Egalitarian does not mean not needing leaders.
Other social species vary in how leadership is realised.
What seems to be unique to humans is democracy which, with one person one vote, is supposed to give an egalitarian way of electing leaders. Just many elected ( and non-elected) leaders have a problem recognising when their best by date has been reached.
Not sure who is doing any leading in the USA at the moment - certainly not Trump.
Conspiracy theories about ANTIFA are just that, conspiracy theories. The people that I have read about identifying with ANTIFA seem quite level-headed democrats to me, only in the USA could they be branded terrorists.
The loony left and the loony right have much in common - as is seen by the Bugaloo who don't seem quite sure where they are - probably all on acid.

It's complete madness ...
We want to remember history and teach our kids that some things that happened in the past were wrong and shouldn't be repeated..

What next, libraries? Burn the history books?

Statues venerate people. Taking down a statue doesn't erase history - you can't erase history - it merely acknowledges that the recipient of the statue is not worthy of veneration.

Realistically, I think this probably means most if not all statues to people on public land should be removed - very few people lead blameless lives.

You want a statue of Stalin in your back garden, go ahead, but in public we can celebrate the pure achievements of people (and the people that helped them) without celebrating every facet of said person's character.

BBC and Netflix have just dropped Little Britain (BBC TV comedy series) because of its racial content.

The pendulum is swinging quickly and dangerously...

Yes, we are by nature egalitarian, but it is not the only thing inside us. The egalitarian impulse has to compete with other ones.

Most people is disgusted by inequality, albeit if to reduce inequality our self-interest is affected we're not so keen to reduce inequality. We have an egalitarian Vs self-preservation conflict.

Great solution, all statues to people should be removed to appease the feelings of a minority of irrational narcissists! I hope your realise that toppling of every single statue that has hurt peoples feelings will make not a single difference to daily grievance signalling.

And Gone with the Wind! This is how ISIS behave

You may call the descendants of slaves irrational narcissists, I wouldn't be so crass.

ISIS consider the feelings of their subscribers before removing potentially offensive material? Crikey, they are more civilised than everyone tells you, aren't they?

I get that .. But times change, what was acceptable tens, hundreds, thousands of years ago may not be acceptable now, we can't make them go away..

The ancient Egyptians were huge slave traders, should we knock down the pyramids? I mean nowadays we marvel at their achievements but they got there using slaves..

Where does it go next?

Egalitarian does not mean not needing leaders.
Other social species vary in how leadership is realised.
What seems to be unique to humans is democracy which, with one person one vote, is supposed to give an egalitarian way of electing leaders. Just many elected ( and non-elected) leaders have a problem recognising when their best by date has been reached.
Not sure who is doing any leading in the USA at the moment - certainly not Trump.
Conspiracy theories about ANTIFA are just that, conspiracy theories. The people that I have read about identifying with ANTIFA seem quite level-headed democrats to me, only in the USA could they be branded terrorists.
The loony left and the loony right have much in common - as is seen by the Bugaloo who don't seem quite sure where they are - probably all on acid.

Unless your blood runs pure blue, I'm willing to bet that you are also descended from slaves or serfs, as are the vast majority of people in Europe!

I think the practicality of knocking down the pyramids probably makes it impractical, unlike a statue.

The issue here for me is education though. If we take an example closer to home, I think it might illustrate the point.

Probably (imho) the most beautiful building in Europe would be il Duomo in Florence. We know this was built off the back of slavery, oppression, dodgy money, etc etc. So what do you do? Knock it down now that societal mores have changed? That would be a tragedy and a slap in the face to all that contributed to its building.

I would say for something of that magnitude and grandeur (that isn't venerating one person) the best solution as mentioned before, is education.

Make sure there is literature informing people of how it was built, who was subjugated in the process - an honest appraisal of how such a grand building was built.

Pyramids are obviously trickier, as they do venerate single people, but they are of course also a monumental achievement of the age. I suppose again the answer is education, saying these are greatly impressive, but let us not lose sight of the way in which they were constructed.

Statues are a far easier concept. They belong in museums, not in public and it is easy to move them, so there shouldn't be too much debate.

Thank you for making my point for me. We are probably all somewhat related to slavery of some kind, so a statue honouring an exponent of it should be abhorrent to us all.

Not at all, because these people should be judged within the framework of the age in which they lived. Agonising over societal crimes of the past is just a waste of time.

Hitler died 75 years ago and made wonderful motorways. Should we get a statue of him up on the M1 as a tribute to this?

And you say that taking down statues is erasing history. Well well, what a knot you've tied yourself in.

Wow, you played the Hitler card already after 6 posts. Must be a record.

We have education now though? I think there's no doubt that all forms of education in our lifetimes have taught us that what happened back then is not acceptable now?

I really don't think that any person alive now stands in front of one of these statues saying what a great guy, he was a great slave trader, let's celebrate his achievements.

We don't go to the Colosseum in Rome and think wow, it was so cool that slaves were thrown to the lions in here. We thank goodness we're moved on.

To me, the movement we're seeing now has lost sight of the target and is just fighting anything .. I don't see any concise demand for what they actually want now?
Equality? Well that's been enshrined in law since many years..What else to do other than positive discrimination?
Representation? People Vote for that, they chose Trump over Obama.

It's rather messy

So there's something of a silver lining then.

Among other things. Personally I never thought it was funny, but it was certainly cruel, even stereotyping LGBT people in a not-exactly-sympathetic way.

A lot of comedy from that period, and I include things like The Office in this, rely on a huge cringe factor to get laughs, which I always thought was deplorable from a comedy perspective (i.e. not actually funny) and it seemed for a while that taking the piss out of any particular group was deemed OK as long as the writers or performers were part of said group. It wasn't.

It took two posts for someone to invoke Godwin, must be a record too.

Shutting down any mention of Hitler is utterly boring and lacking intellectual rigour, please make a valid point, not just internet lols 101.

I wasn't aware that Trump ran against Obama.

If it has been enshrined in law (sort of) for many years, then why is the society, its lawmaking and policing still so unequal?

The movement of black people and their comrades taking to the streets to protest a(nother) unlawful killing clearly has a target - that this stops. I don't think I saw a single black person in the crowd of people who threw the statue in the bay - that's not to say they don't agree with it, but it clearly wasn't instigated by them so blaming them for it seems a bit off.

If he'd have stuck to building motorways instead of starting World Wars then perhaps. He killed 6 million, an abhorrent crime for any age and certainly the age in which he lived.

And enslaving people wasn't an abhorrent crime, no matter which age we talk about?