Statues of ‘old white men’ may need to be destroyed, Welsh government advises
telegraph.co.uk
telegraph.co.uk
If that was their goal, then yes, but given that it isn't, they do this instead.
Expressions of this sentiment like multiculturalism, mass migration and political correctness of the form of completely denouncing prior empires and dominant civilization is the status-quo order of the day. I think it is more uncertain how this type of worldview is opposed, not whether it is effective.
There is an increased push to publicly acknowledge achievements of non-whites. I also dont think the crowd calling for teardowns would be against celebrating the objectively heroic whites that the ruling class spent significant energy to stop society from acknowledging due to the risk of their pro-justice/anti-establishment values being replicated.
They hate you, and they won't stop until every strand of your heritage is destroyed.
> Even freedom itself can be defined as the degree to which one has power or not.
That sounds like "power" in ability, as in to do something, which is not the same as the "power" used in Critical Theories and other political ideologies. Freedom is not about power, and is defined in contrast to power. You want freedom from something that is controlling you, or has power over you.
Talking of power relations isn't really incorrect re: critical theory, probably where they go wrong is somehow pathologizing power itself. It is good to be powerful. It is bad to be weak.
Often times one does have to apply power against other people, do you disagree?
People like to abstract out the nasty parts of this stuff and think rules, or laws, or documents, or mutual discussion can somehow erase the problem of needing to have power to see one's interests and will realized.
But rules and laws and principles are broken all the time.. by whom? The powerful of course. And simply deferring to some abstraction in and of itself can not compel anyone to follow it; it must be backed up with power to enforce.
The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must.
That's stretching the definition of freedom to absolute levels. So no one is truly free unless you have control of powerful armies. That would mean that throughout history only the very powerful have been truly free (which would be a bit cynical). I think that's not the case and I would claim that modern first-world countries have been consistently moving towards more freedom, and not just for the most powerful.
Power can be decentralized away from individuals into groups of people and institutions. Throughout history civilizations have constantly evolved in the direction of more decentralization of power, from dictators and kings to representative republics. Sure even now the power is concentrated at the top, but we could be close to another political breakthrough because of technology, which would further decentralize power, and allow more freedom.
> It is good to be powerful. It is bad to be weak.
By definition not everyone can be powerful at the same time, since power is measured by exerting it on someone else. This means that thinking it's all about power is the same as saying "the ends justify the means", since power is the end and everything else is determined by it.
> Often times one does have to apply power against other people, do you disagree?
Sure like in self-defense.
> But rules and laws and principles are broken all the time.. by whom? The powerful of course.
In today's day and age, it's usually the corrupt. We're supposed to know better, and we should have laws that prevent certain things, but of course there are always corrupt people trying to game the system. Power tends to corrupt, which is why decentralizing tends to help.
When commemorative plaques are placed for victims of Nazi violence, they are defaced or destroyed.
There are a lot of people who just don't want to hear that our ancestors weren't all that noble.