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Harvard University removes human skin binding from book

library.harvard.edu

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Re: Harvard University removes human skin binding from book

#51

Post by kome »

isodev wrote: post #39

I don't understand some of the comments wanting to preserve "history". If you read the post you will find that it was the book's first owner who decided to alter the book and it's not the original work. So what's your point, we should glorify some sick mind who thought it was a good idea to take and use human remains to decorate his library? Removing the binding from the book was the right decision. Returning the vic…

Custodians are not supposed to destroy what is in their care. This is not about the book, this is about the artefact. The time, the reasons, the history behind it. If that is how it came to us, and that is how it has been preserved, then there is no point in changing it. They could have written their reservations, taken the opportunity to do some ethical pedagogy about it (by far not the only artefact made of human skin, by the way), contextualised it, explained it. But to destroy it? Totally unjustifiable decision.

Re: Harvard University removes human skin binding from book

#52

Post by mjburgess »

ethbr1 wrote: post #22
mjburgess wrote: post #9

I fear we've elevated 'consent' to absurd proportions. Every country in the world was built by those who didn't consent to build it (by serfdom, slavery, ..). I hope this is preserved; what a pointless waste otherwise. How are we to imagine the deceased here? A person outraged at the insult, or one now doubly outraged at the waste?

I don't consider myself much concerned with my body after death. But I'd feel some kind of way if someone flayed my skin off my cadaver to make a book cover. Even being a skeleton in an anatomy class seems more purposeful.

How would you feel if after a century of your skin being on a book, that was then 'disposed of'?

This 'disposing' isnt being consented to either. Why should it be that non-consentual creation is a sin, but not non-consentual destruction?

Re: Harvard University removes human skin binding from book

#53

Post by password54321 »

isodev wrote: post #39

I don't understand some of the comments wanting to preserve "history". If you read the post you will find that it was the book's first owner who decided to alter the book and it's not the original work. So what's your point, we should glorify some sick mind who thought it was a good idea to take and use human remains to decorate his library? Removing the binding from the book was the right decision. Returning the vic…

[flagged]

Re: Harvard University removes human skin binding from book

#54

Post by mc32 »

torstenvl wrote: post #12

Absolutely indefensible position. Destroying artifacts and evidence of the past simply because we don't agree with what happened in the past is a vile sin that our descendants will never forgive us for.

Would it be okay if the skin, instead of being from an anonymous hospital patient it were from Abe Lincoln, or Sitting Bull, Mahatma Gandhi or Susan B Anthony?

Re: Harvard University removes human skin binding from book

#55

Post by devnullbrain »

stared wrote: post #42
bxksnche wrote: post #27

We are talking about human remains here. If this was the skin of your grandmother’s grandmother, how would your grandmother feel about it being used a hazing ritual? Using the balance of probabilities it is likely that the unidentified person’s family would not want that to happen and is likely they would want their grandmother back. This being a woman is only relevant because, in that era it was more likely to be a…

So, the solution is to remove it from public access so it cannot be used in disrespectful practices. Not to destroy the artifact. Especially not by a university or any institution supposedly preserving knowledge and culture. (And yes, most of human history is nasty.)

It's a strange warping of preservation that means you'd rather the book be inaccessible but complete than accessible but complete in content.

Re: Harvard University removes human skin binding from book

#56

Post by stetrain »

kome wrote: post #20
torstenvl wrote: post #12

Absolutely indefensible position. Destroying artifacts and evidence of the past simply because we don't agree with what happened in the past is a vile sin that our descendants will never forgive us for.

I agree, destruction of important heritage with absolutely ridiculous claims. Taliban level shit.

If one were to slice the ear off of a dead body, mount it, and frame it on their wall, at what point does it stop being gross evidence of a crime and start becoming an important historical artifact and part of our heritage?

How many months, how many years? Does it matter if the person who did it is a respected scholar or a convicted serial killer?

Re: Harvard University removes human skin binding from book

#57

Post by astura »

torstenvl wrote: post #40
isodev wrote: post #39

I don't understand some of the comments wanting to preserve "history". If you read the post you will find that it was the book's first owner who decided to alter the book and it's not the original work. So what's your point, we should glorify some sick mind who thought it was a good idea to take and use human remains to decorate his library? Removing the binding from the book was the right decision. Returning the vic…

Don't make personal attacks on HN. If you have an argument, feel free to voice it, even strenuously, but it's considered gauche here to address people who disagree with you directly and comment on them or their personal motives.

Expressing an opinion you disagree with isn't a "personal attack."

Re: Harvard University removes human skin binding from book

#58

Post by chabes »

mjburgess wrote: post #52
ethbr1 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't consider myself much concerned with my body after death. But I'd feel some kind of way if someone flayed my skin off my cadaver to make a book cover. Even being a skeleton in an anatomy class seems more purposeful.

How would you feel if after a century of your skin being on a book, that was then 'disposed of'? This 'disposing' isnt being consented to either. Why should it be that non-consentual creation is a sin, but not non-consentual destruction?

But that’s not what happened or is happening with the skin.

Re: Harvard University removes human skin binding from book

#59

Post by torstenvl »

devnullbrain wrote: post #55
stared wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, the solution is to remove it from public access so it cannot be used in disrespectful practices. Not to destroy the artifact. Especially not by a university or any institution supposedly preserving knowledge and culture. (And yes, most of human history is nasty.)

It's a strange warping of preservation that means you'd rather the book be inaccessible but complete than accessible but complete in content.

It isn't a strange warping of preservation, it's EXACTLY what preservation means. Destruction is always and everywhere the opposite of preservation.

Re: Harvard University removes human skin binding from book

#60

Post by mablopoule »

isodev wrote: post #39

I don't understand some of the comments wanting to preserve "history". If you read the post you will find that it was the book's first owner who decided to alter the book and it's not the original work. So what's your point, we should glorify some sick mind who thought it was a good idea to take and use human remains to decorate his library? Removing the binding from the book was the right decision. Returning the vic…

Because it's a fundamentally historicidal act, it's destroying some past artifact solely on the ground of contemporary morality.

While not on the same level as, it's the same though process that leads to the destruction of budda statues by the talibans, or the sanding of 13-century religious engravelling by french revolutionary.

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