Hero Worship

Ironically, my Westminster Dog Show piece, which ends with the phrase, “Yeah, Tiger Woods” (the dog), was posted just before the golfer Tiger Woods’ escapes were aired in public. The following piece, also written before the airing of Woods’ troubles, seems particularly appropriate to the situation.

They stripped Michael Phelps of his Wheaties gig for smoking pot. Gee whiz. He’s twenty-three or twenty-four, doing what most other twenty-year olds do at some point in their lives and he gets taken off the back of a cereal box. But the question is, why is he, or Alex Rodriguez or Mark McGuire or O.J. Simpson, on the back of a cereal box in the first place? I assume being on the cereal box means that kids are supposed to look at the picture and want to be just like you, meaning they want to be born with the physical attributes and the psychological ambition and drive that allow these guys to make it to the top in their respective sports, where they are paid millions of dollars to single mindedly pursue success in a very narrow field of interest. What is heroic about that? Is making millions of dollars heroic or simply what our society equates with success? If it’s heroic, why don’t they put the pictures of corporate CEOs on the back of cereal boxes. Or do you have to earn millions of dollars and play a sport to be a hero. Is it the single mindedness (or simple mindedness, as the case may be)? Then why aren’t members of the U.S. House of Representatives on the back of cereal boxes. One certainly has to be single minded to disrupt your life every two years to raise the money for re-election.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not shedding any tears for Michael Phelps. He knew what was expected of him when he signed up to make millions by selling Wheaties or Nike sneakers. It’s us I feel sorry for. Apparently our lives are so bereft that twenty- something swimmers (swimmers, for Christ sake!) are the people we find most interesting and want to spend time with by reading People Magazine and joining fan clubs. I could understand wanting to spend a day with, or wanting to know better, Emily Dickinson or Che Guevara or Raymond Williams, but what on earth are you going to talk about with Michael other than the finer points of the breast stroke or how to get the most out of your turn?

While this kind of hero worship reveals the bankruptcy of our intellect, raising a good Samaritan to the status of hero reveals our emotional bankruptcy. Shouldn’t we expect any and everyone to stop to help someone on the road who is broken down or been in an accident? Why then do you see the letter to the editor telling everyone about the “hero” who stopped to help his wife change her tire, calling it “beyond the call of duty. No, it is the call of duty to help your fellow man or woman. Poor “Sully” Sullivan, the pilot who set the plane down in the Hudson River last year. What a reluctant hero he was. Or rather, was his wife, who, when interviewed by every TV and radio station in the country said, “I really don’t think Sully is a hero.” With the skills and judgment he had honed over a long career, and with the luck of the day, he saved a bunch of peoples lives as well as his own skin. Do we elevate him to hero status because we’re wrapped in our cocoons of self-concern and self-doubt and worry we would fail the test?