Thursday, July 23, 2009Stop Misusing the Word Hero
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We are suffering from hero inflation. Whenever anyone reflexively refers to a great athlete as “heroic,” we can be assured that someone else will sanctimoniously pipe up and tell us, “No—it is the millions of teachers, firefighters, and devoted parents who are the real heroes.”
Days after the murder of the NFL quarterback Steve McNair, one typically remorseful sportswriter put it this way: "We throw out silly words, often referring to [athletes'] on-field efforts as 'heroic.' They are not heroes ... Heroes drive around your town in patrol cars ... Heroes teach our children ... They try to raise their children the right way."
But hero is not a job description. And those who say it is trivialize both heroism and sports. We need to stop shying away from the word hero where it is in fact due - and stop piously affixing it to so many worthy but unheroic people to whom it does not apply.
The hero's role is not to provide moral uplift. From Achilles to Michael Jordan, we are naturally in awe of those who single-mindedly chase personal excellence, no matter how vain, selfish, or amoral the chase makes them. We don't need to admire heroes or wish heroism on our children--a world full of heroes would be a miserable place. But within the framework of our good manners, we carve out a well-defined space for heroes to break the rules. And we get a vicarious thrill from the latitude they enjoy.
We can pretend that the rules of sportsmanship represent an extension of everyday social rules into the realm of sports--but in fact, it is a place apart from our ordinary mores, which is exactly why sports are so compelling. We regularly honor athletes for behavior that would be outrageous in any other context. We celebrate them for being self-destructive--think of any athlete ever praised for "sacrificing his body," abandoning prudence and health for temporary glory. Likewise, we celebrate athletes for being boastful--think of Babe Ruth calling his shot, or the elaborate victory dances after a touchdown. We even celebrate athletes for humiliating their opponents. One of the most instantly recognizable sports clips of the past 20 years shows Michael Jordan rising over the Cleveland Cavaliers' Craig Ehlo to sink a last-minute, game-winning shot. It's famous not just for the drama of the moment, but for Jordan's screaming, fist-pumping display of triumph, almost as soon as the ball is released. The real world rarely, if ever, shows us a loser literally collapsing at the feet of a chest-thumping winner, as Ehlo did--at least not so clearly and dramatically. Everywhere else, we expect gracious, self-deprecating winners and chin-up losers. But not here--and that is precisely what makes Jordan's moment so thrilling and shocking..
That is the power of athletic heroism--a concept best understood through the prism of myth, rather than that of social usefulness (Achilles, remember, chose glory over a long life, desecrated his enemy's body, and talked countless lines of trash). The rules of sportsmanship, then, are best understood not as a mechanism for making sports virtuous, but as a way of keeping the untamed sports world from spilling over its bounds: you can talk smack through the whole game, but you'd better shake hands afterward.
As for those alleged "real heroes," there's no doubt that some of what they do touches on the same kind of mythic heroism--the 9/11 firefighters' brave rescue efforts, for instance. But it's ridiculous to suggest that heroism belongs to everyone in a given line of work, as if qualifying for hero simply meant filling out a job application and providing references. It's condescending, too. How low are our expectations if people who do competent work are treated as if they're exceptional? Those who selflessly serve don't need our hyperbolic and inapt praise to do their jobs; they simply need respect for a job well done.
And they need heroes as much as the rest of us. The best justification for the larger-than-life world of sports I've ever seen wasn't any particular game, but a 30-second commercial in which office workers were shown celebrating a new contract just like professional athletes--dousing each other with Gatorade and jumping onto a dog pile in the nearest cubicle. The joke actually hurts after a while--most of us will never have the chance to celebrate an accomplishment of our own with that kind of hubristic pride. It would be rude, disruptive--entirely too much. The ordinary rules of decorum make our life together livable, even when they make it tedious. That's why, for so many of us, sports are a cathartic outlet, a place of outsize passions and unfamiliar moral rules--a vacation from virtue.
Interesting article. But the word "hero" has several meanings. One is like Achilles, which is what you're describing. The other later meaning is "characters that, in the face of danger and adversity or from a position of weakness, display courage and the will for self sacrifice – that is, heroism – for some greater good" (Wikipedia) - which is what the complainants are describing. So I'd say that neither you nor they are correct in your complaints; neither of you gets to co-opt the word for your purpose alone.
Isn't another consequence of definig heroism down that cops, teachers, and others start beleiving that they are entitled to the latitude that actual heroes are granted? And that this is leveraged in ways that are not always beneficial, e.g. arresting a Harvard professor for mouthing off in his own home?
You're definitely right, John. I'm amazed by how many people will stick up for anyone in a uniform and a badge by saying "They have a such a dangerous job to do, they can do [insert egregious behavior] if they want to!"
There are too many eyes and ears in the stew of (knowledge)(cognizance)[pick one]. From antiquity to the late nineteenth century, the term's interpretation was left in the hands of the educated few, so maybe the meaning has legitimately changed with so many opining witnesses to life, both near and far flung, in which the introduction of the word comes from popular culture (comics,music,etc.) or moon landings or war movies, it now resides in voluminous sports pages and on cable news networks with too little to say, and too much time to say it.
Coming from much more broader sources and events, it's expressed in the same context; from the everyday example report, so shall it be applied.
But bad media isn't the only culprit. Politicians (I know, too easy) and officials use it to prop up soldiers as warriors, subtly buttressing policy implementation abhorrent to the momentarily rational citizen.
What's not so clear is who's most at fault.
Here's dumbing down hero ...
Seattle WA : To report alleged HOV violators call 206-764-HERO.
Yes, be a hero by ratting out traffic violators.
And while we're at it, can we back of on the term "Miracle". These days everyone's a hero and everythings a miracle.