Jeff would create an icon of the modern American
All this talk in recent weeks about which statues are good and which statues are bad and which statues are just OK makes me want to never look at a statue again.
And really, when you get right down to it, statues are pretty damn stupid. A statue isn’t history; a statue is just a statue. It symbolizes something. And so yeah, you ask me, Confederate statues should go. The Confederates were the enemy. They lost. Why should America be symbolizing a group of people that sought to leave America? Makes no sense.
When you get to Columbus, it gets murkier. Did he set out to start the process that ended up wiping out millions of people? Probably not. But it happened. So I don’t know. Keep the statue, take the statue, I don’t care.
Statues are symbols, nothing more, nothing less. We should probably stop erecting them and instead use the money to build libraries and museums detailing whatever it is the statue is memorializing, and yes, I stole that idea direct from John Oliver.
Enough blither-blather, though. The question at hand is simple: If I could erect a statue to someone, who would it be?
Well, as I said, statues are symbols. And I’d like to symbolize America. After all, I love this country. I’m second-generation born, and I consider myself 100 percent American. I have zero allegiance to any other culture or country. I don’t think of myself as German-American, Polish-American, or Russian-American, even though that’s where my grandparents came from. I don’t consider myself JewishAmerican, because my American-ness defines me infinitely more than my Jewish heritage. (I’m agnostic on matters of faith, for the record.)
So yes: I’d like to symbolize America.
I’d like to symbolize an America that values honesty, and hard work, and fairness, and open-mindedness, and responsibility.
As such, I’d like to create a statue of a fat guy wearing gym shorts and a T-shirt, holding a Coors Light, asleep on the couch with his head back and his mouth open. I want to create a statue of American Laziness.
You know why? Because we’ve lost honesty, hard work, fairness, open-mindedness, and responsibility as a country. We’ve become — present company included — an every-manfor-himself nation. We’ve insulated ourselves. Do you know your neighbors a house away from you? Yeah, me neither.
This statue symbolizing our laziness would be a call to action.
In the meantime, I’m kinda tired and need a nap.
Jeff Edelstein is a columnist for The Trentonian.