Rhodes Should Fall, or Perhaps Not.....

[JP]

Not sure if anyone has a particular view on this but I have put only two options as there seems to be no other choices in the arguments I have seen.

Personally speaking I am an opponent of historical revisionism unless there is new research or evidence that may show there is a need however i believe the life and times of this person are pretty well researched and documented.

I think it should stay.

[Shaker]

I agree. I'm extremely uncomfortable with this sort of whitewashing of history, as though the removal of a statue can rewrite what actually happened. In Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell had Winston Smith working at the Ministry doctoring photographs and altering documents to make certain people unpersons - people who were politically out of favour with the ruling regime were (as we would now say) airbrushed out of history. Both Hitler and Stalin actually did this for real - no Photoshop in those days so photographs had to be carefully doctored with scissors and scalpels and retouched. This sort of thing falls into the same category to me, and I oppose it. If Rhodes's legacy is so awful - and I think it's rather more complicated that a simple binary choice of good man v. bad man - then the right course is to debate it, not make out that he never existed and that he never did what he did. He did.

[Hope]

Reminds me of some of the pictures of the early Bolsheviks and Socialist Russia where people who become persona non gratis had been removed from the pictures.

Unfortunately, disagreement with popular opinion seems to be n longer acceptable - think about the Oxford Union's attempt to ban Germaine Greer at the back end of last year.

[Rhiannon]

I agree. I'm extremely uncomfortable with this sort of whitewashing of history, as though the removal of a statue can rewrite what actually happened. In Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell had Winston Smith working at the Ministry doctoring photographs and altering documents to make certain people unpersons - people who were politically out of favour with the ruling regime were (as we would now say) airbrushed out of history. Both Hitler and Stalin actually did this for real - no Photoshop in those days so photographs had to be carefully doctored with scissors and scalpels and retouched. This sort of thing falls into the same category to me, and I oppose it. If Rhodes's legacy is so awful - and I think it's rather more complicated that a simple binary choice of good man v. bad man - then the right course is to debate it, not make out that he never existed and that he never did what he did. He did.

I agree. The really worrying thing is that the demand is coming from students themselves; presumably they are oblivious to the fact that debate is one of the things universities are for.

[Hope]

I agree. The really worrying thing is that the demand is coming from students themselves; presumably they are oblivious to the fact that debate is one of the things universities are for.

Is it coming from students or from student union officers, many of whom are no longer students, but people wanting to become professional politicians.

[jeremyp]

Is it coming from students or from student union officers, many of whom are no longer students, but people wanting to become professional politicians.

Students.

It's becoming a big problem at some universities, particularly in the USA (but not exclusively).

[Hope]

Students.

It's becoming a big problem at some universities, particularly in the USA (but not exclusively).

The reason I asked was because the attempt to ban Germaine Greer from speaking was apparently 'from students' but later it turned out that that it was the hierarchy of the Union, not the ordinary students.

[JP]

I agree. The really worrying thing is that the demand is coming from students themselves; presumably they are oblivious to the fact that debate is one of the things universities are for.

Not always the case it seems these days. Apparantly students need a "safe space" which in reality is a place where no questioning or debate is allowed and people who invade this are barred, banned and shut down. These "safe spaces" are used as weapons, freedoms for those who support them while others disagreeing with their paranoia are labelled as bullies and their right to reply stifled.

History is what it is. Learn from it but don't revise it to meet your needs. If the statue goes it will be a very sad day.

[Nearly Sane]

Not always the case it seems these days. Apparantly students need a "safe space" which in reality is a place where no questioning or debate is allowed and people who invade this are barred, banned and shut down. These "safe spaces" are used as weapons, freedoms for those who support them while others disagreeing with their paranoia are labelled as bullies and their right to reply stifled.

History is what it is. Learn from it but don't revise it to meet your needs. If the statue goes it will be a very sad day.

I think you need a bit more nuance here as your position would seem to lead to the idea that the Baltic States were wrong to get rid of statues f Lenin and Stalin.

[JP]

If I was from the Baltic states that might be relevant.

[Nearly Sane]

If I was from the Baltic states that might be relevant.

Not if you explain your position as an absolute which is what you did.

[JP]

Not if you explain your position as an absolute which is what you did.

No, it really is irrelevant. Perhaps you should have thought of a better examle that statues of lenn or Stalin in the Baltic states.

Do you have an opinion on the Rhodes statue?

[Nearly Sane]

No, it really is irrelevant. Perhaps you should have thought of a better examle that statues of lenn or Stalin in the Baltic states.

Do you have an opinion on the Rhodes statue?

It really isn't - your position is that getting rid of such a statue is wrong because it is part of history - this would apply to the statues of Stalin and Lenin in the Baltic States - unless you can explain why not, which is why I suggested you might want to qualify the position. The example is perfectly fine as long as you stick to your absolute position.

As for my opinion, my take is that the statue should stay.

[JP]

It really isn't - your position is that getting rid of such a statue is wrong because it is part of history - this would apply to the statues of Stalin and Lenin in the Baltic States - unless you can explain why not, which is why I suggested you might want to qualify the position. The example is perfectly fine as long as you stick to your absolute position.

As for my opinion, my take is that the statue should stay.

No, it really is. My opinion is my own given my understanding of the history of the UK, and my position is absolute with regard to staues in the UK, unless someone can persuade me otherwise. If I was from the Baltic states I would have a different perspective no doubt, a different word view.

As far as the UK goes though, going by todays morals, standards and revisionism we would need to remove a lot of stautes if no stance was made.

[Udayana]

Not sure if anyone has a particular view on this but I have put only two options as there seems to be no other choices in the arguments I have seen.

Personally speaking I am an opponent of historical revisionism unless there is new research or evidence that may show there is a need however i believe the life and times of this person are pretty well researched and documented.

I think it should stay.

Well... there are lots of other options. I would go for keeping the statue with the addition of a plaque describing his life and the objections that people have to the statue.

[Shaker]

The comparison of a statue of Rhodes at an English college and statues of Lenin and Stalin (especially Stalin rather than Lenin) in the Baltic states is specious, in my view - those who live in those countries which were subsumed into the Soviet Union by a tyrannical despot have good and understandable reasons to want to see statues of him removed. I don't think this bears comparison with a statue in an Oxford quad in any way.

Both jeremyp and JP have referred obliquely to what seems to be a growing trend particularly in American unversities which I've heard about through Jerry Coyne's blog website - the infantilisation of students and the situation encouraged where the dialectic, the clash of ideas, conflicting views and contrary opinions, anything even remotely contentious is either banned outright or deemed to stand in need of a "trigger warning." To me adults are infantilised here and treated as rather dim children who have to be guided/encouraged/nudged/threatened into "responsible" behaviour by Those Who Know Best, but for it to happen to young people at university is doubly pernicious. Perhaps it's a skewed perspective based on what I read but it seems to be vastly worse in US universities, though it happens here too.

[Nearly Sane]

The comparison of a statue of Rhodes at an English college and statues of Lenin and Stalin (especially Stalin rather than Lenin) in the Baltic states is specious, in my view - those who live in those countries which were subsumed into the Soviet Union by a tyrannical despot have good and understandable reasons to want to see statues of him removed. I don't think this bears comparison with a statue in an Oxford quad in any way.

Given that it was a reductio to illustrate the issue with an absolute statement that there should be no revision of history in this manner, it was meant to be somewhat specious to illustrate that the absolute statement needed to be adjusted - as I pointed out when I raised the comparison. I would suggest though that to compare this cam[aign to what Hitler and Stalin did as you did in your first post on the thread is actually specious and is not a reductio.

[Shaker]

Given that it was a reductio to illustrate the issue with an absolute statement that there should be no revision of history in this manner, it was meant to be somewhat specious to illustrate that the absolute statement needed to be adjusted - as I pointed out when I raised the comparison. I would suggest though that to compare this cam[aign to what Hitler and Stalin did as you did in your first post on the thread is actually specious and is not a reductio.

What's specious about it? Revision/censorship of the past in the name of current mores, the making of someone an unperson, is precisely what they did, and this proposal is another example of the same.

[Nearly Sane]

What's specious about it? Revision/censorship of the past in the name of current mores, the making of someone an unperson, is precisely what they did, and this proposal is another example of the same.

Because it removes them from a,position of approbation rather than history and isn't done from the position of being a dictator.

[Shaker]

Because it removes them from a,position of approbation rather than history and isn't done from the position of being a dictator.

I don't think Rhodes is in a position of approbation. I'm confident in saying that the vast majority of the public, Mr and Mrs Average on the Clapham omnibus, will never even have heard of the man or know a damned thing about what he did, where he did it and what he did it for. I suspect that this even applies to people old enough to remember a country called Rhodesia, I might add. 

Of the minority who are aware of him, I should think that the majority of these regard him as a complex individual who did some highly questionable and some downright nefarious things - hardly a position of approbation.

[Nearly Sane]

The statue is an approbation.

[Shaker]

The statue is an approbation.

Not any more it isn't. I agree that it would have been erected at a time when Rhodes was deemed statue-worthy, as were a great many people we now view askance at the very least, but generally speaking statues have a distinct tendency to stay where they're put and just hang around, accumulating verdigris and pigeon shit as the years and the decades and even the centuries roll by. Removing it now merely panders to the worst kind of infantilised, ahistorical mentality.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Not any more it isn't. I agree that it would have been erected at a time when Rhodes was deemed statue-worthy, as were a great many people we now view askance at the very least, but generally speaking statues have a distinct tendency to stay where they're put and just hang around, accumulating verdigris and pigeon shit as the years and the decades and even the centuries roll by. Removing it now merely panders to the worst kind of infantilised, ahistorical mentality.

Well said sir.

[Nearly Sane]

and that would then surely apply to the statues of Stalin then.

[Shaker]

and that would then surely apply to the statues of Stalin then.

No. See the first paragraph of #15.