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Notes -
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.
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.
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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.
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?
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.
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Beg your pardon, but how is literally overthrowing their government any less of treason than trying to secede?
Was he declared a traitor immediately after the war by the side that won?
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.
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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.
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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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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I was under the impression that his country declared independence from the country he waged war on?
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