Maybe. The point is that there isn't a magical line where a thing becomes a historical object worthy of preservation or display. That's dictated by the priorities of the present. We don't need museums to display the empty milk carton I threw out last week. Yes, it's technically a historical object and yes, some distant and future society could probably learn all kinds of things from it, but I disagree that we have an obligation to the future. We have no idea what the future will be or what will be significant to it. For all we know, the future could be worse than anything in history.
The purpose of iconoclasm -- in the present and past -- is to erase that being destroyed from collective memory, and therefore history. And suffice to say, judging from the entirety of human history to this point, not only does it fail to work, but more often than not, it
backfires. What will be deemed historically relevant to those in the future, is for people of the future to decide,
not you. And to decide on behalf of those in the future what will be important to them, is
precisely the political and social motive of iconoclasm as it is an act of depriving those of the future of context and choice.
"Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it" is not mere cliche.
But I would say that if the people of the future have reached a point where they are incapable of understanding or appreciating the implications of racism.
And I would say if those of the future are incapable of understanding or appreciating the implications of racism, they will have
their own social, economic, and political cleavages which form the foundations of their society, they will not perceive because they've been deprived the necessary context by which they might be otherwise understood and categorized. That is
not "good".
Stop for a moment and think about the comparison that you're making.
Oh,
shall we?
These objects are all symbols. They symbolize something important and valuable, something that people even today enjoy or admire or aspire to.
Well in two of the cases I gave, those "symbols" represent 1,700 years of greed, corruption, hatred, imperial ambition, conflict, oppression, sexual predation, misogyny and patriarchy, slavery, and -- ironically enough, precisely that which you continue harping about --
antisemitism and
genocide.
In a third, those "symbols"
merely represent 5,000-year-old greed, corruption, hatred, imperial ambition, conflict, oppression, sexual predation, slavery, and genocide. Those "symbols" were literally built by conscripted and indentured serfs (i.e. "slavery with extra steps"), by an empire that actively practiced and idealized slavery and human trafficking. Are the 5,000-year-old monuments to slavery morally superior to the 50-year-old ones?
The fourth is just a fucking painting nobody cared about, until Italian proto-fascists decided it was a rallying symbol for Italian nationalism, being too fucking stupid to realize the painting was commissioned by a Frenchman.
"Enjoy or admire or aspire to",
indeed. Strange that didn't enter into your analysis. I eagerly await your impending appreciation for cultural relativism.
There are no triumphant statues of Adolf Hitler left standing over streets in Germany or proudly displayed in museums. Because a society that is actually ashamed, a society that actually seeks to correct and grow from the wrongs of its past, doesn't leave monuments that glorify its past intact for the sake of meaningless preservation.
Nah, it's a society under the weight of Cold War hegemony eager to distance and separate itself from its immediate past. A societal effort to exceptionalize Nazism whilst engaging in performative collective guilt, in hope nobody paid particularly close attention to who continued running the country, what their past allegiances were, who kept ill-gotten wealth during the Nazi regime, and who served nominal prison sentences before early release and silently returning to lives of comfort and oligarchy.
And here we are, nearly eighty years later, and far-right extremism and neo-Nazism is once again on the rise.
The rest of the world could learn a lot from Germany in this regard.
You may rest
quite assured the rest of the world did learn quite a bit from Germany in this regard.
..or, sadly, they increasingly go there to visit a tourist attraction, because once putting an object in the public eye does not guarantee it will be used as intended. Honestly, at this point maybe it should just be bulldozed, but I don't think that's a decision for historians to make.
And here's the foreshadowing of that impending cultural relativism I mentioned earlier...
Did Byzantine icondulism prevent sectarian conflict any better?
Now, this is a setup for a false dillemma if ever I saw one.
...then iconoclasm (specifically, Protestant iconoclasm, which you of course neglected to mention) is built into the fabric of every secular legal system. Noone is being burned at the stake in the street for desecrating a religious symbol, and you know what. Good.
Is that why and how statues of Christian -- specifically,
Protestant Christianism -- mythology keep mysteriously appearing on public ground in the United States, despite the clear and undeniable wording of the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses? I could certainly point you in the direction of some maximum prison sentences being doled out for desecrating statues of the Ten Commandments, and rather...
vigorous...court and public opinion battles over mosques and statues of Baphomet, in the United States.
But I have to admit, you're right. Nobody's being burned at the stake for it. They're just being bombed and shot up.
If iconoclasm is some great evil because it has not resulted in a perfect world in which everyone is happy and there is never any injustice or wrongdoing, then where is the perfect iconodulistic world which accomplished that?
But why are even talking about iconoclasm in the first place? Do we need to understand that a statue of general Lee represents the incarnated essence of the man himself, bound by similitude? Should we kiss these statues in reverence? Should we burn incense before them to signify our love and devotion for the men they resemble? Do these objects need to be preserved and venerated out of love for the things whose images they embody?
If anything attests to the transformative power of iconoclasm, it's that so many people have forgotten what iconodulism even means..
False dillemma, part 2.
...of course, the real reason film students watch Birth of a Nation isn't because it's a pioneering work of filmmaking...
That's literally why film students watch
Birth of a Nation. Exact reason I did in undergrad, same as
Triumph of the Will.
Birth of a Nation was a "blockbuster"
because of its innovations in cinematography, narrative, and editing. Those selfsame innovations are precisely why, same as
Triumph of the Will, they're masterpieces in propaganda.
...I'd show them Man of Steel or The Avengers...It's not smart to think something is genius just because it's edgy.
Do you mind if I screencap this for future reference, when and if anyone asks me the definition of irony?
I dunno.. I don't remember Arendt getting really mad about all the statues of Hitler being destroyed.
I don't recall her saying anything at all about statues of Hitler being destroyed. The continuing legacy of Nazism despite de-Nazification, on the other hand...