Yup. I tried in vain over his teenage and young adult years to get my son to see the folly of judging people from the past by modern standards.

Verily it is said, in the same way you judge others you will be judged. Good luck to those who judge with absolute harshness and no grace. I gotta go read me some Romans 2.

(1) If true, I find the choice to not let Robert Lee broadcast silly at best.  Frankly, I see it as damaging on a small stage, but damaging nonetheless.

(2) DaddyO I share your concern that judging the past through the narrow and comfortable prism of today is dangerous.

(3) A monument isn't a documentary, a monument is a celebration.  I do not see a problem using today's values to determine how we celebrate our history.  In my mind, Robert E. Lee is clearly on the wrong side of history and I am not enthusiastic about celebrating his 'achievements'.

(4) The University of Texas didn't drop it's confederate monuments to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico or grind them up and make them into concrete -- they are being moved to the Briscoe Center for American History.  Here is what the University of Texas president Fenves had to say:

“The University of Texas at Austin has a duty to preserve and study history,” Fenves said Sunday. “But our duty also compels us to acknowledge that those parts of our history that run counter to the university’s core values, the values of our state and the enduring values of our nation do not belong on pedestals in the heart of the Forty Acres.”

"We do not choose our history, but we choose what we honor and celebrate on our campus," he added.

Quotes from ABC news: http://abcnews.go.com/US/university-texas-removes-confederate-statues-ov...

Trump's smart play on this was to make the argument about slave-holding...rather than fighting against the United States government. The latter is why the statues should come down.  They equate--at best--to Benedict Arnold.

Or put another way, why pretend to be better than Robert E. Lee...when you already know you're better than Donald Trump?

What  a great response!

i am completely bothered by this Confederate  eradication effort.  Bamboozled, too.  To compare Robt. E. Lee to a modern Alt.-Right/Klan-ish/White Supremact movement is ludicrous.  Ditto Jefferson/Washington, etc.  there men were the cream of their nation, cultured. Well-read, educated, careful, etc. they would be the cream of their nation today!  

But they were products of their times, as well.  It you reduce every historical giant to whetherbthey were champions for some modern concept, well you pull down statues of them all!

FDR?  Didn't support same-sex marriage or integration of the military.  Off with his head!  Kennedy?  Diddled 19 year old interns!  

My own 19 year old daughter just texted me an image titled "America's Newest Monunent'" that shows a magnificent marble base with a pacifier on top.

That's where we are guys.  Discussing policy on its merits is a dying thing, at least as part of the national discourse.  

and moved on. I am still kind of befuddled by the whole thing; as if a guy gets to pick his own name?!?! His parents named him Robert and now, as an adult he's supposed to deal with societies renewed outrage. He has the same problem as Micheal Bolton in Office Space. ;-).  My 2nd son is due in 3 weeks and we're pretty set on a name, but maybe I better do a few google searches or 30 yrs from now my son will have to be asked to take another assignment. Sheeesh. 

Also, I get that Robert E. Lee was the leader of the confederate army, but 'the rest of the story' has Lee denouncing the C.Flag due to its devisiveness. He was the most honorable loser (maybe) in American history.  He understood that once the war was over, it was time to rebuild ALL of America. Infrastructure and relationships.  With that, I don't get 'tear them all down' sentiment. I love hearing rational speech like the President of the University of Texas at Austin (thanks Dr. Kelly!!). There needs to be a place to study and learn about the past, so we can find our place in the present. Those monuments are American history (ugly as some of it may be), there should be a place for them and I'm guessing with the proper permitting, contracting, and care they could be moved to a 'better' location. Destruction of things we don't like is weak. Go through the proper avenues and I'm SURE when you ask where to put the statues somebody's hand will come flying up. Then, find somewhere else to take the family vacation if its not your cup of tea. 

I am firmly on the left and I have found myself defending the left for any number of 'issues', but I will not defend and will even denounce those to the left of ME. Blocking free speech and tearing down monuments are failures and back steps. To my surprise, I am more of a centrist than I previously realized! So are most of the people I know on the right...

AND with my last name Adolf really rings nicely, but the wife assures me that is a firm NO. My only retort was, 'there won't be ANYone in class with the same name." It's still a hard no and with the ESPN story it probably HAS to be or some exec will pass over him NOT based on his work ethic. Double sheeeesh.

However you frame it, Robert E. Lee was, as Moe says, "the cream of (his) nation." He was not a man of ugly sentiment. Even the Union Army, despite opposing him to the death, highly respected him. Many Union generals regarded him as an honorable, noble, and principled man. 

Many in the South, even leaders, knew that slavery must be addressed. They just didn't want the solution imposed by the North. They saw the North imposing a solution on the South where they themselves would suffer no serious impact, while the economy of the South would be devestated. It's not exactly equivalent, but of similar impact would be deporting all US illegal aliens within a single month. It would bring down the economies of quite a few states.

To be sure, the South was on the wrong side of morality and history. The seedy origins and practice of slavery are reprehensible now. And the South was more than happy to prosper from it's exploitation. But slavery was not always viewed this way.

We know that it was the preaching of George Whitfield against English slavery that challenged Western society's alacritous toleration of it. And before that, the history of the world is one long episode of the practice of slavery by pretty much all nations and tribes. Given the opportunity, people would be enslaved. Wars would be fought, and the conquered would be plundered for slaves. Ancient Greece and Rome did it, and they were the flower of ancient Western Civilization. And slavery extended into Asia, and China, Africa, and South America as well. The reverberations of Whitfields preaching were still being worked out in the nineteenth century. We should acknowledge that but for the Civil War and Northern victory, it would have taken quite a long time for the South to recognize the error of it's ways.

Should we expunge all positive historical reference to Alexander, to Homer, to Archimedes, to Plato, to Aristotle, etc? Are the only ones worthy of our respect and honor those born in more enlightened times? Should we recognize that these meteors of history are highly regarded because in some way they bettered the world around them, many while themselves practicing slavery and even butchery.

Is slavery evil? Yes. Is racism evil? Yes. Is the recognition of HISTORY within it's context evil? No. It is instructive, and we must not celebrate everything about someone to celebrate something about them. Should we expunge John Kennedy because of his constant dalliances with ladies? For that matter, is every US politician in history to be judged by the more modern view of the dignity of women? That would pretty much eliminate anyone prior to the 20th century. Should we judge any king who lived prior to the Magna Carta by the modern perjorative view of kings as despots? Examples could be multiplied endlessly.

A man MUST be considered within the context of his time and place. Imagine if by some miracle the South had won? Would you have them remove a statue of Abraham Lincoln because they viewed him as a despot?

This is not simply a matter of framing. It is a matter of fairness. Why? Because some day WE will be judged by history, and the only reason we do not cringe is because, like our predecessors, we have no idea about what assumptions we now live by will be seen in the future as reprehensible.

History is a journey. We would not be where we are today but for those who came before. Were we born into their time and place, we would have been viewed just as reprehensibly as those who came before. We should be grateful for those whose part in the journey is worthy of some respect even if all of their beliefs, actions, and efforts might not be viewed today as such.

To me this whole "respect history" is not carte blanche for truly evil men. It would be an interesting exercise to attempt to define by what rules this exception should be invoked. I read a book last year that completely refuted the rewrite of history that Hitler's Reich was imposed on an unwilling Germany. From original sources he shows it was not so. Even a cultured, respectable society is capable of being led down a bitter path. Clearly Hitler is not to be honored. But...BUT, many people who, were we to know them, we would think noble and honorable either supported or acquiesced to the Nazi state. It is a sobering truth that, were we born into Nazi Germany, we likely would be just like them. 

I say it again. By the measure with which you judge, you will be judged. You are not only a current judge over men from history, you are yet to be in the dock and subject to the judgments of men in the future. If you now deny men any sense of fairness to the time and place of their birth, consider whether you might feel differently if such a fairness were denied to you.

that touch on Virtue Signaling (vis-a-vis Frank Clark and the incessant stream of 'domestic violence is BAD, BAD, BAD STUFF!' every time an article focuses on him) as well as a guest post at a friend's blog regarding the US Civil War.  I *never* claim to know everything about a given subject, and I don't claim to know everything about Frnak Clark or the Civil War.  But I can, with modest effort, uncover dogma-busting truths via inquiry and I think it's important to consider those truths.

Truth #1: The North did not fight the US Civil War over slavery.  Neither did the south.  The best piece of evidence in support of this thesis comes from Honest Abe's own lips:

Truth #2: "Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it."  Courtesy of George Santayana.  Recently I came to the USA for a couple months to deal with some personal matters, and while I was there I had to leave my wife and children at home in the Philippines.  While I was there, I could not once--not ONCE--recall the face of my year-and-a-half old son.  The rest of my family's faces were vivid, but it was like someone had hit the delete key on my boy's face in my memory warehouse.  Harrowing stuff.

The purpose of my retelling that little story is this: how are we supposed to remember history if we don't keep important symbols of it front and center?  How are we supposed to learn that slavery and racism are *EVIL* if, instead of discussing the reality of slavery and how it was perpetuated, we simply cover it all up and remove imagery/icons which *to some people* represent that horrible institution?  How are we to avoid another Civil War if we don't honestly, clearly, and rationaliy discuss how the first one came to be?  No more demagoguery, no moore vilification, no more moral condescension--if we want to avoid a conflict like the bloodiest one in our nation's history, we *HAVE* to speak honestly and openly about the REAL causes of the US Civil War (hint, it wasn't slavery--it was economics, much of which orbited the issue of slavery certainly, but only a couple percent of Southerners even OWNED slaves--why would the rank and file, outnumbered 4:1 by the North, send their best and brightest off to a war they knew they had extremely long odds to stalemate, let alone win?)

Gah, I'm getting worked up.  This issue infuriates me from about twelve different angles--and my forebears didn't come ot the USA until *after* the Civil War's conclusion!

Whole lotta people packed in one Korner. Let's see if I can throw some elbows and carve out enough space to lay down some bullet points in summary:

• Slavery = Bad. Good put Doc.
• Moral Relativism = Good. The funny thing is, while there are several eloquent denunciations of the practice of judging historical figures based on modern cultural norms, I'm not sure anyone here ever suggested doing that. I think that nuanced thinkers are usually on the same side of this one. I shudder to imagine what future generations will be tempted to judge us for if we create such a precedent.
• Corollary to the above: Robert E. Lee = Good. My very first reaction to the protests, before they first blew up, was "well, yeah, I can see why people want to keep up a statue of Lee. History does suggest he was a real luminary of his day." It is dishonest to suggest that the man himself was anything other than exceptional, just because his image has been co-opted by white nationalists.
• Corollary to the corollary: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and the pyramids = Good. Duh. Again though, I find it fascinating that this point needs to be made. Are there really, truly people anywhere who want to displace Washington because of Mount Vernon? I have yet to hear from them. As a member of the left, I can promise that anyone who espouses something that silly would be a true fringe element. It's a classic reducto ad absurdum; if your worldview leads you to denounce Washington, you need a new worldview. (Were I to hazard a guess, I would say this is another sinister little manipulation by Donald J. When I first heard his soundbite about how he worried the founding fathers would be next, I audibly snorted in derision. What a ridiculous misdirection! Classic, simplistic straw man fallacy)

Given all of this, how do we come to the conclusion that Confederate Statues = Bad? I'm not sure they do, but I'll make the argument as I see it, in its most reasonable form:

The issue here is symbolism. The idea that they were erected by Jim Crow proponents, to perpetuate the Jim Crow power structure, is crucial here. Also crucial is the way in which these statues are perceived by certain groups. Surely the statues, as things-in-themselves, are not offensive. The issue is that any number of minority Americans feel that they are a vestige of oppression. I know this sounds like a "trigger warning" argument, but I swear it's not. A year ago I submitted a paper to a Shakespeare prof at my liberal arts college titled "Feminazis are the New Misogynists." It nearly lost me some friends, until they remembered that I'm a decent person who has never given any indication of being a chauvinist pig. Which was the whole point of the paper. What I’m saying is, I may be liberally-minded, but oversensitivity and political-correctness irk me just as much as the majority of you on this site. SO. When I suggest that black people's feelings should be taken into account when we consider the fate of monuments, I do so not because I think people shouldn't have their feelings hurt. I do so because as a white man, which I imagine describes most of us in this community, I am aware that I may be missing something. One lightbulb that my Hispanic best friend turned on for me, over the course of many heated debates, is that privilege can blind well-meaning white Americans from seeing the subtle-yet-powerful racist undertones that still permeate many aspects of our society. I believe that these undertones, while in some ways unavoidable, should still be dealt with when they are brought to our attention. That doesn't mean that we are bad people for unconsciously perpetuating them, or that we should apologize for any wrongdoings. That would be unreasonable. However, I feel that we have a moral obligation to listen to those who may see more from a different vantage than we do from ours. And if those people are telling us confederate statues are bad, we should consider that they might be right.

The real problem here is not people who wish to commemorate or celebrate the positive aspects of figures like Lee, or pay homage to the sacrifices made for home and country by southern soldiers. It is those people who use them as an insidious way to smuggle hate into the mainstream. "Look at Lee," says a neo-nazi, "Now there was a splendid man. He championed the right of white's to their own country." Never mind whether the neo-nazi is right: he says it, and his brethren believe it. Then the unwashed masses, whose uninformed loyalty to the confederate movement Matt so compassionately and rightly defended, side with the nazi. "Look, we don't buy into the racial superiority and hatred he's spewing, but the man has a point. Lee was a great man, and he did fight for the sovereignty of the South." Their position is reasonable. However, this has an unintended affect: by siding with the alt-right, they have implied that they are more closely aligned with those hateful bigots than they are with the Blacks, Latinos, and Jews who live in rational fear that, like at so many other times in history, the white majority will turn on them. When they express these concerns, the president doubles down in an attempt to appeal to his base, and insists that defending the statues is reasonable. His supporters flock to defend his claims. Soon the country experiences fissures, largely along racial lines, that may take years to heal. Why does this matter, you may ask, if the affiliation between the neo-nazis and the honest people of the South is only illusory? It matters because of how it feels. As was pointed out earlier, plenty of "good" men and women were complicit in the Third Reich, or the perpetuation of slavery. How terrifying must it be for members of minorities, knowing that human history encompasses far more racial animus than it does enlightened equality, to see the views of the white majority once again infiltrated by the poison of racism? Germany did not become the Reich overnight. The groundwork was laid an inch at a time. It started when good people of conscience allowed despicable fringe elements to get their foot in the door. "When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross”…

Is eradicating confederate monuments the solution to this highly symbolic, nuanced problem? I have no idea. Is it a problem worth discussing, and addressing? I would think that it must be...