Heroes

Just started "Heroes" by historian Paul Johnson. The book is almost guaranteed to make you think about the elements of heroism since it not only discusses the likely candidates, such as Moses, Churchill, the Duke of Wellington, and Lincoln, but also covers Samson, Emily Dickinson, Marilyn Monroe, and Mae West. [I have not reached the Marilyn Monroe section but eagerly await the analysis.]

I think our society is still infected with the anti-hero virus. For many years, our film makers and novelists seemed to declare, "Show me a hero and I'll show you some feet of clay." A society can pay a high price for the cynicism that is fostered by such influences. You know the litany: All corporate executives are crooks, all priests are perverts, all generals can't wait to get us into a war, all bureaucrats are slugs. And the bad guys? Well, they have reasons. A so-called good guy must have done something wrong to them that causes them to act that way.

Martin Mayer once wrote that no pornography is so vile that some college professor cannot be found who will testify that he'd recommend it as bedtime reading for his twelve-year-old daughter. The propensity to search for excuses for the villains of the world is the flipside of the "There are no heroes" argument. Each tune has a repeated message: We are unworthy.