Political vandalism as counter‐speech: A defense of defacing and destroying tainted monuments

Abstract

Tainted political symbols ought to be confronted, removed, or at least recontextualized. Despite the best efforts to achieve this, however, official actions on tainted symbols often fail to take place. In such cases, I argue that political vandalism-the unauthorized defacement, destruction, or removal of political symbols-may be morally permissible or even obligatory. This is when, and insofar as, political vandalism serves as fitting counter-speech that undermines the authority of tainted symbols in ways that match their publicity, refuses to let them speak in our name, and challenges the derogatory messages expressed through a mechanism I call derogatory pedestalling: the glorification or honoring of certain individuals or ideologies that can only make sense when members of a targeted group are taken to be inferior.

Colonial monuments as slurring speech acts

“…Certainly, the present UK government seems intent on keeping derogating statues standing. 12 In cases in which official removals do not take place, Ten-Herng Lai has argued that not only is it morally permissible but it may also be obligatory to vandalise derogating statues (Lai, 2020) as a form of 'counter speech' which, according to my analysis, might be seen as a reactive, countervailing illocution.…”

Objectionable Commemorations, Historical Value, and Repudiatory Honouring

“…Many have argued that certain commemorations are deeply objectionable. For instance, that they are expressive of racism [Burch-Brown 2017 or other problematic moral commitments [Nili 2020], are inconsistent with the state's duty to repudiate wrongdoing [Frowe 2019], degrade or alienate [Schulz 2019], are akin to statesponsored hate speech [Lai 2020] or slurring speech acts [Shahvisi 2021], downplay wrongdoing [Archer and Matheson 2021], cause psychological harm [Timmerman 2020], or shape our identities in problematic ways [Abrahams 2020], just to name a few. We may thus come to hold that objectionable commemorations ought to be removed.…”

“…Through such means, a balanced and comprehensive version of history can be taught in ways that draw from different perspectives, engage with our rational capacity, and facilitate civil discussions. Second, those who subscribe to political liberalism may worry that commemorations fail to engage with our rational capacity, rather tending to elicit our emotions [Tsai 2016;Lai 2020], and are thus inconsistent with the requirement that the state ought to persuade its citizens via public reason [Brettschneider 2012].…”

“…More importantly, however, repudiatory honouring avoids a phenomenon called 'leakage'. I have argued that while sometimes counter-messages provided by defacing can block the harm of objectionable commemorations, the objectionable messages sometimes 'leak' out [Lai 2020: 609]-just as in the case of slurs, the insulting force of which cannot be completely blocked by mentioning them rather than using them [Anderson and Lepore 2013;Bolinger 2017;Langton 2018]. We can, of course, work to avoid the leakage, but merely seeing the oppressors, even in defaced forms, may suffice to force the victims to relive their oppression.…”

Cooking Commoning Subjectivities: Guerrilla Narrative in the Cooperation Birmingham Solidarity Kitchen

“…Furthermore, guerrilla narrative recognizes the plurality of means beyond orality through which subaltern people build counter-hegemonic storytelling, including arts, written documents, people's schools, or interventions into the mainstream organizations of public memories. Black Lives Matter, for instance, has questioned racist and colonial monuments and other toxic narratives inscribed into the texture of our collective lives (Lai, 2020).…”