"Museums, monuments, and public institutions should be spaces where these stories are held with care, not suppressed for political convenience."A lot easier to do, when so many of the monuments you don't like have already been torn down.
Yes, exactly. So much of this stuff that is arguably wrong from first principles is being done because those principles were already violated by the other side. Somehow they can't see that they did it first, emphatically and regularly.
That doesn't make it right. There's a sense in which it is fair, because 'turnabout is fair play.' Getting them to at least recognize that they started the ball rolling might help, but how do you do that?
I feel like I have spent my life on that question, unsuccessfully. It is not only in politics that mirrors are in short supply. It goes to family relations, neighbors, co-workers, neighbors. Somehow, we just don't do this well as a people. However many there are that manage it easily, there are more for whom this is entirely opaque. I would think that the Catholic focus on Confession would at least dent this, but I don't see that in my everyday experience.
ReplyDeleteWe are reading the book "Heyday" in book club, and I am discouraged how seemingly everyone - the British and the Russians, the American South and North, Caribbean and European radicals, freemarketers, freebooters, and socialists - all decide what they want and who the evil ones are who must be stopped, and only then discover that God wants them to be the ones to do it. I am seeing no examples of anyone asking God first.
Oh yes. The key word is "anosognosia."
ReplyDeleteIsn't the purpose of cultural institutions under government control to reinforce the cultural touchstones and ideas? Is this sort of thing not the kind of action that stimulates debates about what should and should not be reinforced? Shouldn't we desire that we don't pretend that these institutions are neutral or unbiased, and that their biases reflect those of the people on whose largesse they operate?
ReplyDeleteI also think the term "culture war" is an apt one, and that you must by needs set aside certain limits in time of war so that you can return to a less limited state once the war is settled. This one is far from settled.
Maybe, Douglas. For a long time we had a cultural agreement that we would portray the Civil War as a noble strife to overcome the foundational sin of slavery; but that the Confederate soldiers who fought bravely would be recognized for that virtue, and the suffering noncombatants (like Scarlett O'Hara) would be accorded some respect for their suffering. That was useful for America for a long time.
ReplyDeleteThen recently we decided we'd destroy all that, rename streets and military bases, tear down statues, and so forth.
Was that useful? To whom? There had been a war that became a peace; now there's something akin to a war again. Thankfully so far it's not a very hot war, but it's less stable than once.