I can't align virtuous with wisdom. I don't think all things wise stem from something virtuous. I could contend that all things wise stem from experience.

Only the lessons of what not to do come from the dark age virtuous catholics, the virtuous communists and virtuous islamists. It is by these history erasers today that we are poised for a most bloody refresher for America in the future. Removing any reminder of our past, even honoring that memory of those we disagree with but overcame to make us better, only adds the potential to revisit those things in the future. It is cancerous and it will eventually kill.

I keep recommended Booker T. Washington's Up From Slavery. A freed slave who lived through the age offers his insights to the time and his accomplishments. A man of character anyone today, particularly black society, could learn from his words and values.

Sounds like Marxism applied.

Book burning by young activists was a due in part by their public school system run by collectivist ideology.

"There is an inherent evil in erasing the past because it removes the relevance of who and what we are. "
I agree it's wrong to ignore facts and history is a subset of facts. Facts about history may or may not provide relevance to who we are today, but regardless we should not ignore the facts.

"I cannot fathom how being "enlightened" means more virtuous when it actuality it means wisdom.
Only the left equates virtue with wisdom"
Maybe I'm from the left (if I were into that stuff) because they seem to go together for me. I think of Enlightenment as being about reason and respecting one another's rights, and I think of that as a virtue.

"they lord it over others with varying degrees of force "
People certainly do this, but I don't think of that as a part of Enlightenment values.

I think the confusion is I don't see the article as being about erasing the past.

CG my friend, I do not know how you got what you did from what I posted. There is an inherent evil in erasing the past because it removes the relevance of who and what we are. Regardless of political or ideological leanings, and I know that we do differ, I cannot fathom how being "enlightened" means more virtuous when it actuality it means wisdom. Only the left equates virtue with wisdom and they lord it over others with varying degrees of force (much in the same way they falsely contend religious people of doing so),

"In the background is the conviction that we, blessed members of the most enlightened cohort ever to grace the earth with its presence, occupy a moral plane superior to all who came before us."
I really think we do. Standing on the shoulders of people in the past we have the ability to hold ourselves to a higher standard. George Washington helped turn what must have felt like a utopian dream of building a state based on philosophers' ideas of personal liberty into reality. Two hundred years later we are appalled he participated in slavery.

This article is about what to do with our enlightenment. Now we're uncomfortable that an historic public area has a statue of Columbus bu not Bartolome de las casas. Do we cover it up? The author appears outraged at the very question and then says, apparently without irony, "how delicate they are, how quick to take offense!" Wow. I thought the whole theme of the piece was about the author's delicate sensibilities.

The author dismisses the issue has virtue signaling. I say don't avoid virtue but celebrate it. I don't know if that means covering a statue or facing our past squarely. But celebrate our long struggle for liberty. He calls this self-infatuation and self-despising. It seems like he's really just against celebrating human achievement and admitting our frailties.

Cut these money pit universities from the fiscal teet. Out law foreign money used as a weapon influenceing the subversion of USA. These places are fraudulent at best , ex...In the background is the conviction that we, blessed members of the most enlightened cohort ever to grace the earth with its presence, occupy a moral plane superior to all who came before us. Consequently, the defacement of murals of Christopher Columbus—and statues of later historical figures like Teddy Roosevelt—is perfectly virtuous and above criticism since human beings in the past were by definition so much less enlightened than we.

The English department at the University of Pennsylvania contributed to the monument controversy when it cheered on students who were upset that a portrait of a dead white male named William Shakespeare was hanging in the department’s hallway. The department removed the picture and replaced it with a photograph of Audre Lorde, a black feminist writer.

Thank you for putting this up, AJ. It is a heart breaker, for sure.

I'm reminded of a newsreel from Nazi Germany recording a "book burning" where so many young people took relish in adding to the pile.

Would it be even possible to find a way to preserve the historical record so it may be rediscovered centuries from now after this coming age of madness finally burns itself out?

The issue isn't who is the fool. The issue is a matter of the masses, by sheer numbers, drowning out the voice, liberties and rights of those who know by ignoring and erasing history. Hitler said it most accurately and it is coming to fruition. This is a very serious issue.

"When an opponent declares, “I will not come over to your side,” I calmly say, “Your child belongs to us already… What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.”
Adolf Hitler
Speech November 1933, quoted in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer

Just remember what your mother told you. "You can't defend yourself against gossip and you are a fool if you try. And, I didn't raise any fools."