Charlottesville VA - WTF???

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

Nobody is saying to outright destroy the statues. Just put them in a museum somewhere. It would also be different if those statues were hundreds or thousands of years old. They have been around roughly 50 or so years in a lot of cases. That's nothing.

The vast majority are around 100 years old.

Spoiler!

https://www.splcenter.org/sites/defa...itage_splc.pdf

They're still garbage, but lets not add a false narrative on top of the reasons they should go.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by The Familia

We might as well remove the pyramids and sphinx in Egypt if we are going to start taking things down. I mean, Egyptian pharoes believed in slavery and used 1000's upon 1000's of them to build their monuments. Those pyramids are symbols of oppression.

Might as well burn down Rome as every monument left from the Roman Empire was built on the back of slaves and conquered cultures. Can't have those left standing.

This statue removal is going to open a massive can of worms. Where do we draw the line?

There's also a very different context involved the pyramids and most of the monumental roman architecture and art you're talking about. The pyramids were not built to honor historic abuses of human rights. Nearly everything roman building or statue honored gods/goddesses not slave owners. The fact that they were built by slaves is meaningless in their symbolic existence.

Proof of this is the thousands of farms throughout the south contained by rock walls built by actual slaves. No one is screaming for the removal of these meaningless features. They're good and useful stone walls. They are not symbolic and they mean very little to very few. Yet they were built on the backs of slaves as you say. It's all about context.

[PepsiFree]

The slippery slope argument has got to be one of the least convincing ones in any argument. Unless you're arguing about the best way to move a heavy mass from a high point to a low point.

[Tinordi]

Originally Posted by The Familia

We might as well remove the pyramids and sphinx in Egypt if we are going to start taking things down. I mean, Egyptian pharoes believed in slavery and used 1000's upon 1000's of them to build their monuments. Those pyramids are symbols of oppression.

Might as well burn down Rome as every monument left from the Roman Empire was built on the back of slaves and conquered cultures. Can't have those left standing.

This statue removal is going to open a massive can of worms. Where do we draw the line?

This is one of the dumbest arguments I've read in years. Quoted for posterity.

[Playfair]

[oldschoolcalgary]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

This is one of the dumbest arguments I've read in years. Quoted for posterity.

Definitely a contender for the Hall of Shame.

Right there with the argument that by allowing gay marriage, the courts are opening the door to inter-species marriages...

[SebC]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

If the statue of Lee was sculpted by Rodin or Picasso it would have artistic merit, the rubbish you find in the middle of a park cranked out by some unknown graduate of the Art Institute of Pittsburgh or the like is not art, it has less merit than the rocks on sticks and that's going some.

Artistic merit sometimes takes a very long time to become apparent.

====================================

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

The slippery slope argument has got to be one of the least convincing ones in any argument.

Not really. Slippery slope, itself, is not a fallacy. Sometimes one thing really does lead to another, then another.

A slippery slope argument, essentially is an examination of the consequences of the assumptions and arguments that lead to a conclusion. If we find those consequences distasteful, we may want to re-examine our assumptions and arguments.

Once we approve of artifact removal on ethical grounds, we must consider that, say, a homosexual could quite fairly perceive many religious symbols as symbols of hatred. Should they go too? Is ISIL's destruction of cultural heritage not an atrocity, since they believe it to morally sound?

A slippery slope argument asks "where do we draw the line, and how?" If we can answer that successfully, then the argument has been addressed. If we don't have a good answer, that's a problem.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by SebC

A slippery slope argument asks "where do we draw the line, and how?" If we can answer that successfully, then the argument has been addressed. If we don't have a good answer, that's a problem.

Everyone knows what it asks, because often that's the exact question that gets asked. The reason it's generally useless is that common sense is a fairly reliable guide to avoid the problem of the slippery slope.

Here's a great way to know if the slippery slope argument is being helpful: if you're bringing up ISIS or the Pyramids when talking about current American race relations, it's probably not.

[SebC]

Let's say there was a blanket consensus that destroying cultural heritage is bad. General Lee stays, but so does Palmyra. Would you take that trade?

[calgarybornnraised]

Kind of ironic that the Khan's are from Charlottesville.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by SebC

Artistic merit sometimes takes a very long time to become apparent.

A history on when and how these statues were erected would tell you that this argument is a silly one. These statues were Mass produced for the most part

====================================

Not really. Slippery slope, itself, is not a fallacy. Sometimes one thing really does lead to another, then another.

A slippery slope argument, essentially is an examination of the consequences of the assumptions and arguments that lead to a conclusion. If we find those consequences distasteful, we may want to re-examine our assumptions and arguments.

Once we approve of artifact removal on ethical grounds, we must consider that, say, a homosexual could quite fairly perceive many religious symbols as symbols of hatred. Should they go too? Is ISIL's destruction of cultural heritage not an atrocity, since they believe it to morally sound?

A slippery slope argument asks "where do we draw the line, and how?" If we can answer that successfully, then the argument has been addressed. If we don't have a good answer, that's a problem.

It is a fallacy.

That argument runs in reverse though too then. If you can't take that down, then you might remove old graffiti with racial epithets.

It's possible we weigh each act of removal on its own merits, no? Can we not decide to keep Washington and not Hitler? If one extreme is good or bad, we must accept all as such and proceed accordingly? No

[Itse]

Originally Posted by SebC

A slippery slope argument asks "where do we draw the line, and how?" If we can answer that successfully, then the argument has been addressed. If we don't have a good answer, that's a problem.

A slippery slope argument, by definition, is not a question.

Arguments are made when someone is for or against something, not to ask a question about something.

Slippery slope arguments are also almost always either hyperbolic or reductio ad absurdum arguments. Like the most recent example.

[GirlySports]

So the Baltimore mayor overnight removed 4 statues. One of the ones taken was a Lee and Stonewall Jackson two-fer right in the heart of the city. Another she got was a Taney statue, and she also got a Confederate women's statue.

[metallicat]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denazification

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

So the Baltimore mayor overnight removed 4 statues. One of the ones taken was a Lee and Stonewall Jackson two-fer right in the heart of the city. Another she got was a Taney statue, and she also got a Confederate women's statue.

Why are you writing this like the statues were kidnapped?

This seems like it was a good way to do it, and it's too bad Charlottesville didn't removed them immediately upon deciding to.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

Why are you writing this like the statues were kidnapped?

This seems like it was a good way to do it, and it's too bad Charlottesville didn't removed them immediately upon deciding to.

Really? I didn't want to say removed 4 times.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

A history on when and how these statues were erected would tell you that this argument is a silly one. These statues were Mass produced for the most part

It was a general statement, even qualified with a "sometimes".

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

It's possible we weigh each act of removal on its own merits, no?

I'm not saying that we can't. I'm saying that we should verify that the whatever case we make to remove these statues doesn't also create problems for more desirable objects. Far too often arguments are made that superficially appeal to "common sense" but aren't actually sound because the logic is not taken to it's conclusion (i.e.: "we should have A, because it gives us B and B is great", ignoring that A also leads to C and C is bad, and sometimes a deal-breaker). I'm not saying that the downsides to this are insurmountable, but creating a sound dividing line for what should be removed and what shouldn't is not trivially easy. At least not to me. And thus, going down this path will create issues. But that's not to say it won't be worth it.

[OMG!WTF!]

The Bay removed a plaque honoring Jefferson Davis overnight as well...

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...-building.html

I was in Savanah once and at a restaurant built in the 1800's. They uncovered a confederate war map drawn on a wall during a renovation. They preserved it and have it in a climate controlled frame. That's the kind of stuff that would be sad to see go. That's actual history and important. People don't have a problem with that sort of stuff.

[ernie]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

The Bay removed a plaque honoring Jefferson Davis overnight as well...

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/...-building.html

I was in Savanah once and at a restaurant built in the 1800's. They uncovered a confederate war map drawn on a wall during a renovation. They preserved it and have it in a climate controlled frame. That's the kind of stuff that would be sad to see go. That's actual history and important. People don't have a problem with that sort of stuff.

Indeed. And there are countless battleground and massacre historical sites. No one is screaming for these to be shut down. Again, actual history with importance.

Things set up to try to whitewash history, influence future generation and celebrate traitors is not that. It is people who believed in the following:

The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution."

... the great truth [is] that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

This is the part of the speech of the Confederate Vice-President the New Orleans mayor used and Al Franken used today.

Move the statues to a museum environment where the full, fact based history of the war can be dicussed. No problem with that. But to have them on street corners as celebratory pieces, and make no mistake that is exactly what they are, should not happen.

And I would argue it is completely different than a George Washington statue in Britain...he may have been a traitor to the crown but he was also a father of modern democracy. He deserves some celebration. He was, despite several faults, on the right side of history and moral belief when it came to fair political systems. The confederate was and always will be on the wrong side.

[2Stonedbirds]

Originally Posted by SebC

It was a general statement, even qualified with a "sometimes".

I'm not saying that we can't. I'm saying that we should verify that the whatever case we make to remove these statues doesn't also create problems for more desirable objects. Far too often arguments are made that superficially appeal to "common sense" but aren't actually sound because the logic is not taken to it's conclusion (i.e.: "we should have A, because it gives us B and B is great", ignoring that A also leads to C and C is bad, and sometimes a deal-breaker). I'm not saying that the downsides to this are insurmountable, but creating a sound dividing line for what should be removed and what shouldn't is not trivially easy. At least not to me. And thus, going down this path will create issues. But that's not to say it won't be worth it.

To play devils advocate, should we remove FDRs likeness from the public eye? I mean, he put Japanese into camps during ww2.

On a serious note, I hope that statue of Lenin in Seattle doesn't make it through the weekend.