Society’s Messiah Complex
No, this post isn’t about President Barack Obama of the United States. Though that picture is awesome.
This post is about us. This post is really an addendum/followup to the post I posted a few days ago on The Problem With Heroes. I, more or less, want to expand on what I was going on about in that post.
This came to me as I was watching the Inauguration of the 44th President on CNN and the commentary and responses that people had, as shown on the CBC’s National program that night. Basically, what I noted was that virtually everyone interviewed fell over themselves with remarks such as “we’re saved”, “hope has come to America”, “change is here”, oh and this precious gem: “its over! its all over! we’re all equal and anyone can be anything they want to be now!” (Note: I’m not actually quoting, I’m paraphrasing). Anyway, it struck me as very odd that people were so quick, so eager, so ready to abdicate complete and total responsibility for anything and heap it on the President.
The Problem with Heroes
Every child has a hero when he’s growing up. Someone he looks up to and wants to be like. Someone who’s infallible and invincible. Someone who always does the right thing and is there when he’s needed. At first that may be dad, but soon it becomes the fireman, the police man, the doctor, the biologist, the paleontologist, and so on.
With each step in growing up, that upper bound of heroism keeps getting pushed further and further up and outward. Dad stops being a hero one day when, much to your chagrin, he just can’t carry you on his shoulders anymore. The policeman fades away as you realize that the world is more complicated than good versus evil. The doctor gives way to the biologist, who in turn is brushed aside by the paleontologist, as your mind continually strives to find that person, that individual who’s achieved what you want to achieve. Who’s done the things that you want to do. To a child, a teen, a youth, each of these figures is like a stepping stone. A target. A goal.
However, as we age we begin to see their fallibility. Dad doesn’t always do what’s right. Sometimes he makes mistakes. Loses his temper even. The policeman doesn’t get his man, or worse yet, puts an innocent man in jail. The doctor loses a patient.
