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Jun 2020
8:29am, 14 Jun 2020
2,555 posts
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Fellrunning
I see nothing wrong with being proud of one's nationality, or proud of your culture.
Every country has it's shadow. Things in it's past that are less than wholesome. We shouldn't forget those either.
It's important, surely, to look at the future and not dwell on the past. Learn the lessons, both good and bad. Reach out rather than turn in. Give rather than take.
A statue is like a gravestone. It just marks something that once was. It's what IS that matters...
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Jun 2020
8:33am, 14 Jun 2020
30,177 posts
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Mrs Jigs (Luverlylegs)
You have summed it up excellently Fellrunning, thank you.
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Jun 2020
8:38am, 14 Jun 2020
12,857 posts
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Ultracat
I don’t think you can apply 21st century values to those who lived in the 18th and 19th century.
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Jun 2020
8:44am, 14 Jun 2020
23,398 posts
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Johnny Blaze
It always amazes me when people who have post-enlightenment, secular, equal rights-inflected mindsets - which have taken 5,000 years of History to develop and arrive at, point the finger at past generations who didn't have those views (because, erm, those philosophies were largely absent or undeveloped) and condemn the shit out of them.
You can't have enlightenment views about, say, universal suffrage and liberal democracy when those values were entirely absent from the culture you grew up in. It is anachronistic nonsense. If WE were brought up in those days WE would be more likely than not to have the values which were common in society at that time.
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Jun 2020
8:46am, 14 Jun 2020
2,556 posts
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Fellrunning
That's true. What is wrong though is defending the attitudes and values that existed then from the standpoint of today.
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Jun 2020
8:47am, 14 Jun 2020
2,557 posts
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Fellrunning
Sorry x post - was replying to Ultracat
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Jun 2020
9:00am, 14 Jun 2020
30,249 posts
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SPR
I don't think a statue is like a gravestone. A statue is honouring someone. As a society, we can decide whether we want to keep honouring people or not.
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Jun 2020
9:17am, 14 Jun 2020
23,399 posts
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Johnny Blaze
I think as a society we now set incredibly high standards as to what we expect of leaders and leaders are falling short, as they must. Have we had one leader in the last 40 years who "society" would tolerate a public stature for? Not Blair or Thatcher, that's for sure.
Cameron?
May?
Johnson? Ha! If he isn't drummed out in a cloud of ignominy I will show my arse in Burtons' window.
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Jun 2020
9:18am, 14 Jun 2020
23,400 posts
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Johnny Blaze
statue, not stature...
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Jun 2020
9:23am, 14 Jun 2020
12,858 posts
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Ultracat
Usually just walk by statues without a second glance. We have a statue to William Wallace whom some may consider racist by today’s standards as he was anti-English, put up centuries after his death. Plenty of statues to Queen Victoria in towns and cities in the UK and beyond, never understood why I guess it was something people did in the end of the 19th century.
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Fantasy General Election
Jul 2024
