Monuments and Disagreement

I think most of what I’ve posted here has revolved around Thoreau - either about him directly or reflecting on his words, and I’ve probably agreed with or praised him every time. This time, though, I find myself parting ways with him - at least in part. That said, I’m about to bore you again with yet another bit from Walden.

Thoreau wrote only briefly about monuments, but, as always, his words were incisive and bold. He wrote:

"Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave. What if equal pains were taken to smooth and polish their manners? One piece of good sense would be more memorable than a monument as high as the moon."

Of course, who could argue? One would easily prioritize personal (or moral) refinement over monumental grandeur. It’s logical, practical, and right.

But Thoreau didn’t stop there - he went on to scorn the Pyramids and, as was his habit, delivered his opinion with typical bluntness:

“As for the Pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile…”

He later pointed out the cause: vanity as the mainspring - assisted by the love of garlic and bread and butter. A spot-on observation. Brutal. And brilliant.

I believe he has a point. But I wouldn’t say the Pyramids were full-on vanity projects, because I think they do hold some real historical significance - and perhaps even served some deeper, divine purpose. However, I’d like to argue that not everything built or erected comes from vanity.

Humans do tend to build monuments in an attempt to immortalize themselves - to self-glorify. Thoreau questioned the motivations behind such acts, and on this, I stand with him.

Of course, I understand Thoreau’s take on this and I believe it stemmed from his critique of materialism and societal pretensions.

But I think it’s worth acknowledging that monuments can also arise from genuine human impulses such as collective grief, or rage that refuses to be forgotten; deep reverence for sacrifices too great to fade into silence. They can be built to honour, to inspire, to teach or even provoke. They stand where words fail. The mere sight of their physical form will jolt the conscience of generations. They ask not for admiration nor passive contemplation but for confrontation. For response. And perhaps, for change.

Men and women who are noble at heart, who embody real integrity, who chose principle over prestige, who sacrificed their entire lives serving their fellow countrymen and left behind a legacy of hope - they deserve more than mere remembrance.

Their ideologies don’t just end up in history books; they ripple outward, passed from one mind to another, living on from one generation to the next - becoming symbols of the best in us. You see, people like them don’t simply disappear; their death is not the end, but a beginning. To honour them is not vanity; it is necessity. Because such people outlive their own mortality.

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