It seems that in our nation's young history, we've had success in large part because of our predecessors' ability to see the big picture that keeping society strong and unified is more important than stalling ourselves out over disagreements in the minutiae. Even at the inception of our nation's Constitution, there were heated debates over how the power should be separated among the branches and levels of government. My fifth grade history books regaled Henry Clay as a "Great Compromiser" in the 1800s (although I cannot personally verify whether he deserved such a title). It seemed that compromise was much more fashionable a trend in years past than nowadays. Certainly, the portrayal of the country in media and social media is more polarized than recent history so I wanted to examine a simple social issue where maybe we can find some compromise and achieve the culturally absent goal of "making some sense."
There's been a lot of talk about what to do with the monuments of Confederate soldiers that remain erected in locations around the country (particularly the South). Many have recently raised the point more vociferously than ever that these monuments symbolize a regressive, offensive, and reprehensible era of slavery; and rightly so. Their opponents have relied on a strategy that it seems odd that the statues have only just now become a problem, but of course the recency of a previously undiscovered problem IN NO WAY NULLIFIES the stature of the argument. Either the statues are a problem, or they're not.
The proponents of the statues cite a loyalty to the remembrance of history and an homage to men to who fought not only to preserve slavery but for the sovereignty of their states.
I have a hard time telling either of these groups that they were wrong. The memory of the Confederacy is linked VERY STRONGLY to the remembrance of U.S. slavery. However, I do believe there is an over-arcing significance to not destroying history. A tenet that will not be displaced is this:
IN THE COURSE OF A PROGRESSIVE SOCIETY, THOSE WHO CAME BEFORE WILL ALWAYS BE CONSIDERED REGRESSIVE OR IMMORAL. This is a self-proving and self-subsisting statement. If we expect to continue to get better, then those of the past will be considered in some ways worse! Thus we will always doom ourselves to erase history if we judge those of the past by today's moral standards.
The reason I start with this quandary is that it seems to have a simple solution, and it already exists. There is a place reserved for preserving history while not glorifying the morality of those who created the history. . . A MUSEUM. No one thinks to judge abhorrent morality of Pharaohs or Kings whose likenesses are kept in museums. In addition, their history is not washed away.
If the factions at play simply want to continue to sow the seeds of polarization and animosity, they can continue to point out why the other is wrong. If we, as a society, really want to find common ground and progress; I think keeping the Confederate statues in a museum is a great . . . compromise.