April 30, 2020
Heroes in Democracy: a Dangerous Paradox
In Bertolt Brecht’s play Galileo, the character of Andrea affirms: “Unhappy the land that has no heroes!” To this, Galileo responds: “No. Unhappy the land that needs heroes”. People seem to hold heroes in high regard. Few are those who realize the repercussions of having heroes in a democracy.
A hero is generally an individual (this is important, as we’ll see) who displays great courage, aspires to great achievements, and overall plays an important, central part in a certain event or historical period.
What could possibly be bad about that, you might wonder.
The operative element here is democracy, so let’s see the definition of that word as well: It comes from the Greek words δήμος (people) and κρατία (power, rule); rule of the people, that is.
Democracy relies on informed, rational citizens collectively and intelligently deciding on the affairs of the state. Ironically enough, that’s precisely the reason why democracy inevitably fails.
In reality, people are a collection of individuals. Most of them are of, well, average intelligence and with, well, adequate moral convictions. A few (or…?) are truly stupid and malicious, and very few are highly intelligent and benevolent. Obviously, there are many gradations in between. Moreover, the systemAs this word carries a lot of baggage and can convey an aura of conspiracy theory ("them", "they", or "it"), I should clarify that system in this post simply refers to the ruling class; the status quo. has an incentive to undermine or even silence those few whose integrity is so powerful, they completely disregard danger – with a few shining exceptions, their stories are lost.
The thing is, in such a setup, heroes in a democracy that struggles appear as an attractive solution. Heroes in a democracy almost feel like what the “mortals” need to be inspired by.
And yet, heroes in a democracy are a dangerous paradox: the very element that assures democracy is dying.
Admiring Heroes in a Democracy: How Passivity Is Born
Unless you’re Bonnie Tyler, no, you don’t need a hero, the way you don’t need a god or a master.
Or… do you?
This depends on who you are as a person. As I have said before, self-deception is a viable solution for many people. Perhaps it’s the only solution, in the sense that they have spent so much time in the dark that they can no longer adjust to the brightness of free thought.
To put it bluntly, a depressing majority of people are fine with others deciding for them; gods, rulers, or… heroes. Deep down, a depressing majority of people don’t want to be free.
Why on earth, you might wonder.
Well, perhaps a phrase attributed to the ancient Athenian historian Thucydides might reveal why: “You can be either free or peaceful; being both is impossible”.
Having Heroes, Gods, and Masters, Allows One to Shed Responsibility
Imagine having to grapple with the vast, turbulent, unknown ocean that is the human experience. The questions begin to accumulate, ranging from the most mundane aspects of your life to the most fundamental (and basically unanswerable) facets of existential anxieties.
How should I go about having an income? How do I get access to medical treatment – and what if I can’t afford it? Must I work?
What is the meaning of it all? Is there even a meaning? And what if I can’t find a meaning, how do I deal with this absurd life?
Better not having to struggle with such questions…
Enter heroes in a “democracy”!
The Myth of Superman
Have you ever wondered why so many people are attracted to superheroes?
The answer is embarrassingly simple: It’s because superheroes allow the individual (with the blessing of the system) to sit back and relax, fantasizing about the good guy that one day, maybe, perhaps, will make it all better.
As Umberto Eco marvelously explains in his essay “The Myth of Superman” (you can find it in his The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts), one would expect from Superman to take on truly significant, global problems. Instead, we see him dealing with the scale equivalent of saving cats from trees.
Why?
Because it’s important for the system to display heroes in a democracy, just as long as you aren’t made to think why we would need them in the first place.
But here there is a twist in the plot…
Sometimes, the superhero isn’t a mythical being with superpowers. Sometimes the superhero becomes a synecdoche for a private corporation that is – naturally, you commie! – juxtaposed against the state’s supposed lack of efficiency.
If you were a kid in the 80s or early 90s, you might remember MacGyver. Ah, the 80s… Reaganomics; “There is no alternative“; and of course, the private-corporation hero (be it MacGyver or Michael Knight) who takes care of what the state can’t or shouldn’t – because that would be socialist, and we care about socialism only once in ten years, when capitalism goes belly-up, forcing banks and corporations to ask for bailouts.
Heroes in a Democracy Is a Sign of Failure
Next time you go online, notice how people refer to well known individuals, particularly if those are or have been leaders (actual or perceived) of big organizations or corporations; say, Elon Musk or Steve Jobs.
Have you noticed an admiration verging on deification, if not obsession? Have you noticed how people crave for the existence of someone to focus all their hopes on (as if Musk, Jobs, or any other similar person did whatever they did all alone, without armies of people and heaps of money behind them)?
These people act like that because they need heroes. Heroes in a democracy are popular because heroes are a simple answer to complex problems.
It’s far easier to expect Elon Musk (just using him as an example, you get the idea) to find the solution to all your problems, rather than having to get up, get out, and fight for your rights.
It’s far simpler to expect [enter name of your favorite politician] to save you, rather than invest time, effort, and above all self-doubt in figuring out the complexities of society.
Ultimately, it’s far more peaceful to expect some omniscient, omnipotent being to take you to a heavenly place after you die, rather than having to deal with the thought of your own annihilation.
(Parenthetically, if you don’t see anything bad about heaven, you ought to read this!)
Have you ever wondered whether Minions was inspired by true events, by any chance?
Instead of a conclusion, allow me to quote Franco Moretti and ask you – see it as a little exercise – to discover how it is related to a discussion about heroes in a democracy.
Frankenstein and Dracula lead parallel lives. They are indivisible, because complementary, figures; the two horrible faces of a single society, its extremes: the disfigured wretch and the ruthless proprietor. The worker and capital.
[ … ]
The literature of terror is born precisely out of the terror of a split society and out of the desire to heal it. It is for just this reason that Dracula and Frankenstein, with rare exceptions, do not appear together. The threat would be too great, and this literature, having produced terror, must also erase it and restore peace. It must restore the broken equilibrium – giving the illusion of being able to stop history – because the monster expresses the anxiety that the future will be monstrous. His antagonist – the enemy of the monster – will always be, by contrast, a representative of the present, a distillation of complacent nineteenth-century mediocrity: nationalistic, stupid, superstitious, philistine, impotent, self-satisfied. But this does not show through. Fascinated by the horror of the monster, the public accepts the vices of its destroyer without a murmur, just as it accepts his literary depiction, the jaded and repetitive typology which regains its strength and its virginity on contact with the unknown. The monster, then, serves to displace the antagonisms and horrors evidenced within society to outside society itself. In Frankenstein the struggle will be between a ‘race of devils’ and the ‘species of man’. Whoever dares to fight the monster automatically becomes the representative of the species, of the whole of society. The monster, the utterly unknown, serves to reconstruct a universality, a social cohesion which in itself would no longer carry conviction.
Moretti, Franco. “The Dialectic of Fear”, New Left Review, 136 (Nov.-Dec. 1982), 67-85; emphasis in the original.
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“In reality, people are a collection of individuals. Most of them are of, well, average intelligence and with, well, adequate moral convictions. A few (or…?) are truly stupid and malicious, and very few are highly intelligent and benevolent.”
An accurate summary of our species. Democracy was created for the majority to enable them to practice self delusion on a grand scale. Those, for whom it doesn’t work, need heroes, saviors, gods. “Religion is the opium of the people”, paraphrasing Karl Marx, illuminates the whole phenomena. This also applies to hero-worship or celebrity worship as well.
For a solution, that would be a consensus based anarchy that works things out by clear logic, based on scientifically verified facts and undisputed cooperation, giving priority to the survival and welfare of the social body, as opposed to individual interests and desires, we need a large scale genetic treatment for a species-wide brain defect that we have inherited from our evolutionary history. The result of this defect is analogous to what would happen to a human body if the individual organs and cells decided to adopt “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” instead of cooperation to assure survival of the whole body.
Biggest problem, even with the most intelligent thinkers, is the lack of courage (or even interest) to go back to basic principles and ask fundamental questions before attempting to provide answers.
– What are the essence, goals and priorities of a human society?
– How do individuals fit into these goals?
– What are the basically different options for organizing people?
– What are the advantages and disadvantages of these options?
– Which of the options do we chose?
– What is the optimum way to implement this option?
If we answered these questions, the rest would be easy. Basic facts, simple logic, and some arithmetic would provide the answers.
I think the problem is that we can’t answer these questions – not collectively. I know what “the essence, goals and priorities of a human society” should be, but there are probably another 7 billion opinions out there that differ.
The thing is, I don’t think I even have the right to claim I’m… right. That is, I know what would work for me, which isn’t necessarily what would work for others. Humans are individual personalities within a basically social (herd-based?) framework; an unsolvable paradox of needing to experience togetherness alone.
One basic undeniable fact is the following: Very, very few individual human beings can survive on their own, without the support of their societies. Even the very few that tried to live off the land still used tools, knowledge and resources they collected from their societies before attempting lone survival. It is a symbiotic relationship. Symbiots that don’t cooperate die out.
So one possible answer to my first 2 questions that most people would agree with:
– “the essence, goals and priorities of a human society” is to survive by protecting the individual human beings making it up
– Individuals fit into this role by protecting their society (that’s protecting them) with their individual actions.
The rest would follow from these two basic principles.
See the “Resolving conflicting loyalties” chapter in my “Humane Physics” book.
I agree with that, but I think the operative word is “survive”. This was (relatively) easy to agree and comply with in the dawn of humanity. But after surviving we wanted to live; after living, to thrive. That’s where problems begin. Perhaps I’m just being too cynic, but I can envision a group of three Neanderthals looking at one portion of meat. “Hmm,” one of them must’ve thought, “We could either all eat a little and still be hungry, or I could keep it all for myself and kill the other two with my club.” CLONK!
(If interested, you might find the “Collective Action Theory” an interesting read)
That’s where the following quote from my previous post becomes relevant:
“we need a large scale genetic treatment for a species-wide brain defect that we have inherited from our evolutionary history.”
I call it a ‘brain defect’ because the result is self destructive. We inherited it from the chimpanzees. Alas, we did not evolve from the Bonobo apes. They solved their problems by sex – a much more enjoyable and less destructive method, unless it would lead to overpopulation.
In mythology the hero’s journey is usually meant to convey the idea that we are all the hero of our own story, and we can put ourselves in their shoes. I think it’s okay for a culture to have heroes as long as the idea that anyone can be a hero is still associated with them. More promotion of self-agency and responsibility for one’s own actions. Used effectively, a hero myth can be inspiring and educational.
Mainstream media just isn’t providing effective hero myths anymore. The hero plots of comic book heroes, “super” heroes, are just another way society is being infantilized and lulled into passivity and submission. The characters are flat, the plot is simple, and pretty much no critical thinking is required. As long as this type of hero media remains prevalent, heroes will have the toxic effect they have now.
Interesting comment — the connection to the mythological hero is indeed intriguing, as modern superheroes very often have much older counterparts. See this BBC article, for a detailed analysis.
Thanks for your input!