क In my last thread on statues I said I'd question the assumption that having a statue around (and not taking it down) means we're honouring the person represented (even if I concede that the people who put statues up often mean to honour the person represented)

ख Part of the reason for this is that the people who set statues up aren't usually around any more. They meant to honour person X, but that doesn't mean people in the present do

ग Granted, we may choose actively to honour statues put up in the past, e.g. by placing a wreath or doing a ceremony on Anzac Day or November 11th. But how many monuments receive this kind of attention? (Even when they do, how many receive community-wide commendation?)

घ My sense is that most people don't care or know much about local statues. I don't have any survey data, but as a history tragic I often find myself asking people in foreign towns about statues. Often the answer is 'Yep, lived here all my life, but no idea who that is, sorry'

ङ Recently I came across a bust of Wakefield tucked away somewhere in Wellington. Even as a history tragic, I had no idea who he was and still don't (meant to look him up, but never did). Does that bust being there mean that I'm honouring a man I'd never heard of?

च There's another, related assumption I'd like to question in the second half of this thread. Even if it's true that statues are put up to 'honour' someone in a broad sense, is this honouring always the same as moral approval?

छ There are, for starters, lots of statues of gargoyles, demons, etc. in public places around the world. In some sense I suppose they're being 'honoured,' but you'd hardly say that the Kindlifresserbrunnen ('child-eater fountain') in Bern is sanctioning child-eating.

ज It's my understanding that in Transylvania, local guides are happy to give tours of 'Dracula sites.' Does this mean blood-sucking is OK in Romania? No - it's probably just that Dracula has become part of the personality the region.
https://rolandia.eu/en/blog/discover-romania/a-tour-of-romania-s-dracula-sites

झHe's not admirable, just has a certain power or coolness. The Greeks who were involved in cult to Oedipus, Agamemnon, or Orestes probably felt a similar way - and those cults aren't evidence that the Greeks were down with mother-murder, daughter-murder, father-murder, or mother-

ञOK, but these aren't historical figures! Some Greeks did view those figures as more historical than we would, but point taken. Is it true that all statues to actual historical figures signal moral approbation? I'm not sure this is true either.

ट This statue to Genghis Khan, for example, is, I'm sure, intended to honour a great figure of the past, someone who put the Mongols all over the map. That doesn't necessarily mean it's saying what he did was morally right, or that anyone should try to imitate it today.

ठYou could say similar things about Alexander the Great, who's still being fought over not, I would surmise, because the good citizens of Greece and North Macedonia today are holding up violent conquest as an admirable quality, but because he's a figure with a certain mana.