culture... plaques, monuments.. do we really need to know?

[ecuworrier]

in following on from Boston T.... and thinking about culture....:

at present there is an attempt to redecorate Newington Green between Islington and Hackney~(London)?.... with a memorial for Mary Wollstonecraft regarded by some as the mother of feminism...

http://www.maryonthegreen.org/aboutmary.html

this kindof makes for interest in other areas ... does the decorating of buildings and parks etsc with plaques and monumnets enhance our sense of culture .... should we be allowed the freedom of not knowing... with er knowledge exclusive to those guided tour things?

i say this as an avid reader of this sort of thing.... that often leaves me feeling bewildered by ignorance and a sense of well if this is true then how comes this isn't shaped into our sense of history beyond this plaque?

what about you?


GOD BLESS!

Peace and Love,

[Boudi]

Blue plaques and the like are really good pointers for locals, and if they don't/didn't know then its a germ of information to start checking stuff out.

[Boudi]

Blue plaques and the like are really good pointers for locals, and if they don't/didn't know then its a germ of information to start checking stuff out.

[AndrewF]

I'm all for them - they fill gaps left by schooling! Our social history is very poorly taught - largely because it is not (from what I can discover) on the curriculum - or if it is, then it is only there in so far as it affects 'history' in a larger context, so if you don't happen to have been studying that part of our history you will not hear about them. Then you go for a walk in the park and some across a statue to someone with a brief note about what (s)he is being commemorated for and you think Ah,... interesting - now how does that fit in? and go away and look them up...

[Boudi]

its also good for those of us who might go to a place looking for the birthplace of x, y and z

[Boudi]

Interested to see this, as the Unitarian church in Newington Green has recently been sprayed with a Banksy style stencil of Woolstoncraft.
She was of course the mother of Mary Shelley as well as being a kind of mother to feminism...

[ecuworrier]

can't have too many high visibility feminists... makes up for the general smothering... but perhaps i spend too much time in church  (thinks  ...do i?)

i take Andrew's point about social history... we can hardly be blamed for taking things for granted... but half the time one wonders what the true significance to social history plaques about actors can possibly be about..

GOD BLESS!

Peace and Love,

GOD BLESS!

Peace and Love,