This is a post initially written as a Facebook reply in defense of my beloved wife’s post on her Timeline in which she agrees with the pulling down of slave-owner’s statues. She compared them to statues of Hitler. I initially disagreed with her (without posting as such because publicly disagreeing with one’s spouse is not always advantageous. 😉 ) But then I thought about it. I briefly contemplated what it must feel like to be property. Therefore I reconsidered and now I agree with her.

For anyone who thinks that the comparison between slave-holders and Nazis is harsh; let me remind you that both slavery and the Nazis’ “Final Solution” fundamentally dehumanized people. One difference is that slavery has been with us for 1,000s of years and perhaps we’ve become somewhat “immune” to its horror. The ancient Romans and Greeks practiced it, various Asian cultures did so, as well as Arabs, sub-Saharan Africans, and indigenous American peoples like the Aztecs. Desensitized may be the more proper word. It’s been with us for so long that we overlook the abject horror over the “thingification” of people, reducing them to objects of work and drudgery, no more, and subject to the absolute and capricious will of another. Say what you want about how this or that society may have ‘reformed’ slavery by giving slaves some rights and protections; still, the reduction of a human person to that of a chattel object, to be bought and sold like a thing is a grave evil. Another difference is duration: if you were sentenced to a Nazi concentration camp, you’d be dead within days or weeks. Rare was anyone who survived longer than a few months. You might survive the Soviet Gulags longer (I don’t know; I wouldn’t want to experience either to find out.) So there is a difference in degree and duration: condensed in the intense, short, horrific, and barbarous term in a death camp versus being spread out over arduous, barbarous decades as a slave. Destruction is destruction, the human person becomes a dehumanized thing regardless of whether it’s quick and painful, or slower and prolonged. People can debate forever which is worse. Which is stupid, both are evil and shouldn’t be done. To think that one is worse implies that the other is not so bad. 

The Nazi Death camps are an aberration in human history. Including the Turkish genocide of Armenians, the Soviet Gulags, and the Chinese Communist “Cultural Revolution” and later prison systems; such an organized, systematic, intentional destruction of human beings have been comparatively rare in human history. And as seen in the above examples, it has been restricted to our advanced, enlightened “modern times” and its secular, republican, and democratic forms of government.

As a result, we see that comparing slavery to Nazism can be initially off-putting with a knee-jerk reaction of “You gotta be kidding.” But once you dwell on and contemplate the horror that slavery is, you can see why statues of slave-owning individuals can be seen by some to be on a par with seeing statues that glorify Hitler (or Marx, Lenin, Mao, or Margaret Sanger; the latter being the white supremacist, racist, pro-Eugenics founder of Planned Parenthood.)

One issue I have is the mob violence associated with the pulling down of statues. Even so, I have to stop and think whether I would willingly participate in the pulling down of a Hitler, Marx, etc., statue. The answer is that I might consider it. Whether I’d follow through, depends. But the thought would cross my mind as I may see in the spontaneous act of destroying symbols of evil a morally good action that transcends other human notions of propriety. But I would have to evaluate the action in terms of whether the ends-justifies-the-means. For impure acts can never be used to achieve a good end. Would this “spontaneous act” be an “impure act”? Could the removal of statues be done in other ways that do not provoke the hardening of positions thus increasing division? The political change wrought by violence usually envelops and devours the violent. Recall the French Revolution of 1789, the European revolutions of 1848, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, and the Chinese Cultural Revolution of the 1950s-60s.

The other issue is the indiscriminate selection of statues targeted, which implies either a fundamental ignorance on the part of the mobs doing the action or a hidden agenda. Recently, a Frederick Douglas statue in Rochester, NY was allegedly vandalized. He was a freed black slave and abolitionist. The monument to a black Civil War regiment in Massachusetts was vandalized. A U.S. Grant statue was torn down (the Union General in the Civil War, and US president immediately following it and de facto military governor of the South due to Reconstruction.) Why pull theirs down? (Unless white supremacists are sneaking in and taking advantage of the chaos and doing their evil, but it does seem that other racially-motivated groups are also taking this action. I don’t know, but if, in fact, these other “racially motivated groups” are infected with Marxism, then I can see the basis for their indiscriminate targeting. Marxists typically seek to erase the past to better reconstruct a new society. Nevertheless, it would impact my decision-making in whether or not the “spontaneous act” is impure and would I take part.) How about statues of St. Junipero Serra and King St. Louis IX? Never. Opponents of their statuary are blindingly ill-informed as to who they were and what they did. They were powerful forces for good concerning the people they cared for or governed. What about the statues of Washington and Jefferson? Granted, they were slave owners but given their fundamental contributions to American history, they can be given a pass. “What?!?! But, they owned slaves!!!!” No one is flawless, we are all sinners and have done worse if not evil things. Including slavery. If you have ever initiated or cooperated in dehumanizing or objectifying another, such as maltreating employees or staff, then you relegated them to be like a slave. Perhaps Washington and Jefferson and some others can be demoted in the pantheon of Saints in the American Civil Religion, but deleted (or ‘canceled’) from our history? Never. In some circumstances, the entirety of the life of a person must be weighed and evaluated and viewed in a proper, comprehensive context. Good and bad, warts and halos. To focus on slavery is too narrow a vision. The unfortunate consequence is that entire swaths of human history would have to be “canceled” because slavery was a part of the social fabric. Slavery, despite its evilness, should not cancel out other elements of the persons’ life or that of an entire culture. Too much of what makes our contemporary cultures would be lost. Does this mean I am contradicting myself, given my equating slavery with Nazism, etc.? No; there was little else of virtue that Hitler, the Turks, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Sanger have done to merit being “given a pass.” Their evil was pure and unadulterated and they did nothing to cause anyone to reconsider their evil in any “proper, comprehensive context.” Washington and Jefferson did, even if you disagree with their politics.

I think we have lost sight of the bigger picture. People on both sides of the political spectrum have lost the concept of the entirety of an issue; and the value of a perspective that differs from their own. Everyone is looking at things with blinders on and not taking a step back and empathizing with our brothers, who may diverge from us in appearance and outlook but are still our kin. (Perhaps it related to the first part of my earlier post, “Two Theories on the Ending of the World”, the serious part on conspiracy theories and the “why’s” of their popularity, and decidedly NOT not the more humorous second half that blames aliens. Read it to find out more.)

My wife inadvertently caused me to think and challenge my initial superficial reaction in that because it’s mob violence it’s wrong. Wimmin! And I agree with her. The statues, at least some of them, should go. But so should statues of Marx, Che Guevara, Margaret Sanger and others of similar ilk. Should they be removed by a popular “spontaneous act?” No.

So there.

Are you a creative Catholic? ""Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics," is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

Know someone who is an alcoholic or addict? "The Sober Catholic Way" helps Catholics by describing the many ways in which their faith can assist in maintaining sobriety, and is a basic handbook on how anyone can live a sober life. . (Thank you!!)