History, Memory and Change

Fascinating online discussion organised by the Royal Society of Arts focusing on the current debate about the removal of statues of controversial figures.

The discussion brought together the cultural and historic commentators Mary Beard and David Olusoga who had debated this topic on Twitter taking slightly opposing views. They discussed the recent removal of the Edward Colston statue in Bristol agreeing that it had been a pivotal moment with one of them (sorry bad notes!) saying “the removal of a statue is the creation of a new history”.

In reality their views were quite similar and both called for more nuance in the debate which was not possible via the sound bites of social media. I liked Olusoga’s call to judge people by what they did not what they thought as often what they thought was a reflection of the times they lived in. I was also interested in Beard’s example of attempts to ignore difficult bits of history and culture in students she had had who wouldn’t study Ovid Metamorphoses as so many of the stories involved rape. We have to understand past thinking to understand why we are where we are now.


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