Nelson and Olin suggest that attacking monuments threatens the society that places value in them. However, at what point do the lines of misinterpreted history and modern reality overcome the delicate nature of attachment to monuments? View all posts by monumentsinhistory. Like Like. The destruction of monuments is a polarizing issue in the United States today. As Nelson and Olin argue above, even the proposal to destroy or remove a monument can raise up groups of individuals who feel like their society is threatened.
In our polarized society it can often seem like for every issue there are only two options. Perhaps, as discussed in class, we—as both historians and citizens— should consider whether or not there is some middle ground. Maybe the monuments stay and together a community creates an interpretive plaque. Maybe the monuments fall and the statues are moved to museums where they can be interpreted for what they are, or what they were.
If monuments matter, how do we, as historians, use even the ones that society would rather forget to help inform the future? This is a very timely blog post. I feel that too often the idea of monuments and how they have an impact on individuals lives is not nearly examined enough and as a result the public as a whole has become rather ignorant of the idea that a monument can have more than one meaning to more than one person.
I think the answer to this, however, goes a little bit further than the post details. We need to study monuments not only to discover their impact on the land and their contestation for power, and we need to study them for more than just to find varying historical narratives and the different identities that are wrapped up in monuments. We need to study monuments so that we ourselves can know history and not misinterpret it or forget about it. We need to study monuments to learn about the advancement of society, for monuments show the thoughts and feelings of those who came before us.
We need to study monuments so that our modernity does not compromise or make delicate other peoples identities that are attached to monuments. Monuments are a testimony to the past and past peoples and they contain within them the identities of people and groups of people. This identity at times, especially when looking at US Confederate monuments, is an identity that is not contained in a monument because of a positive history, but rather a sobering one. For those who erect it, as for those who receive its messages, the monument is a defense against the traumas of existence, a security measure.
It is the guarantor of origins, allaying anxieties inspired by the uncertainties of our beginnings. Antidote to entropy, to the dissolving action of time on all things natural and artificial, it seeks to appease our fear of death and annihilation Choay, pg.
This fear of death, annihilation, entropy, and trauma of existence is exactly why groups of people such as Southern Confederates erected monuments. The US Civil War completely erased the American Southern identity, an identity that was founded upon not only slavery, but also the natural landscape, a landscape that was completely destroyed and reduced once again to wilderness by General Grant and General Sherman.
This destruction of land by the Union was not only meant to prohibit the South from supplying its army, but it was also done to reduce the Southern populous to mere walking corpses with no identity or meaning Lisa Brady, The Wilderness of War: Nature and Stragety in the American Civil War.
The Union during the Civil War removed the identity of the South. As a result, after the war many in the South created and erected monuments to try and put back together what was left of their old identity and to attempt to create out of almost nothing a new identity. Historic preservation helps keep communities beautiful, vibrant, and livable, and gives people a stake in their surroundings.
It connects people with their past, and with one another. Historic buildings provide a sense of stability and provide a tangible link with the past that all can experience. Monuments remind us of our heritage. They are like a treasure for a nation and symbol of pride of their civilization. They help us to appreciate our past and the level of development, knowledge and thoughts. In a way, they provide life to our past. Dear Student, a. Some of the import archaeological sources used by historians to reconstruct history has been the monuments.
They help to explain chronology of events, important developments as they are substantiated by material evidences like coins, monuments, art and architecture. Other monuments have been removed by government officials. The response to the removal of public monuments has been mixed. Why do these statues elicit such emotion? Anthropologist Elizabeth Sutton, director of the Spurlock Museum , believes that people are passionate about monuments as the original purpose behind them is to immortalize those who have positively impacted society.
Marc Hertzman, professor of history , recently co-authored an article for Public Seminar in which he argues for the importance of a more diverse array of public monuments. She died in captivity. Why is it important to save the monuments? Why should we protect the historical heritage? How we protect our heritage? How can we protect our heritage monuments? What is heritage and its importance? How does heritage influence your life? What according to you are the importance of World Heritage sites?
What is the main goal of Unesco? What are the two types of World Heritage Site? What is the World Heritage in Danger list? How can world heritage sites which are in danger be preserved according to you?
What is the role of the World Heritage Sites in promoting tourism in any country? What are the benefits of heritage tourism? What are the challenges of heritage tourism? How can we promote heritage tourism? How can we promote our country?
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