sandbiscuits wrote:IvanTheTerrible wrote:sandbiscuits wrote:
I think we may be talking about two different things. Your issue, you wrote, is that people are becoming too offended to talk about the past, and the risk is that we'll forget about it. I agree that that is a bad outcome. As you wrote, slavery and the Civil War did happen and we need to own it. This is what education and scholarly studies and oral histories and so on are for. On top of all this, I am saying that the monuments that honor enemies of the U.S. don't have a rightful place in our society. By all means, don't forget about Robert E. Lee, but let's not celebrate him. After all, this is what statues of individuals from the past do. He may have fought well, but he was on the wrong team. I don't see any statues of British generals from the Revoluationary War in the U.S.
That's just the thing. I don't see them as enemies of the U.S. but merely as brave soldiers who fought to preserve their way of life. One person's enemy may be another person's hero. Removing these monuments to me seems to suggest a whitewash of history or simply an attempt to appease the PC crowd and those easily offended. I'm sure there are many in the South who take offense to monuments of Grant but I wouldn't advocate for his removal either. The comparison to British generals in the Revolutionary War is different because they were never a part of the U.S. They were in fact outsiders. The Civil War is much more complicated - it was brother vs. brother, U.S. vs U.S.
During the Revolutionary War, brothers most cerainly fought brothers, and neighbors fought neighbors. It was extremely complicated and violent. (Quick aside, this book:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/book ... hoock.html, that came out last year is a really good peek at just how violent and complicated. People living in the same communities and towns had differing views and neighbors turned on each other in an ugly way. Many Americans colonists considered themselves British subjects and did not advocate for independence. We all know how this turned out (spoiler: the Patriots won), but at the time it was not certain which side would be victorious. If the loyalists had won and put down the revolution, we'd have a very different set of memorials today. And I doubt George Washington would be one of them no matter how well he fought. As you say, one person's enemy may be another person's hero, but the losers don't get to name the plazas and streets (or put up statues).
I agree that the Civil War was complex and soldiers fought with valor on both sides. But the Confederate States of America were, in fact, the enemy of the United States of America. Again, I am not detracting from the passion and conviction with which the Rebels fought during the Civil War, but I still believe that enemies of the State should not be honored with statues (or any other form of public celebration), no matter whether or not they were heroes to some.
At any rate, I see your viewpoint and can understand why you're upset about the feeling that people want to whitewash history. I don't want this, either. I suppose I feel confident that history isn't going anywhere (thank goodness for books and teachers!). Classrooms and other places where learning and dialogue can take place are the forums for exploring the complexity of the past. Statues are not that. In the end, you and I may just have to disagree on the statue thing. For me, not wanting a statue of Robert E. Lee in my country isn't political correctness, but rather about finding ways to celebrate individuals and ideals that represent the best of the U.S.A. as a whole.
To add:
I hope you all don't feel my additions to these arguments are just making it more complex. I truly believe, and my entire educational career as a secondary and post-secondary history teacher is based on the premise that these critical historical moments are highly complex. Many people try to simplify these things, and as the husband of a psychology major, I understand the human drive to simplify things to aid with understanding. Choosing between A and B is easier than A through Z, and solving a problem with one or two variables is easier than twelve. However, as we do this the truth gets further away from us. I'm immediately very skeptical when someone says it's so simple. It's usually not.
By way of example, the argument that the Revolutionary War wasn't the same as the Civil War has some mistaken assumptions. All the colonists who participated in the conflict were indeed British subjects in the same way that all the combatants in the Civil War were Americans. It seems so foreign today to think of George Washington or Benjamin Franklin as British subjects, but it's factually true, and they thought of themselves in this way, at least initially, as many original documents of the period can attest to. As the generations have passed we think of them as Americans, but Benjamin Franklin's son, William, for example, remained loyal to the crown, and after the British withdrawal, set sail for Britain and they never saw one another again.
The defining difference then, is that Benjamin Franklin sided with the idea of independence from outside imperial rule and we hold that concept of democratic self-determination as just and right today. His son chose to support imperialism and is almost forgotten today as having chosen the "wrong" side of history, the non-democratic position. Likewise, those who chose to support the Confederate cause of the continuation of slavery are judged today as having fought for an immoral cause unsupported in modern society. I feel certain that in both of these examples, the losing side felt great conviction for their position, and honoring the self-sacrifice of their conviction is not wrong in an individual sense, such as within a family. However, the idea that society as a whole should support monuments to these clearly unacceptable views is misguided. Should we erect monuments to William Franklin in New Jersey today, where he was the last colonial governor under the crown, because he felt imperialism was just? Or should we study his views and try to understand the complexity of the situation. Learning about and remembering historical events is
not the same as erecting monuments to one side or the other.