On “Protecting History” and Dumbo’s Crows

The conversation about removing Confederate monuments, and deleting images considered racist from films and so forth continues to boil. A recent thread about this contained an oft-quoted concern that if we change history, we cannot learn from it and might repeat the pattern.

I can agree that there is a risk that, if you remove an image, you remove a route to education about that image, thereby increasing the danger of history repeating itself. However, I find the following sentence concerning the controversy around LADY AND THE TRAMP’s Siamese cats problematic:

“To edit it after the fact… is something I will disagree with because that is re-writing history. Re-writing history will never serve the ends people desire. It only opens up the very real possibility of repeating said history.”

Let’s examine this.

1. Is it “rewriting history”? That’s plausible, but arguable. Its not like changing a history book or burning newspaper files. But art IS a part of history, and there are critics, readers, and writers who believe an artist should never edit a book after initial publication. Others who disagree. There are similarities with changing music, graphic art (colorization of films, “Greedo shot first” and so forth). This at least is a conversation. But it is not settled, it is a matter of definitions and philosophies.
2. “Re-writing history will never serve the ends people desire.” IF one accepts that changing an artwork is “rewriting history” then you…