Charlottesville

[David Lockmiller]

(08-19-2017 05:09 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  

(08-19-2017 12:17 AM)My Name Is Kate Wrote:  I personally have never quite felt comfortable with building monuments to human beings. Any human beings. The word "idolatry" comes to mind. I don't really have strong feelings about it, and I do appreciate the beauty of some of the monuments, and some are even awe-inspiring (like Mount Rushmore, if only because of the sheer size of it). .

I often feel the same - especially as for leaders/politicians/kings etc. In this field there's such a small step between mere acknowledgement/teaching of someone's meaning in history and the said idolatry. I put up better with statues of some genius in the field of arts or science, like Shakespeare or Goethe, as I don't feel those idolize the entire human but an outstanding "creative"/"productive" talent that produced some THING everlasting, timeless. Shakespeare's work or Beethoven's music will always remain and inspire the way they are, while politics/ideologies change and kingdoms vanish.

I support the Lincoln Memorial. I like the idea of one man "standing" for a relatively short period of time in history and saving democracy for the world. Lincoln obviously did not save democracy and this nation alone. But were it not for him, both democracy and this nation would have been lost.

Charlottesville is a new example of an earlier time against which Lincoln vigorously protested: "By such examples, by instances of the perpetrators of such acts going unpunished, the lawless in spirit are encouraged to become lawless in practice; and having been used to no restraint but dread of punishment, they thus become absolutely unrestrained. Having ever regarded government as their deadliest bane, they make a jubilee of the suspension of its operations, and pray for nothing so much as its total annihilation. While, on the other hand, good men, men who love tranquility, who desire to abide by the laws and enjoy their benefits, who would gladly spill their blood in the defense of their country, seeing their property destroyed, their families insulted, and their lives endangered, their persons injured, and seeing nothing in prospect that forbodes a change for the better, become tired of and disgusted with a government that offers them no protection, and are not much averse to a change in which they imagine they have nothing to lose."

I recently saw on Charlie Rose actors and a director talking about stage performance and how the subtlety of great performance was the interaction between the actors showing all were living in the moment. From the time President-elect Lincoln left on the train from Springfield and bid farewell to his neighbors until his murder on Good Friday 1865, President Abraham Lincoln and those around him were always living in the moment. In that 1861 short speech to his Springfield neighbors, Lincoln noted that he had a "task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington." This was not an exaggeration and the "play" to last four years was just beginning.

As Shakespeare wrote: "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts."

Abraham Lincoln's final dominant role in life as President of the United States could not have been better played in my opinion. And, previously, as the antagonist debater of the man who would be President (Senator Douglas) on the issue of slavery, he had played a different role quite well, but thought at the time that his name would be forgotten forever after he lost that election. His own instructive role as a lawyer in frontier Illinois also was played very well, thanks in large measure to an assist from fellow "actor" Judge David Davis.

I often go by the Lincoln statue outside City Hall in San Francisco to pay my respects and reach up to touch the front of his shoe as so many others have also done. This spot on his metal shoe has been worn shiny over time, like the nose on the bust of Lincoln, created by Gutzon Borglum, in front of the Lincoln tomb in Springfield.

I think it better to leave all of the statues as they are now as a reminder of our past, lest we forget our history altogether. Recently, I saw that the statue of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Taney, who wrote the majority opinion in the Dred Scott decision, has been removed. Lincoln, the Illinois lawyer, argued publicly and forcefully against this decision at the time. I am sure that when most people pointed to the statue of Justice Taney, his Dred Scott opinion was not remembered as a point of honor in his favor.

On the other hand, when the Chronicle newspaper in Washington had the courage to speak well of "Stonewall" Jackson, accidentally shot, as a brave soldier, however mistaken as an American, Lincoln wrote to the editor: "I honor you for your generosity to one who, though contending against us in a guilty cause, was nevertheless a gallant man. Let us forget his sins over a fresh-made grave."

Much the same may be said of Confederate General Robert E. Lee who eventually commanded all of the Confederate forces against the Union forces. It is perhaps a little known fact that in December 1862, shortly after the battle of Fredericksburg, General Lee, as executor of his father-in-law's estate, fulfilled the duty he owed the Custis family slaves by executing a deed of manumission for them. General Lee also fought in a guilty cause, but was nevertheless a gallant man. Ironically, Robert E. Lee fought in behalf of a government that had as its basis the institution of slavery.

And, let us not forget what the Islamic State has done in terms of almost boundless suffering and destruction in the lives of the people of the region and elsewhere. In the "purity" of the religious belief of its Supreme Leader, Islamic State has destroyed much of the cultural and religious artifacts of man that were hundreds and even thousands of years old. These historical artifacts cannot be replaced in any true sense.

Religious purity and political purity are in the eyes of the beholder. Let us keep the historical artifacts and statues as a reminder of our own history. But let us never forget the facts of history because if we do forget that history, we will be doomed to relive the ugliest parts of that history.