Month: November 2017

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The Steel Stacks

Benjamin’s article, “Theses on the philosophy of History”, discusses the narrative of history and how a story of a culture or community can be present through the remains of a building or town. I found this article very applicable to my steel stacks visit as I believe that by maintaining and re-using the space where the stacks are is an effective way of keeping the history of bethlehem alive.

“History is the subject of a structure whose site is not homogeneous, empty time, but time filled by the presence of the now.” (Benjamin, 261)

I found this quote particularly applicable to the Bethlehem Steel stacks as when I was visiting, I remember reading that the stacks are now dedicated to bringing the arts, family and community events to Bethlehem, and that the site has been reborn through the use of music concerts, and large festivals that are hosted there every year. I was surprised to learn that, during the years the plant was open, before it was permanently closed in 1995, the stacks themselves employed tens of thousands of people, and that the metal they were producing was even used by the US Navy during both World Wars. For me, these facts were crazy to learn, as I had never imagined how important these stacks actually were. My roommate and I have a tradition every year where we go to the “Christkindlmarkt” festival hosted at the Stacks that encompasses lots of local crafts and foods along with live music and art displays. I knew of a vague history behind the Stacks, but until now I had no idea just how important they are to the history of Bethlehem and the impact it had on generations of families. Relating to memory, I think that the town of Bethlehem have done a fantastic job of keeping the memory of this select historical narrative alive: the maintenance of the stacks has allowed for the space to be used by families and events that bring not only the community together but also members from outside of the city in, and this allows for the story to be shared past just the natives of Bethlehem. I believe the best way to make people remember history is through visual cues, and the stacks light up at night and stand out so clearly in the downtown of Bethlehem. 

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9/11 Memorial Museum

Although I was not able to physically go and see the memorial museum, I found the online audio of the tour to be very interesting. That being said, I struggled to keep up with what was being said as I could not physically see what the tour guide was referring too. Because it was often hard to follow what was being referenced, I felt that through this medium it took away the extreme emotional reactions I would have had had I been there in person. This got me to thinking about how I perceive horrible events like 9/11, and the impact that sight has over our other senses in context of memory. Although I could hear what the audio was explaining, I felt detached from the experience, and therefore I struggled to deeply connect with what was happening. However, had I been standing there seeing the pictures and witnessing the sources the museum had, I can only imagine how overwhelmed with emotion I would have been. Is there a difference in the way we not only experience emotion through which sense we are using to understand it, but also does having other people with you influence how your emotions respond? I can imagine that had I been standing in a room full of people listening to someone explain all of the exhibits, hearing the sighs of people next to me and seeing their body language would have brought on even more emotions towards the event, in comparison to if i had been there alone. This thought kept coming back to me during the duration of the audio, and it clearly tied together the concept of “collective memory” and how a society and community of people create a memory that they share with one another.

Bringing my own personal views into this, a question that kept coming to my mind during this assignment was why are we so caught up on one event? Why are humans so focused on the what and not the why? Every event like this is awful, but why are we so content on remembering one event instead of changing our behaviour to not let it happen again?! I fully support memorialising the innocent people who lost their lives, but I feel like we have fallen into this culture that once an event occurs, we make a monument or a memorial and then we move on from it like nothing happened. And the events that are memorialised are only the ones with some sort of political agenda. All over the world every day people are suffering through genocides and civil wars, yet we are so caught up in certain historical pasts that we don’t seem to see the bigger picture: we need to stop hurting each other! We need to stop using these memorials and horrible incidents for political propaganda and focus on the fact that innocent lives are being lost for extremely poor reasons. I am not saying that memorials are bad, I fully support them and love that people want to honour the lives of those who died. However I am tired of these public memorials only being created when it fits into the political realm. We need to stop repeating history!!!!!!!!