Felling statues raises deeper questions

The most evident aspect of burning, decapitating or drowning statues is that it is an expression of enthusiasm, and is enormously enjoyable for those who take part in it. It is a symbol of radical change, and channels anger at a resented past into joy at the inauguration of a new age.

Jul 18, 2020

By Fr Andrew Hamilton, SJ
The most evident aspect of burning, decapitating or drowning statues is that it is an expression of enthusiasm, and is enormously enjoyable for those who take part in it. It is a symbol of radical change, and channels anger at a resented past into joy at the inauguration of a new age.

Images of the Russian Revolution and of the collapse of the Soviet Empire alike are full of defaced paintings and the dethroning of statues of rulers. Unfortunately, common to all such events, is the subsequent realisation that with the coming of a new world, life does not automatically change for the better.

The larger questions posed by the destruction of the statues, and indeed of reputations that they symbolise, concern how to handle complexity.

First, historical complexity. Statues destroyed are almost always of a past age when commonly shared attitudes to society and to human aspirations differed from those of our own. Those past attitudes and the economic and political structures in which they were embodied, however, have helped shape our own world and so are inherited both by those who call for something radically new and by those opposed to change. Of their nature, statues of the past confront us with complexity and ambiguity. Knocking their heads off does not make a society more simple, though it may lead to desired change by forcing us to ask whether the attitudes and actions of our ancestors were morally defensible as well as understandable. Asking that question of the past is awkward because it pushes us inescapably to ask it also of our own actions, attitudes and inheritance. 

Second, the question of human complexity. Statues represent, even in their idealised shape, real people marked by a mixture of good and bad desires, of good and evil actions, of light and darkness, strength and weakness, and of ignorance and knowledge. In public life they will inevitably have endorsed or acquiesced in actions that harmed groups in society. Details of their private lives and relationships, once concealed, may also now be known. This fuller knowledge forces us to ask whether we accept our own complexity and ambiguity or reject them.

Third, the question of social complexity. Each statue and memorial embodies a network of relationships to other people, to groups in society, to hierarchies and to historical events. Together they form an image of a society rich in its complexity and its tensions, marked by what it omits as well as by what it includes. They ask us whether we want a society in which groups with different attitudes and histories coexist, with all the tensions that this involves, or whether we will exclude and write out of our history many of those relationships.

If we wish to preserve complexity, we must then deal with the exclusions evident in the memorials left by our ancestors. It is often claimed that the destruction is alien to our culture, a return to barbarism. In fact, it is a recurrent theme in many cultures. It goes back to the exclusive claim made for the God of Israel as being beyond imaging, and so excluding images of other Gods.

In the Medieval West, images were multiplied and humanised, so that Churches brought together heaven and earth through the images of Christ, Mary, angels, saints and members of the congregation, both saints and sinners.

Images then became secular, and statues represented citizens and churchmen responsible for building a good society. They symbolised and protected the values and ideals of society. When society was seen as corrupt, however, the symbols also came under attack, as in the French and Russian revolutions and in the overthrow of the Soviet Empire. --Eureka Street

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