Statues are as old as civilisation, and they have a place. The most notable statues are of religious leaders / gods, or founders of nations. Or they are representative, like the Statue of Liberty. These are all hard to argue against, and I am totally fine with them.
Throughout my life, those lesser statues, of particular men, that you find in parks and squares, have bothered me. I like a simple plaque on a park bench that says who paid for it. I dislike statues of men who paid for a park to exist, unless it is an extraordinary park.
I sense that statues of mayors and rich business folk are sometimes the inspiration for their good deeds – that one day they will be memorialised as being a good person. I can imagine Donald Trump expecting or even influencing the creation of statues in his honour.
Likewise, hospital wings named after benefactors, or schools and swimming pools named after presidents and prime ministers. It doesn’t feel right to me at all.
We have numerous types of monuments we can use to memorialise events and movements, peoples and accomplishments. Mounds, monoliths, fountains and eternal flames, for example. We don’t need statues of individuals unless they had national or international importance to a great number of people.
Maybe melt them all, and make one giant monument representing their collective civil contributions…