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I'm sensitive to the family's thoughts and wishes, but I personally love this design. I think Ike is a great American hero who should never be forgotten by the nation. I think what makes him so great is that he never lost his sense of himself as a barefoot farmboy with a lot of potentional.
I don't usually glorify the past or look to it as some golden age, but I think Ike is definitely a man of his time, and the time he represents was simpler and purer. The America that Ike grew up in was not the global, titantic force that it became in his adulthood. It was a simpler nation with fewer pretentions. It was a rural land filled with people who believed if they worked hard and did their best to live uprightly good things would come.
Ike was just a plain, ordinary man who who grew up in the ordinary plains of America. Like many of the folks from Abilene, Kansas he applied himself and did in his best in the endeavors that he undertook. He was not a genuis of mythical proportions or qualites. A statue depicting him as such wouldn't suit him or the democratic ideals he championed.
I bet if Lincoln could look down and see himself carved out of a gigantic slab of marble, he'd shake his head and laugh. I bet he'd prefer a smaller statue of himself splitting rails somewhere in Indiana, Kentucky or Illinois. Like Ike, Lincoln was just a simple, honest man who believed in hard work and discipline. I'm sure he'd be the first to reflect any personal glory that his habits or destiny gathered back onto the genuis of a nation that allows simple, ordinary men and women to reach their fullest potentional.
I don't want to see Ike glaring down on us like Zeus. I want to see Ike looking up to the great things he accomplished in wonder -- was that me? Did I do that? For me, that's far more inspirational and captures the true spirit of this great nation of ours. We have lived in a democratic republic for so long, we sometimes forget just how remarkable it is that our greatest heroes often come from some of our humblest quarters.
I hope to some day have the chance to take my daughter to this memorial as it is currently conceived and tell her about Ike and draw some lessons about simplicity, humility and the strong rustic roots of our nation. I think my dad, who was a boy when Ike was president, would appreciate this memorial as well. I can't be sure, but I think so.
If you get the chance you should check out the Eisenhower farm in Gettysburg
In a contest between the designer's vision and the desires of the family, the family will most certainly prevail. I don't think its a bad concept at all, it is in keeping with Ike's humble character and it has a bit of the Horatio Alger aura of farm boy makes good in America.
But I can't see them going ahead with the project if the family is opposed. They might wind up boycotting the opening and all future ceremonies there, and if that happens, none of the ceremonies will be about Eisenhower, they will be about the controversy.
In a contest between the designer's vision and the desires of the family, the family will most certainly prevail. I don't think its a bad concept at all, it is in keeping with Ike's humble character and it has a bit of the Horatio Alger aura of farm boy makes good in America.
But I can't see them going ahead with the project if the family is opposed. They might wind up boycotting the opening and all future ceremonies there, and if that happens, none of the ceremonies will be about Eisenhower, they will be about the controversy.
What I find interesting is that the people who arguably knew him best are the one's who want a different style of memorial. I agree that I think the family will ultimately triumph, I just find it interesting that they are the ones who want him remembered in not so humble terms. Is it hubris on their part, or do they genuinely know how Ike would want to be remembered?
Expanding on that, does it matter how people like Ike want to be remembered, or is it about how we want to remember them?
What I find interesting is that the people who arguably knew him best are the one's who want a different style of memorial. I agree that I think the family will ultimately triumph, I just find it interesting that they are the ones who want him remembered in not so humble terms. Is it hubris on their part, or do they genuinely know how Ike would want to be remembered?
Expanding on that, does it matter how people like Ike want to be remembered, or is it about how we want to remember them?
There was an editorial in the local paper in the Kansas town I'm currently living in. I'm very new to Kansas, so I haven't caught on to the state's general tenor yet, but I found the editorial very strange. It was this author's opinion that the humble, "post modern" design was mocking all of Kansas as being a state full of hayseeds and rubes. The editorial had me scratching my head.
I don't interpret the design that way at all. Like you, I'm curious about the fact that the people who knew him best think he'd want something more grandiose to commeorate himself. Perhaps we can get the guy who did most of the public statues for Saddam Hussein to gen something up. How about a huge golden statue of Ike riding a horse with a long, flowing cape? That should do the majesty that is Kansas and Eisenhower justice, right?
Goat and WestCobb...you have both touched upon what I think is driving the opposition by the family. I suspect that it is less a matter of people thinking of Ike as a hayseed, as it is their fear that people will think of them as hayseeds by association.
Of course we are not privy to the internal politics of the family. It is quite possible that all of the opposition is coming from a single individual, but one who is such a dominating alpha figure within the family, that the others are going along rather than facing whatever consequences arise from alpha displeased. My mother was a hyper image conscious person, the sort who would not flee a burning home without first getting dressed and putting on her makeup. She wasn't a dominating sort, but she did assert a great deal of influence over our father, and he was the alpha sort. The consequence is the family often having to support my mother in some preposterous pretense....the cousin who wasn't in state prison, but was "working for a state concern at the moment."...that sort of thing.
In such circumstances, the concept of someone's wishes being identified by those who knew him best, becomes a sham. Had I died young, I'm certain my mother would have staged an elaborate Catholic funeral despite her knowing that I regarded all organized religion as nonsensical.
So I think it probable that what we are hearing from the Eisenhower family is more about them than it is about an appropriate public memorial for a public figure.
It sounds like a rather charming idea of a memorial to me, but I'd have to see an artist's rendition of the plans to say for sure i like it.
How much control should family members have over a public figure's memorial? Especially one who has been dead for 43 years.
If Robert Lincoln had said "Dad was sitting in a chair in just that position at Ford's Theater, it kind of gives me the creeps."; should they have changed the sculpture?
Very insightful conjectures here. You may very well be right about the Eisenhower family dynamics. I must say, the objections to the proposed design leaves many of us baffled. I really like Ike. As a soldier, I greatly admire his humility and service. I also appreciate that his values came from his place of origin, the great state of Kansas. I think the proposed work would be a fine tribute to the man and to the state that reared him.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grandstander
Goat and WestCobb...you have both touched upon what I think is driving the opposition by the family. I suspect that it is less a matter of people thinking of Ike as a hayseed, as it is their fear that people will think of them as hayseeds by association.
Of course we are not privy to the internal politics of the family. It is quite possible that all of the opposition is coming from a single individual, but one who is such a dominating alpha figure within the family, that the others are going along rather than facing whatever consequences arise from alpha displeased. My mother was a hyper image conscious person, the sort who would not flee a burning home without first getting dressed and putting on her makeup. She wasn't a dominating sort, but she did assert a great deal of influence over our father, and he was the alpha sort. The consequence is the family often having to support my mother in some preposterous pretense....the cousin who wasn't in state prison, but was "working for a state concern at the moment."...that sort of thing.
In such circumstances, the concept of someone's wishes being identified by those who knew him best, becomes a sham. Had I died young, I'm certain my mother would have staged an elaborate Catholic funeral despite her knowing that I regarded all organized religion as nonsensical.
So I think it probable that what we are hearing from the Eisenhower family is more about them than it is about an appropriate public memorial for a public figure.
It sounds like a rather charming idea of a memorial to me, but I'd have to see an artist's rendition of the plans to say for sure i like it.
How much control should family members have over a public figure's memorial? Especially one who has been dead for 43 years.
If Robert Lincoln had said "Dad was sitting in a chair in just that position at Ford's Theater, it kind of gives me the creeps."; should they have changed the sculpture?
A point the family is making, and I think it's a fair one, is that they are not distant descendents. They knew Ike very well, and they don't think this is fitting. Even though I disagree with them that this design is not fitting, I do think their opinion carries weight becausie of the personal connection. My dad has been dead for 15 years. Thirty years from now, I think I would still be the world expert on how he would like to be remembered. No one knows him like I know him. That said, everything I know about Ike suggests to me he'd be very pleased with this very suitable and democratic tribute to his life and accomplishments.
Building on the discussion so far, could the families objections be rooted in the belief that Ike's memorial will look downright pedestrian in a city dominated by grandiose monuments?
This is the architectural model:
This is the proposed location:
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