U. S. Grant … Robert E. Lee … George Washington … Columbus … Albert Pike.
All recently having their statuary pulled down across the county.
Having read quite a bit on the Reformation there is a parallel here between now and then. In the time frame of the Reformation the Reformers were known as being iconoclasts. This meant that they were smashing Catholic statuary and idols everywhere. They hated the Roman Catholic statues primarily because those statues had violated the 2nd commandment. Still, in my estimation many went overboard in their zeal in destroying statues, paintings, and Christian art in general. Luther even had to rebuke Andreas Karlstadt for Karlstadt’s zeal in burning and destroying art.
The destruction of art, statues, and painting was especially prevalent in the area of the Radical Reformation where the Ana-baptists held sway. However both Zwingli and Calvin were iconoclasts and desired to get the art out of the Churches. A story is told about William Farrell (Calvin’s predecessor in Geneva) that Farrell came across some Priests carrying a piece of Roman Catholic statuary that people would bow down to as it passed. When Farrell came upon them providence had arranged that all were crossing a bridge. Farrell went into a frenzy, so the record goes, and tossed both the statue and the Priests carrying the statue over the bridge into the water below.
Because of such zealousness on the part of the Reformed Leaders the Reformed rank -n- file attacked statues and images. However, in most cases, civil authorities removed images in an orderly manner in the newly Reformed Protestant cities and territories of Europe.
Now, we have to keep in mind that during the Reformation era the statuary and art was being used to keep the people in bondage to the false God of Rome. As noted above, statues would be carried in processions so that people could bow down while the statue passed. Alongside this the Scripture clearly forbids, via the 2nd commandment, the kind of superstition that was being exercised by the Priests over the people. Weeping Madonnas, blood coming from crucifixes, phony miracles connected in some way with relics and art had contributed to the Medieval Roman Catholic destruction of the Christian faith. As such destruction of statuary, paintings and idolatrous art was understandable in the Reformation. Much of it was certainly being used in an idolatrous fashion.
One thing is clearly communicated though in the iconoclasts attack on the Medieval statuary and that was that there was a new God in town and the old art, representing the then considered wicked past was not going to be allowed to stand in the new social order that God was pleased to give in the bringing forth of the Reformation.
The linkage to what is happening now is clear. Though nobody is using statuary to reinforce homage to the old order such as was done in 1518, the Marxist Revolutionaries still understand the power of statuary, paintings, and art in sustaining an order they wish to rip up and destroy. As such the old order has to go and one way to initiate the departure of an order that the anarchists despise is to rip down its icons.
Such has been the action of every Revolution or Counter-Revolution of the past. Come with me to Paris of 1789 and watch the art fall. Come with me to Moscow of 1918 and see the Churches being pulled down and the sacred art destroyed. Come with me to the velvet Revolution in 1989 Czechoslovakia and watch the art come down. The same happened all across the former Soviet Bloc when Communism putatively fell. When Iraq fell before invading American Troops one of the first images that was broadcast over Western Television was the pulling down of Saddam Hussein’s statue. Indeed, so routine is the removal of statuary and art that when one sees it happening on a broad scale one can be sure they are living through Revolution or Counter-Revolution.
And of course what it all communicates is the Revolutionary or Counter-Revolutionary attempt to cut off a people from their past. Marx once presciently wrote, “Hitherto, philosophers have sought to understand the world; the point, however, is to change it.” One way that the world is changed, Marxists have always understood and routinely taught is to cut people of from their historical roots. If people have no past then they will have little ground to understand themselves and little guidance on how their future should look. Ripping down the statuary is one means by which Marxist sever people from their past. Because of this Marxist principle, I fully expect at some point in our current disheveling the anarchist / communist criminal class will start coming after the Churches.
So, for the epistemologically self-conscious among our current Goths, Mongols and Zulus criminal class, the purpose is clear. They are destroying Western Civilization by destroying its history. If they are successful then whatever history that will exist will be the history of the last 5 minutes as controlled by the Tyrant State. Communique will go out from the new American Soviet Supreme and history will be changed with every new communique. Some new art and statuary will slowly arise but even that will only mean whatever the State says it means at any given time. History and truth thus become transitory and mere tools for the State to keep people in line with the Revolutionary thinking. So, you’ll still get a Lenin as art here and there. You’ll get the kitschy Revolutionary “Internationale” or the corny Revolutionary art that finds the youth of the world in the painting bowing and throwing flowers at the feet of the great leader. Any other statues or art will be verboten.
Finally, keep in mind that in the desire to destroy the old order by destroying the art, what will eventually come is some formation of a “Committee on Public Safety,” to protect the new order from those who honored, respected, and cherished the old art. These people who can never be redeemed from their commitment to the old order ways must be destroyed every bit as much as all that old statuary. As such they will be guillotined, or gulag-ed, or just conveniently disappear. They will not rest with statuary destroyed. They will not be placated by your sincere apologies, kneeling, or reparations. They will not be fooled by you suddenly joining in the Revolution. Their desire is to steal, kill, and destroy. They will soon enough be coming for you.
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