How do we think about taking down controversial statues in the UK?

We must defend British culture against those who tear down controversial statues in the UK

Question: How do we think about taking down controversial statues in the UK?
Position‹2 of 3›: How dare they tear down our statues
Argument‹4 of 9›: We must defend British culture against those who tear down controversial statues in the UK

British culture is at stake. Tearing down statues is a violent attack on our values.

The argument

Removing the statues will not rewrite history, and it will not right the wrongs done in the past. Many have desired to forget the violent colonial past of the UK by removing the representations of it. However, the past is what has shaped the present, as well as the current culture in the UK. Britain’s empire was shaped by slave traders and owners, this shaped the success and wealth of the UK, but it also influenced many abolitionists to rise up and reshape the UK into what it is today. History should not be forgotten or erased good or bad.

Premises

[P1]Removing statues will not rewrite history or right past wrongs. [P2] Britain's past, including its colonial wrongs, shaped the present culture and also spurred the abolitionists who reshaped the nation. [P3] History, good or bad, should not be forgotten or erased. [C] Therefore, we must defend British culture against those who tear down the statues.

Counter-arguments

Defending the statues is not equivalent to defending British culture. Those monuments and statues represent ideologies that are no longer prevalent or accepted in today’s culture. The UK has a history of evolving culture and values. British culture is be evolving right now as its society removes the statues, so there is no valid way of defending the culture and the statues at the same time.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] This premise undercuts the position it is offered to support. If removal neither rewrites history nor rights past wrongs, then removal changes nothing that the argument values — which leaves no ground for the defence being mounted. [Rejecting P2] That the past shaped the present is not in dispute, and the abolitionist point cuts the other way: the campaign against the slave trade was conducted in opposition to the men commemorated, so honouring the traders is a poor way of remembering those who defeated them. [Rejecting P3] Removal and erasure are being equated. A statue taken to a museum, recontextualised or replaced is not a fact deleted from the record, and the historical evidence about these figures resides in archives, ledgers and scholarship rather than in bronze. [Rejecting C] The counter-argument on record disputes the central equation between the statues and the culture: monuments express the values of the period that raised them, British culture has repeatedly revised its values since, and the removals are themselves an expression of that culture changing — so the two cannot be defended as the same thing. (The slug for this entry does not match its content and is a candidate for correction.)