How do we judge peoples of the past - is the past or the present more relevant?
Much has been said about what we do with statues of in public areas of people, whose past achievements for which they were lauded are overshadowed their positions or actions inconsistent with an age of different value systems. Black Lives Matters protestors want that statue of a leader of Civil War vintage outside the state building to be brought down, confronted by Lost Cause adherents with Confederate paraphernalia. Or the statue of an obscure personage but now widely-known to have owned slaves.
Most positions on this issue is really a reflection of the politics of that past person in question. Those who disagree with his (and it is normally a he) politics or actions will marshal arguments to bolster their position, usually about the affront such a person represents to their community or a community they support. Conversely, those who agree with his politics, or rather the symbolism of the person itself to their politics, will defend the indefensible by appealing to principles, such as equating pulling down statues to Nazism in their rewriting of history. And people's arguments could change depending on which statue they are talking about - do they like or dislike the person in question. OK, not everyone puts conclusions before rationale, but, really, those few upright trees is rather hard to see in the dark forests surrounding them.
Let me wade into this debate in my normal brash annoying self and maybe set out a solution that hopefully meets everybody's aims, even if it satisfy no-one.
I have a few guiding principles. First, sovereignty always lie with people, not ideas, objects, symbols, and least of all not statues. What is important is that people are able to go about their daily lives without damage to their well being - physical, mental and emotional. That would include one's self-esteem and self-identification. And we always have to take people as they are, with their history, foibles and weaknesses, and their value systems (as long as they are valid within the rules and conventions of the society they are in). Where valid rights of people conflict as they often do in society, we choose the option that minimise damage and maximise benefits to as many individuals as possible and to the society as a whole.
Secondly, people should always be judged by their peers by standards they have consented to, expressly or implicitly, including by their social contract with society. Judging people of the past using the standards we hold today, and not the standards of their times, would mean that we ourselves agree to be judged by unknown strangers in a future in an unknown context and very likely with very different values to what we hold ourselves - that means we are happy to be denigrated by peoples who do not know us. Well, its the Golden Rule, isn't it?
Thirdly, being offended means nothing to me as my principle is that you can only be offended if you allow it. A person may be offended by a taunt while their mate standing next to them may be totally unaffected - one did not allow the taunt to affect them while the other did. Having said that, I do recognise that people may have different propensities to be offended due to reasons outside their control or they find difficult to control. A person may be more vulnerable to offence because of past experience, their current context or even because of the makeup of their brains or hormones. Even a normally resilient person may take offence on a specific issue if there has been a lack of reconciliation on that issue - by one or both sides. So, while a perfect world would have no place for being offending, many or most or all of us are not perfect on this issue, least of all myself.
As you can see, these principles conflict. I am not quite sure why we feel a need to judge others but if we do, I think it should be with the caveat set out in the second principle above. While I try not to judge (and probably, failing often), I think it is proper to assess whether a particular outcome it desirable or not. If it is, how do we increase the likelihood of the outcome and if it isn't, what is the appropriate solution to bring about a better outcome, if one is required.
The continuing conflict over the issues indicate that we are not in a desired situation, desired by either side of the issue (maybe only to anarchists or the like who seek to take opportunities offered by conflict but we can discount them as they do not represent the consensus, or the mainstream in society or even considered as valid views within most societies). But as always, at the risk of making mountains out of molehills, I would take the broader view of the issue beyond the statues themselves. Dealing with the statues only and not the broader underlying issue, whichever one it is, would be just treating the symptoms and not the cause (or just placing a bandaid on an amputation - choose your metaphor).
Fundamentally, all societies need to have conversations about who they really are and what values should be defended but such conversations, by their nature can only be as honest and as effective as the completeness of the democracy it takes place in. If anything, the existence of such fissures on the issue fo the statues until it erupted the way it did, is probably an indication of flaws in the respective democracies. The American society has put off this discussion about who an American is and what do they believe in - questions that should have been fundamental in setting up a society and writing its constitution I won't go any further here, though, because it is a discussion in itself and I will save it for another day.
I do like the solution HBO offered for Gone With the Wind - of prefacing the movie with an explanation of the context of the movie. This will provide adequate warning about potential offence without damaging the integrity of the movie. I have not seen the explanation and hopes that its educational value is adequate for the purpose, but I am sure there will be people who who want their preferred information to be included - you are not going to satisfy everyone.
In a similar way, explanations could be placed at statues commemorating persons retrospectively found to be controversial, to provide context of why the person was honoured in their time and its possible divergence from the values of today. If the intention is to educate.
Whether a statue is to be removed or not, my default position would be to leave it in place with that explanation. But having seen how Iraqis treated the statue of Saddam Hussein, one cannot but sympathise with the opposite sentiments. Also, the rapidity of the change in situation in Baghdad would make it impractical to remove statues in the orderly way that I would prefer. This is what happens, I guess when people without any release of their tensions for a long time get to release all their tension at one go, but that is another topic.
Sometimes the statue is designed in a particular way or is located in particularly public location as a symbol of that society's values. Robert E Lee's statue on horseback in the capitol building springs to mind. If the original reason for putting up that statue in the first place is no longer consistent with the changed values in society, it would be appropriate for society to decide that that statue is no longer an appropriate symbol and to remove it. But, there has to be due process, preferably using the same institutions and processes that placed it there in the first place, adjusted only if those institutions and processes have significantly changed since then.
What do we do with the removed statues? Many have suggested displaying them in museums with the appropriate explanation to provide the lessons of history to succeeding generations. Any excess statues are then demolished or repurposed. It is interesting to note that in the former Soviet Union, though, the residual reverence for these personages precludes their destruction and some public parks around Russia are populated entirely by ghosts of their communist past of Lenin, Stalin and their comrades. Unfortunately, such reverence provides a pathway for failed values of the past to return into a society unable or unwilling to learn from their own history.
Also, what do we do if the removed statues and symbols are acquired legally for display in a museum commemorating the very values that society feel a divergence with? For instance, statues of Confederate leaders ending up in a museum commemorating the Lost Cause. Would that only provide focus or pilgrimage centre for people holding a minority view of those values? Should the removed statues continue to be owned by the state so that the state can continue to have a say in what happens to the statues?
What about statues in public but not so busy locations? One can argue that a person walking where an offending statue already exist is choosing to be offended, particularly if there are other routes that avoid that statue. The local community (do we define that to include outside users who regularly passes by the area?) will have to decide but after proper due process.
Every case is different as different persons are commemorated, in different posture and sizes, in different locations, in different context, in different local communities with different impact on individuals and on society. The general public's input into the decision is very much dependent on the individual's proximity to the impact. As in most things in life, all solutions are bespoke and there should be no one size fits all kind of solutions.
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