Why care
Katie Herzog notes a commonality in mourning cultural destruction:
As I watched Notre Dame burn yesterday, I was reminded of the fire at the National Museum of Brazil last year and the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan by the Taliban in 2001. You didn’t have to be a Brazilian or a Buddhist to care about those losses, and you don’t have to be a Catholic or a Parisian to care about Notre Dame now.
I’ve blogged about both of those, and a lot more – the shrines in Timbuktu, the statues in Palmyra, the mosques in Gujarat.
Art works aren’t people, but art works matter to people, so it’s not devaluing people to give a damn when examples of the human genius for creating objects that matter to people are demolished. Ancient artifacts have a big place on the universal mattering map.
Exactly right. There are a lot of comments that seem to deny that the enrichment of (other people’s, presumably) lives through art has no value.
Wasn’t there considerable outcry when ISIS destroyed ancient religions artifacts, including statues and buildings, in Palmyra and Nimrud and elsewhere? I don’t recall people making these kinds of arguments against caring about it. Maybe my memory is faulty, but if not, what’s the difference in the two situations? Western state? Catholic Church?
My guess. Because if it happened in a South American country, there would no doubt be the same caring that occurred with the ISIS destructions. Or in Africa. As it should.
It’s like Peter Singer making arguments that we should give up all art, music, etc in our lives to give the money we have left after basic food and housing to feed people in poorer countries. I understand his desires, which is why I make donations frequently, but I don’t believe humans are able to stand it too long without art or music. In the poorer countries, there is art and music, a lot of it quite exquisite (though like us, they also have their not so good works, of course), and it is not considered a waste but a valuable part of the culture.
Culture is part of being human, and to regard it as not worth caring about in France is to render the French less human, as if they do not need their artistic side, their monuments, their landmarks, etc. Not to mention their history, from which we should be drawing lessons to prevent us from doing stupid things in the future (like tying our state to the Catholic Church, for instance).
I ignore people who say things like this, because I have discovered they cannot be reasoned with. They have decided they are the reasonable, rational ones and any appeal to an emotional value is just irrational. I have always found that suspect. Emotions are a part of our reasoning processes.