The toppling of Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol has led to a heated debate about memorialisation and what those statues say about their respective societies. There are lots of terrible arguments of both sides, but let’s examine the best arguments and the philosophy underpinning them.
One of the strongest arguments for removing statues starts by asking the question: what is a statue for? After all, if we know what something is for, we can ask whether the status quo fulfils that aim. Aristotle referred to this as the telos — the ultimate aim. So what is the telos of a statue? A statue could be: a memorial, a site of worship, or a work of art or propaganda (although perhaps all art is propaganda if you ask Orwell).
These categories aren’t mutually exclusive. Statues can be all three. However, for individual figures like Colston, the purpose was probably commemoration and propaganda. The statue of Colston and other slave traders (or slave owners) was probably an attempt by the Victorians to whitewash the sins of the British Empire. Although clearly many Victorians would also have considered Colston a deserving figure for memorialisation too, given his charity work. However, Colston is not a complex figure like Churchill, he was a slave trader who gave some of that wealth to charity. A statue is on a pedestal for a reason: we’re meant to look up…
