Heroes

11-22-2023

I’m really hung up on the idea of “heroes” these days and on parasocial relationships where people feel “close” to people that they have never, and most likely will never, actually meet. There’s this itch in my head that there’s a commonality between these things. It started for me when I veered away from a discussion about Israel/Hamas and on to an article entitled Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s Complete Relationship Timeline. Yes, seriously, I have conversations that turn on a dime like that. Blame my friends.

But it sank into my head and I just started noticing things over and over again. What is our obsession with heroes and celebrities? And why are they so frequently the same thing? I’ve been casually saving some of these topics for the last week as I encounter them.

Did you know that lots of folks apparently think JFK is our “greatest President?” They cite a speech or the space race but, quantitatively, there’s no real basis for thinking JFK was our greatest President. Even the space race was a purely political thing, apparently Kennedy hated space! What he was phenomenal at, though, was being attractive and being a celebrity. These aren’t “great” things - these aren’t “heroic” things and yet...like, Kennedy isn’t even in my top ten I don’t think.

A pack of Kurt Cobain’s cigarettes is going for over $1,200 at auction. We cannot stop talking about Sam Altman, or Elon Musk, or Donald Trump. I read almost everything that Bill Gates writes at this point. I read too many damn words about the Singer and the Football Dude.

Humans are in love with having heroes. And those humans love to farm out their decision-making and beliefs to those heroes. Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian, Matthew McConaughey, Justin Bieber, Brad Pitt, that Apple guy with the turtlenecks, or whoever. Republicans are going to happily run Donald Trump again for President in the face of treasonous and subversive actions against the country. Democrats have folks like Greta Thunberg, AOC, and Rashida Tlaib. And we see it when company stock plunges simple because a CEO is stepping down. Sam Altman! Let’s talk about how earth-shaking it is that one guy lost his CEO job, and then got hired somewhere else, and now he’s going back to that first job again!

We still have kings and queens, they just don’t get to wear crowns as much. Now they’re just our politicians, our celebrities, and our CEOs. We still ascribe to this belief that other people are better at deciding things than we are and have this twisted desire to ask “well what does my hero think about this?”

There’s a historical theory called the Great Man Theory which in its most simple form says that progress and history are driven forward by unique people. They’re smarter, more courageous, divinely inspired, or whatever else. Closely tied to this is the heroic theory of invention which states that inventions come from “genius” people that are just better than the masses. The world cannot march forward without these specific people.

I’ve found this particular theory offensive for a long time. I cannot help but see it as an excuse to convince yourself you’re less than someone else. An excuse to not try. An excuse to farm out your beliefs and stances rather than take some personal responsibility. I find it particularly offensive when people cling to these beliefs about their heroes with both hands, wholly convinced they are correct, in the face of strong evidence that their heroes are not the superhumans the peasants want to think they are.

What I find interesting, and what I keep coming back to, is a competing concept called multiple discovery which is that people discover and invent things at the same time but completely independent of each other. It’s seen across the breadth of our human civilization and is only accelerating. If you only read one link below the one on multiple discovery is the one you should read. It shows up in history and invention and even in evolution.

I used to sign off longer form stuff with “we are all in this together” until I realized nobody fucking cares - they’d rather it be “us vs. them” with a hero leading them than recognize their neighbor as being as important as themselves. I’ve grown so much more jaded in the past 9 years as I realized that people would much rather abscond from reality and rationality and decision-making in favor of whoever their environment has lead them to revere as a hero.

Anyways. I find multiple discovery appealing because it means we’ll move forward in spite of people’s heroes. We’ll keep marching forward because its human nature to improve the world around us and adapt and learn. We are all in this together.

I’m not sure what I was looking for here but at least this’ll quiet my head down a little bit maybe...

Squirt Says (2 years later)…

I find it surprising that JFK was one of the most favorite presidents, but when you know that he lied he was hypocritical you don’t see him as special just as another president because that was every president. Every president has lied and done something bad some more than others.

This is all the same for the celebrities every apology video shows that celebrities aren’t perfect. No one is and never will be. You are just as important as everybody else.