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[Tack]

Spoiler: It's like there's statues of c*nts everywhere (click to show/hide)

Just because history is bad doesn't mean it isn't history.
Also, Lee isn't known for fighting the war, he's known for signing the armistice.

[Descan]

Monuments aren't history, though, or not historical documents. They're symbols of the place and people they're in. If a symbol does not match with the people or place, then they have the right to take it down without people wailing and gnashing their teeth over it, especially when it's a statue with a sordid history barely connected to the actual event it's "commemorating." (It's not like it was put up right after the civil war, it was put up 80 years later during the second KKK, specifically as a "fuck you" to the non-white population.)

[Loud Whispers]

Monuments aren't history, though, or not historical documents. They're symbols of the place and people they're in. If a symbol does not match with the people or place, then they have the right to take it down without people wailing and gnashing their teeth over it, especially when it's a statue with a sordid history barely connected to the actual event it's "commemorating." (It's not like it was put up right after the civil war, it was put up 80 years later during the second KKK, specifically as a "fuck you" to the non-white population.)

Monuments are physical embodiments of history though, they were literally built to commemorate some event or person in history

[Descan]

That doesn't make them history or historical documents. They're a token, they offer no information besides "This is a thing that [probably, some monuments aren't about real events or are about faked events] happened," and "the people in this area support and approve whatever this monument is commemorating." Historical documentation of events and people, besides the documentation of the monument itself, is not damaged or helped by the removal or addition of the monument.

You can have plaques and information kiosks and such to go WITH the monument, but a) that is not necessarily connected to the monument itself, you can have the plaque without the monument, and vice versa, and b) in this specific instance, as far as I'm aware, there was no such informative plaque.

And you can have it be akin to a historical document, sure! But that's not intrinsic to it being a monument; Thousand year old statues with no surrounding documentation, "best we got" tier documentation.

In this instance: It's not thousands of years old with no surrounding documentation, like the monuments ISIS blows up. It's not supported by the population it dwells within. And it offers no new insight into the time or place it was put up or what it was commemorating. It *only* serves as a symbol for the population and the place, and the population does not want it. Why keep it up?

[Teneb]

That doesn't make them history or historical documents. They're a token, they offer no information besides "This is a thing that [probably, some monuments aren't about real events or are about faked events] happened," and "the people in this area support and approve whatever this monument is commemorating." Historical documentation of events and people, besides the documentation of the monument itself, is not damaged or helped by the removal or addition of the monument.

You can have plaques and information kiosks and such to go WITH the monument, but a) that is not necessarily connected to the monument itself, you can have the plaque without the monument, and vice versa, and b) in this specific instance, as far as I'm aware, there was no such informative plaque.

In this instance: It's not thousands of years old with no surrounding documentation, like the monuments ISIS blows up. It's not supported by the population it dwells within. And it offers no new insight into the time or place it was put up or what it was commemorating. It *only* serves as a symbol for the population and the place, and the population does not want it. Why keep it up?

A graphical item can certainly be a historical document. Just because it may not be a factual representation doesn't mean it's not history. The circumstances of its construction, where it was placed, when, what it depicts, what it meant to those who commissioned it, those who observe it, those who like it, those who dislike it. It's all history.

[Descan]

a) I edited my post.

b) that all falls under "historical documentation about the monument itself" which is a bit recursive.

c) you can have all that without the actual statue, in surrounding documentation in museums or city halls. In fact, the statue itself offers nothing to most of that. It's not like they put a "Made in China" sticker on Robert E. Lee's ass.

[Derpy Dev]

It's not like they put a "Made in China" sticker on Robert E. Lee's ass.

Well that's getting sigged.

[Rolan7]

Not sure why this spilled over from Ameripol but I'm just going to keep memeing "It belongs in a museum!"
I had played a Gnome cleric of Garl Glittergold once who kept making that reference and trying to preserve relics, good and bad.

[scriver]

...Julius Ceasar?

When Caesar scouted/battle around Britain, Londinium wasn't founded. It was founded during the reign of Emperor Claudius when the Romans started conquering, annexing and replacing all the celtic tribes and chieftains. Coupled with the near complete annihilation of the druids (imagine someone goes to your country, murders your priests, doctors, librarians, advisors and then asks you to remain docile) and their creeping annexation, the resentment of the client and conquered celtic tribes boiled into outright enmity and revolt. Where before the tribes were constantly infighting, they now fought united against the Romans - led by the warlord Boudica, who has an anime-tier tragic backstory depending on which version you're hearing. She burnt down Roman city after Roman city, leaving no survivors. When she went to London she massacred everyone there, when she found a temple full of weeping and scared Roman/Brits she set the temple on fire, shit was so lit. Then with a horde of 100,000 celts she attacked the only Roman garrison there, which numbered 5,000 men. Unfortunately this worked against them as the Romans had deliberately abandoned London to get to a more strategically optimal location (where they could not be surrounded by her superior numbers) and the psychological impact of the Romans having nowhere to retreat meant that they were willing to fight to the death, kill many celts and had lewd levels of discipline - resulting in their surprise victory and the death of celtic england.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Come at me Bromans

I must insist the death of a Celtic Roman came when the Anglo -saxo-jutes macchiavellied the brythons into a corner.

It's not like they put a "Made in China" sticker on Robert E. Lee's ass.

Well that's getting sigged.

Now I'm left wondering if modern statues are outsourced and if so do they come with a little mark like that on them?

[Loud Whispers]

That doesn't make them history or historical documents. They're a token, they offer no information besides "This is a thing that [probably, some monuments aren't about real events or are about faked events] happened," and "the people in this area support and approve whatever this monument is commemorating." Historical documentation of events and people, besides the documentation of the monument itself, is not damaged or helped by the removal or addition of the monument.

Wtf is this shit that only a piece of paper is history. Nuclear bomb the pyramids and I will weep because history just died. I'm wounded inside by such a scathing misunderstanding of what the hell a monument is, like fuck, come to the UK we literally have a place called Monument where there is a giant Monument that is a token to when London burnt down. They offer a hell of a lot of information by design and existence, and I don't understand how the hell a monument represents the views of the people in its vicinity any more than Londoners support burning down London because we happen to build a lot of monuments to London burning or warlords burning London

By that same logic the UK naval base that has a big monument of an actual nazi bomb in it supports getting bombed by nazis, and says nothing by existing and so can just be obliterated becuz

You can have plaques and information kiosks and such to go WITH the monument, but a) that is not necessarily connected to the monument itself, you can have the plaque without the monument, and vice versa, and b) in this specific instance, as far as I'm aware, there was no such informative plaque.
And you can have it be akin to a historical document, sure! But that's not intrinsic to it being a monument; Thousand year old statues with no surrounding documentation, "best we got" tier documentation.

What the hell happened to the American continent that only papers are history there

In this instance: It's not thousands of years old with no surrounding documentation, like the monuments ISIS blows up. It's not supported by the population it dwells within. And it offers no new insight into the time or place it was put up or what it was commemorating. It *only* serves as a symbol for the population and the place, and the population does not want it. Why keep it up?

America is a young country, everything can be destroyed if America has so little history. If the locals don't want it that's a fair point and there's little argument against removing it there. Offering no new insight (to whom?) is no excuse for destruction of monuments, if it indeed offers nothing to whatever is a suitable judge for destroying history. I've already said what I think about the point of monuments, but as a last point - always be cautious with redacting, destroying or changing monuments for stupid and political reasons. Once you start making nothing sacred, everything becomes a political battleground, and a nation begins using all of their power to destroy the monuments of the 'other'. See-saw politics as applied to monuments, just look at the sheer tragedy enacted upon Ukraine's WW monuments or gommiements

I must insist the death of a Celtic Roman came when the Anglo -saxo-jutes macchiavellied the brythons into a corner.

Celtic Britain and Celtic Roman Britain were different things, the death of Celtic Britain was directly precipitated by the Romans and subsequently led to the formation of Celtic-Roman culture. And then as you say, Celtic-Roman Britain dies with the germanics lolling into celtland germanicland

[Dunamisdeos]

It's not like they put a "Made in China" sticker on Robert E. Lee's ass.

Well that's getting sigged.

Is it just me or is the lack of a qualifier for Robert E. Lee's STATUE bringing up some amusing imagery?

[Descan]

that was such a gross misunderstanding of everything I said (esp. the pyramid quip, for fucks sakes I *literally* mentioned thousand year old monuments) that I feel justified in ignoring it all. strawmangohome

[Loud Whispers]

that was such a gross misunderstanding of everything I said (esp. the pyramid quip, for fucks sakes I *literally* mentioned thousand year old monuments) that I feel justified in ignoring it all. strawmangohome

nod an argumen ;DDDDDDD

Monuments aren't history, though, or not historical documents. They're symbols of the place and people they're in.

[Descan]

?

So you take something I said, deleted all the surrounding contextualization, and that's your argument? It's not even the worst thing there.

But then, people already were all over Robert E. Lee's Chinese ass, so I guess you got the scraps.

[Arx]

The point LW is making is that you keep asserting that there is no value to monuments as long as the information they convey is written down somewhere. If that wasn't what you were trying to say, you communicated it quite badly.