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Comment by kmeisthax | Hacker News Reader

In the specific case of Confederate statues, a lot of those were cheaply made garbage put up by neo-Confederates to try and glorify their extremely racist history. Sort of like the converse of the moral censorship being complained about here. Instead of censoring a historically notable artistic work that also offends modern sensibilities, they are adding a veneer of artistry and historicality to pretend like not celebrating a bunch of traitors to America would be censorship.

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So, to summarize, your point is "this was art that I don't like made by people I don't like so it's ok to destroy."

That about it?

Yes, not everything is worth preserving. Space and resources are limited.

I'm pretty sure the ISIS folks would agree [1].

Or would you argue that their beliefs are wrong, and yours are right, so it's ok then?

Pretty sure they'd make a similar argument.

Or we could just... not destroy things?

[1] https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisatio...

Let me get this straight. The hill you're dying on is never destroy anything under any circumstances, no matter how useless, aesthetically repulsive, or morally reprehensible, because those things are merely subjective, but not destroying things is objective.

So like a Nazi furry Funko pop, we can't get rid of that.

> The hill you're dying on is never destroy anything under any circumstances, no matter how useless, aesthetically repulsive, or morally reprehensible, because those things are merely subjective, but not destroying things is objective.

Cool strawman! Here, I can do it too:

Why do you feel the need to be the ministry of truth and right-think, destroying and silencing anything that violates your "modern" sensibilities, regardless of it's historical significance?

It's not a strawman, it's a reductio ad absurdum.

Low-effort cookiecutter propaganda put up by lost-causers hoping to one day subjugate black people again probably doesn't need to be displayed prominently in front of courthouses, yes. And once removed, we probably don't need hundreds of unimpressive near-identical statues—a few would suffice, for any value they might hold.

These statues were mass-produced and cheaply made in order to dot the South with bits of propaganda from a defeated ideology trying to save face. In fact, this happened twice - first after the Civil War and second after the civil rights movement.

In other words, they are not art, they are spam. They have more in common with hustlebros spamming T-shirt and poster sites with AI-generated images than they do with art.

>they are not art, they are spam

I see, you get to decide what's art then?

How could that possibly go awry...

These Roman artifacts were mass produced by a slave owning nation too [1], probably ought to be destroyed along with the statues too, I guess.

[1] https://ancientimes.blogspot.com/2009/05/ct-scans-reveal-rom...

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