Self-serving Sophistry

Louise Richardson, vice chancellor of Oxford, has defended racist statues. She insists that "the views of the past had to be seen in the context of the time."

She defended Cecil Rhodes on the grounds that Imperialism was a popular view in his day.. Popular with whom? With those who benefitted from Imperialism or those who suffered?

Her arguments are difficult to distinguish from self-serving sophistry. We need statues of slavers so that we remember slavery? That is a bit like saying we need a statue of Hitler to remember the holocaust.

Professor Richardson has no plans for a Hitler statue in Oxford as yet.