HEROES AND VILLAINS
The recent death of Dale Earnhardt and the outpouring of grief that followed it have gotten me thinking. I was a little stunned by the public reaction to a column in this paper by Tim Wilkins which suggested (rather mildly, I thought) that okay, we’re sorry Dale’s dead, but maybe it’s time to get on with our lives. From the letters, you’d think that ol’ Tim had suggested using Rottweilers to hunt kittens for sport and broadcasting the results live on Nickelodeon.
I was further bemused by this newspaper’s decision to report Michael Jordan’s delinquent local property tax bill on the front page and the blast of indignation that greeted that report. The final thing that jogged my word processor into action was the letter writer who asserted that Bill Clinton was my "hero" and suggested that I should join the paper’s editorial staff and write a column about what a bum he was. So you could say I’ve been thinking a lot about heroes lately.
The first definition that came to my mind is someone who puts his own life or safety in jeopardy to save the life of another. By this measure, heroes include people like Sgts. Gary I. Gordon and Randall D. Shughart, who sacrificed their lives trying to save their fellow soldiers in the Somalia debacle. It also includes every fireman who ever walked into a burning building to save a person inside, every cop who took a bullet in the line of duty, and every Coast Guardsman who took a fragile boat or aircraft into the teeth of a howling storm to pull someone out of the water. By this definition, Jordan and Earnhardt don’t even come close. Sorry. And I find it somewhat galling that these people get maybe one ten-thousandth of the press coverage that an Earnhardt or a Jordan gets.
Then I thought about the people who put themselves in harm’s way, not for an immediate rescue, but for a higher cause. People who you could name under this definition of hero are people like Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney, who were murdered during the civil rights struggles of the sixties. You could also name Francis Scobee, Michael Smith, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis and Sharon Christa McAuliffe, who died in the Challenger disaster, trying to push mankind a little further into space. Just so we’re clear here, I do not regard entertainment as a higher cause, so Dale and Mike are out of luck here as well. And yes, it does gripe me more than a little that if you mentioned those names to the average Joe or Jane on the street, you’d probably get a blank look.
But then I thought of another definition of heroism, one that seems to fit people like Earnhardt and Jordan: people who push the limits of what humans are capable of, people whose hard work, natural ability, or sheer determination makes you rethink your own sense of where your own possibilities are. Earnhardt and Jordan definitely qualify here. Elvis (who another letter writer cited as a hero) fit this definition, at least before he ballooned up and became a Las Vegas caricature of himself.
The heroes in this last category, however, suffer from a handicap that the others don’t: they spend too long a time in the public eye. The people who achieve more than the proverbial fifteen minutes of fame seem to bring out not only our worship, but something darker as well, something that wants to be reassured that the famous are not only fallible like we are but that they have actually failed. The two sides to this coin are the near-sainthood accorded to Dale Earnhardt and the need this paper felt to publish Jordan’s (more likely his accountant’s) oversight, on the front page, no less.
So, back to the subject of Bill Clinton. For the record, I’ve never stated that Clinton was a hero. On the contrary, I’ve described his behavior as "sleazy, not to mention just plain weird." I’ve even called him a "Grade-A jackass."
I just don’t think he’s the Antichrist. I don’t think he eats babies and throws the leftovers into a fiery furnace as a sacrifice to Satan. I don’t even think he’s a criminal. But for some people, there seems to be no middle ground. I’m fascinated by people’s continued, almost obsessive devotion to the idea that Bill Clinton is Evil Made Flesh and Walking Among Us. He’s no angel, that’s for darn sure, so he must, therefore, be the Devil.
It’s the dark side of the hero coin. Like Earnhardt and Jordan, Clinton has passed beyond being a human being into being a symbol. Because of that, I can’t help but feel sorry for all three of them.
Dusty Rhoades lives in Carthage, practices law in Aberdeen, and suggests that the people who are probably going to respond to this column actually take the time to read it first and make sure they’re not proving his point.
OUR GRACIOUS HOST (BOOKS-N-BYTES)
COPYRIGHT 2001 BY JERRY D. RHOADES, JR.