Moving places: A comment on the traveling Vietnam Memorial

Recently my University, along with various other local sponsors, brought “The Moving Wall” to our campus. Much ado was made over this traveling fold-up replica of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC. Speakers were invited, visitors  ocked to “The Wall,” and there was much weeping, remembering, and patriotic  ag-waving. Strangely, however, there was something wrong, something unsettling, or as I might say, something “out of place,” about all of this. My friend and colleague (Professor R. Taylor Scott), sensing this before I did, was more than a little upset over the theatrics of this wall-replica. He in fact thought this propped-up hollow movie set mock-up of the real monument in Washington was nothing less than a desecration. To his sensibility, something was deeply troubling about the assumption that lay behind this event. That assumption is that we can uproot at will a truly sacred place, a place that is truly moving, and without desecrating it, simply set a replica of it down wherever some group (who is willing to pay) wants it. (I do not mean to suggest that “The Moving Wall” is simply a money making scheme. But then again, I do not know that it is not. In a country in which everything is for sale, perhaps our sacred monuments have their price too. I add that there are at least seven of these traveling shows touring the country at a cost of several thousands dollars per engagement.) As my colleague thought of it, something important, something vital, was lost when that grooved-out, grave-like place in the Mall in our nation’s capital was turned into a traveling circus. To express his reservations about these matters, Professor Scott wrote a guest column in the local newspaper, one of the sponsors that brought “The Wall” to town. Reluctantly, and with biting editorial comment, the paper published his essay and invited the public to respond. And respond they did, with a vengeance. My friend actually began to fear for his life. The public was outraged that a local Professor (of Religion no less, and an Episcopal cleric to boot) would deign to criticize such a symbol of American heroism. One might as well call apple pie and the  ag into question. Disappointingly, to me and to him, was the fact that the  ood of local letters of response to the Editor, almost all of which supported “The Wall,” did not see any point in my colleague’s objection to it. Being against the wall, so to speak, and feeling a bit alone, Taylor sought me out