On the Nature of Heroes and Victims
Kyle Rittenhouse is not a hero by any reasonable definition of the term. Neither is George Floyd.
We lived down the dirt road from Sherry. Sherry and I, though we were country neighbors and had to catch the same school bus together, did not like each other. She'd call me names, I'd call her names. She'd punch me, I'd throw rocks at her.
When my mother found out that I was throwing rocks at the girl down the road, she punished me. She told me that a man didn't throw rocks at women.
A few days later, I came home and declared my conversion to goodness: I had not thrown any rocks at Sherry. When my mother did not offer me the praise I was looking for, I threw a fit.
"Donald, choosing to not be an asshole is not the same as being good. Throwing rocks at Sherry was an asshole thing to do. Not throwing rocks makes you completely neutral. To be the hero of this story, you have to do something heroic. Otherwise, shut up already."
Heroes must do things heroically. Survival is not a heroic act, it is an instinct hard-baked into our human Stromboli. Heroes must inspire us to do likewise heroic things. Dying badly is no more heroic than dying well (as if there is such a thing). Perhaps dying for a worthy cause is heroic but intent matters.
As so many terms open to new interpretation, the decision to paint victims as somehow more than victims and those accidentally at the wrong place at the wrong time for the wrong reasons as heroes is one that vexes me. Likewise troubling is the new tendency to demonize those heroes we have had due to flaws in their humanity despite their deeds and lasting contribution to the population.
Are those who join the military heroes? Is the act of joining up heroic or does one need to do something heroic to be bestowed the title? Bill Burr does a routine (also done by Key & Peele, I recall) that deals with getting the good seats on the plane but having to wait for the increasing list of 'special' people who bump the line. Seniors. Moms with babies. And Veterans. Burr laments "Did this guy actually see action? If not, why does he get on the plane first?"
Are the police heroes? Most would argue not but some definitely do heroic things just as some do horrific things exactly like those in the military. The disparity between the two (with plenty in the middle who simply do the job) indicates that the badge and uniforms do not bequeath hero status. Again, heroes do heroic things.
Are doctors and nurses heroes? I mean, I suppose cleaning bed pans and administering oxycontin to patients with hemorrhoids has a long-suffering quality but I can't say it's heroic. Is operating on a heart patient or using chemotherapy to fight back cancer cells heroic? Maybe if they didn't charge so fucking much, amiright? Doctors Without Borders? Seems far more heroic than Doctors in Upper Manhattan.
Again, then, some healthcare professionals do heroic things while others jack up the price of insulin to make ridiculous profits.
Teachers? Sometimes heroes, other times automatons parroting skewed facts and history and viewing control of children above training them to think for themselves in a world defined by conformism.
The word 'hero' comes from heros, the Greek word meaning 'protector.' I'd argue that protecting property doesn't quite fit the bill nor does protection for hire really pass the smell test, either.
Justus Rosenberg was a hero.
Ben Montemayor is a victim.
The Traditionalists heralded Kyle Rittenhouse a hero. Whether you think the kid deserves to hang for killing two and injuring a third in service to barely capable police in the wake of white dudes co-opting a protest against police brutality to foment general societal change via burning down buildings and looting small businesses or go free to join the very police being protested, nothing he did could be considered heroic on an objective scale.
He had just as much legitimate right to be in Kenosha that night as the three Antifa kids and merely managed to get his shots off before one of them beat him senseless with a skateboard and another pulled a pistol on him. No hero stuff in that.
The Utopians erected a statue of George Floyd, a man who they likely wouldn't have had a meal with before he was choked out on the street and certainly not the kind of man who could benefit from any corporate diversity initiative, collegiate programs for inclusion, or #OscarsSoWhite. Like Rittenhouse, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Unlike Rittenhouse, he didn't have an AR-15 and was a poor black man. Still, dying at the hands of a murderous, bigoted cop who knew him from a year before and had a beef isn't heroic. Tragic but not heroic.
Heroes do heroic things.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a hero. He did things that changed the world. He did things that helped millions of people. Sure, plenty of Americans hated his guts but objectively, the man was the closest thing to having a benevolent king as the country has ever had and accomplished more to benefit regular Americans than anyone else in his time.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was a hero. He championed the fulfilling of the American promise for equality and did more in his short life to push the needle for black Americans than arguably any other person of his time. He likely would have managed even more for those in poverty but he was killed. His dying didn't make him a hero. His life and what he did with it was heroic.
Harriet Tubman. Hero. Thomas Jefferson. Hero. Jackie Robinson. Hero.
Abraham Lincoln. Clara Barton. Lynda Blackmon Lowery. Neil Armstrong. Heroes.
A hero is someone who gives of himself, often putting his own life at great risk, for the greater good of others. However, such as in war situations, what is good for others will always divide opinion into opposing camps.
Outside of the standard dashing war portraits of men/women facing the gates of Hell, the most heroic are often the most ordinary of people doing ordinary things for a greater humane purpose. Think Mother Teressa or Gandhi.
The word "hero" is far too often applied these days without much thought. Like the Media's overuse of the word "closure", its meaning has become muddied and not, as it was meant to be, an extraordinary example of human achievement that makes the rest of us gasp in wonder or question the validity of the honor.
On the other side of the coin is the bizarre shift to elevate victims to hero status.
Anyone can be a victim. Victims of crime, of genetics and disease, of aggression and bullying, of discrimination. Wrong place, wrong time. A man driving to a 7-Eleven to grab a Coke gets hit by a drunk in an SUV. Victim. A woman has a boss who grabs her ass at work then fires her for reporting it. Victim. A kid out at night with a gun runs from police and is shot. Victim.
Victims exist in the world.
Heroes do heroic things.
Victims can become heroes but they need to do something heroic with that status. A dead victim cannot be a hero unless she was a hero before shuffling off to the crematorium. Someone bullied is not a hero until they exhibit a compendium of traits associated with heroics. Someone unjustly incarcerated is not a hero until they take it to the level of actually doing something heroic in response.
According to the vast wasteland known as the internet, the most defining characteristics of heroes included bravery, integrity, courage, conviction, honesty, willingness to protect others, and self-sacrifice. Notice how celebrity isn't among that list? Financially successful isn't on there, either. Unjustly put upon? Nope. Open to one's emotions and lived experience? Nada.
I wonder what happens to our collective need for heroes in the world when the descriptor we use is so watered down. If a football player or comedian is considered a hero, when simply asserting your sexual preference to your parents or writing a Medium post about micro aggressions are considered brave, when we view merely showing up as courageous, what impetus exists to actually be heroic?
Throughout history, the most desperate times tend to push ordinary people to do extraordinary things. Bad times provides a platform for heroism. For some odd reason, our current crop of fucked up circumstance (a pandemic two years in and ongoing, a long overdue racial reckoning, the presence of the slow moving coup of authoritarianism on both the Traditionalist side and the Utopian camp) is not producing many acts of heroism. Where are the heroes doing heroic things? In marvel movies? Is Peter Parker the best we can muster?
In recent "Heroes of 2021" lists in the mainstream outlets the lists includes men and women doing good things in the world (a woman who saves seals, a woman who teaches Nigerian children, a man who teaches prison inmates to be physical trainers) and, while these acts are inspirational and require that willingness to protect those in need, there is something missing from the desire to call them 'heroes.'
The longing for heroes can result in the deification of a Kyle Rittenhouse as easily as a George Floyd. We shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking we have lost nothing. The drive to be heroic has been stymied. We will recognize our impotency in every aspect of our lives. Our culture has freed itself from many of the fantasies of heroism. We have woken from the dream of men who are more than human. But in so doing we have not only diminished heroes. We have risked diminishing ourselves.
