When protestors attack perfectly innocent statues of philanthropists who really demonstrated their love of humanity in the high prices they were willing to buy and sell humans for, and dump them in rivers, people ask, Where will it End? Have these activists considered the environmental consequences — both on water quality and on riparian habitats — of dumping every monument to a notorious British racist in the nearest river? Not to mention the potentially catastrophic flooding.
It’s a relief then to discover that at the same time other statues are being pulled out of rivers. In this case, a monument to unwed mothers that 14th-century cancel culture clearly found offensive. We may hope that the level of political statuary in our cities and in our rivers may reach a more or less stable equilibrium.
