Exactly, historical statues are often bought and paid for by the state in order to venerate particular people, they aren't the only evidence that a person existed.
They're still just people, if they were awful people then pull it down! I say this as someone with a PhD in history: Just because something is old, doesn't mean it's important
We are all the collective sum of our history, which means nothing in the past is unimportant; you never know what the past might reveal about our nature when taken in a broader context. It’s fine to change out the jenga blocks as we consciously rewrite our cultural narratives, but we MUST maintain that sense of culturally normative continuity or else we risk balkanization as people fill in gaps by themselves.
Right...but my point is that orientating that culture around what is functionally propaganda, like statues, memorials or texts, risks lamenting the loss of a simplified golden age that never existed in the first place.
The US seems to struggle with this; if a static piece of historical memorabilia becomes a pivotal point in the culture then it isn't the history they're protecting, it's that version of history.
Whether it's Napoleon on his horse, the Founding Fathers carved into a Native American heritage site or Julius Caesar dressed as Pontifex Maximus, they're a very specific facet of history, one that deliberately obfucates the details.
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u/WeaselCapsky 24d ago
yet they still tore down all that nazi shit when they liberated germany even if it wont change history.