It just really looks like that's where we're going with the concentration in industry and erosion of public policy, but for as long as the internet maintains its current physical structure it'll be possible to stay free to some extent with a little technical circumvention. If that structure changes toward centralization of access and transmission, though, I think it won't be long for the policy changes to follow that'll make the internet as we experience it today remembered only as a haven of criminals and terrorists.

I'm also very skeptical of people suggesting it's an inherently liberating development. As we experience it, it is, but there are 730 million users in China absent from this conversation who have had a very different experience.

[Trekkin]

Which all isn't the specific aspect of that history the preservationists are concerned about losing, right?

I don't see how it'd be lost anyway; these statues, as noted by the video you linked, are mass-produced items whose purchase, placement, and (frequently) funding by the United Daughters of the Confederacy are all on record.
Frankly, if we're going to lose any historical information by getting rid of the statues themselves, then somebody better put up a statue of Captain America soon before we forget how we won WWII.

[sluissa]

I think that renaming not only a politically driven decision, but also a brilliant way of whitewashing the local history of any undesirables. It's a great idea to ignore parts of history and remove signs that the past was not as we would have liked it! I think we should go further and rename Virginia as the current name is reminiscent of history and the bloody english and that's terrible. In fact, we should stop teaching history in schools and establish a proper department to modify records in order to avoid mistakes in proles' thought! Truly, we are the harbingers of peace and prosperity!

The linked article points out that the school was specifically named after Stonewall by officials, as a fuck you to people calling for desegregated schools.  Not nearly the same thing as Virginia.  Also the officials that renamed the schools in the south were likely local school board members, same as the ones proposing to change it now.  But yeah, I'm sure all the people who disagree with you are arrogant elites and all the people that agree with you are angry poor people.

Also that's not what whitewashed means in this context.  Whitewashed means lightening history, e.g. by drawing Jesus with cream cheese pale skin.  Even ignoring that Stonewall Jackson is white, renaming the school wouldn't be whitewashing.  Giving a black general credit for Stonewall's quote, that would be the correct use of the word.  Of course it never goes in that direction, hence why its called whitewashing and not a more racially generic term.

Just to note, while having a convenient double meaning with regards to race discussion, "whitewashing" when it comes to censorship of history, isn't necessarily restricted to "making things lighter". It comes from an old term effectively meaning "putting thin, cheap a coat of paint on it to easily hide blemishes." A quick and easy way to ignore an ugly part of something without actually doing anything to acknowledge it or try to fix it. Thus is can be applied anywhere you want something censored in order to hide an ugly part of history.

I'm not entirely sure it applies to the discussion of the school, but the argument could be made that is what's happening.

[EnigmaticHat]

I'll concede, it also has that meaning

[SalmonGod]

I'm also very skeptical of people suggesting it's an inherently liberating development. As we experience it, it is, but there are 730 million users in China absent from this conversation who have had a very different experience.

On the other hand, it's easier for someone in China with a little savviness to get truth from the outside world than it was before the internet.  As I understand, breaking out of the firewall is not uncommon.

Mass manipulation is indeed easier... right now.  But it's fragile.  It doesn't take very much to circumvent or debunk it.  And I expect it to grow less successful as time goes on and the general population gets more savvy.

I'm more concerned about mass surveillance.

[Dunamisdeos]

Y'kno what I would prefer? Replacing the statues of civil war generals with general civil war memorials.

We could replace the status of these generals with monuments to the battles that were fought in remembrance of those we lost. This keeps the idea of remembering history while avoiding veneration of slavery.

Plaques can read: Battle of So-and-so
Fought by: General 1 and General 2
This many people died, it was awful, never again etc etc

[smjjames]

They'd have to be at the site of the battles for them to be in context though, and there's probably more statues of Civil War generals then there are battle sites. It would be better to put them in a museum that puts the whole thing in the proper context with everything. Something not dissimilar from the way Germany does it, though with a heck of a lot less self-flagellation since self-flagellation is only going to turn people off and we don't need self-flagellation here, just understanding the Civil War.

Unfortunately.... someone is going to have to pay to build those....

[Dunamisdeos]

They'd have to be at the site of the battles for them to be in context though, and there's probably more statues of Civil War generals then there are battle sites. It would be better to put them in a museum that puts the whole thing in the proper context with everything. Something not dissimilar from the way Germany does it, though with a heck of a lot less self-flagellation since self-flagellation is only going to turn people off and we don't need self-flagellation here, just understanding the Civil War.

Unfortunately.... someone is going to have to pay to build those....

Agreed on that, but it wouldn't have to be AT the sites in order to be effective. Lots of monuments aren't. Richmond has piles upon piles of monuments to generals and battles and all of that. Monument avenue, for instance, is in place for maximum exposure. You could replace the statues of the men themselves with more generalized monuments is the idea, and I bet you could crowdfund at least some of that.

Logistics aside, what do you guys think of it as a concept? Achieves preservationist goals of retaining history while avoiding a rally point for supremacists.

::EDIT::
I have a buddy who is a hardcore preservationist, and I pitched the idea. He started talking 3 times, and then paused...... and said the idea had merit. Now he's interested in thinking of iconography, and making sure the soldiers that died are mentioned, rather than keeping a statue of a confederate war hero.

[Neonivek]

But do we know if those statues Rally them, or do they chose them to Rally?

This is very similar to the "Videogames cause violence because these violent people play violent videogames".

[Max™]

I'm able to avoid getting a froth worked up over the "hiding the past/covering up the past/forgetting the past" stuff because others already covered it but I do think something is worth noting about these statues:

The past they represent and commemorate is not the civil war, it is the periods when segregationist movements gained power during the 1920's until around the 1960's, and though it may seem strange, it is unfair to tarnish the reputation of those figures who were actually involved in the civil war by acting as though the later statues are really about them.

There wasn't a huge movement in the 1870's and 1880's to go around and remind former slaves what their place was or what the statue builders thought it should be. No doubt there were those who were involved in the war that would agree with the purpose of these monuments to hatred, but that doesn't matter to this discussion really.

These statues and parks and buildings were built and dedicated and renamed decades after the war ended by racists who wanted to glorify their hate so tearing them down means we're going back to the default state of "fuck racists" by no longer allowing a monument they built to stand.

[Neonivek]

Is this true history or is this projection?

Since that is getting hard to tell nowadays.

Then again we do still celebrate April Fools... and that started out as a racist holiday, so the original intentions don't really matter. Heck the Vietnam War Memorials were likely a way to justify the Vietnam war.

[Max™]

Hopefully a clear example: imagine neonazis gained enough political power in germany to go around building monuments to hitler and his generals today, years after the war.

[smjjames]

But do we know if those statues Rally them, or do they chose them to Rally?

This is very similar to the "Videogames cause violence because these violent people play violent videogames".

Unlike video games, statues are inert and non-interactable (yeah you can touch them, but you guys know what I mean), so, that comparison doesn't really work. If confederate statues rallied them, we should be seeing them rally to just any ol' confederate statue, but they (the neonazis/white supremacists/etc from around the country) aren't going to just any ol' statue, they're going to pretty specific figures.

I'm able to avoid getting a froth worked up over the "hiding the past/covering up the past/forgetting the past" stuff because others already covered it but I do think something is worth noting about these statues:

The past they represent and commemorate is not the civil war, it is the periods when segregationist movements gained power during the 1920's until around the 1960's, and though it may seem strange, it is unfair to tarnish the reputation of those figures who were actually involved in the civil war by acting as though the later statues are really about them.

There wasn't a huge movement in the 1870's and 1880's to go around and remind former slaves what their place was or what the statue builders thought it should be. No doubt there were those who were involved in the war that would agree with the purpose of these monuments to hatred, but that doesn't matter to this discussion really.

These statues and parks and buildings were built and dedicated and renamed decades after the war ended by racists who wanted to glorify their hate so tearing them down means we're going back to the default state of "fuck racists" by no longer allowing a monument they built to stand.

A statue of Jesus made 1000 years ago represents Jesus just as much as one made 200 years ago. It's the representation that's important, not the age of the statue. Also, as long as the statue is an accurate depiction of the general or whoever, the age of it doesn't really matter as far as placing in a museum.

Also, I've seen references to General Lee saying that he did NOT want people to create statues/monuments/etc (other than memorials to battles) since he felt it would harm the healing of the country.