Edward Colston/Trans rights/Stamp collecting

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Comments

  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 40,214
    nickice said:

    Just to be clear, folk who are upset by the vandalism.

    Which bothers you more, that a statue of the UK's biggest slave trader is still up, or the vandalism of said statue?

    Using a word like vandalism really doesn't do justice to the scenes I watched on the news.
    The word comes from the Vandals who sacked and looted Rome. You'd be hard pressed to believe the actions in Bristol were more serious than that.
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 40,214
    nickice said:

    If you want to get rid of a statue you do it by democratic means. Or you can form a mob and people will find excuses for you.

    True, the Yanks should have put the statue of Saddam back until there was a vote for it to be taken down.
  • nickice
    nickice Posts: 2,439
    edited June 2020
    Pross said:

    nickice said:

    Just to be clear, folk who are upset by the vandalism.

    Which bothers you more, that a statue of the UK's biggest slave trader is still up, or the vandalism of said statue?

    Using a word like vandalism really doesn't do justice to the scenes I watched on the news.
    The word comes from the Vandals who sacked and looted Rome. You'd be hard pressed to believe the actions in Bristol were more serious than that.
    I mean in it's modern meaning it doesn't tend to be used synonymously with destroyed. Vandalising a building would probably mean smashing some stuff up in it smashing some windows and I'm sure the Vandals did more than that.

    Maybe toppling would be better.
  • nickice
    nickice Posts: 2,439
    Pross said:

    nickice said:

    If you want to get rid of a statue you do it by democratic means. Or you can form a mob and people will find excuses for you.

    True, the Yanks should have put the statue of Saddam back until there was a vote for it to be taken down.
    Saddam was still leader (or had just been deposed) when that statue was brought down. And Iraq was hardly a democracy. Do you not see the difference or are you just being obtuse?
  • pangolin
    pangolin Posts: 6,279
    nickice said:

    Pross said:

    nickice said:

    Just to be clear, folk who are upset by the vandalism.

    Which bothers you more, that a statue of the UK's biggest slave trader is still up, or the vandalism of said statue?

    Using a word like vandalism really doesn't do justice to the scenes I watched on the news.
    The word comes from the Vandals who sacked and looted Rome. You'd be hard pressed to believe the actions in Bristol were more serious than that.
    I mean in it's modern meaning it doesn't tend to be used synonymously with destroyed. Vandalising a building would probably mean smashing some stuff up in it smashing some windows and I'm sure the Vandals did more than that.

    Maybe toppling would be better.
    Quite like that. Group of suspected topplers spotted moving towards town centre.
    - Genesis Croix de Fer
    - Dolan Tuono
  • DeVlaeminck
    DeVlaeminck Posts: 8,718
    This 200 year old pub sign is to be removed in Ashbourne.
    [Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]
  • nickice
    nickice Posts: 2,439

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    rjsterry said:

    john80 said:

    It's probably better it doesn't go back up, maybe stick it in a local museum with some other stuff related to local history.

    I don't think it's totally clear cut and I can understand the existence of the statue causing upset as I can understand the tearing down of a local landmark causing upset.

    Thing is you can erect another statue of something else and let's be honest so many well loved buildings are pulled down in the name of profit it's hard to make the case this statue is of huge importance that something else relating to Bristol's history couldn't replace it.

    The trouble with these things is you can often find a reason why someone isn't deserving of a statue. I mean trafficking slaves is a pretty big reason but you get objections made to statues of Churchill, there's an ongoing debate about whether Thatcher should be remembered with a statue, if it turns out when the papers are released properly that Martin Luther King did indeed encourage a rape should his memorials be torn down?

    Personally I'd rather they put up art work rather than statues of the great and the good in the first place.

    I am sure whatever art work you put up someone can vandalise whilst citing some historical reasoning. Van Gogh might well have been either an early hallucinogenic drug user and created an entire industry. One eared mad man whose paintings should definitely be burnt.
    The Colston statue was straightforward commemoration of someone who gave a lot of money to the city. It wasn't anything to do with art or great sculpture.
    Where do we draw the line? There are a lot of statues of basically horrible people who did horrible things.
    Give some examples of statues of people who on balance were thoroughly bad sorts like Colston, and we can decide if they should stay or go.
    How about Winston Churchill, seeing his plinth was tagged with the racist word?

    Obviously these particular protestors came under prepared and didn't have the heavy lifting gear to do a proper job.

    I mean, he did lots of good things and I think it would be hard to get anyone to agree to removing his statue.

    He was however obviously a racist. This is (very) well documented for anyone who wants to pay attention to it.

    I mean, I think we should all be able to recognise that most people, as in life, aren't either great or awful and are different shades of in between.

    In the case of Churchill, in case it isn't obvious, he led a democracy against one of the most murderous governments (who certainly had a pre-occupation for ethnic cleansing that Churchill did not have) the world has ever seen and refused to accommodate them despite pressure internally, and that doesn't suddenly disappear when you look at what else he did.

    But then, nor does that erase his views on races in general.

    I think we should all be grown up enough to understand that people are complex.

    Yes, he was a racist (though probably wasn't considered to be more racist than most people at the time). But, then again, didn't Edward Colston also do a lot of good? That doesn't negate the bad but, as you said, people are complex. After all, he was a slave trader when some people who are considered great men held slaves.

    Erm, not really in comparison to kidnapping tens of thousands of people to enslave them and being chill when around a quarter of them die on ships en route to their life of slavery. Kind of hard to come back from that really.

    And, to be clear, the discussion at the time was that slave trading was really not a good thing to be doing, and a bunch of people who wanted to make a lot of money.

    What he does show is what the purpose of philanthropy often can be; whitewashing (pun intended) your past. Given it's a cycling forum I might as well drop in the Armstrong/livestrong chat, which many posters felt was an attempt to whitewash his nasty behaviour in his day job.
    So slave-trading is beyond the line and gets the statue taken down but holding slaves doesn't? I'm just trying to find the criteria.
    It's up to everyone to make up their own mind Nick.
    Well what's your opinion? I don't care much for statues of businessmen as it often turns out they were pretty horrible people. I'm pretty wary of tearing down existing statues as I think it really opens a can of worms. They'll be after the Churchill one next.
    Who are we talking about here?

    Churchill is not going to have his statue taken down any time soon.

    I generally don't go into the whole 'great people' genre of history anyway, so I don't spend huge amounts of time trying to wrestle with the morality and judgements of individual lives. It's a bit too much of a soap opera for me. I'm more interested in the structural side and more macro topics.

    If you think Colston is a can of worms, wait till you check out the debate in Belgium about king Leopold II statues...
    I think you underestimate this movement if you think Churchill is safe. They've already gone after George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 27,484
    nickice said:

    Pross said:

    nickice said:

    Just to be clear, folk who are upset by the vandalism.

    Which bothers you more, that a statue of the UK's biggest slave trader is still up, or the vandalism of said statue?

    Using a word like vandalism really doesn't do justice to the scenes I watched on the news.
    The word comes from the Vandals who sacked and looted Rome. You'd be hard pressed to believe the actions in Bristol were more serious than that.
    I mean in it's modern meaning it doesn't tend to be used synonymously with destroyed. Vandalising a building would probably mean smashing some stuff up in it smashing some windows and I'm sure the Vandals did more than that.

    Maybe toppling would be better.
    I dunno, you burn down the capital of one empire and you're marked for life. Can't help thinking of the Visigoths as people with fluorescent vests and too much eyeliner.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 27,484
    I thought this struck quite a good tone.



    As a side note, Johnson should really watch his back.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • nickice
    nickice Posts: 2,439
    rjsterry said:

    I thought this struck quite a good tone.



    As a side note, Johnson should really watch his back.
    Good statement. Pleases everyone I'd have thought (well most anyway)
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 27,484
    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    rjsterry said:

    john80 said:

    It's probably better it doesn't go back up, maybe stick it in a local museum with some other stuff related to local history.

    I don't think it's totally clear cut and I can understand the existence of the statue causing upset as I can understand the tearing down of a local landmark causing upset.

    Thing is you can erect another statue of something else and let's be honest so many well loved buildings are pulled down in the name of profit it's hard to make the case this statue is of huge importance that something else relating to Bristol's history couldn't replace it.

    The trouble with these things is you can often find a reason why someone isn't deserving of a statue. I mean trafficking slaves is a pretty big reason but you get objections made to statues of Churchill, there's an ongoing debate about whether Thatcher should be remembered with a statue, if it turns out when the papers are released properly that Martin Luther King did indeed encourage a rape should his memorials be torn down?

    Personally I'd rather they put up art work rather than statues of the great and the good in the first place.

    I am sure whatever art work you put up someone can vandalise whilst citing some historical reasoning. Van Gogh might well have been either an early hallucinogenic drug user and created an entire industry. One eared mad man whose paintings should definitely be burnt.
    The Colston statue was straightforward commemoration of someone who gave a lot of money to the city. It wasn't anything to do with art or great sculpture.
    Where do we draw the line? There are a lot of statues of basically horrible people who did horrible things.
    Give some examples of statues of people who on balance were thoroughly bad sorts like Colston, and we can decide if they should stay or go.
    How about Winston Churchill, seeing his plinth was tagged with the racist word?

    Obviously these particular protestors came under prepared and didn't have the heavy lifting gear to do a proper job.

    I mean, he did lots of good things and I think it would be hard to get anyone to agree to removing his statue.

    He was however obviously a racist. This is (very) well documented for anyone who wants to pay attention to it.

    I mean, I think we should all be able to recognise that most people, as in life, aren't either great or awful and are different shades of in between.

    In the case of Churchill, in case it isn't obvious, he led a democracy against one of the most murderous governments (who certainly had a pre-occupation for ethnic cleansing that Churchill did not have) the world has ever seen and refused to accommodate them despite pressure internally, and that doesn't suddenly disappear when you look at what else he did.

    But then, nor does that erase his views on races in general.

    I think we should all be grown up enough to understand that people are complex.

    Yes, he was a racist (though probably wasn't considered to be more racist than most people at the time). But, then again, didn't Edward Colston also do a lot of good? That doesn't negate the bad but, as you said, people are complex. After all, he was a slave trader when some people who are considered great men held slaves.

    Erm, not really in comparison to kidnapping tens of thousands of people to enslave them and being chill when around a quarter of them die on ships en route to their life of slavery. Kind of hard to come back from that really.

    And, to be clear, the discussion at the time was that slave trading was really not a good thing to be doing, and a bunch of people who wanted to make a lot of money.

    What he does show is what the purpose of philanthropy often can be; whitewashing (pun intended) your past. Given it's a cycling forum I might as well drop in the Armstrong/livestrong chat, which many posters felt was an attempt to whitewash his nasty behaviour in his day job.
    So slave-trading is beyond the line and gets the statue taken down but holding slaves doesn't? I'm just trying to find the criteria.
    It's up to everyone to make up their own mind Nick.
    Well what's your opinion? I don't care much for statues of businessmen as it often turns out they were pretty horrible people. I'm pretty wary of tearing down existing statues as I think it really opens a can of worms. They'll be after the Churchill one next.
    Who are we talking about here?

    Churchill is not going to have his statue taken down any time soon.

    I generally don't go into the whole 'great people' genre of history anyway, so I don't spend huge amounts of time trying to wrestle with the morality and judgements of individual lives. It's a bit too much of a soap opera for me. I'm more interested in the structural side and more macro topics.

    If you think Colston is a can of worms, wait till you check out the debate in Belgium about king Leopold II statues...
    I think you underestimate this movement if you think Churchill is safe. They've already gone after George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.
    It's difficult to argue that these Enlightenment founding father types didn't have a bit of a blind spot when it came to their ideas on universal rights and freedoms. It's not as though there was no one making the case against slavery at the time either. Wesley was preaching against it and Wesley had a big following in Bristol. Trouble is, those plantations won't run themselves.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 40,214
    rjsterry said:

    I thought this struck quite a good tone.



    As a side note, Johnson should really watch his back.
    Considering he was supposed to be the inexperienced puppet brought in to do his boss's bidding he's been impressive. He's like a real politician!
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,229
    rjsterry said:

    I thought this struck quite a good tone.



    As a side note, Johnson should really watch his back.
    He went into bat for Cummings fairly hard so I'm not convinced he's there yet. And with 4 and a half more years, he'll soon have to be the early Osbourne years boogyman when he has to announce cuts to everything to pay for everyone to not work....
  • briantrumpet
    briantrumpet Posts: 17,686
    Pross said:

    nickice said:

    If you want to get rid of a statue you do it by democratic means. Or you can form a mob and people will find excuses for you.

    True, the Yanks should have put the statue of Saddam back until there was a vote for it to be taken down.
    It's odd, isn't it, that the oppressed minorities don't often win in democratic votes?
  • tailwindhome
    tailwindhome Posts: 18,878
    “New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!
  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 20,508
    rjsterry said:

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    rjsterry said:

    john80 said:

    It's probably better it doesn't go back up, maybe stick it in a local museum with some other stuff related to local history.

    I don't think it's totally clear cut and I can understand the existence of the statue causing upset as I can understand the tearing down of a local landmark causing upset.

    Thing is you can erect another statue of something else and let's be honest so many well loved buildings are pulled down in the name of profit it's hard to make the case this statue is of huge importance that something else relating to Bristol's history couldn't replace it.

    The trouble with these things is you can often find a reason why someone isn't deserving of a statue. I mean trafficking slaves is a pretty big reason but you get objections made to statues of Churchill, there's an ongoing debate about whether Thatcher should be remembered with a statue, if it turns out when the papers are released properly that Martin Luther King did indeed encourage a rape should his memorials be torn down?

    Personally I'd rather they put up art work rather than statues of the great and the good in the first place.

    I am sure whatever art work you put up someone can vandalise whilst citing some historical reasoning. Van Gogh might well have been either an early hallucinogenic drug user and created an entire industry. One eared mad man whose paintings should definitely be burnt.
    The Colston statue was straightforward commemoration of someone who gave a lot of money to the city. It wasn't anything to do with art or great sculpture.
    Where do we draw the line? There are a lot of statues of basically horrible people who did horrible things.
    Give some examples of statues of people who on balance were thoroughly bad sorts like Colston, and we can decide if they should stay or go.
    How about Winston Churchill, seeing his plinth was tagged with the racist word?

    Obviously these particular protestors came under prepared and didn't have the heavy lifting gear to do a proper job.

    I mean, he did lots of good things and I think it would be hard to get anyone to agree to removing his statue.

    He was however obviously a racist. This is (very) well documented for anyone who wants to pay attention to it.

    I mean, I think we should all be able to recognise that most people, as in life, aren't either great or awful and are different shades of in between.

    In the case of Churchill, in case it isn't obvious, he led a democracy against one of the most murderous governments (who certainly had a pre-occupation for ethnic cleansing that Churchill did not have) the world has ever seen and refused to accommodate them despite pressure internally, and that doesn't suddenly disappear when you look at what else he did.

    But then, nor does that erase his views on races in general.

    I think we should all be grown up enough to understand that people are complex.

    Yes, he was a racist (though probably wasn't considered to be more racist than most people at the time). But, then again, didn't Edward Colston also do a lot of good? That doesn't negate the bad but, as you said, people are complex. After all, he was a slave trader when some people who are considered great men held slaves.

    Erm, not really in comparison to kidnapping tens of thousands of people to enslave them and being chill when around a quarter of them die on ships en route to their life of slavery. Kind of hard to come back from that really.

    And, to be clear, the discussion at the time was that slave trading was really not a good thing to be doing, and a bunch of people who wanted to make a lot of money.

    What he does show is what the purpose of philanthropy often can be; whitewashing (pun intended) your past. Given it's a cycling forum I might as well drop in the Armstrong/livestrong chat, which many posters felt was an attempt to whitewash his nasty behaviour in his day job.
    So slave-trading is beyond the line and gets the statue taken down but holding slaves doesn't? I'm just trying to find the criteria.
    It's up to everyone to make up their own mind Nick.
    Well what's your opinion? I don't care much for statues of businessmen as it often turns out they were pretty horrible people. I'm pretty wary of tearing down existing statues as I think it really opens a can of worms. They'll be after the Churchill one next.
    Who are we talking about here?

    Churchill is not going to have his statue taken down any time soon.

    I generally don't go into the whole 'great people' genre of history anyway, so I don't spend huge amounts of time trying to wrestle with the morality and judgements of individual lives. It's a bit too much of a soap opera for me. I'm more interested in the structural side and more macro topics.

    If you think Colston is a can of worms, wait till you check out the debate in Belgium about king Leopold II statues...
    I think you underestimate this movement if you think Churchill is safe. They've already gone after George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.
    It's difficult to argue that these Enlightenment founding father types didn't have a bit of a blind spot when it came to their ideas on universal rights and freedoms. It's not as though there was no one making the case against slavery at the time either. Wesley was preaching against it and Wesley had a big following in Bristol. Trouble is, those plantations won't run themselves.
    Plenty of people make the case against the textile industry today, but the average person would rather look good and spend less than worry about other people living in appaling conditions.

  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 27,484

    rjsterry said:

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    rjsterry said:

    john80 said:

    It's probably better it doesn't go back up, maybe stick it in a local museum with some other stuff related to local history.

    I don't think it's totally clear cut and I can understand the existence of the statue causing upset as I can understand the tearing down of a local landmark causing upset.

    Thing is you can erect another statue of something else and let's be honest so many well loved buildings are pulled down in the name of profit it's hard to make the case this statue is of huge importance that something else relating to Bristol's history couldn't replace it.

    The trouble with these things is you can often find a reason why someone isn't deserving of a statue. I mean trafficking slaves is a pretty big reason but you get objections made to statues of Churchill, there's an ongoing debate about whether Thatcher should be remembered with a statue, if it turns out when the papers are released properly that Martin Luther King did indeed encourage a rape should his memorials be torn down?

    Personally I'd rather they put up art work rather than statues of the great and the good in the first place.

    I am sure whatever art work you put up someone can vandalise whilst citing some historical reasoning. Van Gogh might well have been either an early hallucinogenic drug user and created an entire industry. One eared mad man whose paintings should definitely be burnt.
    The Colston statue was straightforward commemoration of someone who gave a lot of money to the city. It wasn't anything to do with art or great sculpture.
    Where do we draw the line? There are a lot of statues of basically horrible people who did horrible things.
    Give some examples of statues of people who on balance were thoroughly bad sorts like Colston, and we can decide if they should stay or go.
    How about Winston Churchill, seeing his plinth was tagged with the racist word?

    Obviously these particular protestors came under prepared and didn't have the heavy lifting gear to do a proper job.

    I mean, he did lots of good things and I think it would be hard to get anyone to agree to removing his statue.

    He was however obviously a racist. This is (very) well documented for anyone who wants to pay attention to it.

    I mean, I think we should all be able to recognise that most people, as in life, aren't either great or awful and are different shades of in between.

    In the case of Churchill, in case it isn't obvious, he led a democracy against one of the most murderous governments (who certainly had a pre-occupation for ethnic cleansing that Churchill did not have) the world has ever seen and refused to accommodate them despite pressure internally, and that doesn't suddenly disappear when you look at what else he did.

    But then, nor does that erase his views on races in general.

    I think we should all be grown up enough to understand that people are complex.

    Yes, he was a racist (though probably wasn't considered to be more racist than most people at the time). But, then again, didn't Edward Colston also do a lot of good? That doesn't negate the bad but, as you said, people are complex. After all, he was a slave trader when some people who are considered great men held slaves.

    Erm, not really in comparison to kidnapping tens of thousands of people to enslave them and being chill when around a quarter of them die on ships en route to their life of slavery. Kind of hard to come back from that really.

    And, to be clear, the discussion at the time was that slave trading was really not a good thing to be doing, and a bunch of people who wanted to make a lot of money.

    What he does show is what the purpose of philanthropy often can be; whitewashing (pun intended) your past. Given it's a cycling forum I might as well drop in the Armstrong/livestrong chat, which many posters felt was an attempt to whitewash his nasty behaviour in his day job.
    So slave-trading is beyond the line and gets the statue taken down but holding slaves doesn't? I'm just trying to find the criteria.
    It's up to everyone to make up their own mind Nick.
    Well what's your opinion? I don't care much for statues of businessmen as it often turns out they were pretty horrible people. I'm pretty wary of tearing down existing statues as I think it really opens a can of worms. They'll be after the Churchill one next.
    Who are we talking about here?

    Churchill is not going to have his statue taken down any time soon.

    I generally don't go into the whole 'great people' genre of history anyway, so I don't spend huge amounts of time trying to wrestle with the morality and judgements of individual lives. It's a bit too much of a soap opera for me. I'm more interested in the structural side and more macro topics.

    If you think Colston is a can of worms, wait till you check out the debate in Belgium about king Leopold II statues...
    I think you underestimate this movement if you think Churchill is safe. They've already gone after George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.
    It's difficult to argue that these Enlightenment founding father types didn't have a bit of a blind spot when it came to their ideas on universal rights and freedoms. It's not as though there was no one making the case against slavery at the time either. Wesley was preaching against it and Wesley had a big following in Bristol. Trouble is, those plantations won't run themselves.
    Plenty of people make the case against the textile industry today, but the average person would rather look good and spend less than worry about other people living in appaling conditions.

    True enough.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • nickice
    nickice Posts: 2,439

    rjsterry said:

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    rjsterry said:

    john80 said:

    It's probably better it doesn't go back up, maybe stick it in a local museum with some other stuff related to local history.

    I don't think it's totally clear cut and I can understand the existence of the statue causing upset as I can understand the tearing down of a local landmark causing upset.

    Thing is you can erect another statue of something else and let's be honest so many well loved buildings are pulled down in the name of profit it's hard to make the case this statue is of huge importance that something else relating to Bristol's history couldn't replace it.

    The trouble with these things is you can often find a reason why someone isn't deserving of a statue. I mean trafficking slaves is a pretty big reason but you get objections made to statues of Churchill, there's an ongoing debate about whether Thatcher should be remembered with a statue, if it turns out when the papers are released properly that Martin Luther King did indeed encourage a rape should his memorials be torn down?

    Personally I'd rather they put up art work rather than statues of the great and the good in the first place.

    I am sure whatever art work you put up someone can vandalise whilst citing some historical reasoning. Van Gogh might well have been either an early hallucinogenic drug user and created an entire industry. One eared mad man whose paintings should definitely be burnt.
    The Colston statue was straightforward commemoration of someone who gave a lot of money to the city. It wasn't anything to do with art or great sculpture.
    Where do we draw the line? There are a lot of statues of basically horrible people who did horrible things.
    Give some examples of statues of people who on balance were thoroughly bad sorts like Colston, and we can decide if they should stay or go.
    How about Winston Churchill, seeing his plinth was tagged with the racist word?

    Obviously these particular protestors came under prepared and didn't have the heavy lifting gear to do a proper job.

    I mean, he did lots of good things and I think it would be hard to get anyone to agree to removing his statue.

    He was however obviously a racist. This is (very) well documented for anyone who wants to pay attention to it.

    I mean, I think we should all be able to recognise that most people, as in life, aren't either great or awful and are different shades of in between.

    In the case of Churchill, in case it isn't obvious, he led a democracy against one of the most murderous governments (who certainly had a pre-occupation for ethnic cleansing that Churchill did not have) the world has ever seen and refused to accommodate them despite pressure internally, and that doesn't suddenly disappear when you look at what else he did.

    But then, nor does that erase his views on races in general.

    I think we should all be grown up enough to understand that people are complex.

    Yes, he was a racist (though probably wasn't considered to be more racist than most people at the time). But, then again, didn't Edward Colston also do a lot of good? That doesn't negate the bad but, as you said, people are complex. After all, he was a slave trader when some people who are considered great men held slaves.

    Erm, not really in comparison to kidnapping tens of thousands of people to enslave them and being chill when around a quarter of them die on ships en route to their life of slavery. Kind of hard to come back from that really.

    And, to be clear, the discussion at the time was that slave trading was really not a good thing to be doing, and a bunch of people who wanted to make a lot of money.

    What he does show is what the purpose of philanthropy often can be; whitewashing (pun intended) your past. Given it's a cycling forum I might as well drop in the Armstrong/livestrong chat, which many posters felt was an attempt to whitewash his nasty behaviour in his day job.
    So slave-trading is beyond the line and gets the statue taken down but holding slaves doesn't? I'm just trying to find the criteria.
    It's up to everyone to make up their own mind Nick.
    Well what's your opinion? I don't care much for statues of businessmen as it often turns out they were pretty horrible people. I'm pretty wary of tearing down existing statues as I think it really opens a can of worms. They'll be after the Churchill one next.
    Who are we talking about here?

    Churchill is not going to have his statue taken down any time soon.

    I generally don't go into the whole 'great people' genre of history anyway, so I don't spend huge amounts of time trying to wrestle with the morality and judgements of individual lives. It's a bit too much of a soap opera for me. I'm more interested in the structural side and more macro topics.

    If you think Colston is a can of worms, wait till you check out the debate in Belgium about king Leopold II statues...
    I think you underestimate this movement if you think Churchill is safe. They've already gone after George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.
    It's difficult to argue that these Enlightenment founding father types didn't have a bit of a blind spot when it came to their ideas on universal rights and freedoms. It's not as though there was no one making the case against slavery at the time either. Wesley was preaching against it and Wesley had a big following in Bristol. Trouble is, those plantations won't run themselves.
    Plenty of people make the case against the textile industry today, but the average person would rather look good and spend less than worry about other people living in appaling conditions.

    Frankie Boyle: Feel free to tweet your outrage on a mobile phone made by a ten-year-old in China.
  • blazing_saddles
    blazing_saddles Posts: 21,741
    nickice said:

    rjsterry said:

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    nickice said:

    rjsterry said:

    john80 said:

    It's probably better it doesn't go back up, maybe stick it in a local museum with some other stuff related to local history.

    I don't think it's totally clear cut and I can understand the existence of the statue causing upset as I can understand the tearing down of a local landmark causing upset.

    Thing is you can erect another statue of something else and let's be honest so many well loved buildings are pulled down in the name of profit it's hard to make the case this statue is of huge importance that something else relating to Bristol's history couldn't replace it.

    The trouble with these things is you can often find a reason why someone isn't deserving of a statue. I mean trafficking slaves is a pretty big reason but you get objections made to statues of Churchill, there's an ongoing debate about whether Thatcher should be remembered with a statue, if it turns out when the papers are released properly that Martin Luther King did indeed encourage a rape should his memorials be torn down?

    Personally I'd rather they put up art work rather than statues of the great and the good in the first place.

    I am sure whatever art work you put up someone can vandalise whilst citing some historical reasoning. Van Gogh might well have been either an early hallucinogenic drug user and created an entire industry. One eared mad man whose paintings should definitely be burnt.
    The Colston statue was straightforward commemoration of someone who gave a lot of money to the city. It wasn't anything to do with art or great sculpture.
    Where do we draw the line? There are a lot of statues of basically horrible people who did horrible things.
    Give some examples of statues of people who on balance were thoroughly bad sorts like Colston, and we can decide if they should stay or go.
    How about Winston Churchill, seeing his plinth was tagged with the racist word?

    Obviously these particular protestors came under prepared and didn't have the heavy lifting gear to do a proper job.

    I mean, he did lots of good things and I think it would be hard to get anyone to agree to removing his statue.

    He was however obviously a racist. This is (very) well documented for anyone who wants to pay attention to it.

    I mean, I think we should all be able to recognise that most people, as in life, aren't either great or awful and are different shades of in between.

    In the case of Churchill, in case it isn't obvious, he led a democracy against one of the most murderous governments (who certainly had a pre-occupation for ethnic cleansing that Churchill did not have) the world has ever seen and refused to accommodate them despite pressure internally, and that doesn't suddenly disappear when you look at what else he did.

    But then, nor does that erase his views on races in general.

    I think we should all be grown up enough to understand that people are complex.

    Yes, he was a racist (though probably wasn't considered to be more racist than most people at the time). But, then again, didn't Edward Colston also do a lot of good? That doesn't negate the bad but, as you said, people are complex. After all, he was a slave trader when some people who are considered great men held slaves.

    Erm, not really in comparison to kidnapping tens of thousands of people to enslave them and being chill when around a quarter of them die on ships en route to their life of slavery. Kind of hard to come back from that really.

    And, to be clear, the discussion at the time was that slave trading was really not a good thing to be doing, and a bunch of people who wanted to make a lot of money.

    What he does show is what the purpose of philanthropy often can be; whitewashing (pun intended) your past. Given it's a cycling forum I might as well drop in the Armstrong/livestrong chat, which many posters felt was an attempt to whitewash his nasty behaviour in his day job.
    So slave-trading is beyond the line and gets the statue taken down but holding slaves doesn't? I'm just trying to find the criteria.
    It's up to everyone to make up their own mind Nick.
    Well what's your opinion? I don't care much for statues of businessmen as it often turns out they were pretty horrible people. I'm pretty wary of tearing down existing statues as I think it really opens a can of worms. They'll be after the Churchill one next.
    Who are we talking about here?

    Churchill is not going to have his statue taken down any time soon.

    I generally don't go into the whole 'great people' genre of history anyway, so I don't spend huge amounts of time trying to wrestle with the morality and judgements of individual lives. It's a bit too much of a soap opera for me. I'm more interested in the structural side and more macro topics.

    If you think Colston is a can of worms, wait till you check out the debate in Belgium about king Leopold II statues...
    I think you underestimate this movement if you think Churchill is safe. They've already gone after George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.
    It's difficult to argue that these Enlightenment founding father types didn't have a bit of a blind spot when it came to their ideas on universal rights and freedoms. It's not as though there was no one making the case against slavery at the time either. Wesley was preaching against it and Wesley had a big following in Bristol. Trouble is, those plantations won't run themselves.
    Plenty of people make the case against the textile industry today, but the average person would rather look good and spend less than worry about other people living in appaling conditions.

    Frankie Boyle: Feel free to tweet your outrage on a mobile phone made by a ten-year-old in China.
    You have to learn to love and embrace the hypocrisy that comes with a modern society and it's technology.
    "Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 27,484
    One other thought on the Colston statue. There is a very ancient tradition of one generation defacing the monuments of their predecessors.

    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • There was no march or outrage when this black life was lost

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-52964754

    #BlacklivesHyprocrisy
  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 27,484
    You seem to be lost again.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • darkhairedlord
    darkhairedlord Posts: 7,180
    Does he post this nonsense elsewhere?
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,229
    edited June 2020
    To follow on from the past is not history comment on another thread, it's worth remembering that this statue wasn't put up till long after the guy was dead to begin with.

  • briantrumpet
    briantrumpet Posts: 17,686

    To follow on from the past is not history comment on another thread, it's worth remembering that this statue wasn't put up till long after the guy was dead to begin with.


    That the late Victorians could erect it without worrying enough to reference how he accumulated his wealth says quite a bit about their mindset too.

  • rjsterry
    rjsterry Posts: 27,484

    To follow on from the past is not history comment on another thread, it's worth remembering that this statue wasn't put up till long after the guy was dead to begin with.

    Exactly. With a load of guff about how wise and virtuous he was inscribed below. The statue was put up in the 1890s when maritime Bristol was very much past its peak, so there's a strong whiff of looking back to some imagined 'good old days'. Revisionism is nothing new.
    1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
    Pinnacle Monzonite

    Part of the anti-growth coalition
  • tailwindhome
    tailwindhome Posts: 18,878
    rjsterry said:

    To follow on from the past is not history comment on another thread, it's worth remembering that this statue wasn't put up till long after the guy was dead to begin with.

    Exactly. With a load of guff about how wise and virtuous he was inscribed below. The statue was put up in the 1890s when maritime Bristol was very much past its peak, so there's a strong whiff of looking back to some imagined 'good old days'. Revisionism is nothing new.
    As someone else commented - statues are put up to rewrite history
    “New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!