Professor Reitz
This week my sons and I have been finishing up this 1,000-piece Civil War puzzle, and I was struck by the choices the artist made in capturing this major event in American history. All of the generals are featured along the border in postage-stamp sized images, the major generals (Lee, Grant, Sherman) get a little bigger picture and then in the middle are large drawings of Abraham Lincoln (of course), Confederate President Jefferson Davis (o.k., I guess that makes sense) and, interestingly, Frederick Douglass. This week we are reading from Douglass’s Narrative and while I’ll save specific questions about that text for our class discussion, his image on that puzzle got me thinking about heroes, our need for them, and how they relate to social justice.
In this week of Barack Obama speaking 45 years to the day after MLK spoke in Washington, D.C. (we’ll read MLK's speech next week) – neither of those men could have been where they are without the Frederick Douglasses -- it is impossible to say that we don’t need our heroic individuals to rise up out of the masses and shape our stories, give us hope and lead the way. And I was thrilled to have the opportunity to tell my sons, as we looked for the weird puzzle piece shaped like Ohio that we assume our dog must have eaten, that Douglass was as important a player as Lincoln or Davis in the events that shaped the Civil War and its aftermath. How fantastic, in a history that all too often seems like a sea of white, male faces floating in clouds, to be able to include people of color, or women (Harriet Beecher Stowe and Harriet Tubman are on the puzzle, though not as big as Douglass).
But it is also a problem. Our culture tends to glorify the hero, the individual who can stand apart from everyone else. We see this with our bizarre fascination with celebrities, or our tendency to celebrate individual athletes (Michael Phelps) over teams (women’s soccer). We will talk about our culture’s ideology of individualism later this semester, but I think our need for heroes owes something to our tendency to recognize the excellent individual over the group. Of course we could and should celebrate both the individuals and the group. But this is hard to do. Once someone distinguishes his/herself, he/she tends to be seen as an individual, rather than a representative. He/she tends to move outside the group he/she came from.
Jacques Derrida, a post-structuralist critic that, if you study hard and stay out of English graduate school, you may never have to read, describes this problem as “the paradox of exemplarity.” He was writing about Nelson Mandela, whose heroism is without question, but his point was that the individualism associated with the hero tends to support the power structures that exist and that, by and large, tend to work against the interests of the masses. We see this in our history books that are comprised of the stories of Great Men (and Women) and therefore fail to reflect the stories of the millions of average folks whose lives constitute the under-represented background for these great individuals. Mandela embodied the interests of deeply oppressed South Africans, but in being the hero he also separates himself from them, becomes different from them even as he represents them. While heroes make for good stories and perhaps personal inspiration (your writing assignment for this week) -- not to mention puzzles -- is the idea of the hero somehow unjust or at odds with the broader aims of social justice?
14 comments:
Hey, welcome to the comments section. Feel free to comment on any aspect of the post or on another seminar member's comment.
There is so much rich material in your post, Professor Reitz! Thank you for it. I agree with you that we glorify individual heroes and that we need to be skeptical about doing that. I don't think it's "cultural" per se, but rather it's a political and economic project. As you suggest, the focus on the individual (hero) erases the role of collectivities, movements, struggles. Why is collectivism, social movements and struggles such a threat???
Derrida isn't alone in his suggestion that history is written by the victors. Howard Zinn, author of the incredibly enlightening best seller, "A People's History of the United States," also writes on this theme: “To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators and discoverers, and to deemphasize their genocide, is not a technical necessity but an ideological choice." Why is one "remembered" and the other erased??
Zinn goes on, "The treatment of heroes (Columbus) and their victims (the Arawaks)--the quiet acceptance of conquest and murder in the name of progress--is only one aspect of a certain approach to history, in which the past is told from the point of view of governments, conquerors, diplomats, leaders…it is enough to make us question, for that time and ours… the telling of history from the standpoint of the conquerors and leaders…”
If we've got heroes, then we've also got their flip side: villains. What ideological purpose do villains serve?
If we've got heroes, then it's harder for us to see the ways in which systems and structures are implicated in what happens.
Sorry if I went on too much about this. I think these are such critical issues for all of us.
I believe that there are two types of heroes: those who fight for social justice (Frederick Douglas), and those who strive for personal gratification irrespective of all who suffer as a result (Columbus). The challenge which lies herein is to distinguish the both, which I believe many neglect to do. Therefore it is not the "hero" who should be held at fault, but the people who chose such a hero.
When judging the actions of a true hero, such as Nelson Mandela, it is important to analyze the balance of power between the hero (one that fights for social justice), and the adversary. I believe Nelson Mandela to be one of the truest of heroes. ,whom in the midst of injustice and with little power, except from the people who never forgot his name and his good deeds, strategically, while recognizing the imbalance of power, negotiated on behalf of the people of South Africa.
I do not believe that Nelson Mandela expected immediate justice for his people as it should be, but rather expected that his release and appointed presidency would serve a catharsis and begin the long journey to equality and justice. After all, slavery has been abolished since 1865 and it has taken since 2008 to elect the first African American for the presidency. The balance of power no doubt had an instrumental role in this exhausting process.
Therefore, to Jacques Deridda, the critic who implies that Nelson Mandela supports the power structure that exist and inevitably work against the interest of his people, I say walk a mile in the shoe of Nelson Mandela.
The question of whether "heroes" have aided in or harmed the struggle for social justice is one that has no single answer. It is my personal opinion that the term "hero" in and of itself, carries with it many negative connotations. When addressing the impact of heroes on our society, I feel that it is truly important to analyze what Americans (as an overall culture) view as heroic qualities.
Starting with the classic example of Christopher Columbus, people in America have been presented with heroes who, aside from their ability to inspire and lead, possess a degree a barbarity. They are very often people who can kill, people who can capture, and people who can conquer while still appearing noble in the eyes of the general public. Such is seen not only in American history (in the election of "war heroes" as Presidents), but as well in classic comic book heroes that encompass the broader definition of the term "hero".
The negative connotations attached the the title "hero" cannot be ignored; coining people such as Nelson Madella, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, Harriet Tubman, and countless others who have and are still are standing out against injustice as "heroes" is, in a way, demeaning.
They are not immortal comic book characters, they are vincible; they do not obtain notoriety via violence, but with passion and controlled action.
Unlike the generic "hero", we need people to prove to the masses that mortal, everyday people can still induce change in a country where many voices are stifled. We should not, however, be categorizing these people as heroes, but rather warriors; people deserving of glorification based on the hardships that they have endured and the ability to use strategy and intellect over violence.
A hero, in one sense, is someone that has been victorious. A knight on a white horse carrying a damsel once in distress; a firefighter successfully rescuing a mother and child from a burning building. In the fight for social justice, there has been no clear cut victory, and it is therefore still a fight.
For this reason, we need warriors, not heroes. Heroes are at odds with the broader aims of social justice, (especially in America), because the term has been tainted with violence and power. People like Frederick Douglass are necessary and essential in the fight for equality and should not be placed in the same category as Christopher Columbus or Superman.
Kerry Ann Hewitt and Professors Reitz and Waterston present evocative questions about both the intrinsic nature of heroism, and the social forces that may compel it. Not to mention heroism's partner, villainy: you cannot have one without the other. Durkheim said that it was only through defining some people as deviant that we could ever define others as moral.
Kerry Ann, like any good criminal justice or forensic psychology person, wants to know about the motivation and intention behind profitable deeds. This can be treacherous territory, as most people ascribe good intentions to themselves and poor ones to others, except in the case of those elevated to hero status, who are then expected to be pure in ways that few ever are capable of being.
In this vein, I don't read Derrida as having "blamed" Mandela for some unanticpated consequence of his political actions. I think Derrida just called attention to a social and psychological context that reveres individualism, forces participants with good "social justice" motives to become overarching symbols who then are forced be personally ambitious in order to fulfill their social justice agendas. (In the current election cycle, Obama may be a case in point.) In this way, we end up with a "hero" who is substantially tainted by the very system she or he opposes, which gives us ample excuse to knock the hero down (nothing is more satisfying) and revert to the status quo, which is more comfortably familar.
I would argue that we do always need heroes because they symbolize feelings, ideas, etc. that otherwise remain unformulated and thus cannot be articulated and realized. Heroes are catalysts for change. We just shouldn't confuse the vehicle of change with the change itself, of necessity propelled by much larger forces.
Heroes as an integrated part of a society
The webster dictionary defines a hero to be 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. Although heroes are admired by society for their exemplary actions, we should keep in mind that they are also members or representatives of that society. We as humans have the tendency to glorify those heroes and disassociate them as members of a group. In addition we should agree that the "character" of that hero was also molded on the ideas of the society that he or she represents, and also from learning experiences from heroes of the past. For example Nelson Mandella is without any discussion a hero in the field of social justice. However he was able to accomplish so much inspired by the struggle of his fellow members of society. Finally it would be fair to say that heroes in general look for social justice, but it wouldnt be a full realization of social justice without acknowledging the struggles of other members in society that were the inspiration for those heroes.
The questions raised in this post are queries I have never before pondered; which perhaps is evidence that I, too, have fallen victim to our culture’s need to praise the actions of an individual rather than the efforts of the masses. As I was going down Frederick Douglass Boulevard today I was thinking that it is simply easier for us to acknowledge a single person rather than a group -imagine “Activists Who Fought for Equality Boulevard” (unintelligent point, but still, I thought it). I think we tend to acknowledge individuals as opposed to teams partly because it is more convenient; we like to be able to point fingers, ascribe responsibility, and follow an individual’s life. I think it is much more difficult for us to realize that masses of different individual’s can all accomplish the same goal- and arrive at that goal in a million different ways. We would prefer to look to one person and mimic his/her path to “success”.
But as we all know, what is easiest is not always what is right. Do I think heroes have harmed the fight against social injustices? No. They have been great motivators and representatives of causes/struggles. I do think that heroes have a duty to remind us that they are not the only one fighting, that there is an “army” of people behind him/her, and those masses are most likely responsible for laying the ground work for progress.
I agree that collectivism, social movements, and struggles are a threat. It is interesting to think that we view an individual (the hero) fighting for a cause and a group of people fighting for a cause differently; the former is noble and admirable while the latter is typically cause for concern.
I think our internships will teach us just how much can be accomplished by a group of people, and that rarely is positive change the result of a single person’s effort.
Hello everyone! I agree with Kerry-Ann, that the challenge in defining a hero is to distinguish the difference between a hero who fights for social justice and a hero who’s ultimate goal is his/her personal gain. However, I don’t agree that the people responsible are everyday citizens who chose such a hero.
In the case of Michael Phelps, if everywhere you turn you are bombarded with Phelps’s achievement, who wouldn’t be influenced into believing that the biggest hero of the Olympics is Phelps? That scenario applies to Columbus as well as Mandela. If the mass society is told year after year that a particular person, for example Columbus, is a great hero, it would hard to find someone who felt otherwise. I myself was unaware of the full history behind Columbus until I took Anthropology in John Jay.
In my Graphic Novels course we are currently reading Batman, and while Batman fights crimes and often injures others in the process of achieving social justice, it is his underlying motives that make him a hero. To define a hero, I believe that you have to look at that person’s true motives. The idea of a hero is at odds with society, because society can never really know what drives the hero to commit his “heroic” actions.
I'm so impressed by the comments and I'm glad Ridhi brought up the question of superheroes. Superheroes are a clear example of both how we tend to make social justice the work of extraordinary individuals and how we tend to set those individuals above/outside society (being a superhero makes you an outsider as your identity must remain secret, etc.). But studying superheroes also illustrates some of the points made in the comments about the deep connection between heroism and villainy, about the cost of making someone a hero, and about the easy, fantasy aspect of the hero figure (rather than the less glamorous, collective struggle required for social change, which, as Amanda rightly points out, will be evident in your internships). But the hero thing dies hard. Many times have I said to myself that "Iraq needs a Mandela."
In evaluating the questions put forth in this blog I feel myself searching for specific and concrete meanings of words like hero and justice. But, these ideas are conceptualized differently by everyone, based on personal experience and context. Further, it seems nearly impossible to generalize about all those we consider heroes, since athlete heroes are much different from war heroes. However, I was struck by two ideas that I saw throughout a few of the responses.
First of all, without meaning to sound ethnocentric or arrogant, I pose the question: Is our system really so bad that upholding it compromises heroism? Although not perfect, it has proven capable of evolving and improving without fundamentally changing (as proved by the current presidential race).
Secondly, while everyone involved in group movements for justice holds some degree of credit for the outcomes of their work, all movements originate somewhere and are organized by someone. For example, any collaborative intellectual efforts we make can ultimately be attributed to our professors. Without their questions and guidance we would have no starting point. Gandhi gave his people a philosophy and methodology by which to achieve independence. For his rallying the people, intellect, personal risks, and the movement’s ultimate success does he not deserve extra recognition? Of course the movement would have failed without the masses, but is each member of the movement so interchangeable that any one of them could have replaced Gandhi? For some inexplicable reason, his ideas and practices met the exact circumstances necessary for success, this is what distinguishes him.
Finally, heroes are just people. In many ways they are idealized by us, the beholders. In our society, which values individual responsibility, it seems logical that individual successes would be admired. Who we admire choose should be put under some scrutiny, but I don’t believe that having heroes really significantly damages our society. I hope my reactions to the discussion are relevant to the subject.
Heroes have been around a long time, in every culture. An institution with that kind of endurance deserves some respect and we shouldn't be too quick to dismiss the value of the idea of the hero. Perhaps it is simply human nature at work; the need to personify an idea for it to resonate with us. Maybe the "hero" is first and foremost a tool to help us understand a more complex idea, a shorthand or symbol for a group of ideas or traits that we aspire to. Take as an example, Mandela, mentioned by several others here. What do we think of when we think of him? Strength, courage in the face of overwhelming oppression, endurance for the idea of equality. Or another example, Gandhi. He makes us think of the fight for equality of a suppressed nation, but calls to mind tremendous strength through peaceful, non-violent resolve. Even Michael Jordan; "be like Mike" is a lot easier for us to comprehend than "be fast, have superior jumping ability, be able to perform at your best under enormous pressure, accomplish things that no one else has, etc." Heroes not only encapsulate a group of ideas into one symbol for us, they are easier to identify with than ideas. They give us hope that we too can accomplish great things, allow us to internalize their accomplishments and make us feel good about ourselves.
Nowadays, it is hard to see people that lose themselves in the service of other. The 21st Century societies emphasize the importance of the individual and not the one of the community. People that only look for themselves when lead the way cannot be viewed as heroes. I believe that history of heroes is long gone in the American society. New generations tend to identify with personages that have nothing to do with social justice (like singers, or movies stars). What we need to do is to teach the younger generations the importance of heroes in history. They have to learn that everything they got was earned through sacrifice and they should not take anything for granted.
There will always be leaders ruling the groups, because this is part of a democratic system. However, we need to watch closely how much of their group succeed they take upon them, in order to glorify themselves. People do not become heroes overnight. They glorify themselves, as the former president of Romania did and forced people to recognize him as a hero, or they become glorified by others based on their work. It is very important to distinguish between the two. We don’t need to over judge the ones that tried to help others and they take a bit of success in their own account. There are still countries in distress around the world that need to envision someone as their hero. This is the only way they are able to keep their hopes up and overcome evil. I believe Nelson Mandela is a good example of such a hero.
I view individuals like Martin Luther King, Frederick Douglass and Nelson Mandela as representatives and narrators of a painful struggle against the forces of slavery, racism and most of all inhumanity. To term a few individuals as heroes out of millions who suffered for generations is to take away from the magnitude of the cause. It is easier for us to remember Martin Luther King than to remember the millions who have been dehumanized for centuries for the color of their skin. It is easier for us to remember Mandela than to remember the millions of South Africans who suffered under apartheid. More so, by constructing heroes and labeling these individuals as such, are we giving ourselves a sense of false security? A sense that these men defeated injustice and prevailed? Are we truly convinced that institutions of racism and slavery have been eradicated? Do we truly believe Dr. King's dream has been achieved or has racism just been swept under the carpet? Has equal opportunity and justice truly defeated injustice? Have we truly defeated the weapons of inhumanity? Have we really reached a point where we can celebrate and think of labeling individuals in a cause as heroes?
So I’m confused by this word “hero”.
Two years ago I was on the subway, talking with some of my co-workers about a program we are involved with called Young Heroes. It’s a social justice program for middle school students and we refer to the students as “the heroes”. A man on the subway engaged in a rather long, angry dialogue with us about the use of the word “hero”, and how we shouldn’t throw it around willy-nilly to describe a bunch of kids. His definition for the word hero was that it should strictly be used to describe the “men serving in Iraq”.
Though I can’t say I agree with his definition (ahem), I understand that "hero" is a subjective word and often a very political word. Similar to what Professor Waterston addressed: Is Sam Adams a hero: a champion of democracy, or a terrorist hell bent on destroying the English crown?
But to play devil's advocate here, Is the glorification of heroes a problem?
Similar to what Greta said...No one, not even our real-life super-heroes, is perfect. I would argue not that 'the masses' are left out, but that heroes are created by the masses.
The media, certain communities, opinion leaders-people- highlight “the good stuff” of those we respect as a society and for better or worse, push forward that one face to be exalted.
I’m okay with the “heroes” of the communities that I’m a part of representing me. What better way to understand the struggles, politics, shock value, and love of the queer community than by hearing about Sylvia Rivera or Bayard Rustin?
Post a Comment