There is a growing list of controversial figures that ought to be removed from the public square, but not many arguments backed by principled stances.
Below I'll outline two opposing positions. The position that argues for tearing down statues I'll deem the 'Removalist' (I'm sure there is a catchier name), and the contraposition, 'Preservationist'.
In both positions, statues are visible and tangible realities that are used to embody/represent some important figure/event/period or other. They serve as visible reminders of who/what is considered important by the community/society/country.
There is a quality to the statue as it is [[[matter+shape]=statue]=memorial].
This is gives statues an ‘incarnational value’. Incarnation is a religious term - Christ was God incarnate, for instance - and though statues do not necessarily represent deities, they appear to represent the spirit of an age, and it’s the attitudes towards that representation that divides Removalists and Preservationists.
Below I'll outline two opposing positions. The position that argues for tearing down statues I'll deem the 'Removalist' (I'm sure there is a catchier name), and the contraposition, 'Preservationist'.
In both positions, statues are visible and tangible realities that are used to embody/represent some important figure/event/period or other. They serve as visible reminders of who/what is considered important by the community/society/country.
There is a quality to the statue as it is [[[matter+shape]=statue]=memorial].
This is gives statues an ‘incarnational value’. Incarnation is a religious term - Christ was God incarnate, for instance - and though statues do not necessarily represent deities, they appear to represent the spirit of an age, and it’s the attitudes towards that representation that divides Removalists and Preservationists.
The Case for Taking Down Statues
There are three common criticisms that are mobilised by the Removalist:
a) such statues lionise immoral and despicable behaviour by the dominant culture's ancestors,
b) such statues can sanitise past injustices committed against minority cultures, and;
c) such statues are painful reminders of past violence and injustice
These positions are utilised in the pursuit of some form of reparations for some past injustice or other, and by removing statues, one can express:
a) a condemnation of the past injustice,
b) a repudiation of the past's underlying harmful rationale, and;
c) a commitment to preventing continuing harms in connection to the legacy represented by the statue
And we ought to be in the game of such reparations because the symbolic and material gains would significantly aid in the leveling of the playing field for the hitherto disadvantaged and marginalised peoples, as well as righting the wrongs of the past.
The Case Against Taking Down Statues
For the Preservationist, statues do represent people who may or may not have committed wrong acts or believed and expounded upon wrong beliefs, but the people of today interpret the statue via their own lights and the morals of the age.
The statues therefore provide:
a) a recognition of a community's/nation's shared history,
Secondly, efforts to cleanse the public square of controversial or racist memorials can become unacceptably damaging to social cohesion and could ultimately frustrate the Removalist goals. Why? Because widespread removalism could draw attention to hitherto 'forgotten' monuments, confirm the suspicions of white separatists/nationalists that their history is being erased, and lend credence to the belief that national identity is inextricably based on white Europeans and their conquests. None of these are in the Removalist agenda, and if these are the unintended consequences of their actions, then they should really re-think their approach.
In closing, every people has its heroes, and these heroes are memorialised by any people who has developed material culture. Instead of removing controversial cultural heroes of the dominant culture, nations with racist histories could make efforts to memorialise cultural heroes of the historically oppressed groups - some of whom may be looked upon with spite much similar to that John A. MacDonald. After all, very few heroes are heroes to all.
The statues therefore provide:
a) a recognition of a community's/nation's shared history,
b) a recognition of that lineage and tradition, and;
c) a possible challenge to a society's conception of (a) and (b)
One should be wary about removing controversial statues because:
a) The removal acts as a wiping out of history and the lessons that can be learnt from it,
On the Preservationist account, statues of historical figures act not only as an object of commemoration, and that commemoration is important, but they also act as a mechanism against the sanitising the public square.
Assessment
In all of the above cases, statues 'do' something. They are not merely objects; they are symbols, and they represent or express certain dominant ideas that are intended to be passed on from generation to generation. As such, individuals in society will often internalise the dominant discourse in the construction their own identity, and this process brings into existence an individual's 'subjectivity': how one experiences one's self in the larger scheme of society and its rules, stories, history, and destiny. This can give one a sense of superiority as one sees one's self as connected to the dominant culture and its ideas, or one can feel alienated from it.
The former is unlikely since the operation of such a dynamic is only possible if people are convinced of the views expressed. How statues convince present-day people to adopt and exert the discriminatory views of the past goes unexplained, though it is stated that statues can function as 'reminders' of genocide, violence, and oppression.
c) a possible challenge to a society's conception of (a) and (b)
One should be wary about removing controversial statues because:
a) The removal acts as a wiping out of history and the lessons that can be learnt from it,
b) It sets a dangerous precedent for removal, and;
c) It sanitises the public square.On the Preservationist account, statues of historical figures act not only as an object of commemoration, and that commemoration is important, but they also act as a mechanism against the sanitising the public square.
Assessment
In all of the above cases, statues 'do' something. They are not merely objects; they are symbols, and they represent or express certain dominant ideas that are intended to be passed on from generation to generation. As such, individuals in society will often internalise the dominant discourse in the construction their own identity, and this process brings into existence an individual's 'subjectivity': how one experiences one's self in the larger scheme of society and its rules, stories, history, and destiny. This can give one a sense of superiority as one sees one's self as connected to the dominant culture and its ideas, or one can feel alienated from it.
It is crucial to note that a fundamental element in this issue is mental intermediation: the process of psychological assessment that occurs in an audience member to an expression - be it speech or art works, which act as 'symbolic speech' - and that which leads to the mental element(s) of understanding, belief, attitude or intention which, in turn, can lead to further action.
This process can produce a harm if the mental element produced through it also produces harmful conduct. However, statues are seen as harmful in and of themselves, and so we see that as harms become less emotive, the scrutiny becomes more intense, and now harm can be produced through offense alone.
What the Removalist - as well as any censor - wants to do is erase the distinction between mental intermediation and the mental element, and draw a straight line from the 'message' of an expression to some harmful act or other. Which is why such people wish to emphasise the negative or harmful aspects of the object in question.
On this account, statues of immoral people impress upon the audience their immorality, and this can take the form of reviving the negative attitudes of the past, as well as causing trauma in others.
This process can produce a harm if the mental element produced through it also produces harmful conduct. However, statues are seen as harmful in and of themselves, and so we see that as harms become less emotive, the scrutiny becomes more intense, and now harm can be produced through offense alone.
What the Removalist - as well as any censor - wants to do is erase the distinction between mental intermediation and the mental element, and draw a straight line from the 'message' of an expression to some harmful act or other. Which is why such people wish to emphasise the negative or harmful aspects of the object in question.
On this account, statues of immoral people impress upon the audience their immorality, and this can take the form of reviving the negative attitudes of the past, as well as causing trauma in others.
Such 'reminders', however, are not enough to promote racist or degrading attitudes, and to suggest that they can, even when the statues do not explicitly do so, is to say that such statues are being experienced in racist or degrading ways, and this suggestion comes from a view of how people are: racist. Such attitudes are hinted at in the contemporary moniker: 'Settler Canadian' or 'colonial' - which attempts to reach back to the past and imbue today's European Canadians with the stain of generations long past.
The latter seems more likely, and one should be aware of the trauma that gets passed from generation to generation (though this runs the risk of pathologising people), however, it is also said by the same people that 'we' need to learn the 'uncomfortable truths' about our history, and to learn 'what it really is'. Indeed, so why, then, should the statues come down? If 'we' are to learn of our complicated history, then having memorials of it better serves that purpose than not.
Related to this are two final issues: first if the public sphere becomes anti-sceptic, if it becomes parched, and barren of challenge, controversy, and confrontation, then one - let alone society - could lose touch with history in a generation or two.
Related to this are two final issues: first if the public sphere becomes anti-sceptic, if it becomes parched, and barren of challenge, controversy, and confrontation, then one - let alone society - could lose touch with history in a generation or two.
Secondly, efforts to cleanse the public square of controversial or racist memorials can become unacceptably damaging to social cohesion and could ultimately frustrate the Removalist goals. Why? Because widespread removalism could draw attention to hitherto 'forgotten' monuments, confirm the suspicions of white separatists/nationalists that their history is being erased, and lend credence to the belief that national identity is inextricably based on white Europeans and their conquests. None of these are in the Removalist agenda, and if these are the unintended consequences of their actions, then they should really re-think their approach.
In closing, every people has its heroes, and these heroes are memorialised by any people who has developed material culture. Instead of removing controversial cultural heroes of the dominant culture, nations with racist histories could make efforts to memorialise cultural heroes of the historically oppressed groups - some of whom may be looked upon with spite much similar to that John A. MacDonald. After all, very few heroes are heroes to all.
Should we here in Manitoba perhaps erect a statue of Thomas Scott next to Louis Riel on the grounds of the legislative building?
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