In this, the most debilitating economic crisis since the Great Depression, there is one occupation that remains as robust and profitable as ever – the Hero. At no time since Pagan Rome and Julius Caesar is there more profound worship of the mere human. There is no place we can turn, no sport, industry, or amusement where one if not several within their ranks has not been escalated to the status of the holy divine. They have been turned into modern day prophets and we are their congregation listening as they minister from the sacred scripture of their accomplishments. Yet the price paid to receive such reverence and adulation is cheap by historical standards, it costs no tears or blood and can be bargained for with little more than beating analyst’s estimates, winning a Super Bowl, or starring in a video.
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It’s been said, and I have to believe, that you can tell everything you need to know about someone in how the answer this question,
“What sort of people do you admire most?”
If you worship the game, then the athlete will be your idol and king. If you are awe struck by riches then the titans of business and affluence will be to whom you pray. If you glorify physical beauty then those behemoths of the fashion, fitness, and beauty world will be the altar where you kneel.
This isn’t an attack on success or achievement nor the appreciation and recognition that comes from another’s triumphs, but it’s the extremes of the thing that proves our diseased minds. It’s the hanging of our hopes, our identity, and even our self worth that speaks to the twisted nature - when we stop admiring and start exalting.
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In a recent CNN.com article, the writer speaks to the fallout of the Penn State scandal and how it has toppled one of those modern day heroes and once again raises questions of our cult hero worship.
The author writes of such fallen idols as Joe Paterno, Tiger Woods, Bernie Madoff, and John Edwards and then asks the question, “So who's to blame, us or the guy on the pedestal? Are they bad people, or are we a bunch of suckers?”
It seems we are the real problem. We as a culture have this rarely talked about expectation that the character of the man is in direct proportion to the quality of the result. Or, “we generally assume these heroes are "good," at the very least, we dismiss their flaws, and assume their character is unchangeable.” And that mistake is ours to own when we make our gods of clay then rub our knees raw worshiping someone who, in the end, is as undivine and as small as we are. And as a parent I can think of few concerns more troubling than who my children will admire and ultimately emulate.
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Scotch taped on a wall in my daughter’s room at her mother’s house is a full size magazine page of a teen movie star, shirt off, pecks bulging, abs ripped. When asked why she has such a picture all she can respond to is his name, the movie she saw him in, and how she thinks he’s cute. Chills run down my spine as I picture where that line of thinking could ultimately lead.
But isn’t her picture symbolic of us all? We knowingly choose to place others on pedestals, and like my princess, without knowing anything other than their win/loss record, latest hit, or previous year’s compensation. Then we go further by placing expectations on them, ones we could never meet ourselves, then feel betrayed when our savior isn’t able to deliver on the promise.
Most interesting in the Penn State outrage, I think, was the response against the school. The NCAA ripped away fourteen years of wins, bowls, and titles from the football program and its players and fined the school $60 million. Paterno’s likeness, much like overthrown pharaohs of ancient Egypt, is being chiseled away from every monument along with taking down his seven-foot statue at the entrance to Beaver Stadium.
Was this reaction a justified answer that reflected the evils of the case or was it merely an attempt to put a balm on the wounds of betrayal and hurt caused when their god turned out to be mortal and they were left standing amid the rubble of their own foolishness? The mistaken expectation of Penn State faithful had been that Paterno was the same person off the football field as he was on. "The boxes we put around people are false labels. It's an easy way to assume what they're like in our realm." But when that turned out not to be so, as it always does, retribution is the penance due when we discover our gods are nothing but wooden idols carved with our own assumptions and hopes.
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This is one of the fundamental lesson I hope to teach my children, that it is normal to admire the athlete, actress, or singer for their God given talents and use those accomplishments as motivation in their own endeavors, but to also separate those achievements from the individual behind them. To never view that movie star as anything other than the undivine mortal creature she is, who is as weak and fragile as the rest of us.
That to appreciate someone does not mean to exalt them, and the lines they speak, lyrics they sing, and the scores they make will never describe the person behind them. So that when the idol comes crashing down they’ll never be standing bewildered among the broken shards of their gods of clay.
Originally published in 2012