lesson: iconoclasm.

i learned some really interesting shit today ya'll. in my history of art and visual culture class. sooo legit. so basically, iconoclasm is when people go and destroy something beautiful. (haha fight club ref.) k no but in all seriousness, it's when people destroy something that represents a certain belief, or institution (like churches), or established values and practices. and the reasons people do it range from religious purposes to political purposes to being assholes. so the pictured is this giant buddha in afghanistan. and its like GIANT. like miles high and shit. so basically, first this group of rowdy muslims chipped off it's eyes right. so basically it had no face, but it was still there standing. and they were doing it for religious purposes. cuz buddha isn't muslim ya'll. so then later later, the taliban took over. and they knew that this giant buddha was important and the western culture (that's us americans) appreciate shit like that. so they were like, oh hey we're going to destroy this giant buddha...unless you wanna saaaaave itttttt. so basically they were trying to get money from us. but obviously no one was going to give the taliban money. and THEN! the getty musuem (HAHAHA DAD!) was like, alright we'll buy the giant buddha for a million dollars, but we aren't giving the taliban the money we have to give it to someone else who owns it or whatever. and the taliban was like, no WAY getty musuem. this be OUR giant buddha. we get the money or the buddha is history. and so then no one was gonna fucking actually go through and give the goddamn taliban money for a giant buddha in af(fucking)ghanistan. so them niggas blew that shit up. and this was all in fucking 2001! before 9/11 ya'll. march 10th to be exact was when it was blown to smithereenz. i just checked my notez. hehehez. ANYWAY, i thought it was cool. and people here were like fucking appalled and shit that the giant buddha was destroyed. but the buddhists didn't give a fuck. because it isn't very buddhist to me like, OMG YOU DESTROYED OUR BUDDHA HOW DARE YOU. you know? and well that's my small lesson on iconoclasm.
ok no there's one more example that was really crazy that i wanna share. there was this king right. named Severus (not Snape although that'd be legit) during ancient roman empire times. and he had two sons. caracalla and geta. so the king's like dream was for the son's to rule the empire together when he died. so when he died, they did rule together, but only for a little bit. because each of them wanted to be the king alone. so fucking caracalla MURDERS his brother geta. and then his crazy ass is like, geta will SO NOT exist in the roman empire anymore in any way shape or form. so basically, in a form of iconoclasm, he had everything associated with geta erased. so statues, paintings, books, manuscripts, EVERYTHING that mentioned geta or had a representation of geta was completely destroyed. it was called "damnatio memoriae" meaning damnation of memory (like you couldn't figure that out). in the picture was geta and caracalla, but after caracalla did his shady business of murdering his own goddamn brother, he had them remove geta and just leave his fat head there. isn't that fucking crazy?!!?!?!? i thought it was cool. and THAT is my story, the end.