i'm not as opposed to these things as a lot of other people are, and i don't really care if you find that upsetting. there's a kind of middle point here that i think is the right answer, in the sense that i'm a strong advocate of public education, and i recognize that these cultures....these people believed a lot of things that were not true, and there was a public responsibility to teach them that the things they believed were incorrect. the way it was done was pretty terrible, and how the church of all institutions ended up in charge of it is beyond me, but the premise of public education is sound. and, you can yell and scream at me if you want, but i don't give a fuck.
and, this isn't something that's going to go away - there's always going to be ignorant people, they're always going to congregate in rural or semi-nomadic societies and there's always going to be a need to send them to school. we can't give up on that ideal - we'll be plunging ourselves back into the dark ages. we just need to be more humane about the way we do it, and actually live up to the ideals we're trying to espouse.
again: i don't know who's bright idea it was to put the church in charge of this, but....
yes - if the issue were put up to a vote, and i happened to be around, i'd vote to move the statue into a museum. it's not appropriate to have a statue of this guy much of anywhere.
but, if we forget who this guy is, and what he promoted, and the way he did it, it's just going to happen again. so, we want to preserve these kinds of things in backrooms, and not destroy them.