Conservation, Narratives, and Identity
Erich Hatala Matthes:
…we need to remember that an explanation of the relationship between our sense of self and the motivation to conserve is not necessarily a justification of it. We need to first ask if the identify in question is worth preserving. It may well be that white supremacists feel the need to conserve public symbols of the Confederacy due to a felt erosion of their identity — the link between identity preservation and object conservation helps explain their motivation. But that on its own doesn’t justify such conservation. For a justification, we need to look to the broader moral and political significance of the identity in question. What we save in public (and with public funds) is especially important in this regard. It shapes the story we’re telling about what society should care about. Conservation is not only guided by narrative considerations, but it also generates narratives, and the values reinforced by those narratives can become embedded in the landscape
What to Save and Why, p. 88