Several years ago, I voyaged to Europe to backpack there like all good SWPLs. What? Did I just call myself a SWPL? Well – did you really not perceive that I dislike SWPLism so strongly because I have, superficially, too much in common with it? There’s a future post in this, I’m sure.
Anyway, being a young naif at the time, I received in Budapest one of my first lessons on inter-ethnic advantage-taking. On the street, a grandmotherly old Gypsy lady sweet-talked me into paying an exorbitant fee for a pashmina scarf, which I dutifully bought as a Christmas present for my mother. As I began to walk away, the vendor chased after me, hawking another scarf just like the first for the Hungarian equivalent of five dollars. It was no great feat of cortical acumen to perceive that if she could sell the thing for five dollars and still earn a profit, then she must have made an absolute killing off me the first time.
Consequently, my jaw sort of dropped. Did this lady think I was stupid? I couldn’t get over her audacity. Surely she realized (a) that I was going to figure out that I’d been scammed, and (b) that I might possibly become angry or embarrassed as a result.
I’m certainly not going to want to buy anything from her again once it dawns on me that I was bamboozled the first time, thought I.
But she didn’t seem to care. And I don’t want to read too much into this event: partly, undoubtedly, this was simply a lady with a lousy job trying to make the most of things. Unscrupulous commerce is probably the second or third-oldest profession – indeed, do you how many synonyms there are for “swindled”? Perhaps the most I’ve ever seen for any word. That probably says a lot about human nature. And merchants out for a quick buck are equal-opportunity deceivers…
… well, in fact, I don’t think they are. Tribalism rules the hearts of men from here to Timbuktu, and ethnic favouritism occurs almost everywhere. I’ve had native Central Americans offer me bruised, half-mashed fruit when I knew perfectly well that they had better quality stuff squirreled away for their kinsmen. I’ve seen an Indian bus driver charge a higher fare to a boy than to his darker-skinned sister because the boy “looked white” and the girl didn’t. They were brother and sister. Yes, our vendor-lady was just trying to make some money, but more than that, she understood that in the year 199x-200x, nobody ever went broke taking advantage of white Westerners, because white Westerners put up with being taking advantage of. White people will roll over and take it, a fact known by European street merchants as surely as by La Raza activists, mad Iranian despots, and anyone else with aught to gain by manipulating the West.
In all likelihood the pashmina was machine-crafted in China to begin with. Oh, well. My mother ended up with a nice scarf in the end, and I suppose that’s what really mattered.
Anyhow: the purpose of this post is to introduce you to Heroes’ Square in Budapest. Unfortunately, much as I would like to make it personal, I cannot post any of my own pictures since they were lost in a catastrophic computer accident involving Linux and unbridled enthusiasm. But here are some photos from online:
If I could reverse any one of the modern political stereotypes, it might be this: conservatism need not imply prole culture, and conversely art need not be something associated with Starbucks urbanites. Art is beautiful for its own sake, and every man should appreciate this. The dichotomy between “neanderthal” and “refined” interests is false.
So look at the scene. Stunning, isn’t it? It appears like something out of legend. Solemn respect; unabashed celebration; heritage; patriarchal leadership; fearsome martial virtue; religious piety – all present, in sculpture form. From Wiki, the list of heroes represented:
Stephen I of Hungary
Heroes’ Square was constructed at the close of the Victorian era, before the Western cultural imagination was forever scarred by the excesses of the 20th century. And indeed, we would never create the same thing today. Firstly, as Laura Wood and friends have remarked, modernity is marked by ugliness and utility. Some time ago, on one site or other I read a discussion about the ugly churches being built these days. I need not go into it; you’ve seen them. (Well, here‘s one. Launder your brain afterwards.) Where is the ethereal beauty?
But that’s not the main reason we couldn’t erect those statues today. Such a pièce de résistance is unthinkable today because we no longer have any common cultural heroes, and that is because we no longer share a dominant cultural narrative. Whom would we sculpt and exalt? The only figures “acceptable” to everybody are bland toadies of the current establishment who are actually uninspiring to everyone. Traditional pride and valour are verboten, tainted by the legacy of 20th-century fascism, and in any event there’s no “tradition” to “celebrate” in a culture composed of disparate, unrelated peoples. And how would the figures appear in a modern monument? What poses, what actions would they adopt? In today’s climate of sloth and tepid masculinity, can we really envision statues of towering, patriarchal warrior-priests leading the people to greatness? Not likely.
Anyone hankering for a larger-than-life bas-relief entitled “The Sons and Daughters of Wal-Mart”?
How about this:
http://media3.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/2008/05/08/PH2008050803507.jpg
What? You don’t worship the King?
Heh.
And it may be worth noting that my views on race are complex, not least because they are informed by my Christian faith. So I do in fact think the Rev. King accomplished some good things in his life. Still, I daresay that today, to a lot of whites, a statue of him is symbolic of guilt, fueling social division. Not a figure that connotes pride or inspiration, at least to whites.
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I’ve thought about this quite a bit. Somehow those weird angular bits that pass for sculpture nowadays aren’t as inspiring as men on horseback wielding swords, are they? The only modern sculpture I liked was the iron hemoglobin molecule that rusted. It’s a lot niftier if you know a little chemistry.
As for Sons and Daughters of Walmart, they’ve got Botero’s Brobidgnagian bronzes in the atrium of the Columbus Circle shopping center (NYC), so you may not be too far off.