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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   24887 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

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I've read the discussion on the destruction of General Lee's statue in Charlottesville in last week's thread. I got the impression that many commenters here are prone to come up with explanations why the official removal of the statue was at least unsurprising or objectively justified from a culture war perspective, and I get that. But it seems they aren't focusing on the palpable difference between legally removing a statue and destroying it in a furnace. Because as far as I'm concerned, it's a big step from one to the other.

I'm reminded of the political transitions that happened in Central Europe in 1989-91, because many local monuments to either Soviet politicians/soldiers or local Communists or Marx/Engels were officially removed as a result. Anyone can correct me if they can, but I think all those new political systems were content with just removing the statues and putting them in "museums", which in most cases basically meant that these statues were put in open-air storage in remote and mostly abandoned memorial parks to just wither away, but not destroying them, cutting them up, melting them down etc. This hasn't even happened to Stalin statues in the Baltic states, for example, even though local anti-Soviet sentiment was definitely the strongest in the entire region, not something to understate. You can still find and visit those statues today.

And in this case, even this relatively close parallel doesn't really work, because it's not like there was a fundamental regime change in Virginia since the statue was erected.

And what happened to Lee's statue certainly cannot be explained by financial considerations either, as I'm sure that whatever arrangement that was on the table for putting it away as a museum piece was cheaper than melting it down in a furnace.

The only fitting parallel that comes to mind is Napoleon ordering captured cannons to be melted down to build a gigantic iron monument in Paris dedicated to the victory at Austerlitz. But again, I'm sure I won't have to explain in detail how that political context was completely different from this, even though I'm aware there are many hardline leftists today who would've preferred the evil Confederacy to be publicly humiliated in such ways back in 1865.

In the end, the only sufficient explanation I can come up with is that local authorities were afraid that Lee's statue, no matter where it were to be placed, was likely to become a site of pilgrimage for right-winger heretics opposed to the culture-warring leftist interpretation of race relations in the US, hence the statue's destruction.

Plus, and this is just pure speculation on my part, I think General Lee was such a perfect personification of the Southern patriarchal ideal of gentlemanliness that he invites leftist hostility like no other figure in US history. Plus, he had the cheek to candidly express views on slavery and the innate characteristics of Africans that are, from a leftist perspective, uniquely horrible, just too painful, and cutting too close to the bone, as they say.

but not destroying them, cutting them up, melting them down etc. This hasn't even happened to Stalin statues in the Baltic states, for example, even though local anti-Soviet sentiment was definitely the strongest in the entire region, not something to understate. You can still find and visit those statues today.

Ukraine dismantled a Soviet-era monument that symbolized friendship between Russia and Ukraine in 2022, by tearing it down and beheading. Beheading may be accidental: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Zext2ui755A

Latvia pulled down 79 meter monument in 2022 that celebrated occupation of this country by Russia (there was fig-leaf explanation for it): https://youtube.com/watch?v=JF_ZGbzoc4o

Poland still has some monuments celebrating Red Army that invaded during WW II in full cooperation with Nazi Germany: https://youtube.com/watch?v=4eGxD3GIuaU shows destruction of some in 2022 (though they seem to be concrete/brick making really unfeasible to move it)

https://i.pl/runal-kolejny-pomnik-wdziecznosci-armii-czerwonej-prezes-ipn-on-byl-ahistoryczny/ar/c1-17514513 mentions one demolished in 2023 after confirming that there are no wartime graves next to it.

https://i.pl/w-chrzowicach-zburzono-pomnik-gloryfikujacy-armie-czerwona-gmina-proszkow-jako-pierwsza-odpowiedziala-na-apel-szefa-ipn/ar/c1-16115621 - another from 2022

https://radiogdansk.pl/wiadomosci/region/slupsk/2023/10/03/pomnik-zolnierzy-armii-czerwonej-w-smoldzinie-do-likwidacji-zastapi-go-tablica-pamiatkowa/ - will be replaced by memorial honouring dead soldiers

and so on

Thanks for compiling this list. A couple of things:

Yes, I'm aware that the obelisk in Riga was demolished. I posted about it here in fact, although that was a year ago. I'll only comment here that stating that it "celebrated occupation of this country by Russia" is evidence of ideological bias so severe I find it almost comical. No, it was not erected to celebrate "occupation" by "Russia". Let's be clear about that.

Also, it'd have been commendable on your part to add that all these decisions listed were made in the context of the Ukrainian war. It's not like that's not relevant here. This is a political context that has absolutely nothing in similar with the one in Charlottesville.

I'll only comment here that stating that it "celebrated occupation of this country by Russia" is evidence of ideological bias so severe I find it almost comical. No, it was not erected to celebrate "occupation" by "Russia". Let's be clear about that.

per your link

Monument to the Liberators of Soviet Latvia and Riga from the German Fascist Invaders

it was celebrating conquest of Latvia by Soviet Russia (called "liberation" by USSR).

I admit that USSR managed to be better than Nazi Germany, but it was another unwanted conqueror. And as soon as it become possible they were kicked out.

Are you going to argue that it was celebrating initial conquest, not occupation? Or that it was celebrating Soviet occupation, not Russian one? Or are going to claim that Soviet rule was welcome? And they were kicked out by CIA coup despite wishes of people living there?

Context is important, this was monument celebrating Russian conquest of Latvia and trying to whitewash communist rule via "we are better than Hitler" like that would be a high bar. As bonus, it was funded via extra tax on locals (via "voluntary" donations).

I'm going to argue that it was celebrating the military victory on Latvian soil over, you know, literal Nazis ("garbage humans", "deplorables" etc.), alien occupiers, aggressors, oppressors etc. It's not a monument, as far as I can tell, to the reannexation of Latvia, or to the establishing of Soviet military bases in Latvia i.e. "occupation", or to Russianness, a Russian empire, or to Stalin.

Not sure whether you are seriously taking name at face value and ignore context, or are you somehow treating USSR as a good thing.

If slaver kidnaps victims from another (even more cruel) slaver, then calling them "liberators" is misleading at best.

What is exactly mechanism of what happened here. Describing Red Army winning over their former ally as "liberation" and without clearly stating that USSR was also an evil regime is lying by omission.

or to the establishing of Soviet military bases in Latvia i.e. "occupation", or to Russianness, a Russian empire, or to Stalin.

it was whitewashing Russian army and Russian occupation as "liberation" and pretending that USSR occupation of Latvia was legitimate and welcome.

or to the establishing of Soviet military bases in Latvia i.e. "occupation"

Soviets annexed Latvia and occupied it for decades, they have not limited themself to military bases

Again, the name of the monument was not 'Monument to the Liberators of Soviet Latvia and Riga' or 'Monument to the Liberators of Soviet Latvia and Riga from dictatorial rule'. It was Monument to the Liberators of Soviet Latvia and Riga from the German Fascist Invaders. Context is important.

"Monument to the Liberators of Soviet Latvia and Riga" part was problematic

"from the German Fascist Invaders" was dressing attempting to make it palatable and used to justify evil, stupid, murderous and unwanted regime that was causing variety of damage.

It is close to having monument to honour man who killed Hitler. Yeah, he killed Hitler - but destroying monument dedicated to him is still a good idea.

Beheading may be accidental

Seems pretty obviously accidental, unless you're saying they prepared it beforehand?

Anyway all of your examples seem to show rather unceremonious removal, rather than the bizarre "remove it in secret, but hire professional cameramen for juicy high-def images" ritual.

I was mostly responding to claim that no statues/monuments celebrating Russian occupation were destroyed. Many were destroyed.

Though I do not remember offhand cases where they kept head, after careful vandalising it. (with how many monuments celebrating Russian occupation existed it likely happened at some point)

bizarre "remove it in secret, but hire professional cameramen for juicy high-def images" ritual.

Some were removed in secret, with press or other cameraman to document removal.

Seems pretty obviously accidental, unless you're saying they prepared it beforehand?

Not bothered to check how they attached it to machinery, can reword it if you have suggestion. I added it as thumbnail with decapitated head seemed misleading.

This statue of Stalin was smashed and recycled by the Soviet Union during destalinization. They also blew up this one in Prague.

Oh well. It seems there's indeed something new to learn everyday. But as a caveat, I'll say that the Prague monument appears to be so huge that explosives were the only suitable means of removal, and in the case of the Berlin monument, state secrecy appears to have been the most important consideration when deciding the means of removal i.e. the primary goal was simple removal, not destruction as such.

I find it ironic that as recently as 2005, the most culturally-prominent example of the Confederate battle flag was widely recognized as a pure expression of regional pride, and not at all a racist symbol. As it happens, that example isn't as much of a tangent as you'd think.

It's important to realize just how $Current_Year this iconoclastic movement is.

Some time after 2008, there was a growing suspicion that southern pride had a lot of embedded racism.

Towards the end of the GWB presidency and especially after Obama's election the blue tribe decided they were done playing nice with the south.

Do you think that the Dukes of Hazzard movie released in 2005--which unmistakably had a lot of Southern pride--was rife with embedded racism?

That movie even had the self-awareness to mine humor from the varying perceptions of the Confederate flag circa '05, with neither view being promoted. Just acknowledged.

It is practically dispassionate in comparison to where we are now. And that's where I thought we stood maturity-wise as a nation. Northerners rolled their eyes and tut-tutted and Southerners told them to shove it, but it didn't seem to amount to much beyond the mundane neighborly squabbling endemic to any nation, state, or city. The kind of shit talking little different than that between New Yorkers from different areas, Western European countries between each other, or the Eagleton vs Pawnee stereotype that comes up in any given state.

Now this is being recast as an existential and moral fight to the death. A reckoning long overdue since we averted our privileged eyes from obvious stains of evil. And while I've long heard talk about the Union 'not going far enough' in destroying the Antebellum South, I chalked so much of this up to tough online posturing uttered by cowards that couldn't shoot a dog, let alone raze a town. Shame on me for not treating this with the full contempt it warranted, since I never thought this view would rank up to the level of legitimacy it sees now.

I find it hard to trust people who don't acknowledge this switch. It wasn't motivated by recently unearthed knowledge or a radical reappraisal of our understanding of the conflict. It was pure present-day vibes, and those come from now, and are only very tenuously connected to a long-gone war a century and a half ago. And it's why I'm not moved by anybody linking to historical and/or academic documents debating full removal of Confederate symbols, because people talk all the fucking time.

There's nothing ironic about it, it's enemy action.

If it were quietly melted down and not bandied about as some great victory over the outgroup I'd care less, but the most publicized images of this event have the face of Lee carefully removed and cuts ritualistically made into it leaving just enough for the face to remain intact(Fig. 1). Who ever did that had the intent of a humiliation ritual, no matter the intent of anyone else involved, and it has been signal boosted to the moon and back.

I'm not ever really happy when I have to admit that neo-confederates were right about anything, and would like to avoid it in the future.

/images/16987226581720212.webp

Indeed, it's a humiliation ritual. Again, I cannot even name one statue of Stalin or Lenin that suffered the same fate.

Indeed, it's a humiliation ritual. Again, I cannot even name one statue of Stalin or Lenin that suffered the same fate.

Neither Stalin nor Lenin betrayed their country. This kind of ritual humiliation was SOP for traitors, which Lee was - or at least an unsuccessful rebel, which counts as a traitor under the traditional rules. You can argue that Lenin was a traitor to the Kerensky government, but he was a successful rebel so it doesn't count.

Neither Stalin nor Lenin betrayed their country.

Yes they did, as did George Washington.

You're essentially try to argue that a man is not a rebel if his rebellion succeeds. Are you saying that you would you feel more well-disposed towards Lee if the Confederacy had won?

Are you saying that you would you feel more well-disposed towards Lee if the Confederacy had won?

All else aside, I suspect many people would feel exactly that way. When it comes to your legacy, the greatest sin in war is losing.

Sure, but if the only real moral principal being held to here by the Pro-Statue removal crowd is "Might makes Right", I think we should make that clear.

Neither Stalin nor Lenin betrayed their country.

Beg your pardon, but how is literally overthrowing their government any less of treason than trying to secede?

This kind of ritual humiliation was SOP for traitors, which Lee was - or at least an unsuccessful rebel, which counts as a traitor under the traditional rules.

Was he declared a traitor immediately after the war by the side that won?

You can argue that Lenin was a traitor to the Kerensky government, but he was a successful rebel so it doesn't count.

If this is your moral framework you should declare it from the start, because using generic words like "traitor" leads me to the mistaken conclusion that you are using the word the same way I would. To me, what you're saying here sounds like "it's not cheating if your wife never finds out".

It also seems like a punk move to do it 160 years later. To me, it seems pathetic.

And General Lee was never charged with, nor found guilty of, "treason", so that doesn't count either.

Leaving aside the fact that he was, indeed, charged with treason, are you seriously contending that an American who waged war against the US did not commit treason? Because that is the literal definition of treason

Excuse me but somehow I don’t feel compelled by an argument based on a grand jury indictment that is described as “forgotten legal and moral case” that “went missing for 72 years” (Huh? What even?). Considering a case where a general of a defeated army isn’t found guilty by any court on the victorious side of treason, or anything of the same magnitude for that matter, I’m prone to accept their judgment, or rather lack thereof, instead of that of modern-day Red Guards 150 years later who’re obviously all cocksure in their own ability to always know better.

But anyway, I get your point, or at least I think I do, but keeping in mind that accusing someone, even in his grave, of treason is serious business, especially if he was held in high regard by Churchill, Eisenhower, Wilson and so on (see the link above) so I think we ought to word such accusations accurately. What exactly did Lee betray? A constitution that is explicitly anti-racist and forbids slavery? Clearly not. A federal system that clearly forbids the secession of federal states in all cases? As far as I know, that’s not the case either – again, I understand that that Confederate states technically didn’t secede in a legal manner. A president who wanted to abolish slavery? No.

At the end of the day, what he did betray in full is a political code which holds that a military officer, when appointed and ordered, is to march his men into his own homeland and wreak destruction on it as if it was enemy territory.

What he "betrayed" is not particularly relevant. He literally waged war on his country, and he commanded armies which killed tens of thousands of his fellow citizens. To try to argue that that isn't "really" treason is rather silly. It is certainly possible to argue that he deserves a statute despite committing treason -- lots of people deserve statues despite having done some bad things -- but to argue that he didn't commit treason at all does not make sense.

What he "betrayed" is not particularly relevant.

For my part I feel like this comment throws the fundamental differences between progressive and conservative moral intuitions into stark relief.

The progressive doesn't see the object and context of the alleged betrayal as relevant because in a progressive's mind, the moral valance of an individual is more a product group membership/loyalty than it is one of personal conduct. All behavior is acceptable so long as it is aimed at an acceptable target.

Meanwhile to the conservative for things like the circumstance of the alleged betrayal is not only relevant but essential information because, to put it in rationalist terms, it helps you sort the potential cooperators from the defectors. In a conservative mind Hobbes' state of nature is an ever-present specter, and thus the moral valance of an individual often ends up boiling down to "can I trust this guy not to screw me over/stab me back". Hense the old sentiment that it is better to have an honorable foe than a perfidious ally.

To me, comments like those of @atokenliberal6D_4 and @fuckduck9000 above, and to a lesser extent yours here speak to a very particular sort of blindness. Progressive can't seem to imagine the shoe ever being on the other foot. They can't seem to imagine ever finding themselves on the "wrong side" because obviously whatever side they're on is going to be the "right side" and thus they start asking questions like why shouldn't we be cruel to our enemies?

...and that question is the first step down a very steep and slippery slope.

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he commanded armies which killed tens of thousands of his fellow citizens

Well, yes. Armies kill people; that's what they do. But anyway, I stand by what I said: if a military officer does not get sentenced for treason even in a political situation such as that we are discussing here, I see no good argument to call him a traitor.

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He literally waged war on his country

I was under the impression that his country declared independence from the country he waged war on?

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I've read the discussion on the destruction of General Lee's statue in Charlottesville in last week's thread. I got the impression that many commenters here are prone to come up with explanations why the official removal of the statue was at least unsurprising or objectively justified from a culture war perspective, and I get that. But it seems they aren't focusing on the palpable difference between legally removing a statue and destroying it in a furnace. Because as far as I'm concerned, it's a big step from one to the other.

I mean, they didn't just melt it down and throw it away or something. They're melting it down for the purpose of creating some other art piece based on community input. At least, that's according to the proposal submitted by Jefferson School African American Heritage Center that the City Council accepted. It is a literal transformation of a symbol of Virginia's racist, white supremacist past to one of its more egalitarian present. The symbolism is the point.

And what happened to Lee's statue certainly cannot be explained by financial considerations either, as I'm sure that whatever arrangement that was on the table for putting it away as a museum piece was cheaper than melting it down in a furnace.

I think this misapprehends the process. The city solicited proposals on what to do with the statue. The people who made the proposal the Council accepted were responsible for all the costs of transporting it, melting it down, etc. It didn't cost the city anything.

In the end, the only sufficient explanation I can come up with is that local authorities were afraid that Lee's statue, no matter where it were to be placed, was likely to become a site of pilgrimage for right-winger heretics opposed to the culture-warring leftist interpretation of race relations in the US, hence the statue's destruction.

That seems like a pretty reasonable fear? The initial decision to remove the statue was the impetus for the Unite the Right rally. Where a white supremacist murdered someone and injured 30 others.

Where a white supremacist murdered someone and injured 30 others.

That case was rather politicised, and it looks a lot more like manslaughter than homicide.

What about the initial plunge into the crowd? Video evidence shows the car was struck before hitting anyone—meaning Fields could have panicked and hit the gas.

Most importantly, he did not accelerate after hitting the crowd, he braked and paused. He threw the car into reverse only when his window was smashed.

Fields’ car also shows signs of having sustained damage before encountering the crowd—meaning a confused and frightened Fields was driving around a town he didn’t know, perhaps chased by Antifa, and then hit the gas when his car was struck. Already, there are reports saying that just this occurred [Eyewitnesses: James Fields’ Car Was ‘Attacked,’ Police Set Up Rally-Goers To Be Assaulted, by Patrick Howley, Big League Politics, August 14, 2017]

Everyone knows one murder is almost as bad as mass murder. Especially when you're attacking government foot soldiers. Why'd anyone bent on homicide stop and back out instead of accelerating?

What about the initial plunge into the crowd? Video evidence shows the car was struck before hitting anyone—meaning Fields could have panicked and hit the gas.

Sure, he could have. What's the evidence he did? Whether it was murder or not depends on what actually happened, not just what could have happened.

Most importantly, he did not accelerate after hitting the crowd, he braked and paused. He threw the car into reverse only when his window was smashed.

Spoken like someone who's never watched the video. Fields doesn't stop out of some desire to limit the damage he's doing, he stops because he hits another car blocking his way. His threw his car into reverse because it was literally the only way out of the street.

Why'd anyone bent on homicide stop and back out instead of accelerating?

He physically could not carry out the course of action you are questioning because his way was blocked by another vehicle.

I find myself frustrated at how so many of the links in the unz article are now dead or censored. The video you linked seems to be the only one that is still widely available. With the recent history of narrative-shaping through selective release of evidence, I don't think the one uncensored video should weigh that heavily in judging whether Fields was the victim of a politicized and unfair trial, but that's just me.

They're melting it down for the purpose of creating some other art piece based on community input. At least, that's according to the proposal submitted by Jefferson School African American Heritage Center that the City Council accepted.

As far as I'm concerned, it'd be better to just throw all that metal in the ocean then.

Regarding your assessment of the Unite the Right rally, I find the notion ludicrous that public protests should be judged that way. How many deaths in total did BLM protests cause, for example?

As far as I'm concerned, it'd be better to just throw all that metal in the ocean then.

Why?

Regarding your assessment of the Unite the Right rally, I find the notion ludicrous that public protests should be judged that way. How many deaths in total did BLM protests cause, for example?

I am not sure I understand the analogy. I think it is bad when protestors kill people and understandable when governments take action they think will reduce the likelihood it occurs.

I am not sure I understand the analogy. I think it is bad when protestors kill people and understandable when governments take action they think will reduce the likelihood it occurs.

We're talking about completely different government actions. When faced with an officially permitted protest against the removal of Lee's statue where, which eventually resulted in one fatality (which I refuse to believe was first-degree murder, as it's obvious it's all a show trial) they respond by declaring an emergency, giving out instructions to the police that very obviously had the ulterior motive of enabling counterprotestors to carry out violent attacks and eventually provoke acts of self-defense that later may be used as fodder for show trials, and eventually performing a humiliation ritual akin to Chinese Red Guards back in the day, which I described above.

Compare this to BLM protests, which caused God knows how much material damage and something like 40+ deaths, and the government response is the exact opposite i.e. appeasement.

Why?

It's less of an FU to people who want to keep the statue.

I am not sure I understand the analogy.

It's pretty simple - far deadlier protests were treated far more leniently, and there shouldn't be a double standard to government actions.

That seems like a pretty reasonable fear?

Not if you don't fear right wing heretics because you don't believe in the progressive religion.

As far as I know, the locals got a say. They didn’t want Lee to hang around. I believe the bronze is going to be used for some sculpture or installation. While I’m sure you will find it low-effort or objectionable, it will still be public art. I think that’s a perfectly valid use of the materials. There’s no statute of statue limitations, and if the current residents (owners? Caretakers?) wanted to melt the statue, more power to them.

I do think the authorities were wary of what you describe. The article also cited a risk of “violence” if the statue were to remain on display somewhere. I imagine they were thinking of white supremacists reclaiming Mr. Lee for Stone Mountain, Dukes of Hazzarding their way over innocent museum visitors along the way. If I’m feeling charitable, they were probably also worried about attracting anti-Confederate vandals.

Your speculation, though, is off-base. Lee is just too removed to merit personal hostility. Can you think of any particularly gentlemanly myths about the guy? All I’ve got is that he joined the Confederacy out of some kind of principled stance; partial credit, but not particularly unique. And I expect my knowledge of historical trivia is a lot broader than the average statue-tipper.

No, sometimes people mean what they say. Lee represents the Confederacy more than he personifies it. Hundreds of thousands died because he, and people like him, chose to stand up for a garbage cause. Nothing personal about it.

Can you think of any particularly gentlemanly myths about the guy? All I’ve got is that he joined the Confederacy out of some kind of principled stance; partial credit, but not particularly unique.

I feel like this is a "tell me you haven't actually read any contemporary accounts of the civil war" type moments. I know liberal the liberal tendency is to dismiss or at least deemphasize the role of personal virtue in favor of other factors, but in their memoirs both Sherman and Grant make a point to praise Lee for "leading from the front" and being unusually honest, considerate, and humble for a man in position of high command. Then there are all the (likely apocryphal) stories about his time as a college professor and post-war travels. Finally, there is the simple fact that in the closing weeks of the war and it's immediate aftermath he was one of the more vocal advocates for peace and not turning to insurgency amongst the Southern leadership.

Long story short, I find it notable that both while the war was being fought and for over a century after it's conclusion there doesn't seem to have been anyone on either side who had a negative word to say about the man. Meanwhile from where I am sitting, the demonization of Robert E Lee as the Arch-Traitor and Defender of Slavery (along with the wider confederate statue controversy) seems to have come out of nowhere in the early 00s. Does anything about the timing there strike you as just a tad convenient?

Let's lay our cards on the table.

Do you know how I can tell that you are lying when you claim that there's "Nothing personal about it"?

Because just a few sentences earlier you said " Lee is just too removed to merit personal hostility."

You and I both know that this is about is people like you wanting to express their antipathy for people like me. How can it be anything other than personal?

I was objecting to “Lee was such a perfect personification of the Southern patriarchal ideal of gentlemanliness that he invites leftist hostility like no other figure in US history.” That would require leftists to know enough about the man to form an opinion on his personal conduct. I think this is unlikely, and disdain for the man is driven more by his allegiance than the other way around.

You’re correct about my unfamiliarity with Civil War primary sources. I’m sure Lee was very articulate; elsewhere in tbis thread, his letters come across quite well. It’s not his gentlemanly credentials to which I object. No, I find it unlikely that “leftists” take offense at his personal charms more than his affiliation. If I—someone who grew up in the South, is actually interested in military history, and generally retains more Civil War trivia than was required for school—if I couldn’t think of a sage anecdote to show Lee’s personality, why should I expect the same from a random protestor?

Lee “inviting hostility” by being too cool and gentlemanly, or by “cutting too close to the bone,” is wishful thinking of the same sort which brings us “they hated us because of our freedom.” Cute, but not realistic.

Sometimes the simplest answer is the best. Slavery bad, therefore Confederacy bad, therefore dead Confederates bad, therefore statue must go. Or, as you suggest: outgroup bad, therefore people they admire bad, therefore statue must go. Yes, I would say that the latter approaches a personal enmity for you and yours, and I think that’s terrible. But I support protestors’ right to remove the statue on the former grounds. I will defend them against accusations that they are merely seething at men they couldn’t recognize on the street. There’s nothing personal about that.

Imo he clearly meant “nothing personal” to mean nothing personal against Lee. It’s the ideology/Confederacy that he represents (and/or is claimed to represent) that attracts progressive’s ire.

Whether Stalin was an honorable gentleman isn’t too relevant when discussing his statues.

Imo he clearly meant “nothing personal” to mean nothing personal against Lee. It’s the ideology/Confederacy that he represents (and/or is claimed to represent) that attracts progressive’s ire.

Yes, but Lee is "people like [us]", and as a stand-in, the one being retconned into an Arch-Traitor and Defender of Slavery.

The loogie in the face of southern identity is being hurled at a statue for plausible deniability - the desire is actually for the phlegm to land on anyone who doesn't lay down in front of a giant shit test about the civil war.

That's a Bingo

Hundreds of thousands died because he, and people like him, chose to stand up for a garbage cause. Nothing personal about it.

This is the outcome of pernicious lies about American history; not yours, though the use of "traitor" reveals so much of the ignorance in those speaking. Lee saw no superior allegiance to the Union because the gestalt US is a postbellum creation. Today states have such say in mutual governance because of the vast expansion of the federal government--both disastrously alien ideas in the 19th century. Slavery was the flashpoint on the magazine of this idea as the north asserted previously nonexistent authority on the south but were slavery not at issue it would have been something else. As insulting as you and many may feel at the idea of southerners fighting for states' rights, it is far more insulting to be told 19th century Americans would die in mass to free slaves, an insult not least of all because so many weren't American.

It was a war over the government of the country, federal or decentralized, and while the gestalt US has on balance made the world a better place (though this wanes by the day) than would be if the US had stayed decentralized, the term "War of Northern Aggression" still most accurately describes the conflict and is the reason men so principled as Lee found reason to oppose the north.

“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the union without freeing any slaves I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”

“If I owned the four millions of slaves, I would cheerfully sacrifice them to the preservation of the Union, but to lift my hand against my own State and people is impossible.” (Same article as above)

This is an extremely heterodox interpretation of history. You can argue that the entire field has been "captured by the left" and therefore shouldn't be trusted, but please be clear that this is the level of claim you're making.

Put simply, as a civil war aficionado, I have consumed various primary sources and secondary ones produced in less contentious times. There has been a dramatic shift in tone and removal of information over the past two decades, all of which have yet to be predicated by anything like new information.

I'm not even arguing the Civil War wasn't about slavery. It very clearly was the most major factor in the conflict. Just that the effort to cast it into cut-and-dry, black and white, hero-villain bullshit is just so obvious if you're remotely educated on the subject. I won't be gaslit about it.

I hope no one here is trying to cast hero-villain bullshit. My knowledge of the civil war comes is not as specific as yours or hlynka’s, yet I don’t believe it relies on sources written in the last 20 years. I’m in favor of argument from primary sources and resisting the urge to paint today’s values on a 150-year-old conflict.

My objection to Jake was similar to token’s. When a guy shows up, drops two or three classic revisionist lines, and insists that the whole premise of Civil War scholarship is “pernicious lies,” it’s not hard to see where he’s going. I have not been particularly reassured by his subsequent responses. If, like me, token suspected him of playing motte-and-bailey, making the motte explicit was a reasonable decision.

As another civil war nerd; how do you know how haven't already been gaslit? There was a strong, well funded revisionist and revanchist effort to deny the historical reality of the south, the civil war, and the way the war was fought for several decades up until at least the 1960's.

How do you know the sources you read weren't based Rutherford's feelings about it rather than the historical reality?

It's turtles all the way down if we want to go tit for tat on "how do you know". What I can say about my older textbooks is they use far less emotional language and have more graphs than contemporary cruft.

Again: Do they? When you read accounts of EG Shiloh from pre about 2006 you'd think Johnny Reb had carried the day and not gotten driven from the field. When you look at nice books full of nice graphs from those days, you might notice the casualty numbers are somewhere between "enthusiastic" and Plutarch, with the union loosing something like 2 times as much as they actually did; by folding in a certain amount of loses to disease and desertion into battlefield casualties while at the same time only counting Confederates that were shot dead on the field. This leads to ridiculous figures (again, to pick shiloh) where the union looses twice as many men on the line in a battle where the confederates attacked, lost, and retreated.

It always strikes me as odd that in history we have to find THE reason while in modern times we understand actors are motivated by disparate reasons.

For some people, state’s rights were why the civil war was fought. For many others, slavery was why the war was fought. For others, it was defense of home and hearth.

One final point. If it was solely about slavery, why didn’t Lincoln prior to any shooting use the fifth amendment to secure the slaves freedom while compensating the south? Would’ve in the long run been cheaper than the civil war and probably could’ve more orderly transitioned to a post slave situation.

Pleading for clarity while citing Wikipedia in a two-sentence reply is poor decorum.

Yes, the field has been captured by those united in ideological opposition to any who argue the north shares blame in the war. The north as righteous crusaders is their orthodoxy, one which quite naturally requires such suppression of dissent when individuals like Lincoln himself so immediately and totally dispel their false history of the war in the quote already given:

“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the union without freeing any slaves I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”

Lincoln governed with extreme use of nonexistent power. He would have addressed all those grievances he had power (or contrived power) to solve. Had slavery alone been the issue, he could have simply done nothing at all as the Corwin amendment would have prevented secession. Had tariffs then been the remaining issue, Lincoln would have found a way to lift them unilaterally or else pressured congress to removing them, perhaps even pursuing beneficiary changes to those once hurt by the tariffs. But decades of northern antipathy toward the south and the sum of harms resultant meant the final grievance of the south became the Union government itself. They were no longer interested, and indeed no longer consented to its governance. With that, Lincoln's only remaining option was war. The south fired the first shot, but Union soldiers remained at Fort Sumter in hopes exactly that would happen.

Had slavery alone been the issue, he could have simply done nothing at all as the Corwin amendment would have prevented secession.

One should note that Lincoln actually mentioned the Corwin amendment in his inaugural address and said he had no objection.

Notice that I did not say anything about slaves. The “garbage cause” I had in mind was secession first and the social order of the Old South second. There’s a nice letter that sums it up:

The South, in my opinion, has been aggrieved by the acts of the North, as you say. I feel the aggression, and am willing to take every proper step for redress. It is the principle I contend for, not individual or private benefit. As an American citizen, I take great pride in my country, her prosperity and institutions, and would defend any State if her rights were invaded. But I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, and I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preservation. I hope, therefore, that all constitutional means will be exhausted before there is a resort to force. Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for "perpetual union", so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled.

The words of a man with allegiance to, and respect for, a higher federal Union. His personal loyalty to Virginia won out, in the end, but it wasn’t an easy decision.

“War of Northern Aggression” is pure, ahistorical revisionism. It was the South that agitated for dismantling the Union, the South which passed Articles of Secession, and of course the South which fired the first shots.

The words of a man with allegiance to, and respect for, a higher federal Union

A Union that no longer exists, a Union that had he fully felt his own prescient words he would have fought against to his dying breath:

“I can only say that while I have considered the preservation of the constitutional power of the General Government to be the foundation of our peace and safety at home and abroad, I yet believe that the maintenance of the rights and authority reserved to the States and to the people, not only essential to the adjustment and balance of the general system, but the safeguard of the continuance of a free government. I consider it as the chief source of stability to our political system, whereas the consolidation of the States into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it.

(And a Union that had all Americans of the time known would follow, would have themselves seen Washington burned to the ground.)

Ahistorical revisionism is ignoring the economic destruction the north wrought on the south and the nullification crisis that spurred decades before South Carolina seceded; it's ignoring their secession despite the Corwin amendment; it's ignoring the refusal of New Jersey and Delaware to ratify the 13th; it's ignoring how so many of those who would "die to free black men" went on to murder, often first raping, untold numbers of Native Americans in the decades that followed, atrocities led by such wonderful Union officers as George Custer. Ahistorical revisionism is most of all the idea whites would fight a war in the 1800s over the quality of life of blacks. It beggars belief so incredibly dissonant positions as the supposed totality of racism to this day, only finally being truly addressed, can be held simultaneously with the belief racism weighed so heavily on the hearts of American men 160 years ago to be the sole basis, absolutely-no-other-reason-whatsoever, for nearly a million of them to murder each other.

And that ignores so much on just the financial interests involved in the conflict. Still, there is nothing difficult, for there is nothing truthful in denying the part slavery played in the civil war; reciprocally, only falsehoods are found in asserting that without slavery secessionist war would have never happened. Rather, it as as we so often see ("Wet streets cause rain"), if slavery were truly the only issue, the war would have never started.

When I call you on

Lee saw no superior allegiance to the Union because the gestalt US is a postbellum creation.

you backpedal to defending what he would think about today’s government. And when I point out that “War of Northern Aggression” is a revisionist attempt to gloss over all the ways the South started it, your response is to cry Both Sides and insist that Southern suffering is overlooked.

I can’t even tell why you’re quoting “die to free black men” as if it’s something I asserted. Again, I did not mention slavery at all until you brought it up. Perhaps it was buried in one of the sources you’ve tossed out? No?

I’m starting to suspect you’re more interested in pushing a narrative about racism than actually arguing any points.

You equivocate; on the entity you call "Union" and conflate with its successor and on what "allegiance" meant to the man. Lee considered himself Virginian first, this is fact, the federalized gestalt US and notion of American first not existing until the 20th century, also fact.

And when I point out that “War of Northern Aggression” is a revisionist attempt to gloss over all the ways the South started it, your response is to cry Both Sides and insist that Southern suffering is overlooked.

This is very bad. It is low-effort, uncharitable and antagonistic. In a discussion about causes of the civil war, the south suffering from economic policies enacted to benefit the north is wholly relevant. Your poor mockery amounts to "but other than taxes, what did the south have to complain about?" Frame this in context just-antebellum America would know well: "But other than taxes, what did the 13 colonies have to complain about?" Or most crudely but certainly most accurately, "Aside from all that shit the north did to the south, what did the north do to the south?"

I can’t even tell why you’re quoting “die to free black men” as if it’s something I asserted. Again, I did not mention slavery at all until you brought it up. Perhaps it was buried in one of the sources you’ve tossed out? No?

Again low effort, uncharitable and antagonistic.

The Lincoln and Lee quotes were provided because they alone settle this matter. The President of the United States and the final commander of the Confederate Forces could have only been more plain in conveying "Slavery is not the cause of this war" if they said that verbatim. You, or rather those whose words you repeat, go to incredible lengths with total institutional backing and control to call liar on both sides.

You claim it is ahistorical revisionism to dispute the relevance of slavery: the south suffered tremendously under tax policy enacted to benefit the north

You claim it is ahistorical revisionism to dispute the relevance of slavery: the Corwin amendment would have made slavery constitutionally protected

You claim it is ahistorical revisionism to dispute the relevance of slavery: two northern states refused to ratify the 13th amendment

You claim it is ahistorical revisionism to dispute the relevance of slavery: northerners would not have died to free blacks from bondage

If two factions were poised for war and the supposed cause at issue was commonly viewed with apathy by one faction while the oppositional faction could have achieved their goals peacefully, why did they still go to war?

You must either contrive some many-stepped rationalization or take the simplest explanation: the cause of the war was something else.

It wasn't Fort Sumter. First shot, yes, in a war that was inevitable. A first shot there is no controversy(archive) in saying resulted from Lincoln's maneuvering. Please fully read that article as I expect the title may provoke misconstruing. A plain reading will enlighten you to that inevitability of conflict.

I hope you apprise yourself of my history here, the image you have of me is false. You do not know how I think, you do not know why I chose to comment on this. It was not to make demons of the north, nor martyrs of the south. I'll leave you on that, as your poor behavior has made me disinterested in dignifying your words again after this final reply.

I never claimed that it was disputing the relevance of slavery that was revisionist.

I said “war of northern aggression” was revisionist, and I’ll stand by that statement. Even though I’m fully aware of the tariff crises, the debate over nullification and federal/state primacy, and the various unsatisfactory compromises which left the nation at the boiling point. These are mitigating factors; they do not overrule the fact that the South made the final decision.

You have consistently argued against a position I haven’t taken.

Ahistorical revisionism is ignoring the economic destruction the north wrought on the south

Hardly seems like economic destruction according to this [pro-Southern source](Ahistorical revisionism is ignoring the economic destruction the north wrought on the south):

Even counting slaves and estimating their income at subsistence, Easterlin’s estimates place Southern per capita income at 76 percent of the United States average in 1840 and 72 percent in 1860. Per capita income in the South was higher than in the North Central states — the Midwest of today — a good comparison since both of these sections were overwhelmingly agricultural in their economic life. Southern white per capita income exceeded the national average and compared favorably with that of the Northeast. The West South Central region exceeded the Northeast in per capita income in 1840, even considering the slaves as part of the population. For the free population alone the North Central states had distinctly the lowest income per-capita.[4]

Revising Easterlin’s data, Stanley Engerman found a higher rate of growth of Southern per capita income over Northern between 1840 and 1860, 1.6 percent versus 1.3 per­cent if slaves are counted in the population. 1.8 percent versus 1.3 percent if only the free population is considered.[5]

Insofar as I've understood, the "Tariff of Abominations" was only a temporary thing and basically in large part happened due to Calhoun et al engaging in machinations that only blew up in their face, the South had if anything a hegemonic position in American politics before the Civil War with most presidents in the preceeding decades being either pro-slavery Southerners (Pierce, Tyler, Polk) or South-friendly Northerners (Buchanan, Fillmore etc.), and the whole Civil War was basically Southerners getting scared that this hegemony might be over for good (which would then have reprecussions on many things, not the least being slavery) and leaving in a huff.

I would have responded to this earlier but I didn't want to ignore your first line, and there it looks like you meant to include a link.

The Vice President of the Confederate States of America (via Wikipedia):

Our new government['s]...foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

Historian William C. Davis (Look Away pp. 97-98 via Wikipedia):

To the old Union they had said that the Federal power had no authority to interfere with slavery issues in a state. To their new nation they would declare that the state had no power to interfere with a federal protection of slavery. Of all the many testimonials to the fact that slavery, and not states' rights, really lay at the heart of their movement, this was the most eloquent of all.

I won't tell you Northerners fought "to free slaves" because that's as obviously wrong to me as it is to you. It's easy to reconcile the seeming inconsistency in Mr. Lincoln's thinking: the South seceded to preserve slavery, and the North took up arms in reaction. Perhaps the North didn't care about slavery, but that doesn't matter in evaluating the South's cause.

I'm aware that it was a local decision, a product of a political milieu that, as far as I know, was one of the long-term consequences of a large and recent demographic shift in Northern Virginia, namely that a great number of white liberals have settled in the region after getting jobs in the enormously expanded federal bureaucracy in the capital.

I'm not surprised they don't want Lee around.

Regarding "myths", I'm not aware of any, I've only read that Lee was regarded as a true Southern gentleman his whole life. I don't see that as a myth.

Lee was regarded as a true Southern gentleman

And Rommel was regarded as a true German gentleman. But if a statue of Rommel stood in a place of honour in central Stuttgart as part of the pantheon of military heroes of Baden-Wurttemberg, and it was melted down at the request of the local synagogue, we wouldn't be complaining about "teabagging the outgroup". In fact, part of the "Reconstruction" process in post-WW2 Germany was the removal of Nazi monuments.

But if a statue of Rommel stood in a place of honour in central Stuttgart as part of the pantheon of military heroes of Baden-Wurttemberg, and it was melted down at the request of the local synagogue, we wouldn't be complaining about "teabagging the outgroup".

I would.

In fact, part of the "Reconstruction" process in post-WW2 Germany was the removal of Nazi monuments.

Isn't it weird how Lee statues only became equivocated with Nazi ones over a hundred years after the war, rather than immediately after alike actual Nazi statues?

Well it’s also weird that the statues were erected decades after the war ended. The Confederacy lost too fast to put up monuments to their glory while they existed.

You're underestimating the national divide that existed post-Civil War.

Up until World War 1, there was an honest question among those that considered such on wether or not any of the Southern states would actually fight for America, period. (Instead, they turned out in droves that carried a consistent trend... up until very recently. Funny, that.) Most statues were put up as a meager act of concession, allowing pride to a defeated foe who nevertheless gave a good fight.

It's not as if the South had anything else in the aftermath.

As I understand it from comments here (might be wrong! I have no idea!), part of the Civil War was that it ended in a sort of "okay, let's both now calm down and work together, you lost but that isn't the end" agreement. And whereas the same thing happened, sort of, with World vs Germany, it certainly did not happen with World vs the Nazi movement - that lost, and was destroyed, and eradicated, and all its flags destroyed, and the Earth salted and so on, already after the second World War ended. There was never anything like a truce with the Nazis; the most that occurred was "alright, if you completely repudiate the Nazi project and also are useful, we're going to keep using you and not look too closely." And that was more a matter of civil necessity.

The equivalent here would not be "US vs the South" but "US vs. the Southern secession movement", with the secession movement indeed having been conclusively defeated and buried by the war.

Two completely different historical contexts, those two are. To argue that those two are anything but completely different is indeed leftist revisionism in action.

Charlottesville isn't a part of Northern Virginia.

It's got some standard southern city dynamics going on. Most of the city population itself is black. The county that surrounds it, the college (UVA), and most of the rich people are white.

The city is a separate political entity from the county. So you often get a very extreme liberal core in the city. And it has no brakes. I grew up in the surrounding county, and this sort of racial politicking has been happening for decades. City council members get elected by finding and igniting racial grievances. Most of the time people just ignore them. It was probably their dream come true for this to be a flashpoint for the nation.

From what I have heard, similar things happen in Richmond and Atlanta and other large southern cities.

Northern Virginia is strange in that the population of their cities are not predominantly black. (aside from DC, where similar racial politicking takes place). Usually the newer a city the more functional the political system is within that city.

I've only read that Lee was regarded as a true Southern gentleman his whole life. I don't see that as a myth.

You could (with or without 'Southern' depending on the case) say that, no doubt, about a whole host of basically contemptible people. Between fighting a war to preserve slavery, and being a good chap, the latter struggles to be a minor footnote in his legacy.

The personal character of Lee is the Motte to the Bailey of broader Confederate apologia. These statues of Lee (and Jackson and Davis and Forrest and almost anyone but Longstreet) are first and foremost celebrations of the Confederate cause.

More or less.

I think the inverse is true, too, and most statue-detractors don’t know a thing about the personal character involved. Toppling the statue is first and foremost about denying that cause, not about being jealous of Lee’s great social skills.

No doubt. As far as I can tell, there isn't a particular ire for Lee statues. There's just a lot of Lee statues.

If the locals are saying “nah we don’t need this statue, we want to make mediocre abstract art out of the pieces”…

And you don’t have any skin in the game, except for the vibe that Lee was a pretty gentlemanly guy…

Then what’s wrong with the locals going on ahead?

But it's obviously not just a pragmatic decision to reuse bronze that is contained in some old useless statue that nobody likes. People responsible didn't even try to pretend that it was, calling it"grim act of justice", "haunted spectacle" or "destruction of icon of hate" instead.

And I think that’s their prerogative, not mine, and not OP’s.

Destroying the statue was teabagging the outgroup plain and simple. The moderate voice in every statue controversy has consistently said something to the effect of "move them to a museum" which is what happened here. What this event (moving to a museum and then destroying it) shows is that there is no quarter to moderates in the culture war. It's very much in line with the friend-enemy distinction principle.

As a southerner who was on team "move them to a museum", I'm genuinely disgusted.

Can someone explain to me why teabagging this particular outgroup is a bad thing? Drop the moral relativism: some cultures/societies are so execrable that symbolically "teabagging" them is great. The Confederacy/Antebellum south is one of these---one of the worst cases of hereditarian, anti-egalitarian nonsense in modern-ish history.

no quarter to moderates in the culture war.

What exactly do you mean by "moderates" here? Not hating a person who rebelled to support slavery isn't what I would call "moderate".

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Can someone explain to me why teabagging this particular outgroup is a bad thing?

It's against the rules.

The question was fine, but the actual tea-bagging--

some cultures/societies are so execrable that symbolically "teabagging" them is great. The Confederacy/Antebellum south is one of these

--is not.

Huh, I'm pretty sure I've seen much harsher language against "the woke" or whatever around here. You're really going to play into this what I though was a strawman where you can insult wokeism but need to be careful how you talk about literal confederate slaveowners?

I'm pretty sure I've seen much harsher language against "the woke" or whatever around here.

As usual: other people's bad behavior doesn't excuse your own. If you see something you think violates the rules, report it. I'm not going to claim we catch every violation--far from it! But if the whole substance of a comment is "nah, $OUTGROUP deserves utter scorn," that's just not contributing anything of value to any conversation anywhere. It's pure noise, no signal. And that's without addressing the suspicious move where you substituted "people who prefer not to have Confederate statues destroyed" with "people who rebelled to support slavery" as the outgroup being discussed--maybe that was just an innocent mistake on your part, but even assuming this is so, your comment brings no light.

You're really going to play into this what I though was a strawman where you can insult wokeism but need to be careful how you talk about literal confederate slaveowners?

No. It continues to be basically everyone's favorite complaint about moderation here, though--"the mods are definitely thumbing the scales for my opponents!" But no--you're just the one breaking the rules, this time.

And that's without addressing the suspicious move where you substituted "people who prefer not to have Confederate statues destroyed" with "people who rebelled to support slavery" as the outgroup being discussed

I'm sorry, what? The discussion was about gleefully melting down a statue of a person who led a rebellion to supported slavery. The "outgroup" (well, their values are so opposed to anything commonly held in the modern US that outgroup seems like the wrong term here) that's scorned by this action is the people who rebelled to support slavery.

Part of the bizarreness of this entire discussion is all the posters (including you!) making claims along the lines of "no, I can read your mind, you're really trying to teabag modern southerners"---there's a pretty big difference between "haha, we destroyed this statue of a horrible person" and "haha, we destroyed this statue even though other people didn't want destroyed, stick it to those other people". I assure you that most people happy about the melting down are happy for the first reason, not the overly complicated second.

Part of the bizarreness of this entire discussion is all the posters (including you!) making claims along the lines of "no, I can read your mind, you're really trying to teabag modern southerners"

No--that's the claim that was being made. So your response made the conversation proceed roughly in this way:

Claim: Melting down statues is teabagging [modern southerners]!

Response: What the fuck is wrong with teabagging [slavers]?

Except that the word used for the bracketed terms was "outgroup" both times. You did not respond to what was being said; you substituted the argument for your own straw version. I thought it would be easier to just point out that making the point you've made here (two different outgroups are under discussion, maybe it's good to be iconoclastic about one of them) was fine, but actually calling names was not. When you then strawmanned my mod message, too, I got a bit more detailed.

I assure you that most people happy about the melting down are happy for the first reason, not the overly complicated second.

You're certainly allowed to believe that. But you can't assume it in the middle of a conversation with people who disagree, are you certainly can't do so as an excuse to nakedly assert that "some cultures/societies are so execrable that symbolically 'teabagging' them is great." That's too much heat for the amount of actual light you brought to the discussion.

Can someone explain to me why teabagging this particular outgroup is a bad thing?

I mean, this particular group may well deserve tea-bagging*--just remember not to do that here, because we have the very specific rule about outgroups here; and it doesn't matter how good or bad a group is or isn't, that rule has everything to do with us and what kind of website we want to be.

.* And any particular member of this group who may want and consent to tea-bagging is welcome to DM me, because I happen to be into that.

I thikn the moderate here is someone who wanted the statue moved to a museum.

IMHO, the Charlottesville controversy itself and the national politics surrounding it were enough to make the statue of historical significance, aside from it's object level of depiction of Lee. It should have been preserved in a museum for that reason alone, as an artifact of the Charlottesville event, rather than as a memorial of the civil war. Destroying it seems stupid on that front. That statue is a culturally signficiant artifact of 2017 politics.

Like if someone used a civil war era gun to kill the pope, the gun would take on more significance as the pope killer, than as a civil war relic. Then if someone came and melted it down because of it's racist ties to American slavery, I'd be flabberghasted at the missed point.

Yeah. Kind of facetiously: what if the gun had been used to kill a cardinal instead of the Pope?

Why should I even accept the premise that hereditarian, anti-egalitarian rule is uniquely bad and horrific?

You don't have to, but "all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights" is a core part of the American civic religion, as is the absence of a hereditary nobility. So not accepting the premise is un-American. Indeed, it is so un-American that it led otherwise honourable gentlemen like Robert E Lee into committing treason against America.

We can argue about the wisdom of forming a more-or-less official Committee on Un-American Activities to punish people who engage in legal but un-American political activity with public humiliation, disemployment etc. (I for one think it is a very, very, bad idea). But the idea definitely isn't new.

Do the people who decided on and supported the removal and destruction of Lee's statue adhere to something called the "American civic religion" as a supreme ideal?

Because I'm very sure they don't. In fact, pretty much the opposite of true.

Did the US exist under an un-American premise from her founding until 1865? Because that's what this entire argument entails. Which is rather nonsensical.

Sure, but then we do the same thing to muslims, blacks and latinos, because their societies/cultures too don't live up to or run directly counter to whatever values we presently hold to be very important. Come on, let's go burn the quran, let's ban black cultural icons, let's forbid the use of Spanish! We have a superior society to offer, so down with the barbarian cultures!

I'm being somewhat inflammatory here, sorry. But really, I do think you're taking the easy route by heaping searing condemnation on a culture of the past that cannot fight back, while cultures in the present that should run afoul of the same metrics get much more lenient treatment simply by virtue of being able to resist, or, more cynically, because this isn't about standards but simply about whose holy cows get butchered today. Someone here recently quoted Chesterton on Tradition; I guess my point is similar.

Also, to be fair, I am not American, so feel free to ignore me on this subject.

If the worm were to turn and you were to find yourself at the mercy of your opponents, who would you rather it be someone like you who asks "Can someone explain to me why teabagging this particular tokenliberal is a bad thing?" or someone like this...

The forbearing use of power does not only form a touchstone, but the manner in which an individual enjoys certain advantages over others is a test of a true gentleman.

If there were such people to choose, I would choose them.

I just think they don't, have never, and will never exist on the RIGHT right. The best we can get is center right statist neocons; anyone who has strong opinions about Lee in statue form I would wager will never not employ the boot when given the opportunity.

That being the case, it is more important that they never get the chance than trying to compromise in some way.

It would be sick as hell if the liberal political tendency was wrong about that, but given the tenor of discussion here, with the smartest and most moderate RIGHT right population I've seen, I really don't think it is.

I’d rather they pick the moral side to begin with, instead of sacrificing hundreds of thousands of men for the sake of their ‘honor’, and then be honorable. With gentlemen like these, you don't need scoundrels.

Spoken like an ideal Cheka or Gestapo recruit.

I would argue that the socialist propensity for this sort of thinking is the main reason the Soviet Union and Germany went down the paths they did in the first half of the 20th century.

It doesn't matter if I'm a horrible person so long as I'm on the right side is an ok thought in theory but in practice it means your side is more likely to end up as "the baddies" because it's full of horrible people like you.

it's full of horrible people like you

Let's not do this please.

Oh, but the german army was full of such honorable, patriotic men. They had made an oath, and they had a duty to their state and people. And by God they carried it out.

It doesn't matter if I'm a horrible person so long as I'm on the right side is an ok thought in theory

Complete misunderstanding of my point: It doesn’t matter if I’m a decent person as long as I serve an evil cause.

You might need to hurry up, because there's not a lot of them left, but talk to anyone who lived on territories that over the course of the years were occupied by Germans as well as Russians, and ask them their relative opinion of the Wehrmacht vs. the Red Army.

Complete misunderstanding of my point: It doesn’t matter if I’m a decent person as long as I serve an evil cause.

You're the one misunderstanding him. The point is that people like you are known to turn non-evil causes into evil ones.

ask them their relative opinion of the Wehrmacht vs. the Red Army.

Well who doesn’t love the germans. Those slavs could have taken solace in the fact that they would have starved to death in a very orderly manner.

The point is that people like you are known to turn non-evil causes into evil ones.

Which causes, slavery, nazism? Anyway, we are not even disagreeing on the sides here.

Obedience, a sense of duty, loyalty, professionalism, those things are not good in a vaccuum. When they are present in people who serve evil, they become evil. They make things worse. It is morally blind to evaluate Lee’s qualities as if he had served the good. Had he been a cowardly, dumb, lazy drunkard, thousands of lives would have been saved. His honor has been a net negative for humanity. He failed morally as very few people fail. A mean-spirited, sadistic soldier in his army only has a small fraction of the blood on Lee's hands, he's an angel compared to Lee.

It’s like Scott’s ‘asymmetric weapons’ concept. Obedience, or, say, loyalty to your home community, helps both Hitler and Roosevelt, it’s a symmetric weapon. Otoh, disobedience, ie, asking the question ‘am I really doing the right thing here, should I give my loyalty to this guy?” is asymmetric, it is more likely to help the good guy and harm the bad guy.

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Oh, but the german army was full of such honorable, patriotic men. They had made an oath, and they had a duty to their state and people. And by God they carried it out.

Personal opinion, no particular historical knowledge: the German army could have been so much worse. Consider the ordinary execution of genocides in history. The Holocaust was unique in organization and sheer scale of suffering, but at least the suffering it caused was, mostly, incidental and not the goal. If I'm de facto going to be the victim of a genocidal campaign, to be quite honest, there are worse options than the Nazis. There are even worse options in German history than the Nazis! Make my captor and executioner an honorable patriotic career soldier any day.

I don’t get what you’re saying here. They weren’t so bad, compared to some hypothetical regime that would commit a genocide of equal proportion, but would purposefully, systematically torture people before killing them… is that your point?

Consider the ordinary execution of genocides in history.

I don’t think a bullet to the neck under stalin or getting stabbed under pol pot was worse. They didn't go out of their way to make undesirable units suffer either.

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Primarily, because demonstrating naked, gloating contempt for your neighbours is corrosive to the social contract and provokes retaliation. In particular:

  1. Everything that raises the temperature of the culture war from any side gets it that much closer to boiling over. Deciding to remove these statues provoked the Charlottesville rally, which provoked substantial institutional reactions, and so on and so on. Every escalation, and the retaliation for it, get you that much closer to the point of no return when people's decisions flip over en-masse to "this social contract is unconscionable; it's worth the transition cost of starting over". We're horrifyingly close to it now; if the Republicans nominate Donald Trump again and he is removed from the ballot that's probably enough to tear the Union. And to be clear, this would suck massively for all sides.

  2. Even discarding civil war, the wheel turns. SJ may feel invincible due to demographic trends, but that's far from the whole story. Black swans happen, and city-slickers have more fragile lives than country bumpkins if there's a pandemic or a nuclear war. And if the Republicans do wind up with total power over you... well, you have a degree of control over how merciful they feel. Even from where I sit I'd prefer to avoid another White Terror; surely you don't want one either?

Because those aren't what's being teabagged. It's modern day 'racist southerners', similar deplorables, and fellow travelers that are the true target, and the banishment (now celebrated destruction) of Confederate iconography is a good proxy for that. It is a flex not just over southern pride, regional history, and heretofore popular mythology, but also over anyone that doesn't like to see current progressives' thoughtless pursuit of cleansing art and media rewarded.

I have no ties to or love for anything Confederate. It's not in my family tree and I was bred Blue tribe enough to reflexively mock the whole modern shtick of it. Do you think I object to the statues' removal because Lee is a super cool dude and slavery was no big deal, or what?

I think that it might be good to remove the statues to some kind of monument park or something like that: would we build statues of General Howe in our public squares? Of Nazi leaders? What about Soviet ones? These men committed high treason against the Union and in my view were handled very leniently; the traditional penalty for high treason is death. If they're still going to be sitting out there, I think they need some additional context...plaques or something...stating that these individuals were revered by the society that erected them but in the fullness of time, we have realized that these individuals were gentlemanly, polite slaveowning traitors.

Can someone explain to me why teabagging this particular outgroup is a bad thing? Drop the moral relativism: some cultures/societies are so execrable that symbolically "teabagging" them is great. The Confederacy/Antebellum south is one of these---one of the worst cases of hereditarian, anti-egalitarian nonsense in modern-ish history.

Because many of us have found the hard way that the outgroup being teabagged by this is marked not by neoconfederatism but rather people who speak a bit slower than those on TV. Why do you suppose that so many people learn to disguise their natural southern accent at work? Hell, speaking with a country new england accent got me many of the same accusations.

Classism, probably.

Nothing more shameful than looking and sounding poor, except for looking and sounding poor and being white.

I assure you that this will be followed by another act of teabagging, namely that some bougie black avantgarde artist will be paid big bucks by the city to use the melted-down iron to construct some hideous-looking crappy statue of some mythologized slave rebellion leader or some other black "hero".

Eh, if they replaced Robert E Lee with John Brown that would generate so much public seethe you'd be able to say the change was a work of performance art!

I feel bad for the man himself, everything I've read about him seems to suggest he was a very respectable, highly principled, honourable human being. Shame he was born in the American south. Had he be born in the north the war may well have ended earlier with a lot fewer Union deaths.

if they replaced Robert E Lee with John Brown that would generate so much public seethe you'd be able to say the change was a work of performance art!

Yeah, fair enough. Or maybe put up a statue of John Brown alongside Lee or something. A statue of John Brown represents this: the valorization of a man who attempted to overthrow an unjust system by force.

Eh. Modern historiography that is less triumphal and heroic puts almost all the blame for southern success on early northern incompetence and sheer bad luck with who went where.

Eg, Lee could have been replaced by any number of Dudes in the south, as long as the Cav turned coat whichever guy the pick still gets his early licks until the north relearns how to do horsey shit.

Actually, Lee probably lost the war for the south even faster than it would have gone otherwise by trying to repeat his early Dramatic Battle successes well after the North got some real killers in charge that stopped walking into bad situations.

As a southerner who was on team "move them to a museum", I'm genuinely disgusted.

Have you now learned not to compromise in turn, or is this still your position?

Well, fundamentally, I don't see why a community shouldn't be able to vote to remove a statue. I certainly hope one day we have the option to remove through civil means all of the stupid murals and art of a lefty bent in my city. This has just illustrated for the hundred thousandth time that "not an inch" is the only reasonable policy toward activists.

Again, this isn't about removing the statue.

You’re forgetting the other moderate position, “smelt him into cannons.” I guess the idea was something museum/battle memorial worthy, but not honoring the guy in particular? It strikes me as a bit odd, so I’m not surprised it didn’t satisfy either side.

  • -10

These "moderate" positions are all an illusion based on continual resetting of the Overton Window. That the utterly ludicrous "melt him down out of sheer spite" position became one legitimate wing while "do nothing and don't celebrate him too much" was the other creates the false impression that melt him down and turn him into cannons is a conciliatory gesture. That conciliatory position is still a triumphalist celebration of destroying Confederate heritage, just without quite as much overt ugliness.

In the spirit of framing our own positions as moderate, my position is the true moderate position, which was the "do nothing and don't celebrate him too much", not like the extremist position that the statues should be gilded and used as the centerpiece for a new Confederacy Day on December 20, where all Southerners gather around and chant, "Glory to our martyrs". That would be extreme, as where I am a moderate.

The problem is that the implicit point of public monuments is to celebrate historic figures. The fact that Lee is well-known is purely due to his decision to take up arms against the United States; the same can be said of almost every other Confederate. And it's not appropriate to celebrate those who opposed us in war. In other words, Lee's stature as a war hero is comparable to that of someone like General Howe or Santa Ana or Erwin Rommel. There may be statues of the former two in the United States, but if there are I guarantee they're somewhere like a battlefield where the context is clear and they generally build statues of every prominent person who fought there. But I doubt anyone would advocate for putting them in a position of honor such as a town square, and if you built one on your own property people would be right to suspect your motives.

Add to that the fact that they weren't seceding because of tax policy or some other anodyne complaint but to preserve an institution that's now globally recognized as a reprehensible denial of the most basic human freedoms, in a country whose founding principles were explicitly meant to advance those freedoms, however imperfect the execution was in its infancy. I don't see any situation where you can have a statue of a person whose entire professional career was at least implicitly dedicated to such an institution on the courthouse lawn or the park in the center of town and excuse it by saying that you don't celebrate it too much.

  • -10

And it's not appropriate to celebrate those who opposed us in war.

There are many examples in the world of veneration of an "honored enemy". Turkey hosts thousands of descendants of failed invaders every year at Gallipoli. 'Celebration' isn't the correct term to be used. Respect for a worthy adversary who believed in their cause is more appropriate.

I have no problem with respect. But I don't think anyone would argue that the South's erection of statues in prominent places was merely out of sober respect for an enemy. Are there any other of America's war foes who you feel we should be "respecting" at that kind of clip?

https://www.nps.gov/places/loyalist-monument.htm

https://mobridge.org/sitting-bull-monument

Are there any other of America's war foes who you feel we should be "respecting" at that kind of clip?

None of our other war foes were also Americans. None of our other war foes went on to be Americans, and to serve America to the best of their ability by accepting and trying to live by an honorable peace.

The white South didn't accept their defeat and try to live an honourable peace. They launched an insurgency (the 1st Klan), and when that failed they waited out the presence of federal troops in the South and then staged a series of coups against the Reconstruction-era State governments (elected by multi-racial electorates) in order to introduce Jim Crow. The North, to their shame, tolerated this due to exhaustion during the Gilded Age, and enthusiastically embraced it due to political corruption in the New Deal era.

Jim Crow was a dishonourable peace, and the Civil Rights movement was right to seek to overturn it.

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The political issue with leaving the statue standing is that statues need regular cleaning and maintenance. The next thing you know, outraged leftists are posting photos all over social media of maintenance workers, many of them blacks, cleaning the feet of Lee and his horse under the instructions of the city government. That wouldn't go over too well.

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