The question has arisen whether it’s a good idea to memorialize the violent tragedy at Virginia Tech that emotionally rocked the nation. While I dig reading the rhetorical literature that talks about this….however the alternative is simply radically insufficent….
When the alternative is not saying anything or not memorializing it makes little sense to inhabit that ideological cul de sac. The alternative is not talking about genocide, terrorism, and the worst evils known to the human race. Second, the only way we have to have a future that we don’t repeat the errors and violence of the 21st century again and again, is to memorialize it somehow. Failure to memorialize does violence to history and silences the narratives of the victims that deserve to be told to prosperity. Failure to speak truth to power/history does an injustice to that history. In fact, I would argue that the Virginia Tech issue is now part of our national narrative, failure to speak about pain, whether in the public square or via a monument is a failure to speak about a month long saga in the nation’s history that really did emotionally touch us all. (I’m not willing to go so far as to say “We are all Virginia Tech”…because I think that is empty and rubbish–or at the very least only half true– because well over 99.9% of us weren’t there and didn’t live through the terror. Although I will say the sentiment is welcoming)
However, without a monument for “history” it allows nefarious folks to write their own history and spin their own history which allows the perpetrators an even larger platform. If anything not having a memorial doubly silences the victims. Fearing the a marginal to negligible risk of misinterpretation of a memorial by future generation is hardly the way to live with direction, purpose, or a history.
Finally, its all about framing the language and rhetoric of the monument–not an up or down vote on the monument itself. Doesn’t calling them “bad guys” and “criminals” and “killers” sufficient enough to de-pedestalize them. If you took another course and didn’t refer to the killer by name, it seems you depersonalize him enough that you de-pedestalize him.
Sure this can be sensationalized by politicians, powers, and principalities. Sure the media can skew it. Sure we shouldn’t make it part of an ongoing scare-tactic and fear news cycle (a la the coverage of every national disaster since 9/11 and a lot before including the first Gulf War) . I fail to see how a World War II Memorial valorizes Hitler. (Jon stewart is right, Hitler is a political trump card…but I feel its instructive in this case) Sweeping VT and other tragidies under the rug is not how I want to live history. What is history but the stories of good guys(gals)/bad guys(gals). The alternative would be a call to burn all the history books…which doesn’t make sense.To hear what other folks are saying, you can go both here and here.
What do you think? Should we worry about misinterpretation or valorizing the criminal(s)? Any folks from Virginia Tech or the Virginia/DC area have an opinion they would like to voice? Others folks from other geographies?
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