Dear Readers: Dr. Ink is sniffing a little too much wind beneath our wings these days. After a generation of anti-heroes, heroes are back in style. It took the terrible events of September 11 to remind the nation of the good work performed by our public servants. But since then heroes have proliferated like kudzu, until they have covered the landscape. We need no Alan Greenspan to warn us of the dangers of Hero Inflation. We see them everywhere. Inflation diminishes the value of things. When almost everyone is a working-class hero, then no one is.
- Dying doesn’t make you a hero.
- Surviving doesn’t make you a hero.
- Working long hours doesn’t make you a hero.
- Being an effective administrator in an emergency does not make you a hero.
- Having stuff from the sky fall on your head does not make you a hero.
- Standing up at Madison Square Garden and calling Osama bin Laden a “bitch” may be popular and satisfying, but it does not make you a hero.
- Opening a news anchor’s mail does not make you a hero.
- Being a member of special forces doesn’t make you a hero.
The local hero story has been a staple of American journalism for many generations, but in less than two months we have used the word so promiscuously as to render it useless. Joseph Campbell called his book on mythology “Hero With a Thousand Faces.” It may be time to focus on those faces, as The New York Times has done, chronicling the decent humanity of the victims, rather than hyping it into heroism. As a grumpy New Yorker might say: “Enough with the heroes, already.”
In expressing this, Dr. Ink means no disrespect for soldiers, mayors, firefighters, police officers, EMTs or others who work in the public interest. If they do a fine job, we should herald it. In fact, after September 11, Dr. Ink will never complain of writer’s block again. After all, who has ever heard one of New York’s Finest suffering from cop block.
