PC Gone Too Far

We might end up as individuals considering all history that has occurred before our birth dates to be sacred.

We don't have oppressors until we're born - only creators. But regarding our history as sacred wouldn't stop us from removing monuments. It would just make us clear in our minds that we don't really want the actuality of our pre-birth history to have been any different.

Do you mean that supporting slavery without dying for it is much better in your mind than supporting slavery and dying for it?

The problem with changing things that happened before we were born is that we wipe ourselves out, which is what I meant by history being sacred. So, you should hope that none of those folk you describe get hold of a time machine.We all have ancestors who were treated as "no-class citizens", and wherever in the world your ancestors came from, you certainly had ancestors who were slaves.925 years ago, about 10% of my ancestors were slaves (the Normans' Domesday Book records that). More recently, some would have been villeins, bound to a Lord and effectively slaves.I wouldn't have it any other way, and, as I would've had many ancestors at the time, some would have been slave owners as well, although that's always a smaller group (because some own many slaves).The nineteenth century was an unprecedented period of abolition world wide. Before that, slavery was standard practice on all continents in agricultural societies. That's why you find it assumed in ancient tracts like the Bible and the Koran. The same further east in ancient Chinese and Indian writing.The old South of your country wasn't weird, it's our modern non-slave culture that's exceptional.We can't change the history of our "no class" ancestors, although we can try to end the ongoing chattel slavery which, although illegal everywhere, still exists.

"Type" presumably means "camp", but I'm still not clear what you mean by that sentence. Would you prefer it if the slave trade from Africa to the Americas hadn't happened?

I prefer that it happened (although I'm accepting of it, not "glad" about it). Like my own ancestral slave history, I wouldn't have it any other way. Even if you yourself have no ancestry from those particular slaves, that doesn't just mean that you've willed the descendants of those slaves who live around you out of existence, you have willed yourself out of existence too.None of which means we can't take down monuments. It just means that we should be clear that, in doing so, we are making the history of tomorrow (as with all our actions) not changing yesterday's, however despicable we might consider aspects of it to be.We're all stuck with our history, all 7 billion of us, whether we like it or not. It is our parent.

There are monuments to people who were leaders of the confederacy, and who owned many slaves, bought and sold them, and made speeches in favour of the institution. They are unequivocally supporters of slavery. Their monuments are relevant.Surely you're not going to exempt the southern ruling class from responsibility while blaming the masses?

Try the Jefferson Davis obelisk, also in Kentucky, and definitely a confederacy monument.I agree that the Washington monument and monuments to Thomas Jefferson are different, but if support for slavery is considered the central ideological crime of those commemorated in Louisville, George and Tom can't escape the discussion, along with many other historical figures all around the world. We can point to Pharaohs, Roman Emperors, Chinese Emperors, Shah Jahan and his Taj, British Monarchs, Louis XVI, for whom Louisville was named, and many more as being supporters of slavery.If we start judging monuments built in the past by modern ideology, we could end up behaving a bit like iconoclastic religious fanatics.The past is like a foreign country. People did things differently there, and we can't actually change what they did.People waving confederate flags and putting them on government buildings right now is a different question. The guy mentioned in the O.P. who is campaigning for the removal of the 1895 monument thinks they are the same.

The first three sentences are spot on. In the fourth, "we" presumably means "right thinking living humans" or something similar, and would make a group of people putting up a statue in 1895 into "they". How much and to what extent "we" are blaming people like Washington and Jefferson makes for interesting discussion.The last sentence would leave us free to glorify pretty much anyone, because it'll be hard to find people who are known to have declared "that their entire reason for existence is to perpetuate it" [slavery].I don't think there were many suicide bombers fighting for the Confederacy.

I said that you "willed" as in "wanted" a different reality, which would be one from which you (along with the descendants of the slaves) are excluded, not one in which you are actively making things with your time transcending superpowers. No. It's exactly what you did when you willed the historical African slave trade to the Americas out of existence. That history of the African slaves and their descendants in the Americas prior to your birth isn't tiny, it's massive, and very influential. Your country would be a very different place without it. No one is asking you to buy that. The discussion is about taking down old monuments put up by people who are long dead, not about which new ones you and your contemporaries choose to put up. I'd certainly hope that you modern Carolinians wouldn't even want to fly confederate flags from your state buildings, let alone start the construction of a new giant obelisk to someone who owned hundreds of slaves.In the same way, my acceptance of historical Africa to America slavery doesn't mean I want you to replicate the behaviour now!Incidentally, as your anti-slavery feelings are strong, would you consider campaigning for the removal of religious texts that support the institution from places like schools, state buildings and perhaps hotels? Would you consider supporting Trump's ban on Muslim immigration on the basis that Islam allows its followers to take non-Muslims as slaves?

It can't happen again (but I understand that you mean similar events), and we wouldn't be changing the fact that it happened by taking down any monuments to German, Austrian, Italian etc war dead. However, I'll appreciate your attempt at consistency if you want to argue for the removal of such monuments. If you're still not attempting consistency, as you seemed to suggest in an earlier post, then you won't be making any reasoned arguments for or against anything.As for judging history, we certainly do it, but if we judge a monument, then take it down, we aren't changing yesterday's history, just making tomorrow's. If the good burghers of Louisville are concerned about slavery, they could assess the cost of moving their monument, then decide whether their concern would be better expressed by giving the money to one of the campaigns against ongoing slavery in the world, or making a futile gesture which will do nothing to change their local history of slavery at all. We don't. It just is (or was). But you mean, perhaps.... .....preserving the physical remnants of past cultures.If that's what you mean, they can interesting and fun windows into exotic cultures, yes, and can possibly help us understand ourselves. I think that future generations of Kentuckians having large visible edifices around them that speak of their state's slave history is a very good idea. He doesn't agree with you that the only valid reason that the people of Louisville need to take down the monument is that they've decided to take it down. I have. You can't change nineteenth century history by destroying physical remnants of it, but you can act politically in the present. You can't change the minds of dead people, but the living are capable of change.

Right. You prefer a reality which would exclude your existence. It wouldn't be objectively bad. But you'll find, if you ask around, that everyone else on this board would prefer to exist, a purely subjective but reasonable point of view. If you think you can get a reality in which the transatlantic slave trade didn't happen and NoNukes does exist, you're certainly dreaming. I know you don't. I'm sure. In any reality with an alternative history, you just wouldn't be at all. That's no surprise. I've been to the lands of King Charles, but it was over 40 years ago. Around that region, we used to play a game during car journeys. One person would bet on Coca Cola signs and the other would bet on Jesus Saves signs, and the winner was the one who'd chosen whichever we counted the most of. It was usually a pretty close run thing. We probably could have played the same game with Confederate and U.S. flags.But I digress. The flag flying, if you don't like it, is something contemporary that you could work towards changing and the collective you (Carolinians) could change, thus making the history of tomorrow. However, the slave history of the Carolinas is an immutable fact, and no amount of historical statue removal will change that.

You're genocidal. Fortunately for the rest of us, you cannot change history. No it's not. It's a fact that should be obvious to you. If your desire to exchange this reality for another is the motivation for removing statues, then you certainly shouldn't be making decisions on them.

I thought you agreed with the guy mentioned in the O.P. People can and do give both ideological and non-ideological reasons for removing monuments, and they can and do give both ideological and non-ideological reasons for not doing so. Certainly. But that doesn't seem to be your only point.In the quotes that follow, you're sounding as though you are giving ideological reasons for removing monuments like the Louisville one. Great! I'm not applying ideology to my preservation argument. Are you sure the Confederate soldiers weren't actually Orcs?Even if you can make the case that the confederate soldiers were primarily fighting for an ideology of slavery, slavery and genocide are far from being the same things. I'm not suggesting that Americans should put up monuments to slavers now (although they still do). There are monuments to the slaves in growing numbers, and there certainly should be a lot more. Slavery is a very important part of the history that shaped the U.S.

It is not science fiction. It is reasoning from observation. If it hadn't been for British imperialism, English speaking North America wouldn't exist. If it hadn't been for the transatlantic slave trade, the Afro-American diaspora wouldn't exist. We are all products of history.If you want there to be an alternative reality with a different history in which there was never any slavery anywhere in the world, you are desiring a reality which wouldn't include any of the 7 billion individuals who currently exist.Whether you realise it or not, you are desiring genocide.