What we are faced with is truly a unique ideological perspective...And
people complained of the U.S. bombing of Osama bin Laden's headquarters...it
appears these Taliban Islamic militia folks have no interest in human rights
or human forms!  I doubt their work will result in much of a recoverable
archaeological record.

J. Mark Wittkofski
Environmental Specialist II
VDOT
(804) 371-6867
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(My opinion only and not that of my employer.)
 -----Original Message-----
From:   geoff carver [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Friday, March 02, 2001 2:20 PM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Subject:        Re: Taliban Iconoclasm

> We are supposed to be social scientists or historians, observing and
> recording events, and I trust the specialists in Afghan art and
> antiquities will be making a record of the destruction. But would it
> be ethical for professionals in the area of culture history to
> condemn actions of the Afghan rulers? We are not theologians. What
> they are doing is a well-document process in the history of
> extremism, and they are creating an archaeological record that can
> later recover that record.

i thought the leading paradigm these days was preservation "in situ," etc. -
we
are the caretakers for the future - the past isn't ours to destroy, it's an
irreplaceable limited resource -


geoff carver
http://home.t-online.de/home/gcarver/
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