she shall have music wherever she goes: dc pictures part II: monumentals

there are so many memorials and monuments in dc, it's almost like the present doesn't exist.

capitol

i experienced a major resurgence of patriotism while on vacay, mostly because i relearned that patriotism can be (and has been from this country's beginning) the defense of debate and compromise and "you're free to think what you want even if i don't agree with you." maybe it's my eyes, but i've been seeing patriotism as the troop trump card, or the justification to be boorish, or the obligation to not ask too many questions. and maybe it's my program, but cynical and jaded is the new idealistic, and enthusiasm is so naive.

can't we think critically without being grumps? isn't thinking critically being able to separate wonder and dull so that we can cling to the wings of one and flush the other?

national archives

washington


washington

i have this friend bob who is going to be an architect, and i'm pretty sure he'll be a good one because he gets what buildings do to us in a way i've never understood except when he explains it to me. i'm including some of our conversation about these monuments here.

the lincoln

B: "The assumption behind the neoclassical monument, and neoclassical architecture, is that the values embodied in that style are timeless, even eternal. Monuments before World War II tend to state clearly and forcefully "this is sacred," and "this is good." However, our society is conditioned by postmodernism to subvert and rethink all old values, we question the very idea of timelessness. For every person who is bold enough to say "this is good," there are five others who will say "no, the issue is not so simple." We can no longer expect universal expressions of the sacred and good to be so universal."

C: "Perhaps we aren't drawn to the neoclassical style because there is a right and wrong, but because we wish there were so badly. Lincoln, though full of moral resolve (it's amazing to read how certain he was that slavery was wrong), deserves memorializing partly because of how he managed an unclear course. What is more postmodern than civil war, or the fracturing of united states?"

B:"I think you are right about our reason for using the neoclassical style, that it lies in our aspirations more than our reality. For a long time the real natures of the men Lincoln, Washington, and Jefferson have been less relevant than the values people ascribe to them. Whether that is good or not is another matter, but it is those values we capture in monument. People can and do spend many thousands of pages debating whether the men themselves lived up to their legacy, but that debate presupposes the importance of the legacy. I would love to hear what they would say about their own monuments."

(i might have just included this snippet because bob said i was right, and bob is a smart guy, but so what if i did?)