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Radio War Nerd EP #235 — Iconoclasm (Patreon)

Published:
2020-06-30 03:31:28
Imported:
2026-06
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Recorded: June 24, 2020

Statues are coming down across the Anglo-speaking world, so the War Nerd looks back at the many-millennia-old tradition among our species of smashing statues, and sometimes putting them up too. 

Total time: 2:02:56

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

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CR

a clash of purple

Don't paint all Americans with the same brush. I mean, no matter what part of the world you're talking about, the people who do the most evil are the ones who are most immune to the consequences of their actions. That freedom is what permits them do evil in the first place. The people who suffer most are the poor and the downtrodden who have the least say in the decisions that cause their suffering in the first place. There's never going to be a "reckoning" for the bourgeoisie who perpetrate all these crimes, and all the merciless pain and misery is going to fall on the people who get no say in setting public policy.

Tit Škerget

Teases. When notified of the headline, I thought the episode was going to be about the Byzantine Iconoclast/Iconodule conflict. :)

xnfec

Apropos of not much, when you mentioned Freudians laughing, I remembered a radio interview with a British comedian where the subject Freud came up. The comedian was asked what he thought of Freud's theory of humour. To which he replied: Ah yes, Freud. A very clever man of course. But then again, he never had to play Glasgow on a Monday night.

Jess

I wonder if the idea that "government genuinely can't track and trace/provide basic precautionary measures" is an age gap thing--I'm old but not old enough to remember anything before Reagan, and I can't imagine the US government doing even the simplest public health tasks on a mass scale. I know that it's possible because other countries can do it, but it seems really unlikely and reality-shattering here, like discovering aliens or cold fusion. I mean, it's just easier for the government if you die sooner, right? Why would they want you alive and clogging up the works? Did people have different attitudes back in your day?

Factory Troll

Aesthetic and beauty are underappreciated reasons to build a statue, or to tear it down. Our statues – meaning those in the western world – are all grey and metallic, I guess because some renaissance artists saw those faded Greco-Roman sculptures and thought they were supposed to look like that way, but a lot of ancient and antique statues was in fact pimped up with pigments and decorations to make them come alive, like that orca statue John was talking about. It was certainly the case with the Polynesian moai statues on Easter Island, they weren’t put up to look like boulders with humanoid features (no shoutout to the moai in a statue episode, very disappointing). Statues are still built that way in parts of Asia – think of a Hindu temple. I’m sure statues where built for commercial reasons too – look, our city has the biggest buddha statue you will ever see, so you might want to come here for a pilgrimage sometime. Serving a similar function as European cathedrals. Any statute that serve neither aesthetic nor commercial purposes (the two are not necessarily distinguishable) is highly dubious in my opinion, but I think it is a mistake to primarily think of statues as power projection devices.

Henry

Question on the US not having the 1945 experience of being occupied and conquered: how do we factor the CSA into this? They seem as psycho as anyone.

telecanter

A poem I've always liked seems appropriate here:

telecanter

Somoza Unveils the Statue of Somoza at Somoza Stadium It is not that I believe the people erected this statue because I know better than you I commissioned it myself. Nor that I pretend to enter into posterity with it because I know that the people will tear it down one day Nor that I wanted to build myself while alive the monument that I know you would never build for me rather, I built this statue because I know you hate it. Ernesto Cardenal (trans. from spanish)

Jason Thompson

Speaking of Irish statues, there’s a statue of Robert Emmett in front of the Steinhart Aquarium right now! The orcas are gone but it remains!

nick dee

destroying history is so ultra liberal in the end. myself i'm still angry at the french revolutionaire to have destroyed so many good monument. it's bourgeois revanchism. how many 'revolutionaries' even attacked the banks in history? mussolini hitler sankara maybe 2 3 others dude. nothing really change in the end every utopia get destroyed or end up in abject failure

Alexander Corden

I love how John pronounces "vegan" like it rhymes with "pagan", I might start saying it like that

Payen

SF protesters left up Pershing's statue and I was confused.

Jason Thompson

I agreed with all your thoughts on how no one alive today will look good by the standards of 2170, and I think stuff like this a lot too. But I wonder if people who aren't inclined to be forgiving on these bases really think (1) "my idea of morality is eternal" or whether they think (as I think I've seen people more or less write on Twitter) (2) "i judge the past harshly and i expect to be judged harshly in the future, and that's OK, I care about the Now". I mean, for MYSELF I like to have a vague nostalgic/historic feeling of "connection to the past" (though my RenFaire mind palace doesn't include Confederate statues): to quote The World's Most Racist Genre Writer, H.P. Lovecraft, I like the imaginary connection to "that fixed mass whose sides the ages are". But maybe "a connection the past" or a sense of continuity is not that important to everybody. Could just mean I'm gettin' old.

luke popadics

very much into the discourse around the felix dzerzhinsky statue, gonna have to do a haunting painting of it whenever i go to moscow

luke popadics

orthodoxy has a whole day dedicated to icons being restored as well, its called the sunday of orthodoxy. Its quite weird that we still celebrate it.

Jack Firman

Recently theres been reconstruction in old town Square of Prague of a Marian column. The original was built in 1650 commemorating the thirty year war and battle of Prague in 1648 over the Swedish Empire. But was torn down in 1918 after the Austrian-Hungarian Empire dissolved. Interesting now after all this time they choose to reconstruct and why? In still trying to figure out. If Praguers tore down every statue in town made during this this time would be a completely different city. Maybe this new one will last another 300 years? Ha

Scorched Earth

Hatshepsut had large breasts,; possibly gigantomastia; and was known to show off her figure with tight, revealing clothing. She also had an interesting way of keeping her ministers and advisors loyal to her: she slept with them. If you were a man in the court of this hot, curvy goddess, would you betray her if you got to bang her every now and then? And even if you were inclined to betray her, there’s the other ministers and advisors (who she’s also sleeping with) who are looking out for her. And it appeared to have worked! Her reign was relatively long and peaceful up to when she died of natural causes. Long live The Pharoahess!

Avery

One theme of the podcast has been that between eternal morality and moderate rebellion, eternal generally wins on the battlefield.

David Gyllenhaal

Not to be a pedant but I'm not aware of a single attested instance of statue destruction during Byzantine Iconoclasm and most of our evidence suggests there was not a huge amount of destruction of encaustic icons or church fresco or mosaic either. The animus was directed against the veneration of religious images, and the specific depiction of Christ. The statue-making habit was out of fashion at that point anyways and was not substantially at issue.

Eric Snow

The constant construction and reconstruction going on in Prague usually has everything to do with who has been paid off. About 10 years ago they did a rather horrible botched job fixing the Charles Bridge. It was kind of the equivalent of the Spanish lady in Borija fixing the old icon painting in 2012.

Sérgio Teixeira da Silva

I know it's not *quite* the same, but what do you think about Ashoka's pillars? (Could be seen as commercial, though.)

Cody Green

Exactly. The Iconodule (pro-Icon) side justified the icons precisely because they were NOT graven images like statues.

Factory Troll

Ashoka's pillars would definitely be awe inspiring, in fact they still are, to the point that people continue to make a living showing them off to tourists. As someone who's admittedly biased i favor of Ashoka, the sort of postmodernist notion that the pillars' main function is to stake out Ashoka's turf and remind everyone of who is in charge and what sect he represents (as if Ashoka was a dog who would wee out a pillar wherever he went), strikes me as facile.

David Andrews

You guys were a little unfocused with this episode.