THREE ELEMENTS OF HERITAGE (New Zealand's Department of Conservation).
"The three elements used to describe historic heritage are Fabric, Stories and Culture. One or all of these things make up the historic heritage of a place".
➡️ "FABRIC is the physical remains that exist today - it is what you can see or touch."
➡️ "STORIES describe and explain our history - they are what you read, hear or watch. Stories can be told in many different ways. They tell us what happened in the past, the people involved, what events took place and why."
➡️ "CULTURE describes the connection people have with historic places – what they feel, experience or do there. Our cultural experience is enriched by knowledge of the past."
The idea of a "moral decline" is linked to the narratives we create about the past, in which events are idealised or simplified. On the other hand, human beings have a tendency to analyse events in terms of how we would like things to be. This example was published last year in the Times of India Reader's Blog:
"Moral values are fading these days. […] The culture is degrading day by day due to the effect of the western influence and movies which often mislead the younger generation.
[…] The low moral values have created unrest and turmoil in society. […] We can dream of a kind and honest world only if we nurture moral values and keep our ethos."
Such arguments, with many variations, can be found everywhere nowadays. The only problem is that similar arguments can be found in texts from many other periods in the past.
I think the rest is obviously bs, btw, as the absence of moral values doesn't create unrest and turmoil (if anything that absence would be pacifying), nor do I think that a kind and honest world depends on there being strong moral values.
THE MYTH OF “DECLINE AND FALL” by Edward Champlin (1996).
"Everyone knows that the Roman Empire “declined and fell.” The title of Edward Gibbon’s 18th-century masterpiece The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is part of Western cultural consciousness. There is something deeply thrilling about the notion: Rome, the largest political and economic unit in the world before the year 1000, fell; are we too doomed to lose our power, our culture, even our memory?"
"But the notion of decline is an extremely difficult one. A political unit may indeed “fall” because of complex political, social, and economic reasons. The real problem comes when we, like the Romans, do not understand these reasons and, like the Romans, equate decline with moral decline."
"In the end, “Rome” did not decline; it changed, as all cultures must. "
THE CONSERVATION OF CAVE 85 AT THE MOGAO GROTTOES, DUNHUANG by Lori Wong and
Neville Agnew (editors, 2013).
"The Mogao Grottoes, a World Heritage Site in northwestern China, are located along the ancient caravan routes—collectively known as the Silk Road—that once linked China with the West. Founded by a Buddhist monk in the late fourth century, Mogao flourished over the following millennium, as monks, local rulers, and travelers commissioned hundreds of cave temples cut into a mile-long rock cliff and adorned them with vibrant murals. More than 490 decorated grottoes remain, containing thousands of sculptures and some 45,000 square meters of wall paintings, making Mogao one of the world's most significant sites of Buddhist art."
THE ILLUSION OF MORAL DECLINE by Adam M. Mastroianni and Daniel T. Gilbert (Nature, 2023).
"In a series of studies using both archival and original data (n = 12,492,983), we show that people in at least 60 nations around the world believe that morality is declining, that they have believed this for at least 70 years and that they attribute this decline both to the decreasing morality of individuals as they age and to the decreasing morality of successive generations. Next, we show that people’s reports of the morality of their contemporaries have not declined over time, suggesting that the perception of moral decline is an illusion. Finally, we show how a simple mechanism based on two well-established psychological phenomena (biased exposure to information and biased memory for information) can produce an illusion of moral decline."
@Barros_heritage@pvonhellermannn@academicchatter I would add ‘no baseline.’ How many people have ever looked up the graph of, oh illegitimate births or divorce rates or adultery rates or addiction over the last 75 years?
There’s always someone’s butt, or Monroe’s skirt or the Beatles’ haircuts to shock the readily shocked.
FINDING CEREMONY FOR OUR ANCESTORS HELD IN PENN MUSEUM’S “MORTON CRANIAL COLLECTION” by Abdul-Aliy A. Muhammad & Dr. Lyra D. Monteiro.
"Barely one year after we learned that the Penn Museum had the remains of two children murdered in the 1985 MOVE bombing, the University of Pennsylvania tried to quickly and quietly bury the remains of over a dozen other Black Philadelphians whose bones they had kept in the basement of the Penn Museum for decades. Recently, the museum acknowledged that their research showed they actually have the remains of 20 Black Philadelphians in the Morton Cranial Collection."
A MUSEUM’S HISTORIC HUMAN REMAINS ARE NOW THE CENTER OF AN ETHICS CLASH by Maura Judkis.
"The bone of contention: While some of the bodies in the museum come from contemporary donors, many had been acquired in an era before medical consent was codified. In the 19th century, doctors who wanted to learn with real bodies would claim the remains of prisoners, suicide victims, poor people, prostitutes, enslaved people, Native Americans and other underprivileged groups — or they would pay off gravediggers and steal from cemeteries. These are some of the Mütter’s “residents,” as staff members call them."
"‘This is barbarism’: shock at Russian strike on Odesa cathedral" by Shaun Walker.
"This was the second time that the vast, sand-yellow Transfiguration Cathedral, which sits in the heart of Odesa’s Unesco-listed historic centre, had been attacked: in the 1930s, it was torn down during Joseph Stalin’s atheism drive. On Sunday morning, the rebuilt version was hit during a Russian airstrike on the city. A missile blew a large hole in the roof, collapsed the altar and left several walls charred by fire."
"Even by the standards of Russia’s ruthless war strategy, a missile strike on a historic cathedral – one that was consecrated by the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, no less – was a shocking development. The priests at the scene were dumbfounded."
MEMORIAL FOR THE VICTIMS OF THE EUTHANASIA KILLINGS.
"The Brandenburg Memorials Foundation opened the Memorial to the Victims of the Euthanasia Killings in a former service building of the Old Prison in Brandenburg an der Havel in August 2012. The permanent exhibition, located in a 120-square-meter space on the historical site of the euthanasia murders and in the immediate vicinity of the former gas chamber, informs visitors about the preparations and implementation of the plan, including the people involved in the murders of more than 9,000 sick and disabled persons between January and October 1940."
"Exhibitions of art about ecology have been sprouting up everywhere, usually operating under some premise of ‘raising awareness’ for the climate crisis".
"Given the current state of ecological degradation, perhaps it’s time for a more concerted effort towards action. There are certainly limitations to this approach, particularly within the gallery space, which can’t house sheep to be shepherded, but perhaps it’s more a question of a shift in emphasis, towards practices that combine art and activism and actively engage the viewer. Does this necessitate a fundamental shift in how we define art? Yes. But in times like this such rules are made to be broken".
@Barros_heritage@sociology@ecology@academicchatter I would say that eco art exhibitions are actually pretty great but you can't just raise awareness and leave it at that. Every single art exhibit in this vein should have concrete actionable items (MULTIPLE) that viewers can immediately act on while inspired. These actions should be curated to fit the theme also.
"HOW THE HINDU RIGHT-WING IN INDIA IS UNDERMINING MUSLIM IDENTITY THROUGH HERITAGE" by Maitri Dore.
"In service of the myth of a Hindu golden age, the Hindu right-wing is contorting historical facts and attempting to cleanse the built environment of Muslim heritage. Their meddlesomeness is proof of the pudding that heritage is more than simply brick and mortar. It is about the selection and use of these for political purposes. In this scheme then, architecture–by way of claims to mosques, and public space–through its renaming, are merely convenient props that hold up the cherry-picked narrative."
"‘BASTION OF THE SUPER-RICH’: INSIDE A NEW YORK BILLIONAIRE’S PRIVATE MUSEUM" by Francesca Carington.
"It was Fleet Week in New York City, and something unusual was taking place on Billionaires’ Row. At 9 West 57th Street, an elegant black sloping skyscraper towering over the Plaza hotel and the half-dozen sailors congregated outside, 20 people were ushered into a small, glass-fronted gallery on the ground floor. A ferocious crimson Basquiat greeted them, along with a monochrome Kline and a serene Henry Moore – works collected by the building’s late owner, the real estate mogul Sheldon Solow.
There are plenty of examples of art foundations that work well as private museums, such as Glenstone in Washington DC, the Broad in LA and the Rubell museums in Miami and DC."