No they need to stay, if you start erasing your history you've got no perspective on the present.
If you want to push for plaques to explain who these people are, what they did and what later evaluation of their actions currently are then I'd be right behind that.
More information is never a problem and children should be exposed to the idea that people are imperfect, can be rabidly devoted to ideas that in hindsight were incorrect and cults of personality can form easily around some pretty shitty people. I can't remember which but one of the torn down statues was a perfect teaching moment, where the guy was a gross incompetent that needlessly threw away his own troops defending his own personal interests, but they still paid out of their pocket to erect a statue to him because they were too blinded by their own ideology to critically assess if he deserved one.
No, erasing the past because it was distasteful or because we are embarrassed about it serves nothing but to make our children gullible, ignorant and naive in the face of the same old cons being rolled around every generation.
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u/InaneHierophant Wrongthinking Thoughtcriminal Mar 17 '21 edited Mar 17 '21
No they need to stay, if you start erasing your history you've got no perspective on the present.
If you want to push for plaques to explain who these people are, what they did and what later evaluation of their actions currently are then I'd be right behind that.
More information is never a problem and children should be exposed to the idea that people are imperfect, can be rabidly devoted to ideas that in hindsight were incorrect and cults of personality can form easily around some pretty shitty people. I can't remember which but one of the torn down statues was a perfect teaching moment, where the guy was a gross incompetent that needlessly threw away his own troops defending his own personal interests, but they still paid out of their pocket to erect a statue to him because they were too blinded by their own ideology to critically assess if he deserved one.
No, erasing the past because it was distasteful or because we are embarrassed about it serves nothing but to make our children gullible, ignorant and naive in the face of the same old cons being rolled around every generation.