The Statue Game

Last weekend certain members of our country engaged in the most recent game of statues. It wasn't news--until someone died. Then, it took on an entirely different cast. And what got lost in the name calling and blame calling was the supposed reason for the gathering...the preservation of a statue.

From the earliest times, statues have been created and placed on high supports to honor individuals or ideals or gods/goddesses. Statues have no intrinsic value except that conferred by people. One population might venerate the statue while another will vilify it. In the iconic last scene in Planet of the Apes, the hero stumbles across the destroyed Statue of Liberty. For the inhabitants of the planet, human and ape alike, it had no meaning. Only the hero found meaning in the statue.

All over the world, statues--ancient and modern--stand for ideals mostly forgotten or no longer with any significant meaning. Depending on just how ancient they are, we humans might preserve them because we value their artistic appearance or their historical/cultural meaning. What I find interesting is the fact that these are the statues that survived. They are a small, very small portion of the thousands of statues that were destroyed through war, rebellion, earthquakes, weathering...because humans have always toppled or buried or defaced statues that no longer represented their beliefs or their rulers.

Often the toppling was carried out by angry mobs as a cathartic means of triumph over their previous overseers. For those who object to the removal of statues, they forget such actions have historical precedent. When the populace no longer actively venerates the ideal represented by the statue, inevitably it will come down, either voluntarily or by mob rule.

People change. Cultures change. And the folks in power change. You might say the history of statues is also the history of humans. When the meaning represented by the statue is no longer valid, it will be replaced by some other meaningful object. For those who wish to preserve a statue that's lost its significance, instead of rioting maybe they should offer a new location for it.

Perhaps their front yard.