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thenewgreen · 1158 days ago · link · · parent · post: Thomas Jefferson statue coming down in New York's City Council chamber : NPR
The idea came from a man. That man had a life that lead to that idea. That man made choices of study, of pursuit that lead to that idea, that moment, that novel, that piece of music, that speech. Some choices awful, some not. It's right to study men/women for what formed them and their physical form has been a symbol of that journey since we took a chisel to stone. That said, I worship no man. Quite a different thing to enjoy a statue than to worship its subject. I have always liked the quote from the Buddhist sage, Lin Chi, "If you see the Buddha on the trail. Kill him." To me this has always meant that it's not the Buddha, it's the teachings. It's not the statue, but the journey of the man/woman the statue is meant to portray.