We Are All Heroes, Every One of Us
There are certain words in anyone's language that get misused. Right now in the USA perhaps no word is so consistently misused as the word "hero". The word gets tossed around as cheaply as a bar rag these days, applied to such unworthy professions as our soldiery and our police, while also being used to salve the injured conscience of victims of violent crime. In its purest meaning, the word "hero" refers to the central character of a myth or epic poem who is notable for their levels of virtue or their hot-wired connection to the divinities of their time. In a Western sense the word also implies self-sacrifice for the benefit of others, usually involving some aspect of physical courage or daring.
The heroes of the Greek, Roman, and Scandinavian myths were knee-deep in blood at some point in their various stories. They were assassins, sorcerers, and valiant soldiers but mostly involved themselves in feats of stupendous violence, whether we are speaking of Theseus, Aeneas, or Cuchulain. Even though the myths and sagas were filled with stories of heroes, they emphasized the rarity of such figures--implying that a society would be lucky (or cursed) if more than one hero per generation ran around on the face of the planet. The ancients were onto something here, as their concept of hero was often an uneasy one. The hero's special relationship with the supernatural was something that challenged ancient concepts of universality in human experience and implied a certain moral relativism.
In the past five years, a post-9/11 meaning has descended upon the word hero, making the word less imposing and turning it into a concept that is synonomous with suffering a variety of violent acts or dying a sudden, unexpected death. A literalist might argue that people who suffer violence and sudden death are victims, not heroes--and certainly those who died in the towers qualify as victims. The relentless flag-waving in the wake of the WTC disaster helped solidify the mutation of victim into hero, as if by qualifying those killed in more epic terms the Bush administration was then more justified in its military response to the 9/11 attacks. But the semantic change wrought upon the concept of the word hero had begun years earlier, as the US government attempted to co-opt the word for its own use.
Did you ever wonder why there are so many cop shows on television? From an early age, the government attempts to inculcate a subliminal belief in the righteousness of the police with the proliferation of these shows. Questions about the necessity of the existence of the police are never raised on such programs, of course--instead viewers are treated to stories about "hero cops" struggling with the supposed ugliness of their jobs as they merrily beat and threaten their way through life. If the cause of the police is right and just, then so is the aim and purpose of the government they serve. In this fashion subtle mental habits are formed in the all-too-impressionable minds of American TV viewers which then extend into their everyday realities. With the help of the news media, a pessimistic outlook towards fellow members of society has been openly encouraged by the government. Media emphasis on violent crime has fooled people into thinking that we live in a dangerous society, and it has allowed the police and the government to gain unprecedented power over our daily lives. Rather than being cast as a potential threat to individual liberty, the police have been declared to be sanctioned intercessors between the citizenry and the horrible daemons of crime and terror. In short, the police are now "heroes", from Justin Volpe to Michael Dowd to Stacey Koon, from good cop to bad cop.
And if all police are heroes, it logically follows that all soldiers are heroes too. Especially Ilario Pantano, whose head was so stuffed with American media that he decided to act like he was in an action movie, riddling dead bodies with extra bullets and then displaying them with a sign attached. He was simply behaving like an ancient hero...skipping over 2000 years of Judeo-Christian morality with extreme prejudice and getting in touch with his inner pagan. Which of course earned him the support of rightist Christians everywhere in the US. But I digress...
Along with the oppressors, the oppressed began to drift towards heroism themselves. A culture of confessionalism grew out of the rise of psychotherapy and that continued downwards into society until it found expression in the TV talk shows and tabloid media of the late 1980's and early 1990's. Suddenly living through any sort of trauma and being able to dress yourself afterwards qualified as heroism. Heroes were everywhere--driving our buses, delivering antidrug sermons in urban communities, repairing our damaged heavy machinery, working with the mentally ill/mentally challenged, engaging in athletics--and we were the better for it. Everyone now could finally have their own movie. This was democracy.
The obvious result of a nation full of heroes is a nation that believes that no one has the right to tell it what to do...a nation that brandishes its weapons at the slightest provocation...a nation that feels that individual perceptions are the basis for a shared vision of society. In short, a nation filled with egotists of all shapes and sizes. A heroic nation, if you will--a nation drenched in the blood of innocents from every corner of the world, a nation that will fucking kill you if you piss it off. So the syllogism runs like this:
1. All heroes are blood-soaked killers.
2. All Americans are heroes.
3. All Americans are blood-soaked killers.
The heroes of the Greek, Roman, and Scandinavian myths were knee-deep in blood at some point in their various stories. They were assassins, sorcerers, and valiant soldiers but mostly involved themselves in feats of stupendous violence, whether we are speaking of Theseus, Aeneas, or Cuchulain. Even though the myths and sagas were filled with stories of heroes, they emphasized the rarity of such figures--implying that a society would be lucky (or cursed) if more than one hero per generation ran around on the face of the planet. The ancients were onto something here, as their concept of hero was often an uneasy one. The hero's special relationship with the supernatural was something that challenged ancient concepts of universality in human experience and implied a certain moral relativism.
In the past five years, a post-9/11 meaning has descended upon the word hero, making the word less imposing and turning it into a concept that is synonomous with suffering a variety of violent acts or dying a sudden, unexpected death. A literalist might argue that people who suffer violence and sudden death are victims, not heroes--and certainly those who died in the towers qualify as victims. The relentless flag-waving in the wake of the WTC disaster helped solidify the mutation of victim into hero, as if by qualifying those killed in more epic terms the Bush administration was then more justified in its military response to the 9/11 attacks. But the semantic change wrought upon the concept of the word hero had begun years earlier, as the US government attempted to co-opt the word for its own use.
Did you ever wonder why there are so many cop shows on television? From an early age, the government attempts to inculcate a subliminal belief in the righteousness of the police with the proliferation of these shows. Questions about the necessity of the existence of the police are never raised on such programs, of course--instead viewers are treated to stories about "hero cops" struggling with the supposed ugliness of their jobs as they merrily beat and threaten their way through life. If the cause of the police is right and just, then so is the aim and purpose of the government they serve. In this fashion subtle mental habits are formed in the all-too-impressionable minds of American TV viewers which then extend into their everyday realities. With the help of the news media, a pessimistic outlook towards fellow members of society has been openly encouraged by the government. Media emphasis on violent crime has fooled people into thinking that we live in a dangerous society, and it has allowed the police and the government to gain unprecedented power over our daily lives. Rather than being cast as a potential threat to individual liberty, the police have been declared to be sanctioned intercessors between the citizenry and the horrible daemons of crime and terror. In short, the police are now "heroes", from Justin Volpe to Michael Dowd to Stacey Koon, from good cop to bad cop.
And if all police are heroes, it logically follows that all soldiers are heroes too. Especially Ilario Pantano, whose head was so stuffed with American media that he decided to act like he was in an action movie, riddling dead bodies with extra bullets and then displaying them with a sign attached. He was simply behaving like an ancient hero...skipping over 2000 years of Judeo-Christian morality with extreme prejudice and getting in touch with his inner pagan. Which of course earned him the support of rightist Christians everywhere in the US. But I digress...
Along with the oppressors, the oppressed began to drift towards heroism themselves. A culture of confessionalism grew out of the rise of psychotherapy and that continued downwards into society until it found expression in the TV talk shows and tabloid media of the late 1980's and early 1990's. Suddenly living through any sort of trauma and being able to dress yourself afterwards qualified as heroism. Heroes were everywhere--driving our buses, delivering antidrug sermons in urban communities, repairing our damaged heavy machinery, working with the mentally ill/mentally challenged, engaging in athletics--and we were the better for it. Everyone now could finally have their own movie. This was democracy.
The obvious result of a nation full of heroes is a nation that believes that no one has the right to tell it what to do...a nation that brandishes its weapons at the slightest provocation...a nation that feels that individual perceptions are the basis for a shared vision of society. In short, a nation filled with egotists of all shapes and sizes. A heroic nation, if you will--a nation drenched in the blood of innocents from every corner of the world, a nation that will fucking kill you if you piss it off. So the syllogism runs like this:
1. All heroes are blood-soaked killers.
2. All Americans are heroes.
3. All Americans are blood-soaked killers.
posted by alyosha mcbain at 12:35 PM
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