The Future Of Our Politically Incorrect Stamps - Ten Cent Columbian And Others

Much depends on exactly when the art in question was created. Much of the Confederate art, for example, was created in the 1950's, long after the fact and with very specific social and political intentions. This happened recently enough that the intentions may be fairly easily discerned. The earlier we go in the creation of any works the more difficult it becomes to discern exactly why they were created; it becomes more of a personal interpretation with each work the farther back we go. None should be destroyed, but they should be put into context whenever possible.
As for stamps, I would guess that we all have stamps we feel should not have been issued, or that glorify people or events that should be vilified instead. Even if we reduce the number of US postage stamps to face different it is probably well over 4000, I doubt anyone could find all of them politically or socially acceptable.

Who will the arbiters be when decisions are made as to what stays and what goes? And why are those people "right" and other people "wrong"? A very slippery slope. Very few things are uglier than mob rule. There is something very nasty taking place in this era whereby sanctimonious groups and individuals are on the virtuous side and everyone else is actually looked at as evil. Statues and other artwork being removed remind me of other times in history that did not turn out so well.

To make a general point, the most obvious form of Conflict Resolution is Total Victory and Total Defeat.
After WW2 the victorious Allies "re-educated" Nazis and thus modern Germans detach themselves from their Past.
After the defeat of South Vietnam/USA, the defeated South Vietnamese were re-educated.
After 1865 and the defeat of the Confederacy, Reconstruction lasted for a very short time. In that sense the South was not totally defeated and did their own thing for about a century, during which time they re-invented themselves as the Lost Cause and built their monuments.
It is arguably too late to impose total defeat on the South and take away the monuments they built for themselves.

The Germans have a word for this process of denazification - Vergangenheitsbewältigung. It's the process of working through their past, a form of repentance or remorse for past actions. The schools and churches in German were the main facilitators of this process. The monuments and memorials to holocaust victims are public examples of this process. There's even stamps issued by Germany to honor the lives lost under Nazi Germany.

After the Civil War, Reconstruction was a ham-fisted attempt to correct things, but the South as a whole never went through any real process of repentance or acknowledging their wrongs for slavery. Instead, public institutions were seized by former Confederates and they wrote their own narratives of history. They muddied the waters of history with their Lost Cause and "states rights" garbage. As much as possible was done by the elites to keep as much of the previous social classes in place. Groups like the Daughters of the Confederacy were instrumental in controlling the narrative of the war and slavery through education and as the major builder of the monuments. We have stamps to honor Black Heritage and some of the Civil Rights movements. Would there ever be stamps to atone for our past? Should there be? Big questions. There are recent monuments, memorials and museums that have built for that purpose so we may better understand the past.

If every monument, or book, or stamp, or museum, or WHATEVER, is at the whim of a society to be removed, torn down, forbidden or eliminated, with the "I am offended" mentality, then we, as members of that society, will eventually have nothing representing who we are, what we are and what we have overcome. Slippery slope indeed.

Their seems to be an assumption by some that all of the monuments were erected to glorify the Confederacy and therefore slavery. Perhaps some were but most are simply monuments to military officers. Too much black and white going on but that seems to be the new norm. Good vs evil and nothing in between.

"Battlestamps" nails it.
The Confederacy is condemned by its own words and actions. Slavery and Supremacy were the cornerstone.
Had the North followed thru for longer than the Reconstruction period, then the Confederacy would not be honoured on monuments. The revisionism is even in westerns. John Ford westerns (especially the Cavalry Trilogy) depict men who had fought for North or South joining against a new enemy in the west.
John Wayne and Rock Hudson in "The Undefeated" spring to mind.
Even TV westerns such as Bronco, Bonanza and especially Rawhide depict the South in a glorious and honourably defeated way.
Yet I feel a certain sympathy for those who found themselves (thru no fault or ideology of their own) on the Wrong Side of History. This is especially difficult for ordinary post-war Germans (the sons and grandsons) who feel obligated to apologise for crimes committed long before they were born. That's a consequence of Total Victory and Defeat. The fact that the Confederacy was never totally defeated thru northern apathy or fatigue means that the descendants of southern soldiers are spared this self-criticism.

Canada can see both sides of history. Refreshing.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/mont...ns-1.4256907

There's too much uneducated B.S. being spewed about in this thread to combat without it inevitably turning political, so I'm out.