tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post5506032429667521512..comments2024-03-18T15:45:32.866-04:00Comments on bensozia: Midnight Monument Removal in New OrleansJohnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-67813108645629009572017-05-10T12:42:48.829-04:002017-05-10T12:42:48.829-04:00@David
Well, white southerners never faced anythi...@David<br /><br />Well, white southerners never faced anything like the Nuremburg trials, nor the occupations of East Germany by the Soviets, and West Germany by the Americans, French, and British.<br /><br />The Nazis were hounded, rooted out, and harshly held to task. White southerners were merely given a slap on the wrist, and allowed to go about their business with only the most basic enforcement of the most visible aspects of abolition and reintegration. While most Nazi organizations were forcibly disbanded, white southern groups like the KKK, the White League, and the Red Shirts were left alone. There were extreme consequences for being a Nazi in the wake of the WWII, but there were little to none for being a white supremacist in the wake of the Civil War.G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-40265989953307054552017-05-09T16:39:46.415-04:002017-05-09T16:39:46.415-04:00It's a salutary trick that we've managed t...It's a salutary trick that we've managed to separate Nazis and Germans, so that most contemporary Germans do not identify as Nazi, and "Nazi" has become a slur that transcends nationality. Too bad we haven't managed to do the same with white southerners and their history--in large part, of course, because white southerners refuse to go along.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08993570411881726772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-54536102428747908062017-05-09T12:16:29.217-04:002017-05-09T12:16:29.217-04:00I find the von Manstein parallel interesting in a ...I find the von Manstein parallel interesting in a couple of ways. For one, the lack of monuments has not kept Manstein, Guderian, Rommel etc. from being famous historical figures much honored in some quarters, including among some of the Brits and Americans who fought them. So the monuments must be a separate issue from remembrance, which can perfectly well go on without them; this is an argument about the use of public space more than about how we remember the past. <br /><br />One key difference is that Europe has decided to have done with Nazis and forget about ever accommodating their views on anything, and has mostly made this stick. But we can't get rid of white southerners, so we have to be able to live with them. That's why I'm always looking for compromises that make some kind of sense, viz., keeping monuments that simply honor the sacrifice of ordinary Confederate soldiers. I suspect that truth to my own principles means getting rid of Beauregard, but that makes me a little sad.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01037215533094998996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-59145953634922427752017-05-09T08:51:16.754-04:002017-05-09T08:51:16.754-04:00@John, I'm partly sympathetic to your argument...@John, I'm partly sympathetic to your arguments about Beauregard, including your pleasure in his name, but it occurs to me that one could make similar arguments for a statue of, for example, Erich von Manstein--including his name, another enjoyably absurd aristocratic pile-up. Like Beauregard, Manstein was a striking personality and a man redolent of a certain time and place, and in some sense worthy, for those things, of being remembered, of not being consigned to historical oblivion. But, also like Beauregard, he was part of a history that is still alive, divisively so, and on the side that many folks still think is worth identifying, loudly, as the wrong one.Davidhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08993570411881726772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8304928500646903522.post-64351742986758406982017-05-08T08:52:43.004-04:002017-05-08T08:52:43.004-04:00"Plus I'm just the sort of traditionalist...<i>"Plus I'm just the sort of traditionalist who likes public squares with old elm trees and statues of generals on horseback. If this monument goes, what are we going to get in its place? Some abstract monstrosity?"</i><br /><br />Well, you get what you pay for, and also what the majority approves of. If individual people particularly want to have a say in what replaces it, they can get involved in community discussions, help plan and design something better, and offer up their own money to help fund it.<br /><br />Either way, though, if fewer people are bothered by the new monument than the old, even if it's an "abstract monstrosity", I'd argue that's undeniably an objective improvement, individual taste in aesthetics be damned.G. Verlorennoreply@blogger.com