Symbols as representational images matter. Whether casted as monuments, flags, currencies, or other icons of the nation-state, they shape perceptions of who we were and who we now claim to be. They always speak to us, because they are co-defendants in the myths upon which our lives (r)evolve, rotating like that caged hamster on the wheel. Symbols keep us on that wheel, as if we have a real stake in “our democracy,” the democracy that dispossesses those who cry out its name. Symbols matter because even if the hamster in us wants to get off the wheel, realizing its energies are spent to remain in place, there’s the cage.

Scientists believe hamsters are born to run, that they truly enjoy running. And so the hamster returns to the wheel because motion is the symbol of progress. Monuments, statutes, and the like are traps, placing us on a wheel where we might think their symbolic toppling or erection marks progress, that it sets something called freedom in motion, that participating in their removal or replacement means we’re finally on that yellow brick road to “free at last”—we want to believe this lap in a five-century race is different.

I think we are mistaken to believe a war with monuments is a substitute for war with the myths and power platforms animating K-12 and college curricula, media and museums, and the decrees for work, policies, politics, and economic life. I think this scuffle is the symptom and failure of postmodernism and its sibling critical theory: they criticize, even show contradictions (so to profit from them), but they have neither a plan nor workable vision. They live in and for the moment, for the performance. Their ideology nourishes so-called movements, fake attempts called reforms, and calls for change—the emptiest of all catch-all terms.

I think most of us don’t really believe we can win. And so we yield to the hamster in us, get back on that wheel, and feel good about the chatter of change and the monumental symbols of progress.