A Lament for the Greatness of Heroes

I remember a time, not so long ago, when we aspired to (and were inspired by) greatness. We looked to heroes in the tales from our youth and saw the best of humanity – where an individual overcomes villainous selfish desire and greed, in favour of honour, kindness, and sacrifice. In comic book terms, we saw a world where Superman was an ideal and someone we should try to emulate. Even if we could never achieve it, the effort was ultimately worthwhile . . .

Fast forward a few years, however, and we see the glossy Superman ideal replaced by dark heroes and antiheroes – the Batman-types who, while well-intentioned, are tragically flawed. Sure, perhaps even these dark vigilantes triumphed over evil, but their tortured existence maybe shouldn’t be something to which we ought to aspire. Society didn’t stop there, however. It has since gone even further and has finally brought heroes so low as to cast them as villains, against whom righteous everyday humans must struggle.

What happened, you ask? How did we get here?

In my opinion, the sad disillusionment of western society began with the rise in popularity of both social media and reality TV. Instead of lauding exceptional leaders, celebrities, and heroes, we became obsessed with “tearing them down to our level” in order to pump up our own deflated egos. Not everyone can be a genius or gifted artist. Not everyone can perform amazing athletic feats. Instead of praising individuals who possessed such gifts and who nurtured those gifts through toil and grit, however, we became determined to expose their flaws. We tore down traditional standards of beauty and excellence to validate our own selfish inability to live up to those standards.

While I understand the evolutionary imperative to adjust values to fit changing societal norms, I fear that we “threw the baby out with the bathwater”. In abandoning those standards of excellence, we also abandoned the effort to pursue them (and the value that can be derived from that effort) . . . a tragic loss for a species capable of greatness.

Then, to exacerbate the situation, western society embraced Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) values on a scope and scale that seemed oddly desperate and disproportionate. We made aspirations for excellence the least of our values and prioritized identity politics – defining our productivity and objectives by the least among us. In an effort to make average people feel like they are “winning” (or, more accurately, not “losing”), we have lowered the collective bar for human capability and created a society rewarding zero effort.

We can’t forget that we are all individuals. As stated, we each have different talents and it should be incumbent upon us to nurture those talents, to the betterment of all. You are not defined by your groups, your limitations, or your thoughts; you are not made lesser by the achievements of others. . . .

You are defined by how you impact the world.

Let’s reward those among us who impact our world in positive ways. Let’s turn our eyes to the sky again and find a new Superman – someone who embodies even just one way that can make a difference. And, when we find them, let’s not focus on their flaws (trust me, we’re all human and you will find them). Let’s not define others by the worst things they’ve done or said, and instead look for that glimmer of hope. By focusing on hope, let’s create new heroes that future generations can look up to . . . and, who knows, maybe if we keep working towards the best in ourselves, maybe one day we can make enough of a positive impact on the world to be heroes ourselves.

Let’s be heroes together!