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No more heroes, anymore
Nov. 25th, 2008 09:48 amThere's a statue in the middle of Manchester; I can't remember the name on it but it's of some solid mid-Victorian burgher, all muttonchop whiskers and watch chain, and on the plinth it reads "Raised by public subscription by the grateful people of the city".
It's something which strikes me every time I walk past it: when was the last time I saw a statue raised from public subscription by a grateful citizenry in this country? Possibly the one of Churchill was, but I'm stumped to think of this happening even in the last fifty years. It's like we don't have any more heroes, and I think that's a very sad thing - humanity is aspirational, and without aspitational role models, what are we?
I don't think that the world produces fewer great people and I don't think that as a race humanity has become 'smaller' in the last century. However, I do think that we have been diminished by an intrusive media: it is easier for our heroes to be revealed by investigative reporting as mere mortals and let's face it, if you've been playing hide the sausage on the sly with your neighbour then there won't be any statues of you put up no matter what great deeds you've done. Our standards of heroism have become unrealistic.
It was with this in mind that I wandered to Parliament Square the other day to see the statue of Nelson Mandela which the government put up a few years ago. It's one of those modern-style bronze casts with bits sticking out all over it. I suspect this sculpting style is supposed to make the statue look full of life, but in reality it just looks unfinished. Mandela was locked up and kept in solitary confinement by the South African government for many years for the cause of universal emancipation, and I was touched that a statue should be put up to him so many miles from his homeland.
However, as I wandered off along the Thames I passed through Victoria Tower Gardens where, tucked away in a corner and utterly unremarked, is a statue of Emily Pankhurst and that really made me wonder whose statue really should be in Parliament Square? Pankhurst was imprisoned, kept in solitary and force fed when she campaigned for the emancipation of 52% of the population of this country. The New York Herald Tribune called her "the most remarkable political and social agitator of the early part of the twentieth century and the supreme protagonist of the campaign for the electoral enfranchisement of women", and yet it is not her who is honoured in front of the building where, without her, it is likely that half the population of the UK would have waited a lot longer to decide who could sit in it.
Whilst it's very noble for us to honour foreign dignitaries, it almost feels like we're embarrassed to do the same for our own and instead we tuck them away in a corner. I dunno about you, but this felt...wrong, somehow.
But I might be wrong. I sometimes am. What do you reckon?
[Poll #1303905]
It's something which strikes me every time I walk past it: when was the last time I saw a statue raised from public subscription by a grateful citizenry in this country? Possibly the one of Churchill was, but I'm stumped to think of this happening even in the last fifty years. It's like we don't have any more heroes, and I think that's a very sad thing - humanity is aspirational, and without aspitational role models, what are we?
I don't think that the world produces fewer great people and I don't think that as a race humanity has become 'smaller' in the last century. However, I do think that we have been diminished by an intrusive media: it is easier for our heroes to be revealed by investigative reporting as mere mortals and let's face it, if you've been playing hide the sausage on the sly with your neighbour then there won't be any statues of you put up no matter what great deeds you've done. Our standards of heroism have become unrealistic.
It was with this in mind that I wandered to Parliament Square the other day to see the statue of Nelson Mandela which the government put up a few years ago. It's one of those modern-style bronze casts with bits sticking out all over it. I suspect this sculpting style is supposed to make the statue look full of life, but in reality it just looks unfinished. Mandela was locked up and kept in solitary confinement by the South African government for many years for the cause of universal emancipation, and I was touched that a statue should be put up to him so many miles from his homeland.
However, as I wandered off along the Thames I passed through Victoria Tower Gardens where, tucked away in a corner and utterly unremarked, is a statue of Emily Pankhurst and that really made me wonder whose statue really should be in Parliament Square? Pankhurst was imprisoned, kept in solitary and force fed when she campaigned for the emancipation of 52% of the population of this country. The New York Herald Tribune called her "the most remarkable political and social agitator of the early part of the twentieth century and the supreme protagonist of the campaign for the electoral enfranchisement of women", and yet it is not her who is honoured in front of the building where, without her, it is likely that half the population of the UK would have waited a lot longer to decide who could sit in it.
Whilst it's very noble for us to honour foreign dignitaries, it almost feels like we're embarrassed to do the same for our own and instead we tuck them away in a corner. I dunno about you, but this felt...wrong, somehow.
But I might be wrong. I sometimes am. What do you reckon?
[Poll #1303905]
