Society Still Needs Real Heroes
By Leonard Wibberley
First Published August 19, 1979
5/24/2020
Like you, perhaps, I was brought up on tales of heroes, all of whom I adored and, all of whom had a great influence on my life.
They were not all men by any means. There was Grace Darling who almost single-handedly rescued the crew of a ship wrecked off the Yorkshire coast of England and helped bring into being the lifeboat service in that country. There was Florence Nightingale working among the mutilated and neglected soldiers of the Crimea War and revolutionizing military hospitals. And there was of course Joan of Arc.
Side by side with these there was Robin Hood and King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and, plunging forward through time, Billy the Kid and Babe Ruth, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King and Superman just to select names at random.
I enjoyed my heroes and hoped one day to become a hero myself. The fact that I didn’t hasn’t left me the slightest bit jaundiced. As I have said, they inspired me and without them I would be a somewhat poorer person than I am.
But shortly after World War II, heroes went out of fashion and we entered the age of un-Cola but also unhero. Partly I think this was the effect of increasing psychological awareness and partly the result of the disillusion produced by that war, which started with French soldiers sitting in bentwood chairs, rifles across their knees, awaiting the onslaught of the German army, and ended with the opening of the gates of hell over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
We didn’t believe in heroes after that. We took a look at ourselves and discovered that we were very largely mean and cruel and shabby and greedy and selfish. Existentialism, which I have often thought of as the power of negative thinking, became the creed of the day and life was but Shakespeare’s “tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.”
It was all a great pity and a great waste of time and of people, for we are beginning to discover now that we need heroes and society has a tendency to disintegrate without them. We need them so badly that a national news magazine recently devoted a large portion of one issue to that need, and the Congress authorized the issue of a silver medallion commemorating a man, John Wayne, who portrayed to perfection a type of hero dear to our national hearts. We need heroes because we cannot get through life without showing a little courage and fortitude of our own, arid some real initiative as well, and these things we often have to borrow from the example of others.
We are, however, in trouble in our search for heroes today on whom to pattern ourselves and the trouble alas, is our hunger for popularity. I don’t suppose there has ever been an age in the history of man when mere popularity was so important—when being unpopular was such a grievous sin against our fellows. It was fortunate for instance, that there wasn’t such a thing as the Harris Poll when Joan of Arc decided to rally the people of that country against invading England. She would never have got started or the public outcry against a woman leading an army would have drowned out the voice she heard that told her to do so. Nor would Florence Nightingale have been able to challenge the whole army medical establishment and insist on care, comfort and cleanliness for the wounded soldiers of the Crimea War.
Neither of these heroines were popular, but popularity wasn’t what they were seeking and so they prevailed.
Today, unfortunately, popularity is what everybody is seeking. You cannot achieve anything of worth in public life, so the creed runs, unless you score high in the polls. And the other side of that coin is that if you are immensely popular, you are listened to and admired and followed whether you have the qualities of leadership or not.
Thus we tend to idealize and mold our lifestyles on those who have sold a million copies of a recording or become superstars either in movies or television. These may be fine people in themselves, but they are not what is needed. We mistake the shadow for the substance and give our admiration and loyalty to those whose true role is entertainment.
I am not quarreling with any individual, but I am beginning to wonder whether the time may not becoming when we will select a large number of our senators, our congressman and even our presidents from among the more popular names in television and movies. A start was made with Ronald Reagan becoming governor California, and I am of the opinion that Johnny Carson might not have much trouble becoming a senator, though I think he’s too smart to run for president.
If this becomes the actual state of affairs then the road to political success may be through ASCAP and the Screen Actors’ Guild. Candidates for Congress may crowd into schools of acting, threatening the profession. Some may turn out to be better actors than they would be congressmen.
Well, it is all very puzzling, but it is also very interesting. The thought that occurs to me in closing is that if King Arthur were to return, he would soon discover that the all-powerful sword Excalibur, with which he performed his great deeds, now has a new name—
It is called Television.
New Release Alert:
After years of being out of print, Leonard’s captivating biography—The Complete Life of Winston Churchill—is finally available exclusively on Kindle! Click here to find it on Amazon. (Free on Kindle Unlimited)
DESCRIPTION:
Many books have been written about Winston Churchill at his finest hour as Britain’s leader during World War II, but few tell the stories of the his youth—as a rebellious schoolboy, as a daring young soldier who took part in cavalry charges and in hand-to-hand combat in India and Africa, and as a brazen foreign correspondent, covering wars in Sudan, Cuba, India, and South Africa.
This entertaining biography—told with the usual wit and charm of Leonard Wibberley—also covers Churchill’s surprising rise as a novelist of 40 books and not-so-surprising rise as statesman—all experiences that shaped the great world leader he became.
Suitable for young readers as well as old.
★★★★★ “This was an excellent resource for delving into what I thought was going to be a boring subject.”—Amazon Review
-----
Sign up for Leonard's newsletter at:
http://bit.ly/LeonardNews and never miss one of his columns.
To read older columns, click here.
