MONUMENTS: Let history live

In Sunday’s History Corner, Syd Albright asks the question: “Why would anyone want to tear down the statue of Robert E. Lee?” Predictably, a visiting reader from Seattle had a politically correct answer in Wednesday’s Readers Write. “If a southern boy (himself) from Virginia understands confederate monuments and battle flags are racist, then certainly Northerners from the great state of Idaho should be able to understand this as well.”

Through his letter, the writer managed to spin the subject of the article from a discussion of the need for the preservation of history to a racial diatribe defending the destruction of historic symbols.

Inasmuch as the southern boy from Virginia seems incapable of comprehending a straightforward historical analysis, perhaps he will understand a page from dystopian fiction.

“If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all these than that the people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of the state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ they feel stuffed, but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking; they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change.”

— Fire Capt. Beatty to book burning fireman Guy Montag in the novel “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury, 1953.

BOB LaRUE

Hauser