Geoffrey MillerVerified account

What about statues of Lenin?

What about them? They would be important cautionary symbols.

How does this reconcile with pro housing development issues? Where’s the line on what should be preserved? Who decides it?

That's why I called it a heuristic, not a complete policy. It doesn't answer all such questions, it just creates a Bayesian bias to preserve where possible and appropriate.

Does it matter when the statue went up? My understanding is some of the confederate statues are quite recent. Presumably as part of resistance to civil rights movement.

The answer to an offensive statue isn't to tear it down; it's to add new statues that symbolize different views and narratives. Like with free speech.

Tell that to the people who tore down Saddam's statue in Iraq. Sometimes it's about removing images of cruelty and hatred that existed under those people the statues, art, etc. embody. Sometimes you have to clean house and "reset" to move forward. It's like a computer virus.

'Sometimes you have to clean house' is exactly what Nazis said whern they burned books, what Maoists said when they destroyed the tomb of Confucius, and what ISIS said when they destroyed statues. I don't trust that impulse at all.

So swastikas should have been left in place in Berlin? I don’t think you’ve thought this through

It's a heuristic bro, not a rule.