To argue against this, all you have to do is pick someone who is currently thought of as great - let's say Martin Luther King. Imagine in 200 years a charismatic and passionate orator arises who convinces everyone that they should be vegan, and anyone who killed or ate animals was an abomination. A picture emerges of King eating a steak. Do you tear down his statue? I don't think one should condemn people who were just doing what was normal for the time, what they thought was right, and society hadn't learned any better.

Memorials do not record history. They glorify a version of it. Tearing them down is also history. However, torn down ones belong to a museum, with ample explanation of their meaning, context and why they were removed, not the dump.

You are going to tear everything for a reason or other: Gandhi was racist (against black people), willingly supported the Zulu murder and was probably were a pedophile

you cant judge people of the past by todays standards

If they paid for hospitals, libraries, and the like, don't forget to tear those down, too.

What you have given us here is called a strawman argument. It's a form of fallacious reasoning.

I want a statue of Jefferson Davis sh*tting his own pants/petticoat since when they finally caught him, he was wearing women's clothing. That's the past we should remember.

The standards of the day....were the standards of the day, and the refusal to acknowledge the fact that the views and norms of today, look absolutely nothing like they did even a few decades ago, let alone centuries ago. Provided humanity doesn't succumb to the heat death of their idiocy, future generations are likely to view you, me and everyone else on the planet in exactly the same way so many people who desperately want to paint themselves as "woke" are trying to do. Monuments are erected of those who were historically significant. Doesn't mean they were good or bad, just that they had an impact. Meaning it's important for people to continue to know and learn either from their accomplishments, or failures. But people like you want those who built the US to be villainized....because they did exactly the same thing that everyone else in the world was, and had been doing for the entirety of human history. Everyone. Everywhere.

I say, leave them up; but, with the ACTUAL facts of what happened... show how arrogant and abusive people can be, and portray it as disgusting as it truly is. People need to see this, and be educated on it. Erasing history does not equate to learning; it actually correlates with history repeating, with the lesson lost. Leave the monuments and educate on the atrocities they represent! They will be a poignant reminder!!!

To be devils advocate for a moment here, the problem people have with this whole idea is that people make bad decisions. Everyone makes bad decisions. Also, peer pressure is a very nasty thing. It is very hard to go against something when "other opinions are wrong". As we move forward in life, ideals will change, and what was considered normal in the past will be considered monstrous in the future. I think tearing down monuments is fine, as long as you don't add a different one to replace it. The replacement will eventually be torn down too, and with the inevitable cycle, it just ends up a waste of money. These people of the past can be terrible, but if you care mostly about spending money on nothing more than an image, then you're part of the problem.

At the same time, we shouldn't judge people in history just bc we don't think they're politically correct enough. They may have been progressive for their time, judge them by those standards not by ours

Get off your soapbox. History is history. Your rightgeous indignation changes nothing. I posted to something similer regarding Russia putting outdated statues in a park so people can learn from the past.. You are just a reactionary dork...

Can't even touch those current people. Too much money, connections and propaganda. The most guilty will never be held responsible.

Memorials doesn't equate to honorable.

The irony of elitism.

They have memorials erected in their honour because they accomplished a lot of good things too. They aren’t there to be worshipped; they’re there to be remembered for both sides of the coin. Life and existence in general is grey, not black and white.

Right, but this isn't the argument. People were trying to cancel Abraham Lincoln for example because he was racist and what not .People were trying to cancel Walt Disney because of the racist stereotypes he put in cartoons. Was their behavior wrong? Of course. But we need to have nuanced conversations, it's not just good and evil, there are explanations behind these distasteful behaviors

Values change over time. What was moral and right then, is not now. We make mistakes and we learn. You are trying to impose modern morals on past situations. So it will be in the future. Look at humour, what was acceptable only ten years ago, is now not acceptable to many. Do you go back and demonise those comedians. There are more important things to do. Look at the people committing horrors and damaging others, people like d**g dealers, gun runners, people traffickers slavers (there are assessed to be more slaves now than ever before). But that's hard work, takes effort. It's easy to criticise the people who lived years ago, in different times, far easier. ,

Save the historical memorials, and put them in a building for historians to study so that they can understand what is being repeated.

Tearing monuments down, is like sweeping a valuable history lesson under the rug. Leave up a monument of some POS looking courageous, then have a placard (or historian) describe what despicable acts they actually did... That racist statue is now a monument of US atrocities, and a point of education! People need to see and not forget. True history is of so much value: we can portray monuments for what they really represent, leave them standing, and they will have a larger benefit through education.

Tearing down monuments to monsters is not erasing history. Building them in the first place was the attempt to erase the past.

How about instead we add a plaque with a QR code and a text description of the person in question? That way everyone gets educated, well know whst good and what bad they did and a lot of reasonably nice statues get to stay and be decorative.

Dah! Ya think?

Thank you. I am from France and we remember the war... and all the roles French people played in it, from the collaborators to the résistance. You will not see one statue of Petain (there was a satire about a supposed one being torn down in 2014 but it was... satire). We do not need monuments that are meant to honour someone (like a statue) to remember history.

How far back are we going? Rome is full of statues glorifying mass murderers, slave owners and rapists, there would be nothing left. History should never be censored and that goes for the monuments too.

I would say move them to an: OPE! ( I'm from Wisconsin) Memorial, expressing horror and regret while informing and showing advancement in humanity.

Nope tearing down memorials is the same as cancelling them. Monument is gone, event is "hidden". Instead, put up a large plaque next to the existing monument that actually describes the genuine context. Make it educational. If there is a "competing" historical figure who'd be in the right, I'd suggest putting up their statue *next* to the old one and again, include a plaque with accurate historical information.

This x1000!

I think we should keep streets' names and memorials, no matter who is honoured, but maybe add a sign/date with historical context. It would be a good reminder that people who create history and have the power aren't always right. It would be hard to forget atrocities and not think about it if there'd be a Hitler Street, Stalin Monument and Cortes Avenue at every corner.

Calm down young man. Oops did I use the wrong pronoun? Idgaf

Moreover, these same people cheered when that statue of Saddam Hussein was torn down shortly after his regime was toppled. So, eradicate his statues but not those of Lee?

2/2 It doesn't negate the things they accomplished, nor does it excuse the things society has evolved to find reprehensible. The point is that people like you, only want to fixate on the shortcomings, paint everyone with a single brush, to push a narrative that is just as woefully incorrect as the one being pushed by the ones attempting to "sanitize" history.

Hear hear.

yup

Well put

I say, go further. Tear down all statues of individuals. Historical figures are humans and have done both horrible and honorable acts. And mythologies of these people ignore the reality of the individual. But I do say keep those monuments to events, ideas and sorrowful remembrance.

And in the context of their time they can be understood to be horrible and unexcusable, as they were understood to be then.