Welcome friends!
Seems this week we were treated to the spectacle of a president of the USA springing to the defense of what I’m sure all good American recognize as the famous basket of deplorables Ms. Clinton tried to warn us about: the KKK, Neo-Nazis, Neo-Confederates, and other random racists, nativists, and xenophobes belonging to various other crazy fringe groups. Apparently they descended upon a small liberal college town in the US state of Virginia to engage in their usual rabble rousing and intimidation but were met with local counter protestors prepared to stand their ground. General mayhem rather predictably ensued climaxing in this case with the murder of a young lady by a Midwestern Neo-Nazi who drove his car into the counter protesters very much in the manner of some recent attacks by Islamic terrorists. (However, one should not necessary assume any particular affinity with Islamic terrorists. Turns out our own domestic conservative websites and media outlets have been running stories encouraging people to run over their political opponents in the street for some time now.) The president’s rather unhinged performance was just the latest in a long list of rather embarrassing spectacles the likes of which I never thought I would see in my lifetime. The shocking thing is we really have to expect more of the same at least for the foreseeable future. According to a recent Monmouth University poll over sixty percent of the Americans who support Mr. Trump say they can’t think of anything he could do that would make them disapprove of him. (That figure goes up to over seventy percent for his female supporters.) They will support him blindly and robotically no matter what he may do. Mr. Trump once boasted he could shoot someone on the streets of Manhattan and not lose any of his supporters and on that point at least it seems he was absolutely correct. His conservative base has given him carte blanche to do whatever he likes in very much the same way the same sort of people gave Adolph Hitler carte blanched to do as he wished many years ago in Germany. It’s all really rather horrifying and nothing at all like the America I thought I knew. But of course knowledge is always good. In order to fight conservatism we must see it for what it is. Anyway, a flashpoint in the development of this new low, twisted, violent version of America the Republican Party is conjuring from the dark recesses of their imagination is the fate of some statues put up years ago by the racists and nativists of the day to honor the generals and statesmen of the failed Confederate States of America (CSA) and their attempt to preserve the abhorrent system of racism and slavery upon which the economy of the old agrarian American south relied upon for so long. Most of the story of the statues is run of the mill conservatives versus liberals of the sort I’ve been talking about a lot recently. Indeed, I wasn’t sure I had anything in particular to say about it this week but then I read something that got my mind working just a little bit. It involved someone with an ancestor who had died fighting for the Confederacy. He or she was concerned that removing statues and symbols glorifying the Confederacy equated to insulting his or her dead ancestor. It got me thinking it’s not an unusual sort of issue and not all that obvious either. Perhaps something worthy of few moments discussion and contemplation?
Humanity being what it is we’ve had our share of wars and in each case or most cases anyway one side has won and one side has lost. But of course the ancestors of those who fought for the losing cause don’t just evaporate from the face of the earth. They live on in the new system that has melded with or at least reconciled with the winning side. One ends up with people one likes well enough, countrymen, whose ancestors fought for discredited systems that have long since disappeared. We have the American Civil War, many European nations have the fascist states of WWII, other countries have their own various civil wars and traumas. This situation brings up the awkward question of how to honor these people’s dead ancestors. What makes the issue awkward of course is we have always multiple dimensions of potential approbation and disapprobation to contend with. Someone may have fought for what we would now consider a rather disreputable system but may be considered honorable along some other dimension. Perhaps they did their duty to their nation, or government, or king, or dictator, or what have you. Perhaps they fought with unusual valor or humanity. The point is simply these people may have exhibited some things we consider worthy of some degree of respect along with some other things we don’t.
To take it out of a war context let’s say some criminal, Joe Schmo, is robbing a house and has just slit the throats of the sleeping adult owners of the property but upon discovering he has inadvertently set the house on fire runs into a burning bedroom to save the baby sleeping in the crib. Yes, he’s a conscientious sort of murderer who draws the line at offing babies. It’s called a thought experiment. Philosophy 101. OK, so the guy risks his life to save the kid. Is he a hero? It’s not very hard to see the problem when we set things up like this is it? We can’t say one way or the other without a little more specificity. A hero with respect to what? He’s certainly not a hero in some global sense defined and united by his personhood because he murdered innocent people in their sleep, which is not a particularly heroic sort of action in anyone’s book. But on the other hand I suppose it was pretty heroic to run into a burning room to save the kid. With respect to one action the guy was a scoundrel and with respect to the other a hero. When we discuss this sort of thing in words and can spend all day long setting up the scenario it’s not difficult to sort it all out.
Things would get a bit more difficult if we decided to commemorate the man using some sort of statue or memorial. Why? Well, I suppose because it’s just hard to get very specific with those sorts of objects. They tend to be interpreted as referring to the person in general rather than a particular person activity combination. This is not to say it’s logically impossible to memorialize a person activity nexus in this sort of medium. One could I suppose do a statue of Mr. Schmo running with a baby in his arms and maybe show the clothes with little burn holes or whatever. One might in that case suppose the statue must be commemorating the role Mr. Schmo played in some dramatic event involving babies and burning clothing but there still seems to be some room for confusion. One might reasonably assume based on this action that Mr. Schmo must have been a real stand up kind of guy and this baby scenario was the highlight of a life filled with heroism. Might be a little annoying to the parents or offspring of the people he had murdered in their sleep wouldn’t you say?
Might be hard to clear up this potential confusion through the medium of a more elaborate statue. I suppose we could depict Mr. Schmo running past a bed holding some murdered people and maybe holding a razor in one hand and the baby in the other or show a cop in hot pursuit but I think that might confuse the heck out of a casual observer. I think for something this messed up we’d have to resort to some verbiage somewhere. I suppose we could do a plaque explaining the statue is to memorialize the actions of Joe Schmo in saving the life of baby Cutie Pie on whatever date. But I guess that wouldn’t get us all the way there would it? One might still suppose Mr. Schmo was rather a better sort of person than he really was. How about a plaque that lays out all the potentially relevant details adding to the previous statement a statement to the effect that although Mr. Schmo saved the baby he was later convicted of having murdered ninety-nine people in their sleep and was incarcerated for life for his crimes? I guess that would pretty much do it right?
Now let’s take up the case of a memorial of someone who died fighting for the CSA. On the one had, fighting for the Confederacy does not necessarily equate to slitting someone’s throat while sleeping but of course I suppose equally doing what one may have felt was one’s duty doesn’t exactly equate to running into a burning room to save a baby either. The point is this person will combine some things we consider worthy of respect and some things perhaps less so.
If we’re talking about private memorials and gravestones and so on the issues isn’t really very important. We have a general belief in this country one should at least try to be charitable to the dead including those who may have done some things we would find conventionally reprehensible or difficult to understand because they can’t speak up for themselves and also out of respect for their ancestors who many have done nothing wrong but may have mixed feelings. So I don’t suppose too many people would mind even the most committed racist soldier having his or her gravestone and so on. I suppose if we were talking about someone famous for outrages and atrocities that might not hold but in general I think that would be the case.
In addition we all know in this kind of conflict some people are rather more committed to the cause than some other people. Some confederate soldiers may have been fighting in passionate support of racism and slavery but some others were probably fighting more for hearth and home and perhaps wouldn’t have cared too much about the big issues one way or the other or perhaps they even disapproved of those particular aspects of their system. Again, we’re typically willing to give dead people the benefit of the doubt on this sort of thing as far as private monuments go. In most cases we don’t really know why someone was fighting for a particular side and we don’t really want to know.
Finally, when we’re talking about a private memorial of this sort it’s hard to envision it as a public endorsement of a movement. Local or national authorities didn’t come in and install it. It’s not situated in front of a court house or some other public space. Well, maybe a cemetery is a public space but if so it’s a public space for private memorials and markers. Even a grave marker emblazoned with the stars and bars flag of the Confederacy would I think tend to not bring much to the mind of most people beyond that that person apparently died fighting for the Confederacy.
Now when we move on to public statues and monuments and so on we’re in a rather different sort of situation. We usually slap statues of people in public places because we want to suggest there was something particularly laudable or inspirational about something that person did. In many cases a famous personage will be famous for some feat or action and one supposes that must be what we’re talking about. We have a statue of George Washington because he famously led the fledgling US army during the revolution that established our democratic nation. Maybe he also did some other things that weren’t so great. He may have owned slaves for example. But one would have to be rather obtuse indeed to suppose we placed a statue of the man on the lawn because we’re impressed with his slave holdings. Many wealthy early Americans owned slaves. They don’t all have statues. They aren’t all considered fathers of our nation.
It all seems a bit more complicated when we’re talking about a statue of a Confederate general or statesman. These people are typically famous for their activities in service to the CSA. That’s really their claim to fame. That’s why people know them. I suppose one could argue it’s not really their association to the CSA but really something more general. Perhaps we have a statue of Jefferson Davis because he exemplified a hard working public servant. (I don’t believe he really did but it doesn’t matter here.) Perhaps we have a statue of Robert E. Lee because he was arguably a great military leader. I suppose that might work but one must admit it’s a bit of a stretch. I suppose as was the case for our fictional Mr. Schmo we could construct a sufficiently explanatory plaque that would probably clear up much of the ambiguity for those who took the time to read it. We’re honoring General Bigbeard despite the fact he was fighting for the discredited cause of racism and slavery because of his unusual bravery or honor or kindness to civilians or whatever at the Battle of X.
However, when one sees statues of a long list of high level CSA generals and statesmen one can’t help but suspect there’s some intended connection to the Confederacy itself. We’ve had a lot of generals and a lot of politicians. It would be a little odd if a great number of those we chose to honor with public statues just happened to come from the CSA during the four years of the Civil War one hundred and fifty years ago. And this is the sort of thing I think we’d all like to be pretty clear about because the values of the CSA are inconsistent with those of the modern USA. Wouldn’t want anyone getting the wrong end of the stick on something like this.
Turns out many of these statues were erected not immediately in the aftermath of the Civil War but during a resurgence of racism and bigotry in the early years of the twentieth century. It’s hard not to suppose any confusion about their purpose or significance was entirely intended. Although ostensibly to honor notable dead people it seems rather likely the purpose was just as much or more to affirm the racist theories and policies of the CSA. Whatever the source of this confusion it has led generations of American southerners to believe the USA or a large segment of the USA endorses the values of the CSA and that the Civil War is widely recognized as a famous tragedy in which the forces of good were put down by the force of overreaching federal aggression. It’s past time we set this narrative to rest. Let’s clear up this confusion. We should commemorate the Confederate dead in cemeteries. We should use our public statuary to commemorate those who lived inspiring lives without awkward moral ambiguity so they can inspire us all to greater things not leave us scratching our heads in confusion or stomping off in disgust. Let’s look for figures that represent our common and shared values not divisive characters of unknown or questionable moral beliefs from an at least partially unwholesome culture and system that has long since passed from this world. Let’s celebrate the USA, not the CSA.
References
Fox News, Daily Caller delete posts encouraging people to drive through protests. Tom Kludt. August 15, 2017. CNN. http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/15/media/daily-caller-fox-news-video-car-crashing-liberal-protesters/index.html.
6 in 10 people who approve of Trump say they’ll never, ever, ever stop approving. Ryan Struyk. August 17, 2017. CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/17/politics/trump-approvers-never-stop-approving-poll/index.html.
The Real Story Behind All Those Confederate Statues. Kevin Drum. August 15, 2017. Mother Jones. http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/08/the-real-story-of-all-those-confederate-statues/.
