We Need To Move, Not Destroy, Confederate Monuments Essay Analysis
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YsrraelWe Need To Move, Not Destroy, Confederate Monuments Essay Analysis
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YsrraelUniversidad Fairleigh Dickinson
Metropolitan Campus
24/FA_WRIT_1003_P10 Comp II Research and Argument
Prof. Wilson Aponte
Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is at the same time marble and sculptor.
(Alexis Carrel 1873-1944) (1)
The above phrase came to my mind when, reading the article that serves as the basis for this
writing, Cotter expressed: “...You can change history, because you can change your view, which is
never certain,... By mining something called the past through images and words, scholars change
history, map its cycles, make it yield fresh news...” (2) that is, through this, one is making marble and
sculptor of history.
And it is through history that we can see that the situation described by the writer has been
frequent, since as Erin L. Thompson (3) said, “...that destruction is the norm and preservation is the
rare exception” and she refers to the demolition of a statue in the year 2700 BC. Statues are images or
symbols that man creates to remember and venerate someone whose actions are considered important,
but at the same time there are those who think the opposite and tear down the statues erected, as a way
of rebelling against what it represents. Not everything is perfect.
But in search of that perfection, many solutions have been offered to those ethical, moral, social
and even economic problems, and the author offers some possible solutions for that, although
Thompson does not like special museums dedicated to him, because of how expensive they are.
At the same time, an excited author strives to present those acts as something that should be
considered normal for all those who represent the Confederate past. Therefore, he asks himself and
answers himself when he writes “...So what do we do with these images, as surely monuments to
racism as any Confederate flag now? A preservationist might say, add an interpretive label and leave
them in their intended context. But I think the point is to change that context, break its spell, rouse
these things up from the slumber of false nostalgia, and wake ourselves up. Plus, if you move them,
you can put something in their place, introduce new stories.”
But these demonstrations and protests against Confederate statues are not recent; they have occurred
for decades, and have not achieved the success they seek, which has caused many people to lose hope
that a peaceful solution will occur and then opt for violent situations like those that occurred in
Charlottesville, Virginia.
Reference
1- R/Getmotivated on Reddit: [Image] Man Cannot Remake Himself without Suffering, for He Is Both
the Marble and the Sculptor. —Alexis Carrel,
www.reddit.com/r/GetMotivated/comments/10jd5ue/image_man_cannot_remake_himself_without_suf
fering/. Accessed 21 Sept. 2024.
2- Cotter, Holland. “We Need to Move, Not Destroy, Confederate Monuments (Published 2017).” The
New York Times, 20 Aug. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/08/20/arts/design/we-need-to-move-not-
destroy-confederate-monuments.html.
3- Bromwich, Jonah Engel. “What Does It Mean to Tear down a Statue?” The New York Times, 11 June
2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/style/confederate-statue-columbus-analysis.html.
