I appreciated the points in David Haberstich's email about the importance of
the preservation of historical artifacts and the potential repercussions of
the destruction of vast amounts of such.  I am compelled to contribute my
own view that museums and libraries collections are indeed important (not
simply interesting), and are hopefully viewed by a significant population in
this country that influences our government that they are far more than a
luxury of a prosperous society, and worth continuing to contribute to and
protect throughout the world.

The reason that I think such is that I consider the eminent higher potential
of occurrence of revisionist histories when there are few to no documents
and objects left to serve as proof of events or cultural ways of life and
experiences of such.  Various entities have failed attempts at such
throughout time, especially in regard to issues of race, religion and events
of war often because of human memory necessarily aided by objects and
documentation.

The Holocaust, "stolen generations" of Australia, American Indian history
and culture and various indigenous cultures experiences throughout the
world, racism, what led up to various wars and what really happened, from
all perspectives, technological and medical knowledge (what did we lose with
the burning of the library of Alexandria?) are only a few examples that come
to mind as I contemplate the significance of the looting and burning in
Iraq.  I won't get into the discussion of comparison of human life vs.
shattered pots, even though I realize the thread seems to go there alot. . .
to me it isn't that simple. I don't think that comparisons of value are
really the issue.  I will say though, that to me, a great function of many
museums, be they arts, or history, or science is to educate the public that
does attend, about the past so that we hopefully won't make the same or
similar mistakes in the future!  What about the great old, but still
relevant saying. . . "History repeats itself" and only through our past can
we learn about our future?  When anyone expresses that human life is of more
value than an object, I would certainly agree! But I would quickly add that
an entire collection of objects and documents may prevent far greater loss
of human life, events of genocide further down the road, by influencing
great understanding and appreciation of cultures and world events.
Collections of various nature, be they arts, history, or sciences certainly
have influenced me to aspire to contribute to the museum world as an
educator via the numerous collections and forms of media that we have access
to.

Obviously, if a culture loses much of its reference points within only a
couple to a few generations there is a possibility they may lose reference
to ways of life of their ancestors, parts if not all of their language, not
to mention simply the beautiful and poignant expressions of those who went
before. I believe that there are quite a few examples of these near losses
that have taken decades if not centuries, to recover parts of but I won't go
into those here, because of course everyone on this list is aware of various
examples themselves.

I, for one do not look forward to life in a regressive or sustenance
society, due to severe cuts to the arts and education budgets.  (I realize
it won't be quite "sustenance", but close enough).  I feel that we should
continue the battle to prove our importance, value and worth (as so many
museum professionals indeed are) as cultural and arts and science education
institutions in a society that is rapidly losing the scope, becoming more
and more myopic in its vision and prioritization in, for example military
vs. education, healthcare, and general quality of life.  One of the great
things about life here and now is the ability to learn about the world via
the  experiences of the arts, films, education in interesting ways such as
exhibits.

Just one more point, I can't resist. . .  re: dogs don't have theatre or
museums. . . that's cute, and I love dogs very much, so no disrespect to
them, but I thought that it has been scientifically proven that we're at a
higher level intellectually and technologically and culturally than they.
Perhaps not.  Dogs don't have to work, or go to war either, so perhaps a
dog's life would be just the thing.

Cindy Collins

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