On 12/24/15 6:37 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
> That is one
> reason the "merely symbolic" demand that Princeton be cleansed of Wilsonian
> memorials is rather more than a "merely symbolic" demand.
It's funny. I'm not very consistent on this topic, and I can never quite figure out why I go one way on some matters and not on others.
In general I like to keep history in view, both the odious and the elevated, so I wouldn't particularly want to see all those awful Civil War memorials in Southern town squares torn down. I suspect this is partly because the *physical* traces of history command from me a particular kind of respect. Perhaps it's mere preservationism. Cromwell, a wonderful old guy, would have scoffed; but I remain sorry his boys did so much damage to Litchfield Cathedral, though I shed no tears for Charlie Stuart's neck.
On the other hand there are things that bring out my inner icon-smasher. The Confederate flag is one of them. Nefas! It makes me blind with rage to see it.
And Woodrow Wilson is another. I hate that man with a soul-devouring passion. I think we should grub him up out of his fancy neo-Gothic sepulchre in the Washington Cathedral and toss his loathesome bones into the Potomac, with anathemata following them. And Princeton should rename that normalien unit after The Victims Of Woodrow Wilson.