That was intentional, the klansman who built it didn't choose a place that was culturally significant to the indigenous people by accident.
I'm not American, but the isopods that live with me under the same rock weren't aware that this was made by Klansmen
iirc they ran out of money and weren't even able to make it look the way they intended. Like they planned for it to have a 5th face or wanted to do full bodies or something like that but they couldn't get it done
Are you saying granite? It's granted, with a D. Take things for granted. Did you actually think it was... Jesus Christ Rick, what are you a boulder, a rock person? How long have you been saying that wrong?
What, you can erase my memories?
From my understanding, they didn't do the planned 5th head because of structural integrity issues with the stone. But yeah there's probably something to that lack of funds situation as well.
🤷♂️
Requires Fascism
I guess if things go south in November we'll be up for Mt. Rushmore 2: The Movement known as Boogaloo
The boogaloo in question stems from the same meme you're quoting and is a second civil war. Fun stuff
That was just Civ IV calling Teddy names because he was a populist militaristic progressive.
I know this is an unpopular opinion, but statues of real people are cringe… and Mount Rushmore is basically maximum cringe by that measure.
Reminded me of this song (which is german) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC872j2-PDw
Im gonna try translating the most relevant section:
Get the sledgehammer out, they built us a monument and every idiot knows that this destroys all love/charm. I will hire the worst sprayers(graffiti artists) of the city so that they may further deface the leftover rubble the same night.
Wait. You're telling me they didn't even fucking finish it and people are still mad about the idea of losing it?
I've seen them before and they are ugly. None of them would have wanted their face there so who is actually being honored?
While Teddy was the self-aggrandizing type who probably wouldn't have objected to having his face carved into a mountain, Rushmore wasn't even proposed until long after Teddy's political career was over.
I dunno, Theodore was also a reknowned appreciator of natural beauty, so I could see it going either way.
Yes, he protected land like this from developers. He's the reason we have national parks. No way he would have approved this.
It should be given back to the natives, with reparations. I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted to remove the faces and attempt to restore it.
Hey, guess what - wanting a historical wrong to be corrected by having a polity live up to its treaty obligations, however belatedly, by ceding a piece of land on which a rather ugly monument exists on and telling the original owners 'do what you want with it' is not the equivalent of volunteering for ethnic cleansing.
Might be a cool opportunity to build cohesion even. What if we (in consult with the Lakota whose land it annually is) build in a few cool people from other tribes too (e.g. chief Seattle, and others from all over the country). That could make it feel more like a monument to all of us.
Generally not a fan of defacing nature though. There's a joke in there somewhere but it's too early.
If that's what it takes to make reparations happen I'll gladly give mine. Thankfully that isn't what reparations would require so you just look like a racist asshole.
Another example of why downvotes are sometimes necessary. All they'll care about is the six people that agreed with them
I just went to the black hills area and I MUCH preferred the Crazy Horse memorial. If you hate Rushmore then I think you would love it too. It actually means something, looks cooler, and isn't funded by the government.
I find it interesting that nobody else had mentioned it.
I don't mind the Feds funding art. I only mind them funding shitty art that violates local customs and treaties with sovereign tribes. Like, zero redeeming qualities here with Rushmore.
Me too. I went there when I was 10 or 11, and as a child all I noticed was how incongruous it was with everything. I wasn't awed by it, and my parents seemed sort of put out with how I didn't care for it compared to my sisters.
I'd like to pretend that's some kind of deep political sentiment, but really I think it's just aesthetically displeasing if you don't have a thing for monuments
I dunno, I have a thing for monuments and I still find it aesthetically displeasing. It's pretty ugly.
Adults get weird when the indoctrinating they and society put so much effort into doesn't take hold. So much so, that they find some mental illness like Autism to label the child with.
I did not imply autism doesn't exist. I implied that kids who don't fall in line with their social programming run the risk of being diagnosed with autism as it's easier then reflecting on where or not the programming is correct.
“Neuro-divergent” seems to be the catch-all today. Though I guess that’s considered on the spectrum too? Anyway, the majority of these cases seem to be “diagnosed” by YouTube parents.
I was diagnosed by an over ambitious child study team member in kindergarten that convinced my mother I had a learning disability. What followed was 13 years of wasted public education because every success proved the program worked and every failure proved the program was necessary.
If it had happened today, I would have been diagnosed with autism and nothing would be better.
Did I studder? If kids don't respond the way adults want them to, they get labeled as being a Problem.
That makes more sense, I just didn't get why you mentioned autism in your first comment. Seems like an odd take to me.
Advertising/Propaganda doesn't work as well on people with Autism. I called it a mental illness because regardless of what flowery language society decides to use to describe neurodivergent people, they will treat them like pariahs.
Same here. If you have no attachment to the figures portrayed, it fails at the kind of gravitas that you'd think an entire mountainside would/should command. It's a strange thing.
I remember one of the massive air compressors they had on display there better than the monument itself...
Though I am a giant nerd for that sort of thing so it might just be me
Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!...... What kind of psi? You said massive, was it mobile? Did it have any mods?..... I need to know!
It was years ago so I don't remember most details, I can't remember anything about pressure, it was stationary, single cylinder, with a flywheel at least 6 feet tall and I don't think it had any modifications made I would have loved to see it running but I don't think it had been ran in at least a 70 years
Even as a young child I was very disappointed seeing it in person. Very underwhelming. The only cool part I thought was looking through the binocular things and spying on other tourists. I was an odd kid whatever
Same thing with seeing the Mona Lisa in person. It's a very small painting against the a far wall in a special room, and that room is packed shoulder-to-shoulder, asshole-to-elbow shithead tourists. Kinda cool to see it in person I guess, but not really worth the effort
The only cool part I thought was looking through the binocular things and spying on other tourists. I was an odd kid whatever
Yes, that is indeed extremely strange behavior. I don't believe that it has ever been reported before /s
Mt Rushmore is a very good symbol of the US in that way. Looks impressive in marketing and media, but tacky and small IRL
i think its also a very good symbol of how the US just forgets about even their very own laws at a snap of a finger and that no nation in the world (not even the us itself) can ever trust them with anything. like for example the so called freedom of religion when we're at the Sioux Blackbhills anyway.
You have to park in a garage and walk down a narrow path lined with people trying to sell you shit. Its more like visiting a mall with aggressive salesmen than a national park. It was the worst stop I made during a cross country road trip.
even the entire story around its creation is fucking lame. if this were in any other country, it would be used in 80% of American action movies as a symbol of the oppressive foreign country that's about to attack the US.
Controversial Opinion: Giant statues are cool and we as a species should make more of them.
100% agree, expect for this one, which was carved into mountains stolen from the local natives.
Yep. Honestly while it doesn't look amazing it's still kinda cool. Its history is just fucked up and not something I'd wanna celebrate.
I agree actually. There are tons of mountains. Not many have human faces. That's impressive. It's obviously pretty hard to get someone to allow you to carve a mountain not to mention how hard it is to carve a statue in the first place.
Well umm... actually its sacred land to the native americans and the US government just did that anyway despite acknowledging it as indian land to this very day and repeatedly trying to buy it off them to give themselves retroactive approval. So less 'allowed to carve' and more like spraying graffiti on a church on an enormous scale.
Well being an atheist, I don't really concern myself with sweeping declarations of "spiritual dibs" on whole mountain ranges. I think it's just another way people use their religion/spiritually to restrict others.
What happened to their ancestors is done. Saying you have a particular attachment to a mountain that supercedes everyone else's attachment is bullshit.
Sort of. Not really a secret, just not widely advertised because it was never finished.
We should give back that to the natives, alongside with some TNT in case they want those faces to go.