Let’s assume for a moment that there is a genuine debate over confederate statues and their purpose adorning well-traveled spots in American cities. Now, it also seems reasonable that a civil debate emerges where reasonable people reasonably come together to condemn slavery and the practices of slave owners as hideous in the sight of God; come, let us reason together, saith the Lord.
Fair enough. But take a quick look around our repository of reasonableness in our day. Go ahead. I will wait.
…still waiting.
Correct. Reasonableness has run its course. The mobs of infidels cannot think straight about the role of due consideration over historical artifacts because history has nothing to do with it in the first place.
As a starter, removing monuments is nothing new. The Inca Empire and post-Soviet Russian government both took down statutes to convey their prowess. One can be easily persuaded that these despotic institutions had more historical rationality than our present mobs. Consider that these same anti-confederate apologists are also defacing monuments to Abraham Lincoln, American hero celebrated by almost all sides, and in England–that bastion of rationality–mobs are eagerly defacing the laudable Winston Churchill, World War II hero and patron saint of cigars.
But you see, my friends, reasonableness does not make it to the top ten list of check-marks in the “Thou Shalt Take Down Monuments” agenda.
History is not a friend of forgetfulness. It bites back with rage. Destroying icons of our history is “taking a page out of the playbook of mobs across the centuries.” (Lawrence Kuznar). To do so is to act as if we are controllers of history choosing which historical facts we wish to see erased and which ones we wish to preserve; it assumes societal harmony and historical sobriety. Of course, to each his own, which means we shouldn’t be frustrated when our historical heroes get toppled down head first by the guy wearing a Che Guevara t- shirt.
