Overnight, we noted a certain Mr Sean King, aka “Talcum X” who has perhaps 1.1 million Twitter followers:
I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down.
They are a form of white supremacy.
Always have been.
In the Bible, when the family of Jesus wanted to hide, and blend in, guess where they went?
EGYPT!
Not Denmark.
Tear them down . . . .
Yes.
All murals and stained glass windows of white Jesus, and his European mother, and their white friends should also come down.
They are a gross form white supremacy.
Created as tools of oppression.
Racist propaganda.They should all come down.
Of course, immediately, Egypt c. 7 – 4 BC was cosmopolitan, especially its capital of that time, Alexandria (which had a large Jewish quarter . . . Jews may have been 10% of the Roman Empire).
Similarly, here is a Roman statue of Cleopatra, mid C1 BC . . . about the time of her visit to Rome, last Queen of Egypt (by then a Roman client state):
No, Egypt was quite cosmopolitan. And indeed, a point made by objectors in Mr King’s Twitter thread was to post this, showing the racial diversity of Ancient Egypt. Though, of course, hair colour is subject to discolouration and the blue eyes claim is in some cases dubious. Mind you, I have cousins with very African features and sapphire blue eyes, given St Elizabeth, Jamaica’s notorious tri-continental racial mashup so blue eyes in some cases would not be implausible:
Similarly, another commenter posted various holy family portrayals, including:
Also:
Here is a very Medieval scene from the C14 Morgan Bible MS:
In that light, let us now ponder the only sculpture Michelangelo signed, his awesome Pieta, with a forever young Mary holding the body of her son across her lap as she mourns:
Then, there is Poland’s famous (and once defaced by Hussite raiders) Black Madonna, originally a Byzantine Icon:
The point is obvious, people often portrayed Jesus, the Holy Family and other Biblical figures in light of their own culture.
And duly, in our scientific, digitally besotted age, we have tried a digital reconstruction of Jesus as a typical C1 Palestinian Jew:
I suspect, it will not only be BA77 who will prefer this digital painting based on a shroud image:
And, here is a digital fade:
And of course, here is one of the Rose Windows of Notre Dame:
Why bother?
Because, our art and monuments reflect who we are and what we aspire to be. Just so, the besmirching, branding, defacing, deliberate destruction and replacement of great art and key historic monuments is a symbolic raping of a culture and the souls of its people, meant to scar the soul.
That’s why Mao sicced his Red Guards on Chinese treasures, even desecrating graves and bodies given honourable burial. It is why today’s culture form marxist heirs of said Red Guards target cultural achievements and monuments, smear them with one sided or outright slanderous graffiti and use that as an excuse to burn, deface, tear down.
For example, is this even near a responsible summary of the man who — warts and all — led Britain’s lonely stand for what he termed “Christian Civilisation” against Hitler’s triumphant Panzers, Stukas and Messerschmitts in that awful summer now eighty years distant, 1940?
This is rage-driven Civilisation replacement that they intend.
But those on the streets likely don’t understand the need for cultural buttresses to sustain a sound Constitutional Democracy, in their burning zeal to be rid of what they see as an evil civilisation with effectively no redeeming virtues.
So, let us remind of the good governance challenge and what triggering anarchic chaos is liable to trigger, a tumble into the vortex of tyranny:
Likewise, let us refresh ourselves on one of the crown jewels of our civilisational inheritance, our natural law heritage:
We can readily identify at least seven inescapable first duties of reason. Inescapable, as they are so antecedent to reasoning that even the objector implicitly appeals to them; i.e. they are self-evident. Duties, to truth, to right reason, to prudence, to sound conscience, to neighbour, so also to fairness and justice etc. Such built in law is not invented by parliaments or courts, nor can these principles and duties be abolished by such. (Cf. Cicero in De Legibus, c. 50 BC.) Indeed, it is on this framework that we can set out to soundly understand and duly balance rights, freedoms and duties; which is justice. The legitimate main task of government, then, is to uphold and defend the civil peace of justice through sound community order reflecting the built in, intelligible law of our nature. Where, as my right implies your duty a true right is a binding moral claim to be respected in life, liberty, honestly aquired property, innocent reputation etc. To so justly claim a right, one must therefore demonstrably be in the right. Thus, too, we may compose sound civil law informed by that built-in law of our responsibly, rationally free morally governed nature; from such, we may identify what is unsound or false thus to be reformed or replaced even though enacted under the colour and solemn ceremonies of law.
For, as Cicero reminded us, c 50 BC, in De Legibus: “Law. . . is the highest reason, implanted in nature, which prescribes those things which ought to be done, and forbids the contrary” and again, of how “the voice of conscience is a law, that moral prudence is a law, whose operation is to urge us to good actions, and restrain us from evil ones.”
That core heritage was endorsed by the Apostle Paul, even as he gives a form of the Golden Rule and explains in brief how conscience instructs and how love sums up law:
Rom 2: 14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them . . . .
Rom 13:8 Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9 For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. [ESV]
Themes like these would be built up and integrated into core thought, e.g. by The Angelic Doctor, St Thomas Aquinas:
So, when rage-driven radicals brand Christian art as intentionally oppressive racism tantamount to Nazism (which was neo-pagan heresy, strictly) and demand its despoliation, they destabilise more than they imagine.
It is time to correct such imbalance and blinding ill-advised rage lest we wreck what we cannot easily recover, our civilisation. Never mind, warts and all. END
Is Christian art an expression of white supremacism?
–> “our art and monuments reflect who we are and what we aspire to be. Just so, the besmirching, branding, defacing, deliberate destruction and replacement of great art and key historic monuments is a symbolic raping of a culture and the souls of its people, meant to scar the soul. “
So with all those white blue-eyed representations of Christ around, I think we can draw our own conclusions.
BO’H:
your barbed rhetorical stunt is a classic, telling own goal.
Scroll up, you will see a famous Black Madonna and child, a Chinese Madonna and child, a Thai Madonna and child, as well as the awesome pieta of Michelangelo. That’s before we look at the modern digital culture reconstructions of a Mediterranean Semite.
Note my comment:
And here are the wider words you snipped out to set up and knock over a strawman:
Notice, I went on to the case of defacement of Churchill’s statue — the man who led Britain’s lonely defence of what he termed “Christian Civilisation” in that awful Summer 80 years ago this very month and noted:
I then pointed to one of the crown jewels in our legacy:
Tell me, is that setting up blond, blue eyed “Aryan” Nazi as the ideal? (For, that is what “white supremacism” is a stand-in for. Remember, punch a nazi?)
I put it to you, not at all.
I suggest, you need to rethink.
KF
The church I attend is decorated with some of these old-school stained glass windows where Jesus looks very much like Jared Leto. They are not like the grand windows in a cathedral, but they are beautiful and no one wants to take them down.
If this church had a lot of extra money (it doesn’t), I suppose they might consider adding new paintings in which Jesus and everyone else is depicted more “realistically”. I guess realism in art is sometimes important, and might be a good thing in this situation.
Anyway “my” church was built 75 years ago, and most of the art is probably at least 50 years old. I wonder whether in churches being built today, there is an effort to include more realistic art so as not to mislead people about the ethnicity of biblical characters.
The Lord never speaks to any “race.” He chose the Israelites because they were nobodies. So he could show what he could do for anyone. In general, he speaks to individuals. It depends on what they see around them.
Of COURSE the Dutch Masters painted everybody like they were Dutch. Hello? Hello? Do we have a bad ,line here?
People paint what they paint.
KF’s point is perhaps nowhere better demonstrated than in courtyard gallery of Madonnas at the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth. People from all over the world have contributed different representations of the Madonna. As one might expect there is a great deal of diversity. As I strolled through, my favorite was the Japanese contribution, which is a mosaic of pearls. Sadly, my least favorite was the modernist horror contributed the US.
Everywhere Statues Are Torn Down By The Mob, History Promises People Are Next
DS, the simple solution is sunday school art. KF
Painters paint what they know, the way writers write what they know.
Hundreds of years ago, a painter in Western Europe, working on commission, hired models to sit there in Holy Family clothes. Who was he going to hire? Well, western Europeans. His neighbours.
Could he have hired persons of another ethnicity? Not very easily.
Please, people: Before the age of the CAMERA, there was no way of knowing what anyone “looked like” in the modern sense. It is a modern idea.
If you don’t like the way a statue looks, don’t look at it.
Andrew
I thought progs/liberals/leftists/wokes were on the side of artistic expression?
Andrew
It is a given that Jesus wasn’t white. And yes I think it rubs people the wrong way to see him depicted as being white.
That said, if Jesus was God then He was all races and none, at the same time.
How dare these mobs use violence and destruction to force their worldviews upon the conscious awareness of others. The falsely called people of color demonizing the falsely called white people for past “sins” with which they also freely and willingly participated. But these abhorrent mobs exhibit very little, if no, reasoned assessment of history and can not ground their violence and destruction in a justified argument. The objectified persons which deserve their contempt are those reflected in the mirror of their own purview.
At bottom, and beyond their willingly conscious reach, this is not about white supremacy, rather it is about their own resentment and self-inflicted disempowerment. Accepting responsibility is far too disconcerting for a dysfunctional personality. For the mob is a conglomerate of dysfunctional personalities for whom facing and accepting a reasoned assessment of history and their own powerlessness is existentially untenable … at the present moment. And unbeknownst to their overwhelming discontented minds everyone and everything which they can not grasp becomes the rightful object of blame. Much to their own ignorance this story is at least as old as our ancient Mesopotamian ancestry, mythologized through the sibling rivalries of Cain and Abel in the want to acquire preeminence for their individual sacrifices.
Jesus of Nazareth was not Greek nor of Roman descent. The thought that Jesus was a great Saxon Chieftain, as one finds in the 9th century Heliand, is an attractive image for my predominantly Germanic ancestry but I can not come to rest in such a view for Jesus of Nazareth. Reason and history does not allow me such personal deception. Reason and history constrains me from becoming absorbed by the mobs, by the collectives, the Marxists, the Fascists, the conglomerates of dysfunctional personalities.
In a layered summary by the Evangelist Matthew, “So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood;see to it yourselves.” And all the people answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” Then he released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered him to be crucified.” This is not wholly unlike the present day mobs’ unceasing gibberish.
During the American revolution New Yorkers tore down a statue of George III. I remember Americans celebrating when the Iraqis tore down statues of Saddam. That suggests that people only mind when you tear down a statue of something they really support.
Retired Physicist,
You are right. This isn’t about racism at all. It’s about revolution, change of power, destruction, etc.
Andrew
RP & AS, exactly. It is about 4th gen insurgency in a context of demanding to abolish a great civilising innovation, police. It is about people so blindly polarised that they defaced the statue of the man who exactly eighty years ago led Britain’s lone stand, at bay, for “Christian Civilisation” against Hitler’s triumphant hordes. It is about those who defaced statues of Cervantes, Ghandi, the US WW2 memorial, the memorial to black union soldiers, statues of abolitionists and more. That uncomfortably echoes what happened in the run-up to the great terror in France. Which, should give us sobering pause. KF
VIDEO – Ethnic Gnosticism | Dr. Voddie Baucham
It is about change of power, certainly. Racism is obviously a factor. Perhaps more rebellion than revolution. People are hitting back in response to many years of abuse, and we can’t expect them to be polite. As KF says, this is in some sense a war, and in wars, there is destruction and loss of life unfortunately. To be clear, I’m not endorsing any acts of violence.
“Racism is obviously a factor.”
DaveS. I disagree here. Tribalism is a factor, not racism. Racism is just the pretense to justify the violence. Which is apparently a pretense you have bought into.
Andrew
DS, street theatre operations to be media amplified in an ongoing 4th gen war. Effectively giving a mob veto to freedom of expression and opinion towards imposing what the mob wants.Here, utter delegitimisation of our civilisation. KF
KF,
I think at least some of what we are seeing are authentic actions taken by individuals in response to the unwarranted killing of black people.
Religion, freedom of religion has always been in the secular progressive lefts cross hairs. So this most recent development is not surprising. However, the speed, at least when it comes to western democratic societies (from what I know) has been quite unprecedented.
Notice the shift in the cultural Marxist thinking from racist oppression to religious repression. But it’s not really a shift; it’s just two sides of the same coin.
If you undermine and destroy religious freedom and tolerance you undermine and destroy democracy. You cannot any kind democratic government of without freedom of thought, conscience and belief.
PS Maybe we should take another look at what happened to the Notre Dame Cathedral.
Strange that New York still has a big lake named after King George.
It is interesting to note that the Democratic party has always been a party that has incited racial division. Whereas Republicans were founded as an anti-slavery party,, and have always been at the forefront of bringing forth true racial equality under the law.
Like Darwinists, Democrats are almost wholly dependent on deception in order to sell their [SNIP].
If anything ever needed to be torn down because it is a monument to racial oppression, then that monument to racial oppression that needs to be destroyed is none other than the Democratic party itself.
KF
I think you have to distinguish between art and monuments, although the line can sometimes be fuzzy.
Notre Dame was a beautiful building and I was lucky enough to see it shortly before the fire. But would we have the same reverence for the stained glass if they depicted white crusaders slaughtering brown muslims? I would hope not.
Depictions of Jesus come in many different shapes and colours, even with distinct Asian features. To make him relatable to the average person, I think it only natural that he would be depicted with similar racial features to the locals.
The illegal desecration, defacement and destruction of civil war monuments, and now some of the U.S. founding fathers… is nothing more than iconoclasm. Iconoclasm which has historically been associated with fanatical religious fundamentalism– recently, for example, with ISIS and the Taliban.
In other words the secular-progressive left has succumbed to the same fanatical religious fundamentalist mindset. The only difference they don’t think they’re religious. Maybe they’re not but their mindset is virtually the same and equally– well, I was going to say equally destructive but the speed this movement has spread across the U.S. and around the world– it’s truly unprecedented.
Racism is being used as an excuse to do something that they’ve wanted to do this whole time
Hundreds if not thousands of black ministries would completely disagree with the very notion of tearing Jesus statues down
Not to mention entire countries that are not “white” that would be up in arms over doing just that
I’m hard-pressed to believe that Dr. King would approve this and this was his dream
This has nothing to do with racism or injustice of any kind this has evolved into something else
It is not surprising that certain atheists that have NEVER brought this issue up in the past are now in full support of this nonsense reasoning as bandwagon supports.
Folks, think about the habits of policy making by mob that are being formed. That is NOT how you want to be governed in any sane polity. Those now exulting in street power are probably unaware of their historical fate once a strong man or ruthless faction seizes power. As they are unruly, they then become expendable cannon fodder at best, or are simply eliminated at worst. Such are part of why the road of radical revolutions is so suicidally destructive. KF
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3006545782747021&id=100001748876903
I have many videos of this sort of thing, this just posted, I’ve seen the good too, but it’s more and more becoming this and this is mild
I believe that there’s one person who’s certainly very disgusted with all those artistic images (whether painting or sculpture) of Christ.
DS, that there may be legitimate grievances is one thing; allying oneself with anti-civilisation chaotic forces is another. That make one into a compounding of the problem, not part of the solution. KF
The Roman Catholic Church was responsible for launching the crusades. So we already have guilt by association which means everything associated with the Catholic Church has to go. Bye, bye cathedrals. Well, at least that’s where Ed’s twisted logic is trying to take us. The problem is that there are some people out there who think he is being logical.
https://www.catholic.com/search?q=Crusades
Deuteronomy 5:8-11
NKJV MacArthur Study Bible, 2nd Edition
Deuteronomy 4:15
Idolatry Forbidden
Reformation Study Bible provided by Ligonier Ministries
Exodus 20:4
NKJV MacArthur Study Bible, 2nd Edition
Reformation Study Bible provided by Ligonier Ministries
JaD (& attn EG), it is usually not said — 1/2 truth games again — that from 630 – 730 Islam expanded in a horrific wave of conquests from India to France, and further attacks went on for another thousand years; indeed that’s what “To the Shores of Tripoli” is about. Yes, the first post revolutionary war of the USA was a defence against Islamist aggression. In that context, massacres and enslavement of pilgrims in the Holy Land and a linked appeal from Byzantium led to what, strategically, was a counter-offensive. Not particularly well carried out in most regards and associated with atrocities. However, failure to address in due context is always a sign that something is wrong. More to the point, it was raised as a tainting distractor, in the face of an immediate threat of Red Guards on the streets mounting up in anti-civilisational attacks, now trying to target the Christian Faith as though it were inherently the religious equivalent to Nazism. The attitude manifested tells us all we need to know about fundamental hostility to our civilisation and thus enabling of misanthropy. No, a civilisation does not need to be perfect in every detail at all times before it is worth defending. Especially, given the obvious implications of the realistic alternatives. It is obvious that someone has spent a long time, with serious money backing serious psychological softening up campaigns. Such need to be decisively answered and turned back now; we need to stop the mainstreaming of anticivilisational folly. Yes, reforms need to be dealt with, but need to reform must not distract us from seeing clear and present mortal dangers. Abolish the police is an unambiguous sign that the Rubicon has been passed. KF
@30:
“I believe that there’s one person who’s certainly very disgusted with all those artistic images (whether painting or sculpture) of Christ.”
Could it be God himself?
Hmm…
KF & Aaron,
None of that matters. In the PC left’s mind their narrative trumps the truth. So it doesn’t matter what the actual historical facts about the crusades are (which to be fair are quite complicated) they’re evil because people with a left wing mindset say they’re evil.
The only point that I was trying to make @ 32 is that in the PC left’s mind, because the crusades were evil, guilt by association condemns everything Catholic. So following that logic any art or architecture associated with Catholicism has to go.
It’s the same logic they are using with Civil War statues and statues of the American founding fathers.
YOU CAN’T REASON WITH THESE PEOPLE.
JaD:
Major violation of a first duty of reason, there. And as the seven explicitly listed are inextricably intertwined, it means they are not agents of justice either. So, terms like social justice and the like are loaded with deceit and thus too injustice. Moral inversion, the better to undermine those they intend to attack.
No wonder we see them pushing to abolish the police.
A complicating part of the problem, not the solution.
KF
PS: to really move to solutions, this is where we have to begin:
In turn, these point to the inherently good, utterly wise root of reality. It is he who will help us set the crooked straight.
@JaD
Sigh you are sadly correct
JaD & AS78:
Earlier, I noted:
That is where we are.
KF
One aspect of the attraction and power of Christianity is that the person of Jesus appeals to people of every culture, race and region. They can relate to the Bible stories and the things he talks about. Indeed, the Bible has been translated into every major language and more minor languages than any other writings. And in the people’s own language, those writings speak profoundly and wisely to the people who read or listen. As a result, people can feel sure that Jesus is one with them and thereby assume he looks like them. And as EG says in his last paragraph @25, by being relatable and looking like them, his teachings will appeal all the more to them. While on Earth, Jesus was, of course a middle-eastern Jew, with features common to that area. Indeed, he probably looked quite average: see Isaiah 53:2, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” The attraction of Jesus was in what he said and did, and those are what draw people from every tribe and nation to him still today!
There’s an amazing story of racism in the Bible when used as an excuse for challenging the authority of Moses. You can read about it and God’s response to defamation based on the skin color of the wife of Moses in Numbers 12.
Note that Cushites are black Africans. I can just imagine God saying, “Oh, so you like white skin?”
-Q
F/N: An escaped Venezuelan activist, here, discusses with Laura Ingraham, the ever escalating demands of the Red Guards in a cultural revolution. In a part her words are:
The point is obvious, policymaking, policing and courts or art, history, cultural heritage etc should never be handed over to lawless, riotous mobs pretending to act in the name of the community. There are adequate provisions for genuinely peaceful assembly, petition, election and lawsuit. So, the moment protest crosses the line into riot, by destruction or defacing of property, by blocking roads without due march or parade permits etc, police action is warranted. Resort to violence in the face of such police action or targetting of passersby etc should also be recognised as riotous action. Those who resort to the mob are part of the problem, not the solution. KF
F/N: Are images, symbols, paintings, Sunday School pictures, stained glass windows etc commonly seen in and around churches or even in Bibles graven idolatrous images to be banned?
While sometimes things cross that line, not generally.
A good first answer is that in the design of the tabernacle, temple and Ark in the OT, we have representations of angels (on the cover for the Ark), fruit, animals (bulls holding up the bronze sea of water), horns on altars, etc. There was even the bronze snake on a pole, which, when it was abused as an object of worship, was then destroyed.
For that matter, to this day, the Capital Letter A retains the shape of an ox’s head and Lower Case a is a similar representation. We hardly need to note the pagan uses of bulls. So, should we now discard the alphabet?
Obviously, no. From the beginning the scriptures were written in alphabetic script, using aleph, etc.
The sound approach, then, is not iconoclasm but the refusal to use art, illustrations, imagery etc as objects of undue veneration. Though at the same time, objects devoted to sacred use should be treated with due respect.
Isa 53 speaks of prophetically of messiah that he was not to be a person of such extraordinary appearance that his movie star looks and eloquence etc would compel a charismatic mesmerised following. Instead, we would see a man of sorrows acquainted with suffering and grief. Yes, an extraordinary character, mind and one manifesting God’s power to save, heal, deliver. Yes, one who would be lamb and sin offering. Yes, one who after the agony of death would prolong his days and see the light of life. So, the compulsion is not that of the charismatic politician but that of the finger of God at work despite accusations of working by evil powers.
The sign would be, holy power.
And that holy power in love, truth, rescue, deliverance, healing and good news that brings salvation to those who would receive him remains the central attracting power down to today. Never mind slanderous insinuations and invidious associations with nazism etc.
In that context Christian art is a tool of communication, not a representation of hate and subjugation. The slanders as were noted fall to the ground.
KF
Its a slippery slope for sure, being Irish, does any item that has the union flag on it become offensive , Triumph motorcycles being one, what about a brief trip through London, Paris , Rome, Mongolia, but a few of the countries who had empires and have offensive statues, monuments, iconography on almost every street so will we tear it all down because someone is offended , and is one offended person enough , how many offended people are required to tear it down.
But then again who gets to decide what is offensive.
Marfin, more and more it is plain that the real offense being taken is that our civilisation dares to exist. This includes, that it has genuine heroes such as the Norwegian immigrant who volunteered and became a Colonel, leading his men with exemplary bravery until he was mortally wounded at Chicamauga. His memorial statue was knocked down, beheaded and tossed in a lake. The attitude includes that the Christian faith (warts and all) has made a major and even pivotal positive contribution to that civilisation. I draw the conclusion that there is no appeasing of Red Guards drunk on being the vanguard of the new order — as they imagine. In fact, they are only cannon fodder and pawns for street theatre that someone else is running for an agenda that is usually so indefensible that it has to ride piggyback on genuine concerns, grievances or challenges. The solution is first fix the crisis, i.e. protest is a right but so soon as one slanders another or calls for violation of their legitimate rights or becomes engaged in riotous, lawless assembly (including by enabling the more violent) one has become part of the problem, not a contributor to a solution. Principle one, while our civilisation must always be open for genuine reform, it is not a suicide pact. KF
EG, I should note that art represents our vision and that insofar as it captures a slice of verisimilitude, it reflects us in our world. Part of that is that we erect memorials or monuments, and that when we do so, we desire that they be beautiful and durable. KF
So now there is A RIGHT TO NOT TO BE OFFENDED but only certain people have that right? The problem is how is that equal rights? Or have equal rights now been abolished? Obviously the right to not be offended has more than a few problems.
JaD, there is a right to innocent reputation, protected through tort law. However, those crying out how they are offended too often don’t even hesitate before indulging slander. KF
Well, I was not talking slander. I was talking about being offended by the type of things that have traditionally been defended in western democracies as freedom of expression: art, music, drama, speech, religious beliefs etc. There are a lot of things that I find to be offensive. Does that mean I have the right to have it censored?
If you are a serious Christian in the USA, you are constantly subject to offensive displays, unless you don’t use media at all.
Andrew
KF@47, I agree. But the fact that monuments are “ beautiful and durable“ doesn’t mean that they should be kept. I monument to Hitler or Stalin May be beautiful and durable, but I wouldn’t loose any sleep over their loss.
Confederate monuments that glorify confederate leaders should be removed, or relocated to a museum where they can be put in context. Monuments to dead confederate soldiers should be retained, as Germany retains monuments to soldiers.
People need to remember that the American Revolution was also fought over the issue of slavery. Great Britain was going to abolish slavery in Her colonies. The South wasn’t going to allow that to happen. And in the war of 1812 the British troops freed thousands of slaves during their march through the South.
This would mean the removal of everything Washington, Jefferson and a host of others. Somehow I doubt any of that will happen.
EG, your comparisons are telling, given the focus of the OP. And even figures like a Robert Lee or a Thomas Jefferson simply bear no comparison to such dictators. On point, I spoke to why I spoke to art and monuments, especially why they overlap, so you went off on a toxic tangent. That said, riotous mobs serving as Red Guards (and their backers) should not be allowed to set community policy. Down that road lie reigns of terror and horrific abuses. KF
ET, no, the conditional manumission of slaves was a cannon fodder hunt. Critical mass to abolish slavery in the British Empire did not occur until the 1831 Baptist War uprising in Jamaica and its aftermath in which Dissenter Chapels were razed and the colonial authorities tried to hang missionaries as instigators. By the time William Knibb went to the UK to inform “the Christian people of Britain” what their enslaved “brethren” were suffering in Jamaica, and reports of what was done to Dissenter chapels, there was political crisis in the UK with dissenter areas heavily involved. That is when the Planters and Merchants lost credibility. Knibb stood in his rebuilt chapel in Falmouth Jamaica, with the slaves in packed attendance and counted down the seconds to midnight as “the monster” died with the first second of August Morning 1834. Thereafter he tried to register voters and organise a political party for former slaves and more. KF
Somerset, 1772, set the tone. After Somerset the South understood what was next.
Well, it didn’t take long for the iconoclasts to start targeting religious statues.
https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2020/06/22/who-st-junipero-serra-and-why-are-california-protesters-toppling-his
In 2015 Serra was canonized as a saint by Pope Francis. Doesn’t that make him as evil as Serra? What are the rioters going to do to the Pope?
KF@54, who said anything about allowing mobs to pull down statues and monuments. But mobs do serve a purpose. They force us to examine our preconceptions. Mobs do not arise out of a vacuum. Without some sort of inequity or trigger, they simply don’t exist. I read in a history book once about a mob in Boston that dumped a load of tea in the harbour. And then there was that mob of disgruntled land owners that drafted a manifesto that they named the Declaration of Independence. Yesterday’s mobs are today’s freedom fighters or founding fathers.
Acartia Eddie is ignorant of US History. It wasn’t a mob that dumped tea into Boston Harbor. It was a well organized, precision attack. It definitely wasn’t a mob that drafted the Declaration of Independence.
Do you have no shame? What is wrong with you?
EG,
it does not need to be said, it is the context for discussion.
No one objects to the result of a responsible vote, though we may seriously doubt its wisdom.
In the case of American Founders and the “second martyr-founder, Lincoln,” we need to understand that a hero is not a god, s/he will — like the rest of us — have feet of mixed iron and clay. There is no hypocrisy in celebrating heroic contribution, while recognising and duly noting the failings of say a Martin Luther King (plagiarism in academic work [perhaps unintentional], evident adultery etc) or a David, or a Churchill or a Jefferson.
Likewise, we must be willing to recognise defeated but decent men.
In more recent times, a Rommel is an obvious case, a man Churchill openly praised in the UK Parliament as a great captain. In the case of Robert Edwin Lee, note that he was offered command of the Union Army by Lincoln. He went through personal crisis and decided to go with his state (we must reckon that the Federal level was not as dominant then, by a long shot, hence the name, united States located in America). After his defeat, he sought to promote reconciliation, instructing and advising other leading men and promising men not to emigrate but to stay and rebuild. Indeed, taking up leadership of a College only a few months after his surrender itself speaks volumes on his unsung leadership in reconciliation and rebuilding.
Branding him with slavery (which, apparently he did not like) and dismissing him is grossly unfair and robs us of key lessons.
Jefferson outright tried to break slavery with the American founding, never mind how he was hopelessly trapped by debt and laws that implied that were he to manumit his slaves would simply be seized by debt holders as payment. As to the Ms Hemmings narrative, even if true he would have formed a common law union which was all the law would have permitted. But, manifestly, the force of evidence — in a politicised context — was grossly exaggerated and in key aspects had to be taken back. Of course, that did not receive wall to wall coverage. Here, I speak as direct descendant of such unions.
The result is, creation of a dominant but ill founded narrative of tainting accusation.
More to the point, the theme of branding by accusation and riotous mob action by Red Guards is manifest and must be resolved.
KF
EG, your attempt to turn the tax protesters of Boston into a Red Guard mob, and the US founders into a mob is a fallacy of attempted moral equivalency. That you try to make such an equivalency speaks volumes against you. I suggest, you need to read and ponder Plato’s parable of the ship of state. KF
PS: For reference, said parable:
Washington, Franklin, Henry, Jefferson et al were the ones who hammered out the first practical, sustainable answer to this dilemma of steering the ship of state. I note that our word Government derives from Kubernetes, the steersman or sailing master. That is how pivotal this parable is in the history of our civilisation.
JaD, that a clearly marxism-influenced pope would canonise Serra, even in the teeth of decades of controversies, is a message in itself. KF
The insistence on specific appellational identities so often detailed by the popular media, social justice groups, governmental statistical policies perpetuate so-called racism … people of color, African-American, Chicano or Latino, Asian-American, White, ad nauseum. So is there an unresolvable racism between the European-American and African-American? Between the German-American and the Mexican-American? Between the British-American and the Asian-American? Are the racial demarcations stretched beyond rational limits to that between the Christian-American and the NeoAtheist-American? Between the Alternative-Life-Style-American and the Alt-Right-American? Between the Libertarian-American and the Muslim-American? Who are the racists among us? And does this matter, truly matter, in the unending scheme of all things human?
Are we, grouped in tribes and self-identified geographic origins, responsible and accountable for our present actions, even our persistent powerlessness and existential confusion? Are we responsible and accountable at bottom as individuated humans? When will each and everyone stop hiding behind a tribalism, the masks each and everyone wears to justify opposition against the other masks worn?
The tribes, the mobs, the appellation identities will most likely persist as long as there is a struggle for power and preeminence, no matter how unreasonably confused, no matter how ungrounded the perceptions of individuated identities. Is all of this inevitable?
This is certainly not new in human experiencing, the long history of human civilizations rising, persisting, and falling. Or in the words of the ancient preacher, “All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him?”
Yet some of us believe, whether falsely or naively might not matter, there is a “better” way available for our kind, that is for the human. We can begin to examine ourselves, so to speak, and seek understanding and pursue wisdom. We can listen to the many various voices of our histories and restrain ourselves from acting out the dark violent remembrances of our tribes, mobs, and appellational identities.
The ideologies which encourage the destruction or violent replacement of history, our human arts, our human religious beliefs, our historical memories are self-refuting ideologies which can not stand the tests of time and existential individualism. These are similar to a biological cancer which has neither design nor purpose for human integrity except to extinguish its host. Cancer and viruses do not discriminate by race. Ignorance has no isolated pigmentation. Seeking understanding and pursuing wisdom is available to each and everyone of us.
I am thinking about starting a new organization committed to seeking justice for our fellow animals. Humans are after all, as I am sure you know from HS biology, animals– We’re mammals. I am going to call my organization Do Not Harm Puppies. I decided to focus on puppies because puppies pull on everyone’s heartstrings.
But tragically everyday hundreds of cute adorable puppies across America are being harmed, abandoned or neglected by their owners. This has to stop! One puppy being harmed is too many.
We will use every means possible to put an end to this abuse. That includes boycotts, marches and demonstrations even if some of these things result in looting, vandalism and arson. We’re passionate! We are angry! We will not stop until the abuse of puppies stops. Again, one puppy being harmed is too many.
If you don’t support our cause you are not only uncaring and heartless but you are a speciesist and a bigot.
Our bottom line is this, “if this country doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it.”
Of course I am being facetious. But the logic I am using is the same logic that Black Lives Matter uses to justify the violence it has spawned. The last quote is from a leader of BLM.
Do you think I am trivializing it all by using puppies? How so? From a naturalistic evolutionary perspective (like Darwinian evolution) what makes humans any better than puppies or dogs? And from a cosmological perspective we’re just insignificant specks which have appeared momentarily in the Cosmos. From that perspective it is pure arrogance to think we are in any way special.
Well okay let’s make the protest instead about ending late term abortion. Suppose a prolife demonstration resulted in the same kind of violence we have seen associated with BLM. How do you think the MSM would be covering it? If you are honest you know that they would be vehemently condemning it. The double standard is very obvious. It has been for some time.
PS I really do like puppies and don’t think they should be harmed.
JAD,
These people* are not trying to convince us that we have a duty to treat them with respect according to some transcendent code of morality. They are shooting back.
*Some of them, anyway. It’s a diverse group.
DS,
Then it’s hypocritical for them to demand justice. The very idea of justice assumes that there is some kind of society wide standard.
“They are shooting back.”
DaveS,
With guns they shouldn’t have?
Andrew
JAD,
I didn’t say they don’t believe there is such a code, and obviously some do. But as KF said, this is a war of sorts, and some are returning fire.
Andrew
The 2nd amendment may disagree with you.
LoL! @Acartia Eddie- “They” want to repeal the 2nd amendment. “They” say we shouldn’t have guns.
Or aren’t you aware of the left’s stance on guns in the USA?
@Ed @Dave it’s possible for you to be violent, and the government to call you a terrorist, and yet your cause be righteous.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist)
And Jim Jones had a righteous cause, too. 🙄
Folks, I am aware of a statue incident case in NM, where a woman blocked a would be counter-protester, apparently pushing/blocking several times. He pushed back, she fell, was swarmed. He retreated, was hit with a skateboard, used pepper spray. He further retreated (making tactical error of turning his back), on some claims 90+ m. He was pursued, was tackled and swarmed by 3 men, being again hit with a skateboard (which is in effect a metal loaded club). The crowd was baying about killing him. He pulled a gun and shot one of the three, who seemed to have a knife in a still frame and was within the 20+ ft danger space for a knife armed person. He went to a knee as they fled. Supporters came rushing up and interposed between him and the crowd which now accused him of murder. It seems to me that he may have a case of defensive shooting targetting the most pressing threat after retreating twice and being in reasonable fear of life. In another case an apparently black woman, stopped and swarmed drove off through a crowd, hitting one protester. She reported seeing a gun, motivating racing off. That sounds like she may argue defensive use of a vehicle as a weapon . . . which raises the point that people cannot be wholly disarmed, e.g. a 2 x 4 or a leaf spring turned into a kukri etc. In case A pepper spray and a handgun were used, in B, a sedan car as a ram-weapon. KF
KF,
Yes, I believe (some) charges were dropped on the NM shooter.
RP,
Thanks, that’s a good example.
All
Am I the only one that finds it curious that no one has defaced any Mosques or calling for their destruction? I mean did Jesus own slaves like the founder of Islam? Seems to me this is a much bigger deal than certain depictions of Jesus
Also anyone find it curious that certain leftist icons like FDR, or KKK Byrd, or the Russell building are left alone.?
Sometimes all one has to do is observe it pretty much tells you all that you need to know.
Vivid
Next they will plow under and develop Gettysburg’s battle fields.