In today’s fast paced, but lonely and competitive world,
it is important to have solid heroes that provide moral guidance and
inspiration through the adversity we face. Often people find themselves looking up to celebrities who
charismatically fill their needs as someone who has the things they want; fame,
talent, recognition, wealth, beauty, etc.; but do not generally see that person
as a role model for their actions or substance.
While there are many varying definitions of a hero, a
very appropriate one is defined at dictionary.com. A hero is “a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has
performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal”. Another of the listed definitions also applies; “a man (or woman) of distinguished
courage or ability,
admired for his brave
deeds and
noble qualities”. These would be the people in real life we would look up to
and seek to emulate. Other
definitions, such as being god-like, immortal or superhuman, apply to the comic
book character type heroes that save the day in fantasy worlds that we might
revere but do not identify with.
On the other hand, celebrity
is defined as being famous or well known, or the act of being famous or renown. Nothing is said about the
person’s quality or deeds. Certainly
heroes can be famous and be well known, but the act of simply being famous does
not a hero make.
Scott
LaBarge, an Ethics educator at Santa Clara University, cites the tie between
heroes and morality and points out that persons who find heroes in people who
work toward goals or fight for a cause, such as Martin Luther King, or Susan B.
Anthony, will have a far different view of what is good and right than someone
who idolizes and emulates celebrities like Paris Hilton, or 50-Cent. The
difference seems to be the
depth to which one seeks to know about their hero. Does the person want to emulate deeds of their hero and are
they drive to reach goals, or are they simply saying, “she’s pretty and I want
to be pretty”. The qualities of
our heroes define the qualities we have or want. Mr. LaBarge cites examples of young people who list
celebrities as their heroes and the dangers of losing sight of the importance
of the difference that people of courage and nobility with a sense of purpose
and drive to a goal have made to society.
He believes that teachers and others in society should help to highlight
positive role models and show young people the difference between enjoying a
celebrity and emulating a real hero.
He also points out that pervasive cynicism in today’s world breaks apart
those who should be heroes to show they also have a human and fallible side,
casting a shadow on the positive deeds they have done, when it is their human
weakness and likeness to us that should show us that any of us can rise to do
great things.
Elizabeth
Goren in an article in The American Journal of Psychoanalysis suggests that
just prior to 9/11 heroes in this country were based only on their fame,
fortune, beauty, or prowess and that these symbolized the superego that the
media and our country’s values of disillusionment had given to the people. These heroes were temporary and
fleeting, quickly replaced by the next best thing. The effect of 9/11 was to bring us back to more traditional
heroism, and honoring the firemen, police, politicians and others who held
steady on that day and that such traumas create common heroes as they do common
enemies. In time however,
disillusionment would befall even these heroes, moving then from the heroic
symbol of an unwavering servant to a human who might drink or fight or have
other faults. She surmises that in
our process of being vulnerable and grieving traumatic events like 9/11 we
first see heroes like the firefighters as having courage in the face of defeat,
but as we grow stronger we cast those heroes aside because we can no longer
associate defeat with the trauma and we move on to our soldiers who are the new
hero avenging the action, and we will move forward from the
soldiers to another form of hero representing our victory as that becomes
available.
Ms. Goren’s
explanation of the cycle of heroism can be used to partly explain the concept
of the “Cult of Celebrity”. Cult
of Celebrity can be defined as a “widespread interest in arbitrarily
famous individuals, or celebrities". As we move through the mourning process
we arbitrarily assign value to and want to be the sacrificers (the
firefighters), the saviors (the soldiers), and then the victors, building them
up and then diminishing them along the way. In the same way, we watch with fascination as a new
celebrity gains glory and fame only to implode or be exposed as human, and then
to be replaced by the next star.
In a podcast, Dr. Angie Hobbs from Britain’s Warwick University states
that the Cult of Celebrity that we follow is dangerous to society, keeping
people from being as productive or happy as they could be. Putting fame as our first priority
provides no substance, and fame should be a secondary goal to some other heroic
action in order to be healthy.
I agree with
Dr. Hobbs. Celebrity in itself
does not fulfill the definition of hero, and it shouldn't since it does not
provide any understanding of how hard the celebrity worked to reach their
status or what their true values are.
To find a hero we first must find deeds that inspire us to reach our own
goals, and then we should identify with their success.
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