A Trump official previously complained about a caption beside his National Portrait Gallery photo mentioning his impeachments and the U.S. Capitol insurrection.
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A Trump official previously complained about a caption beside his National Portrait Gallery photo mentioning his impeachments and the U.S. Capitol insurrection.
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The victor’s have always written history, or at least influenced the details of how it was remembered. There are museums in the south today that don’t paint a clear picture as to which side won the American Civil War.
If the decision were yours to make, would you hold to your principles and have the Smithsonian disregard the executive order from last year and risk being disbanded entirely? Or would you alter a plaque to omit some details in order to save the rest of what the museum has?
As a followup question, if you choose your principles, do you feel regret if the jackboots march in with orders to destroy the collections? I know I would. Which is why I would bend in the first place - to avoid being broken.
Why wait? Capitulate today!
That’s alright, I understand it’s usually easier to make a witty remark instead of giving a complicated issue consideration. How I wish things were cut and dry.
How much of history do you alter before your museum is a farce? How much truth can you change to lies for the sake of funding before your museum is just a propaganda program for an authoritarian regime?
In other words you see this as Theseus’s museum. That’s an interesting idea. I don’t think changing one board fundamentally changes the ship, though I’m getting the impression you disagree.
It’s worth noting the plaque wasn’t changed to read ‘Trump was never impeached’, and so there isn’t a direct lie in this circumstance. This is more of a lie by omission, however even that is pretty loose as the museum likely feels they can’t legally reference the impeachments anymore due to EO14253 which explicitly effects the Smithsonian.
I do agree with your sentiment in that over enough time and alteration, a museum could become a place of advertising and not culture or history. However this brings me back to the question I raised that you have not answered twice now.
Changing this plaque can be the start of a slippery slope, yes. However, if you were stood at the summit of K2 and group of thugs walked up from behind and presented you the choice of either taking a step down the steep side or being picked up and thrown off the mountainside to inevitable death, what do you choose?
I think I’d prefer to shutter the museum over pretending that you can somehow compromise on what the truth is. The Smithsonian, like many institutions in the last year, folded with little to no resistance.