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On Cultural Purging
I think the concept of collusion is operative here, though not the sort of collusion we’ve been hearing about. No, to listen to the fanatical class, what we are witnessing is collusion by accident of birth.
As a Christian, for example, I accept my part in the metaphysical collusion of those whose sins made necessary Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. And while I accept the transcendent sense in which mankind was indeed born into darkness, it will take a herculean philosophical effort (akin to proving that Nancy Pelosi is coherent or that Ted Kennedy was a para-rescue specialist) to convince me that Original Sin is a tribal condition applicable to civic life.
My partial French ancestry, for instance, does not render me responsible for the Jacobin excesses of the French Revolution in the months following June 1793, even though I do take pride in my heritage. Likewise, neither the few drops of Spanish blood meandering through my veins, nor my affiliation as a Roman Catholic can in any way implicate me in the Spanish Inquisition which began in 1478. And to suggest that I bear special responsibility to disavow centuries-old savagery by virtue of immutable factors over which I have no control strikes me as supernaturally stupid.
The challenge facing those whose integrity hasn’t been compromised by the toxic tribalism which currently infects our nation’s professional malcontents and daily threatens to engulf more of civil society, is to plainly answer as follows: We, the remnants of sanity, reject all racial supremacy, all bigotry, and all hate from whatever depraved corner it originates. Further, we completely disavow any doctrine which posits that the worth of a human life may be calculated according to race, sex, ethnicity, or class. After all, if God Himself didn’t award genetic bonus points to those made in His image, why should we?
Rather, lets leave it to professional scourges like Marx and Alinsky and their ideological offspring to take beautiful individuals in all their infinite variety and immeasurable gifts, and force them into artificial constructs, pitting them against each other in a misbegotten quest for utopia on earth. I much prefer Dr. King’s expectation that people, “…will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” though to be sure, today’s race mongers (both black and white) would chase Dr. King to the ends of the earth for speaking such a simple truth.
Which, come to think of it, brings to mind another admonishment from Dr. King: “If we are not careful, our colleges will produce a group of close-minded, unscientific, illogical propagandists, consumed with immoral acts. Be careful, ‘brethren!’ Be careful, teachers!” Well, methinks we’re a bit late on that one, as evidenced by the evening news.
A short time after Charlottesville police allowed white supremacist and KKK thugs to mingle with Black Lives Matter and Antifa goons, a local television station in Memphis showed protestors raging at an inanimate object in a local park. The object, a statue of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest, is also the site of Forrest’s grave. To my knowledge, Nathan Bedford Forrest’s body still resides in that grave and hasn’t bothered anyone since 1877. I don’t think he will be crawling out anytime soon either, though you wouldn’t know it given the attention his statue received from people apparently united in the belief that the principle threat to their wellbeing and happiness lies with that statue.
Then, without any sense of irony, the local news began the daily recitation of violence across the city. Robbery, assault and murder — the three square meals of any day in Memphis — emblazoned across the television screen along with security camera footage of the suspects. Oddly enough, not one of the perps, or their victims for that matter, resembled a statue. They did, however, resemble many of the people protesting the statue, prompting the following questions:
How many hungry children in Memphis will be better fed because a statue came down? Absent proof that statues are assaulting people at a record pace, how far will Memphis’ homicide rate (which exceeds that of Chicago, New York City, and Washington DC) decline when we rid the city of objectionable statues? How many currently unemployed people will find meaningful and rewarding work once the statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest and his horse is removed?
While we’re working on the answers to those questions, let us ponder yet one more: What are the consequences of historical and cultural purging to the citizenry, a significant percentage of which resides in a sort of historical and political stupor, terminally incurious about any topic on which Simon Cowell doesn’t get to vote?
Rich Lowry, for whom I have a great deal of admiration, wandered into shaky territory several days ago when he wrote:
The monuments should go. Some of them simply should be trashed; others transmitted to museums, battlefields, and cemeteries. The heroism and losses of Confederate soldiers should be commemorated, but not in everyday public spaces where the monuments are flashpoints in poisonous racial contention, with white nationalists often mustering in their defense.
Mr. Lowry’s prescription, judging from the last sentence, is that in those instances when displays become “flashpoints in poisonous racial contention,” and where the displays are defended by white nationalists, they should be removed from “public spaces.” This is a tragic recipe with far-reaching consequences, for it vests censorial power in angry mobs who would get to decide where to stage a “flashpoint” of “racial contention,” and thereby have whatever it is that triggered their sensibilities removed. Are we as a nation to look at the worst elements in our midst, say, “Mirror, mirror on the wall,” and place them in charge of our reflection?
Or conversely, an object’s removal might depend on who defends it. Heaven help us if some idiot Nazi defends the American Flag. Then again, given the fact that mass murderer Osama bin Laden all but defended John Kerry against George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election, perhaps Mr. Lowry will arrange to have Kerry transferred to a museum, in which case I will withhold further criticism.
The historical reality is that when appeasement has been tried, it has failed. It wasn’t the offering of safe spaces to the Soviet Union that won the Cold War, but rather the resolution of a free people. The appeasement of North Korea by previous administrations, beginning with Bill Clinton’s, did not dissuade them from acquiring nuclear weapons, and it won’t work with Iran either. Likewise, offering prizes and solace to irrational mobs in their effort to erase history will satisfy neither the mob, nor the nation’s need to understand its own history.
Insatiable mobs will always demand more — more statues removed, more memorials erased. Having acquired a taste for acquiescence, they will move on to other fronts while ostensible conservatives, having acquired a taste for capitulation, will cede one argument after another so that truth itself will become such a precious commodity that, to use Mark Twain’s phraseology, we will have to economize it. Want to try me? Just try reading Dr. King’s admonition against judging people by the color of their skin at a Black Lives Matter rally.
Published in General
You may not trust mobs, but you don’t seem to have much of a problem doing what they advocate, just so long as we do it differently.
I wouldn’t be surprised if lots of localities go through orderly processes to remove Confederate statues because they know that if they don’t a mob will come their way.
We are reaping the seeds that have been sown by indulging children who have been under educated. Tantrums are to be expected from two to three year-olds. Somewhere along the line the word no fell out of fashion. Unfortunate that, because the word no is a beautiful word. We have a nation of self-absorbed and entitled morons, some who have parents that are still children themselves. Taught by academics who have no real life experience and have done nothing more than to memorize platitudes.
Thank you for calling 9-1-1. Please press 1 if you would like us to raise your children for you.
I think history is more complex and muddled than that. The Southern leaders really only lost power during Reconstruction, after that ended they regained political power at least at the state level and set about erecting Jim Crow laws and imposing segregation on the recently freed black slaves. It was during that era that most of the statues and monuments went up, along with romanticization of the “Lost Cause.” And Confederate symbols, especially the battle flag, were embraced by some as symbols of resistance to desegregation during the Civil Rights era of the 50’s-60’s.
So these are complicated symbols, they signify more than merely a tribute to the history of the Civil War itself.
There were 2 armed mobs in Charlottesville; one wanted the statue taken down, one wanted it left up. The police should have done more to disarm and arrest both sides.
We shouldn’t let either mob dictate policy.
I just did a google search on “MLK and Communism.” There are a number of places with questionable credibility that cite he was a communist. There are some that repudiate his communism, but there are a number that show how he was friends with a good number of communists. I don’t know if he was or wasn’t, but there were certainly questions surrounding him and communism. He was certainly to the left when it came to economics, but he was also a Republican. Hard to say definitively, but it’s not clean in either direction.
She is also considered to be against abortion.
Actually the one historical figure that has been in the crosshairs of the left is Christopher Columbus. I’m sure his statues will soon be attacked.
I’m not saying it necessarily is a bad thing, although the argument can still be made that it is a good idea not to erase one’s history, but rather to learn from it. As I said, the Russians collected a number of the old Lenin, etc. statues and display them. But as @martel points out, the reasons for pulling down or erasing one’s past in the cases I enumerated don’t strike me as good reasons. Nor am I convinced that the current rush to remove statues related to the Confederacy is a good thing.
Thank you, Dave Carter.
I’ve been more troubled than I would have expected by the news about the destruction and removal of beautiful objects and historical/cultural evidence. It’s calming to have someone explain the different aspects of why so perfectly.
Maybe I’m not crazy to be angry, sad and worried about the lack of empathy and curiousity in young people.
Thanks for the many responses and the ongoing changes conversation! Unhappily, I’m in tie middle of a very long day on the road and I’ve no idea when I’ll be done for the day or whether I’ll have two brain cells to rub together when I finally do get shut down. I have some responses to make along with at least one clarification, and I promise I’ll get to it. If not tonight, then tomorrow sometime. I essentially had to wall myself off from the world for a few hours over the weekend to write this, and now the usual schedule has come crashing in. I appreciate your comments and your patience.
Their loss.
We love you Dave and will wait patiently for your replies.
In Charlottesville, there were two mobs.
In most other places, it’s mobs and/or vandals on one side only.
One side has a lot more mobbishness going for it than the other, and one of those side’s mobs has a ton more mainstream support.
Therefore, tearing down the statues coincides with letting mobs rule us a lot more than leaving them up.
The Memphis Commercial Appeal soils my driveway every morning. It is now part of the USA Today network, and is assembled out of state and printed in another Tennessee city. The people that put our paper together also own the papers in Knoxville and Nashville, but they are pretty ignorant of Tennessee. For example, just a couple of days ago we got a lengthy article about an industrial park development that is an eight-hour drive from us. I suppose they thought we would be interested because it is in Tennessee. They laid off a lot of workers, including writers with lengthy experience in local journalism. They promoted a handful of ardent Leftists. We get daily evidence of other cluelessness in the age of industrialized Leftist journalism.
As ever, Dave, calm and cogent: Thank you! If those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it, I’m stocking up on Dramamine. This carousel is going to be running for a while. Love to S. and Alphonse.
I heard on the news that Columbus is next on the chopping block. I get the feeling this may not end well. But thank you very much for your kind comments. I appreciate it.
Thanks Doug. I kinda wish it were on every opinion page too.
Curses! Foiled again! Of course, I was awfully young back then and wouldn’t have known a Huguenot from an Astronaut.
I blame the mob, and those who won’t stand up to them,…even in print.
I agree, on procedural grounds at least. If a locality has jurisdiction over a certain piece of real estate, they ought to be able to determine what stays there, what is removed, or what is constructed. I have no argument with that. My concern, as I think was echoed elsewhere in this thread, is whether local governments ought to allow themselves to be pushed around by a group of vocal and/or criminal malcontents. I saw a poll recently which found that most folks want the statues to stay,…so the extent to which local governments that decide to remove these items are in fact representing their community may be up for debate. The democratic process allows us to do dumb things, but the rest of us aren’t obligated to applaud dumb things having been done.
Thank you Ma’am!
By the way, I failed to mention why I linked the Charlottesville disaster with the local protest at the statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest: The local news interviewed these “non-violent” protestors, (one of whom was carrying a huge stick just in case) and asked why they were protesting, and they answered that they were in solidarity with the Charlottesville counter-protestors, and that they’d be really happy and life would be all sunshine and unicorn farts if we would just tear down that statue. I should have put the two events in better context.
I was curious about the poll numbers, so I found this Marist poll that shows that 62% think the statues should remain while only 27% say they should be removed.
But, those are national numbers, and this is a local issue. Cities and urban areas skew predominantly liberal and Democratic, and the same poll shows that Democrats support removing the statues by a small margin of 47% to 44%, and among those who self-identify as liberal or very liberal the margin increases to 57% in favor of removal.
So, in liberal Democratic cities, it could well be that local government officials are responding to the majority view of their own community, even if the nationwide majority disagrees.
Well, Dave, in our case the Memphis City Council is composed of a majority of “vocal and/or criminal malcontents.” So many white folks have moved out of Memphis to the suburbs, and so many blacks have moved from the rural countryside into the city, that Memphis is now majority black. Though only a small minority of them would say they approved of tearing down the monument to Nathan Bedford Forrest, probably a majority would agree that the bodies of Forrest and his wife and the monument should all be relocated back to Elmwood Cemetery where Forrest was originally interred in 1877. His body was moved to its current resting place about 25 years after his death.
I don’t mind if they relocate Forrest back to Elmwood. Though I want to say that, if they do that, they should give that park to the United Daughters of the Confederacy, as the only fitting way to honor the wishes of the donors who gave money for the land and the monument. This includes the funds donated by some Union veterans who came to Memphis for a reconciliation rally during the campaign to raise those funds.
For the record, our red state of Tennessee passed a state law last year that requires the City to obtain permission from the State Historical Commission before they can remove the Forrest Monument. There will be significant expenses this year and next on a bunch of lawyering and jawboning over the issue.
Also, there is the “Forrest Park” entry sign. The Sons of Confederate Veterans obtained permission from a previous Council and paid over $10,000 in 2009 for that granite edifice, and then a later Council changed the park’s name. The Sons of Confederate Veterans has a claim still pending with the City, and the last I heard the granite Forrest Park sign was sitting in a Public Works materials yard.
Very good information, MJBubba. Very good indeed. Thank you sir!
Dave, you did it again! Another awesome article, in both style and content! My favorite sentence – “Then again, given the fact that mass murderer Osama bin Laden all but defended John Kerry against George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential election, perhaps Mr. Lowry will arrange to have Kerry transferred to a museum, in which case I will withhold further criticism.” Thank you!
They’ve been going after Columbus for years. First hit on a search has references as far back as 2006.
http://www.transformcolumbusday.org
Tearing down statues is new.
Boss Mongo, DC. Has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?
Outstanding. Thank you, Dave.
My theory is that the post-Reconstruction era in the South was an instance of mass PTSD. Remember that more Americans died in the civil war than both world wars combined, and the last civil war vet only died in the 1950s.
I think what we’re seeing is a marriage between normal human ancestor veneration and the cultural memory of the civil war. Tearing down Confederate monuments for white Southerners is kind of like dressing up in blackface and doing a street performance in New Orleans, or putting on a giant potato suit with a sign saying “I bet your ancestors wished they had this” and walking around Irish neighborhoods.
I don’t see why it’s such a big deal to let them have their monuments and their whitewashed version of history. Mass ethnic humiliation can easily lead to mass ethnic violence.