No more heroes, anymore

[davywavy]

There'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]

Comments

[astartesyriaca.livejournal.com]

No great public sculpture of our heroes?! But what about Kate Moss displaying her vag in front of the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum?! What would we do without Mark Quinn!

-Your friendly neighborhood (19th c. British) Art Historian

[riksowden.livejournal.com]

Eh?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

He made a solid gold statue of Kate Moss in a compromising yoga position, which was displayed (as it were) in the British Museum.

[riksowden.livejournal.com]

Somehow i missed the news of that...can't say that i feel saddened by having missed it though! Sounds very tasteful. Guv.

[astartesyriaca.livejournal.com]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7585440.stm

Juxtaposed with the Parthenon frieze, it was the perfect setting to show just how ridiculous and shallow this work really is.

[riksowden.livejournal.com]

Well...yes...

Though, in several dozen centuries maybe people will look at this statue and say the same thing about whatever is displayed alongside?

[godzuki.livejournal.com]

Its more like people dont think of raising statues to celebrate someone id say, I mean the only people I can think of with statues in recent times are Saddam Hussein, I think the whole statue business has a bad rap these days, especially in the UK where forming a mob to destroy them is less popular these days.

Now you put them on Im a Celebrity, get me out of here to honor them.

Id like to see an episode of that with Churchill, Lenin and Napoleon.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

When did the statue of Emily get put up? I bet the people deciding where it should go were male. (Not trying to malign all males here. Just.... OK, most of them. Most them then.)

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

1928, about 6 months after she died.

[tooth-fairy.livejournal.com]

I reckon that if you asked most women nowadays a lot of them would have no idea who the Pankhursts were, sadly. Maybe we collectively have forgotten where we have come from, take how lucky we are for granted and therefore don't honour who got us to where we are...where as we look across as Africa and as it is happening presently it seems more real to us. I don't think it's right but it seems to be the way of things. Today's heroes are the winners of X-Factor not the winners of human rights.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Is this the Manchester statue you mean?

It's odd, isn't it? I guess it's a case of wanting to be more global so statues of international heroes are put up while the country's own are forgotten.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

It may well be. I think he's in the Town Hall square.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

That's where I took that photo.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Looks like the fellow then. Apparently he worked for years improving the sanitation of the city or something similar, thereby saving many lives.

[dmwcarol.livejournal.com]

I think Nelson Mandela is probably more useful as a statue due to how recent the events he was involved in happened. Pankhurst's message is less powerful because most people have forgotten who she is and these days most people consider feminism and calls for gender equality as a bit of a pain because it's no longer anywhere near as much of an issue (I'm not saying gender equality is totally sorted, just that being a feminist is no longer the same as it was). Racism hasn't made the same amount of progress, the extremes are still living memory, that someone who is still alive can be part of making such a big political change means that there is no reason why other people alive now can't do the same.

[lexx-uk.livejournal.com]

I want to see a statue of Maggie there compleate with Lazer eyes and walloping action handbag!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I think we should build a Statue of Maggie, in much the same way the grateful citizens of Mega City One raised the Statue of Judgement:

[lexx-uk.livejournal.com]

But it would still have to have the laser eyes.......just think of the Wallop action......you could take out whole districts of socalists.

[(Anonymous)]

Definitely all for this! And should anyone try to lop the head off the statue this time, he would be beheaded on the spot.

But no more statues of heroes? Pah! Bow down and worship at the statue of a god...
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/park/yfh45/prestontomfin.htm
http://www.flickr.com/photos/norbet/sets/72157609843969802/

[(Anonymous)]

I had a half idea that the new Royal Yatch should be paid for by public subscription: as Gordon doesn't think the pupulace should be coerced into buying HM a new boat, it should be voluntary.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I'd chip in a tenner.

[(Anonymous)]

I reckon most decent folks would. I reckon any incoming administration should stick a commitment to funding a new Royal Yatch through public subscription on their manifesto.

[morgan303.livejournal.com]

I'm voting Pankhurst, 'cos I'm related to her, and I want to bathe in the reflected glory. That and she was damn cool.

I think Thatcher deserves a statue for having inspired some of the best protest art, music and literature that's come out of Britain. It should have a plaque that reads "Margaret Hilda "Milk Snatcher" Thatcher, British Prime Minister 1979-90. If she wasn't such a c**t, you wouldn't have The Clash, The Jam, or Vertigo Comics."

[akcipitrokulo.livejournal.com]

I like the one of Donald Dewar in Buchanan Streeet - it was fairly recelty put up & is in a central location.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Not bad, but it should have been of Marshal Wade ;)

[(Anonymous)]

I know why you suggest "Rebellious Scots to crush" Wade, but I'd choose the Duke of Cumberland. :-)

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

And you are?

[(Anonymous)]

A random passing blog reader who can't be arsed opening an LJ account.

V

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Not that random if you know my name.

[mrmmarc.livejournal.com]

the answer you are looking for is rather complex- and one of my tedious little rants of late... but simply (without me going on and on providing evidence)...

Until around World War One our society was class based.
The merit of a person was mostly (but not exclusively) based on birth.
By extension, there was a natural tendency to place people within a social order- some people led and some people followed.
All well and good
(this is a painful simplification i admit but its just an overview).
Post World War One and post World War Two especially- we the British people began to reject the class system.
It was seen as unfair that ANYONE should be consider better than anyone else because of their birth.
And they are right. Goodbye the prerogative of birth!
HOWEVER- this has now manifest itself into one of the defining psychosis of our era.
As we can giggle at the Victorians with their latent barely suppressed sexuality, so our grand children will piss themselves at the pitiful neurosis we have in the modern times...
We HATE experts.
We cannot stand them.
They scare us.
NO ONE is allowed to be better than us. Anyone so much as hints at it and we get all upset and attack them.
We find a brilliant sports person- we must mock their fashion sense/sexual partner/brain power.
We MUST attack anyone who is GOOD at anything.
We will accept they are good at the one thing we acknowledge but we MUST insist they are shite at everything else.
Its what we do.
We do not want a talented musician to storm the charts. We want one of us.
We watch reality TV shows and imagine its us up there.
LUCK has become the way we imagine social betterment ("When i win the lottery..."- no one today says "When i work my way up from the post room!").
We reject a meritocracy because saying the BEST will get the reward robs us of our pipe dream.
How dare you say ANYONE is best?
At anything.
They cannot be best- otherwise I have to be best and that invalidates 'It could be me'.
Which is why we have ASBO's. Cos people feel they are equal. No need to OBEY anyone.
its why we have celebrity culture- cos we STILL wish to have heroes and emulate them- but our egos are so fragile now and we are so convinced that it hurts us that we get all defensive over it.

I could go into lots of detail (and bore ya witless).
But lets face it- right now, if Winston Churchill came to power- our society would not give him a state funeral.
We hates it.
Well, we WOULD provided he pretend to be opne of "us!" a normal person plucked out by luck. We LOVE normal people plucked out by luck (which is why a totally spoilt little rich gal with good media savvy can become seen by the working class as their 'Queen of Hearts').

We will grow out of it.

Someday.

(file under 'ranty')
Now excuse me while I go write to the Mail about this and how young people are all evil!

[(Anonymous)]

This is an interesting rant and there is much to agree with. But isn't it the case that - truely exceptional individuals aside - each generation will always tend to gravitate towards what they are familiar with: peers they are socially comfortable with and jobs "people like us" do? Perhaps going up or down a step or two depending on how much effort they put in?

Also it is impressive, Eddie, how your "other factors" slinkily brings back the shade of Ms Pankhurst (daughter of rich merchant, married barrister, died a Tory). Standard issue feminists would never stand for the idea of a parent remaining at home to bring up the children.

D

[(Anonymous)]

Um, I was agreeing with you.