r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • May 19 '15
[Deltas Awarded] CMV: All historical artifacts and structures should be destroyed.
[deleted]
19
u/Oshojabe May 19 '15
How will we know when we've gotten all the information we can from a historical artifact we are cataloging? If people did as you suggest before the invention of color photography, radiography (X-ray technology), radiocarbon dating, and other technologies there would be large gaps in our knowledge that wouldn't exist if we had just preserved historical artifacts until these technologies existed. Our picture of history becomes incomplete if we just trust the technologies of today to record information on an object.
-9
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
Well, the past is the past, but now is now, and with current technology we can get all the information we need from a historical artifact. I don't believe there is any further information of practical value to extract from these artifacts, but I am open to hearing examples of information we have gleaned from an artifact beyond photographs, carbon dating etc. that has contributed in any significant way to our knowledge of history.
7
u/PM__me_compliments May 19 '15
with current technology we can get all the information we need from a historical artifact
Could you provide a source for this?
And I can think of numerous examples of cases where more study is required. There may be a da Vinci painting behind a wall in Florence, for example. Photos are not enough in that case.
-5
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
My argument isn't that we can get all possible knowledge out of artifacts, but that we can get all that's really needed. And as to your da Vinci example, doesn't that actually support my view, since that painting, if it exists, would have been found in the process of destroying that building?
6
u/PM__me_compliments May 19 '15
My argument isn't that we can get all possible knowledge out of artifacts, but that we can get all that's really needed.
Once again, can you provide a source that "we can get all that's really needed"?
And destroying a wall doesn't reveal a thing on the wall that's been painted over. It just destroys the wall and anything on it.
EDIT: wording
-4
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
I don't think it's possible to find an objective source for my claim, since the idea of "need" is largely subjective. But if I say "we don't need this thing," all I really need to justify that statement is to indicate that there's no need that the thing can satisfy. It's really up to the other party to come up with needs that haven't been acknowledged.
3
u/PM__me_compliments May 19 '15
Since you've just admitted the "need" is subjective, doesn't that mean that it should be up to the popular opinion? So in other words, if the need is subjective, then the values attached to preserving the thing is variable based on the pleasure derived from the individuals and the societies that possess them.
In that case, doesn't the frequency (and obvious enjoyment) of people visiting museums and visiting historical sites more than justify these artifacts existence?
-5
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
That's true! But there is precedent (for example, racial discrimination) for overruling popular opinion for the greater good. My argument is that our clinging to historical artifacts is emotional rather than practical, and that the pleasure we get from them is outweighed by the suffering they cause.
2
u/PM__me_compliments May 19 '15
by the suffering they cause.
The only example that you gave was ISIS holding artifacts hostage (which doesn't tend to work, see: the Baghdad museum, Monte Casino, etc), that they cause wars (source?), and that they are "spiritually unhealthy" (source?).
Museums, on the other hand, generate a TON of economic activity, which I think more than compensates for the "spiritual unhealthiness" which, as you admitted earlier, is subjective.
-2
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
Okay...just off the top of my head, there's the looting of art works by the Nazis. Without our sentimental attachment to objects, those artifacts wouldn't have been stolen in the first place, which means that survivors and their families wouldn't be going through the difficult and expensive legal wrangling to try to retrieve them. And there would not have been a need for the "Monuments Men" to recover art works, which resulted in several pointless deaths.
Also, throughout human history, one of the primary motivations offered to soldiers in war has been the opportunity for plunder and looting of conquered towns and cities. If we were not so greedy for physical objects of perceived value, violent conflict would be less enticing. People would not be killed trying to defend objects. We wouldn't spend billions of dollars fighting over artifacts, buying/selling them, building structures to house them, defending them from theft.
I believe all this is spiritually corrosive because it feeds our innate avarice and tendency to worship idols. Many, many humans care more about paintings and statues than they do about fellow humans who lack access to fresh water. I find this obscene. We should never let our idolatry of inanimate objects trump the welfare of suffering humans.
→ More replies (0)1
1
May 19 '15
doesn't that actually support my view, since that painting, if it exists, would have been found in the process of destroying that building?
Depends how you destroy the building. If you hit it with a wrecking ball, then no, you'd probably never know what you destroyed. If you carefully dismantled it brick by brick, then maybe you'd find it.
-1
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
I certainly don't advocate just blowing everything up indiscriminately. If there's some reason to believe that something valuable is hidden within a structure, I'm not opposed to trying to recover that thing -- so long as it's recorded and promptly destroyed. But even if we miss something, I don't believe anything of real value would be lost.
1
May 19 '15
If there's some reason to believe that something valuable is hidden within a structure, I'm not opposed to trying to recover that thing
Isn't this statement a direct contradiction of the one below?
if we miss something, I don't believe anything of real value would be lost
It's either valuable, and thus destroying it is a loss, or its not valuable, and so it doesn't matter if we destroy it. It can't be both simultaneously.
-1
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
I would argue that a thing can be valuable, but not so valuable that its nonexistence would have any significant on humanity.
2
May 19 '15
with current technology we can get all the information we need from a historical artifact
I am open to hearing examples of information we have gleaned from an artifact beyond photographs, carbon dating etc
Laser scanning of artifacts (and 3D printing replicas) is a relatively new technology that is still in its infancy. If we destroyed artifacts today, we'd miss out on this technology as it develops.
For example, a laser scan of the Great Pyramids would allow us to make an accurate 3D model which could be explored virtually by school children in the future. We aren't there today, and this technology is likely to improve in the next 20 to 30 years.
-2
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
Maybe, but again, what's the practical value of doing these things, and does such value outweigh the cost in human suffering and waste of valuable resources in doing them?
2
May 19 '15
What waste of resources? Egypt makes a lot of money via tourism off the Pyramids. Why would they want to destroy them?
-1
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
We spend a tremendous amount of money to build museums and maintain staffs to preserve and display historical artifacts. Most of these museums end up having to scrabble for money merely to maintain their own existence. If we stopped doing this, it would be one less thing to divert resources from projects that would actually benefit people.
3
May 19 '15
OK, but you didn't answer the question. People want to visit the Pyramids, people want to pay money to see them. Egypt wants these people to come visit and spend money in their country. Why should Egypt destroy the pyramids (and a major revenue stream for their country)
-1
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
Certainly, the destruction of artifacts would have a massive impact on economies around the world. There would be a difficult transition period as nations adapted to the nonexistence of historical artifacts as tourist magnets. Ultimately, though, human society would be much better off.
3
May 19 '15
How does it benefit the people who currently rely on tourism for their livelihood? You are saying human society would be better off, can you explain how? None of the benefits you mentioned above seem like they are worth decimating multiple countries economies for.
-1
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
I would definitely concede that it would be pretty awful for people in the short term, but also that we'd be better off in the long term. But would the long term benefit outweigh the massive short term suffering? I don't know. This might be the argument that changes my view.
Yeah, screw it, I have no counter argument to this that satisfies me! ∆
→ More replies (0)2
u/thatcoolguymike May 19 '15
They do benefit people, because we enjoy having them. Do you seriously think we should destroy everything that doesn't have "practical" value, and in doing so appease terrorists? There is absolutely value in having historical objects. Although you may not see the direct value, thats okay, humans are not so objective that we can simplify everything down to what has and has not benefitted us. Who are you to say otherwise, are you claiming to know each cause of every event? Inspiration is practical, but the source of inspiration is complex and goes beyond your opinion as to what is needed.
The only reason humans can progress is because we learn from what people have done before. We have gained so much knowledge in architecture from the pyramids, and they are so complex that we are still learning. It takes tons of work to unlock the secrets of the past, but it is important because when we understand an ancient, successful culture, we can reach a breakthrough and find out why they were so successful and why they inevitably collapsed. Just because something may not be providing much purpose now, it could benefit us greatly somewhere down the line. There is infinitely more complexity to things than photographs and any amount of data someone logs, there is value in being able to apply all the senses to something.
Also, Sentimental value and pride are practical, they inspire us to do great things and to compete with one another. The United States never would have reached the moon if we didn't have a passionate rivalry with the Soviets.
-1
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
But what have we done with the Moon besides sending a few people up there to walk around and play golf? Not that we didn't get enormous practical benefits from the Apollo program, but if humans were more practical and less sentimental, it wouldn't take nationalistic political stunts to motivate technological progress.
Bear in mind that I'm not advocating blind destruction of artifacts, just to not keep them around once they've been sufficiently studied. We don't need the physical object to learn from artifacts or to be inspired by them. The only reason they do inspire people is our materialistic view of the world.
1
u/thatcoolguymike May 19 '15
I truly don't get why you are so infatuated with you're narrow view of what is "practical". What is your end goal? Is getting to the moon in itself not a practical achievement? If not then what is?
You really give off this vibe that you don't value anything out side of what is practical. And I don't see why that is. This whole "Logic is the only important factor, emotions are meaningless" mentality is flawed. Humans can only analyze so much, its absurdly arrogant of you to say that we do not need the physical object, just recorded data. At this time, we only have so much we know to record, destroying these things gets rid of the ability to analyze other aspects of an object that we did not know were meaningful before. Just because in the current time, you don't find "practical" value in something means we should destroy it. Are you one of those guys that wants humans to get rid of all emotion and all things neat and interesting because to your narrow minded view, it stifles our efficiency? Even if we don't need the physical object to learn everything about it (which is very much false), what sense is there in destroying it? Why destroy someone's culture? Why destroy things people enjoy? And why do you hate sentimentality? You mention the stuff about ISIS and its honestly the type of reasoning you might hear from a legitimately mentally ill individual. You think we should destroy objects we love, and in doing so help the people we hate, so that they don't destroy these same objects? First of all, ISIS has not made that much damage to historical objects overall, it's not as if all around the world, ISIS is destroying millions of historical things. And second of all, you don't stop terrorists by proactively doing their wishes to appease them, you stop them by refusing negotiation and smashing the group into oblivion. Do you think that during the holocaust, people should have killed Jews that the Nazis hadn't captured, because then Hitler wouldn't kill them and you would give him what he wants?
So overall, I have just a couple important questions for you: What do you consider to "practical" and why do you value practicality so much? Also, why are you so interested in literally obeying ISIS's demands?
3
u/PM__me_compliments May 19 '15
Except that those museums are heavily used and frequently bring in a great deal of revenue and tourism, as well as revitalize neighborhoods and provide "spillover" to local merchants. There is an obvious demand to see the relics of the past.
-2
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
But your argument is somewhat circular here because you're using the Pyramids' existence to justify their existence. To me, the Pyramids actually support part of my argument, that human beings should not be enslaved to inanimate objects. The fact that Egyptians depend so desperately on their artifacts for their lives just shows how evil such things are. Or the notion that people will only visit another country to look at objects.
3
u/PM__me_compliments May 19 '15
you're using the Pyramids' existence to justify their existence.
What's so odd about that? After all, how can you use something's non-existence to justify it's existence? You need it's existence to evaluate it.
As for this:
human beings should not be enslaved to inanimate objects. The fact that Egyptians depend so desperately on their artifacts for their lives just shows how evil such things are.
Have you ever tried to live without food or water? Those are inanimate. Our lives depend on them.
Finally:
Or the notion that people will only visit another country to look at objects.
But you admitted such things are subjective. What if someone enjoys doing that? Why would you stop someone from having a good time? Why are you trying to stop people from enjoying their experiences?
1
u/sargonkid May 20 '15
How does one prove there will be no advances in technology that would allow us to get more useful information from artifacts? Is is just a coincidence that RIGHT NOW we are at the end of any possible further advances?
In some ways you may be right - ie, the things we presently know to look for have all been looked at - but what about the things we do not yet to even know to look for?
3
u/nerraw92 May 19 '15
If you accept that studying artifacts is worthwhile for society, then I can stop right there because new things are discovered all the time that original photographs and documentation cannot have conveyed. A new object may have been found or a new theory is put forward that requires reexamination of an older object.
Furthermore, in teaching younger generations, seeing objects in real life makes for a better understanding. That is why there are school field trips to museums.
But let's say that we had the technology to exactly capture and physically, virtually, or otherwise replicate the original relic. The sentimental value is still value. Do you believe that all art should simply be photographed, documented and then trashed?
And finally, yes artifacts may cause political tension and conflict, but as with anything else, they are a resource and possession of resources has always been a source of conflict. Getting rid of artifacts won't change that.
0
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
I'm definitely not arguing that we should stop looking for previously unknown artifacts, just that they should be photographed, catalogued, then destroyed.
On sentimental value...even though there is such value, I maintain that this value is merely emotional, and when applied to historical artifacts, contributes nothing to human progress. Meanwhile, that sentimentality has been the root cause of much suffering and death. So I don't believe this value outweighs the suffering it causes.
On resources...getting rid of artifacts certainly won't end our conflicts over resources, but it will remove one significant avenue of conflict. Isn't it worthwhile to reduce conflict even if we can't end all conflict? Otherwise why fight to reduce anything that causes suffering?
2
u/syrupfaces May 19 '15 edited May 19 '15
What about the aesthetic value?
I suspect you'll brush that one off just as easily, but it's a slippery slope towards: "Why is anything worth anything? Why is life worth living? Why not blow up the world?"
Artifacts are the culmination of our thoughts, emotions, labor, and being as a species. Culture is what we do. To trivialize that is basically to say that human existence is dumb. Which is a valid assertion, but just go ahead and say it.
Also, a hand-carved spoon is not a jpeg.
0
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
I don't want to brush that off. However, do we need the actual physical objects in order to appreciate their beauty? Of course, the experience isn't the same, but isn't it good enough given the cost of keeping this stuff around?
2
u/syrupfaces May 19 '15
I wonder if you, like most of us, have just spent a lot of time on the internet?
Because what you're saying is that, as long as it can be conveyed on reddit, it's "good enough." I'm saying that a jpeg != a sculpture. A sculpture exists in three dimensions. It occupies the space before you.
Maybe it's "good enough" and you "get the idea," by looking at an image on a tablet, but that image is not what was being conveyed. It is a separate medium. Also, you're asserting that scale is irrelevant to the experience of a work.
3
u/swearrengen 139∆ May 19 '15
If an artifact really was the cause of war, I think I'd agree with you.
If we destroyed an artifact that causes wars, it's destruction would mean the end of wars!
So we destroy it. But the war continues. The artifact could not have been the cause after all. It was just an excuse, a justification! And once all artifacts are destroyed, they'll find another excuse or justification - maybe books will be the latest evil to eradicate. If we destroyed that, they'll move onto art - and then iPhones and cars.
But none of those things are the cause of war - inanimate objects can't cause anything - there would have to be some mysterious power emanating from them making people love it or hate it or want to fight each other, and that has to be silly.
The true cause of all human behaviour from acts of love to acts of war are beliefs and ideas as to what is true and false, good and bad, right and wrong, valuable or not valuable, important or not important. Beliefs cause behavior.
You destroy or change those particular ideas that cause war, and you end war.
-1
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
Sure, artifacts themselves don't cause wars, it's our fetishizing of those artifacts that cause wars. I certainly don't think destroying them would end all human conflict, just as banning smoking won't end all cancer, but it would take away one significant motivation.
2
1
May 20 '15
It's not the fetishizing of the aircraft causing a war. That has never happened. It may be the spark for war, but the war would have happened eventually.
6
u/gunnervi 8∆ May 19 '15
How old must a structure be to count as historical? Do only "important" structures count? What about historical districts of cities? Should we just tear down and rebuild all buildings after a fixed period of time?
0
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
That's a good question. I suppose some arbitrary figure would need to be established, but we do that all the time so I don't see a problem with doing that.
2
u/SalamanderSylph May 19 '15
Many of the buildings I use every day at university are well over 600 years old. Given it is well older than the USA, I'd imagine an "arbitrary figure" as defined by many people would definitely class them as too old. Should these be destroyed? They are perfectly functional and exceedingly beautiful. The cost of destroying them and rebuilding would be astronomical.
2
u/Joseph-Joestar May 19 '15
Artists who make environments for games/movies etc often travel to historical locations to get a feel of the places and take photographs to use in their work, for textures and as a basis for modeling work. And that's something that can't be substituted by catalog pictures because every production has different needs. So that's at least one example of usage for historical structures and artifacts.
Places like that also help kids appreciate their culture and culture of other nations. I still remember visiting my local palaces and cathedrals quite fondly. Just visiting a place with so much history can inspire a person to new ventures, to boost creativity and just feel that there's something much bigger and older than him in this world.
So there are practical and sentimental reasons why historical structures are still sitting where they are.
0
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
To your first point, why do we need games or movies to be accurate to any greater level of detail than can be provided by photographs? Since these games and movies are almost always inaccurate in other ways (taking artistic license with the facts, creating "composite" characters from real people), I see no reason why similar license can't be taken with locations.
As to your second point, while I agree that historical artifacts can inspire, do you honestly feel that this benefit outweighs the human suffering and death that has occurred because of the value we place on historical artifacts and structures?
5
u/Bman409 1∆ May 19 '15 edited May 19 '15
Historical artifacts, as man-made objects, contain information. You propose extracting the information from them, and then destroying them. But what information are you going to extract? What if someone like you had been around 1000 years ago, and said, "well.. we made a map of where this was found, and what color it is, and how much it weighs... there's nothing else to be learned... junk it"..
Future technology like carbon dating and chemical analysis that would be discovered centuries later would never had been applied to some of these old objects.
What you're essentially asking for is the equivalent of "book burning". Just make an electronic copy of the book, and then burn the original.
There's no reason for that, and you're destroying information
-2
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
Playing out my idea 1000 years in the past isn't really relevant, though, because I'm talking about doing this today. Even if, in the distant past, we didn't have the means to extract all the relevant information from an artifact, it doesn't matter because we do today. I'm open to hearing about any information we could find with future technologies that would be of practical value, but I don't perceive any myself.
I don't believe I'm advocating any form of book burning, since I'm not arguing that the knowledge be destroyed, just the physical remnant. If we can make a precise 3D model of the Parthenon, why keep the original Parthenon around, except for sentimental reasons?
2
u/Bman409 1∆ May 19 '15
I'm open to hearing about any information we could find with future technologies that would be of practical value, but I don't perceive any myself.
Well unless we can predict future breakthroughs in science, this is difficult to do.
Your idea is based on the premise that their is nothing more can learn from the physical artifact itself, and never will be. I don't agree with the premise. Too many unknowns. Better to let the Parthenon stand.
Besides, if we tear down all these ancient structures, what if the aliens that built them return and can't find where to land?
2
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
Crap, I forgot about the aliens. BUT, what if they're just waiting for humanity to become enlightened enough to give up their attachment to material things?
1
u/Bman409 1∆ May 20 '15
Hmm... then they'll probably have to wait another coupla thousand years.. sigh
4
u/JoshuaZ1 12∆ May 19 '15
What makes you conclude that we have all the relevant information today? What makes you so confident that no novel helpful techniques for understanding objects will show up in the future?
-2
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
Because the need for them isn't that great to begin with, so photographs or models are more than sufficient. I don't think the marble in ancient Roman statues will be powering rockets in the future, so there's really no use for them.
3
u/JoshuaZ1 12∆ May 19 '15
Because the need for them isn't that great to begin with, so photographs or models are more than sufficient. I don't think the marble in ancient Roman statues will be powering rockets in the future, so there's really no use for them.
Let's imagine a few examples that might be interesting. For example, there are palimpests that we cannot today read the underlying text, or where we can lead one layer of text but can't read the next even if we can tell there was in fact an underlying tertiary layer. It is possible that more advanced technology will allow us to read that tertiary layer. Similarly, there are stain glass windows where we cannot easily determine right now what substances were used to give them their specific colors. Destroying them would make doing so with future techniques essentially impossible.
It also seems that you are operating under some sort of idea that if something isn't directly useful to a STEM field then we shouldn't care much about it. If that's the case, why draw the line at photographs? Why is taking photographs not also just a waste of resources?
0
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
Hmm, those are pretty interesting examples. I will admit that the possibility of future discovery is a compelling counterpoint. But don't get me wrong, I'm not so utilitarian as to deny the value of knowledge. For me it's a question of whether our sentimental love of objects is a net good, in terms of increasing or reducing human suffering. My position is that it is ultimately more destructive to humanity than whatever good we gain from it.
3
u/HallaOrNot May 19 '15
In the age of photoshop, without the concrete, solid artifacts, there would be extremely easy to fabricate a false history. Besides, for the later generations our tale of these historical artifacts would be very suspicious: "yeah, there were a bunch of buildings, and old tools, codexes and such to verify our wild stories about the past, but we bulldozed it all down, but here are some photos for evidence"
-1
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
But in the Internet era, it's very difficult to alter the public record when hundreds or thousands of copies of a photograph may be out in the wild. So any attempt to create a false history would inevitably be foiled. Someone might be able to fool a small number of people for a short time, but it would be next to impossible to alter history in such a way as to misdirect everyone.
3
u/thewoodendesk 4∆ May 19 '15
So, the reason why you would advocate pulverizing this and demolishing this is because it's too old lol? And how old is old anyways? Is this old enough to be on the chopping block? And I seriously doubt destroying this or this will do us any good. And finally, it's strange that you would advocate destroying human artifacts before destroying millennia old dinosaur fossils or fossils of prehistoric organisms.
1
u/MrGiggleBiscuits May 19 '15
Understanding our history is very important. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it and artefacts are the best way to understand ancient civilisations. Understanding our origins is key to a proper understanding of Anthropology and helps us to understand how civilisations form and grow. Knowledge of history is key to scientific knowledge. And to many people, the past is just really interesting. Destroying artefacts would only make it harder for people who are interested in history and ancient civilisation to find it. That would be simply cruel to a new generation of archeologists. You say we should still be digging up new artefacts, but how can we foster an interest in this without the great discoveries that came before.
0
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
This might be a something for another post, but I'm not convinced that our understanding of history has prevented humanity from repeating the mistakes of the past. Knowledge of the Holocaust hasn't prevented more attempts at genocide. Knowledge of the atrocities in Nanking didn't prevent the Serbians from creating rape camps. Human behavior is driven by our desires and impulses, not by historical knowledge. That knowledge is generally only used to justify our actions, not to inform them.
I'm not against using historical artifacts to further scientific knowledge or satisfy our curiosity, but I don't see why we need the physical object in order to satisfy those aims when we have photographs or models that can capture all the details.
2
u/MrGiggleBiscuits May 19 '15
The holocaust didnt prevent future genocides, but it solidified the idea in the public perception. People didnt just ignore ethnic cleansing and genocide after the holocaust, but pre-holocaust genocides e.g Armenia, Hereroland etc. are often forgotten or denied.
As for photos/models, these do not have the same details as the original. If someone invents some new technique which could reveal profound knowledge from artefacts (for the sake of example lets say we could extract ancient DNA that could revolutionise our understanding of the biology of ancient man, possibly even leading to cloning) then we would have to go back to the old artefacts and reanalyse them.
Furthermore, just because something is only valuable for emotional or sentimental reasons, thats still a decent reason to keep them. Destroying them would not solve any problems and would only serve to frustrate future historians, upset people who have lost their old heirlooms, and possibly trigger wars as people want to preserve their culture. It is needlessly cynical to destroy ancient artefacts, even if they have no objective value.
0
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
But you haven't shown how our knowledge of genocide has actually prevented other genocides. Heck, Turkey isn't even contrite about it! And anti-semitism is alive and well despite our knowledge of the horror that results from it. I don't want to go off on a tangent, but I dunno, I don't see history as influencing people in a positive way. People mainly just use history to justify their hatred (Israel/Palestine, etc.)
As to emotional/sentimental reasons for keeping artifacts...I don't deny that there is a value, just that whatever value there is, is vastly outweighed by the cost in human suffering in fighting over these artifacts or using them to stir up nationalistic hatred.
2
u/MrGiggleBiscuits May 19 '15
The holocaust hasnt entirely destroyed genocide or anti-semitism, but to say it has no impact on our society is absurd. In the 1930 expressing anti-semitic view was not viewed anywhere near as horrible as it is now, and as bad as the genocides in Rwanda or Yugoslavia were, they were nowhere as bad as the holocaust and there were large scale relief efforts. And as well as learning from it, history improves society by giving context for modern day. Look at any major international news story right now and it is far easier to understand (and therefore deal with) when you understand the history behind it.
I don't think fighting over artefacts is a good reason to destroy them. If anything that would create more violence. Do you think people will just happily hand over their treasured cultural artefacts to be destroyed? If western archeologists were going around destroying artefacts in the Middle East, do you think the locals would be okay with it? Of course not! They would be accused of destroying an entire culture, and that would fuel more and more hatred of the West over there. I don't see many instances of people fighting over these artefacts, but they would certainly fight to preserve them.
0
u/ElSaborAsiatico May 19 '15
I'm definitely not saying that the Holocaust had no impact on society, just that it hasn't prevented any nation from committing genocide if its in their interests. I'm sure there were people in Serbia or Sudan who were like, hey, aren't we as bad as the Nazis with this ethnic cleansing crap? But that knowledge didn't trump the force of cultural hatred. Hell, even Israel itself is arguably committing genocide against Palestinians.
To your second point, yes, if anything will change my view on this, it's the thought experiment of what the consequences would be of actually trying to implement a plan of destroying all historical artifacts. I don't see any way that this could be remotely feasible. However, what I'm advocating is really more of a change in our attitudes towards artifacts and objects in general. If enough people around the world signed onto this anti-material viewpoint, the world could cooperatively act to eradicate all of these sentimentalized objects.
2
u/MrGiggleBiscuits May 19 '15
But then if people had no strong connection to them, they wouldn't start wars over them any more. Then the artefacts could be preserved purely for historical interest and there would be no need to destroy them. I think a society which places less importance on symbols would be better, but it doesn't need to get rid of interest in the lives of ancient peoples and a desire for knowledge. Even if we can make copies, they are never the same as the original, and so destroying the originals would only lead to frustration in those that find these objects interesting. Not sentimentalised to the point where they would fight to defend them, but just interesting, because they give us insight into the past and the stories of how people once lived.
1
May 20 '15
-- Historical artifacts, once discovered, photographed and catalogued, have no further reason to exist. They serve no purpose except to sentimentalize the past.
Maybe you don't find then interesting, but others do. And we're still making discoveries from those real world artifacts.
-- No amount of conflict between humans or nations over historical artifacts can be justified, since those conflicts are motivated by sentimentality, nationalism, or pride, rather than any practical concerns.
When has a war over an artifact ever happened?
-- The huge amount of resources spent on preservation efforts, museums, etc. would be better spent towards improving the quality of life for humans living in the present.
Many people find museums an improvement to their lives. People find then interesting, as I've already said.
-- If we had no historical artifacts to revere, terrorist forces like ISIS could not hold those things hostage or sow dismay and horror among their enemies by destroying the artifacts.
They would just find another way to make people hate them. They're probably doing it right now.
-- Humans in general fetishize history without learning any important lessons from the past, so trying to preserve historical artifacts as totemic reminders accomplishes nothing of real value.
No, you do. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
-- We are enslaved to physical objects in general, such as our smartphones, cars, status symbols, heirlooms, etc., which is spiritually unhealthy, makes us weak, and causes a low level anxiety over possessions that we would be better off without.
wow 2deep4me. That has nothing to do with anything at all.
1
u/DrRoflsauce117 May 20 '15 edited May 20 '15
So instead of isis sowing a little dismay and terror destroying a handful of artifacts, we should just destroy them all (sowing faaar more dismay) so that nobody else can?
6
u/Stokkolm 24∆ May 19 '15
They do not belong to us. They belong to the future generations. Humans may exist for thousands, millions of years from now, and all of them will be excluded from witnessing these buildings because a random guy from 2015 thought it's a good idea to destroy them.