Heroes, a speech by Sean Carter

[Iudicious]

This speech was written for an original oratory event in an upcoming debate tournament. What I want to do with the speech is give an idea of how heroes have changed, how that change reflects our culture, and what heroes should be. I only have a maximum of ten minutes to do this though, and I need to do it eloquently. I have what I think is the finished product, but I'm having a bit of a problem with one particular paragraph: the one comparing Batman and Superman. I know very little about comic book heroes, and I had to go to a friend for that one, and the comparison feels a bit shaky. I also had a bit of problem with the final two paragraphs. The final paragraph is what I want it to be, but I want to find a better way to transition into that. The problem is, the length of the speech now is probably the maximum without running the risk of going over 10 minutes when spoken.

In posting this here, I'm looking for criticism, both in the ideas and the writing, and hopefully for some aid on that particular paragraph if anyone has a better idea for a comparison, or a better way of putting my comparison.

I realize there are quite a few things I wrote into the speech that one would never do in an essay - and that's why I'm not putting it in the Member's Writing forum, because it's not an essay. I want to put emphasis on a few things in there, based on how it would sound when I actually spoke, but I'm having problems with that as well. I also may put up a recording of the speech after I give it next Saturday. By then I'll have it memorized, and it'll sound a lot better than if I post it now.

Anyways, without further rambling...

Heroes

by Sean Carter

Heroes are a common part of our culture. Indeed, they are a common part of most cultures. More often than not, they are a model of the beliefs of a culture. And it is this that makes heroes an ideal means of evaluating the state of a people, an era, a nation, or whichever group such heroes may apply to.

Heroes represent to us far more than just entertainment – they represent a moral ideal. Comic book , literary, and television heroes express philosophy in a much stronger, albeit more subtle, way than most any other medium of entertainment today. The common hero, the protagonist of most stories, stands for a certain moral ideal – his – that he fights for, using anything from the average man’s capabilities to superhuman powers, almost always fighting for some form of “good”. Sometimes this good is the public good, sometimes it is the good of the government, sometimes it is the good of the majority, sometimes the good of the individual, sometimes, even, the good of himself, but always for some “good”, some truth of his own.

And that is one of the most inspiring aspects of heroes. They stand in the face of opposition, of evil, and they say “no”. Whereas the common man must often suffer under some form of oppression, from his peers, his government, his society, or his enemies, the hero refuses this burden. The hero is man’s creative answer to oppression.

There are many different types of heroes, though. More than once we have seen heroes with contrasting ideals, backgrounds, and methods, even in more popular media. Batman and Superman are two excellent, and well known, examples. Their stories differ considerably, whereas Batman comes from a gifted background in which he’s a millionaire playboy with considerable connections, while Superman lives his life on Earth as a more humble character, taking the secret identity of a journalist. Moreover, their motivations for fighting crime are different. While they both offer benefits to society as a whole, superman fights crime for the benefit of the people. He views it as his obligation, his duty, to serve mankind. Batman, however, has a more self-based reason: he chose to fight crime as a response to his parents being killed. His motivation is personal, while Superman’s is not.

An even greater contrast to both of these heroes would be Rorschach, from the comic Watchmen. He is known for an outright dislike for most of society, and it often seems that he fights for personal, selfish reasons. His methods are far more violent, and openly so. From pouring a vat of boiling fat on a criminal’s head to handcuffing a man in a burning building, Rorschach has never been a sympathetic or merciful crime fighter, and has often criticized himself for being too soft on villains nonetheless!

But these men all have something in common: their willingness to fight evil, their strong sense of duty, their defined sense of good and righteousness, and their consistency.

And that is something that deserves to be elaborated on: consistency. We often times find it hard to make the right decision all the time, and mistakes are common place. Moreover, we sometimes choose to make the wrong, the immoral, decision, whatever we may regard it to be, for the sake of either our own benefit, someone else’s, or just the plain desire to take the easy way out. We are often faced with conflicting emotions and thoughts when we have to make a decision, thinking we must trade some personal good for some morally righteous option. We often criticize ourselves for being too good, too evil, too selfish, too selfless, too arrogant, too unconfident. Consistency is often viewed as an impossibility in our daily lives.

But the hero is not afforded the luxury of inconsistency. He is supposed to be a model of good, of what is righteous, of the ideal man. To be inconsistent would require that he compromise on the good – and when one compromises on the good, there is but one thing you can compromise with: the evil. For a hero to be inconsistent for a second would be for him to willingly submit himself to evil.

And yet, we see today the rise of the “human” hero. This type of hero is by no means great – he is, in fact, flawed, by intention of the creator. The goal in creating these vastly flawed characters is to appeal not to the sense of righteousness and greatness in the viewers, but instead to their sense of pity, for themselves and for the hero. The hero in this case is meant to pander to the dark, childish, and petty side of the audience.

Instead of the great, almost superhuman, heroes of the past, we see the whiny and attention garnering supposed “protagonists” of today.

But I said earlier that heroes are a reflection of our culture, of who we are as a people. So who are we? What can we see in our culture today that is different, aside from our heroes? Music is a good place to start.

We once had men who would go on stage in near business attire to sing us a song. They wanted to look as good as they possibly could, and they wanted to play as good as they possibly could. They did not take their music as a joke. Who have we chosen to replace these artists? Why, Maynard Keenan. Maynard Keenan, who performed a show with his band Puscifier, where he walked on stage and literally exhibited his boner to the audience. People paid to see this performance.

Another good example is the popular show House MD. House MD, for those who haven’t watched the show, is about a doctor, named House, who lives a positively miserable and antisocial life, but is portrayed by the writers as a man of consistent rationality, this rationality saving the lives of his patients. Intent on making their protagonist not “too great,” they instead degrade him, playing it off as if his rationality is what makes him miserable. Endlessly cynical and depressed, plagued with unsolvable problems, the only heroic aspect of House is that he saves lives – and for that, the writers try to say, he is punished with a life of misery for himself.

These things tell us a lot about ourselves. First and foremost, they tell us what we value: failure, loss, filth, misfortune, and pity. We love to pity. We’ve learned to enjoy seeing men being reduced to what we consider to be “our” level. We’ve learned to pay and to applaud the flaws that we’ve come to consider “human nature”. We’ve come to consider failure the natural state of man.

And boy do we hate seeing things that disagree.

Think back on all of the villains you’ve ever seen. More often than not, many of the criminals you’ve been exposed to have a few traits in common. One, that they’re well off, and two, that they’re gifted. One of the most common antagonist stereotypes is the mad scientist, and another is the evil businessman. Not only have we seen this in fiction, but now we’ve begun painting it into our daily lives. Successful people have become the villains of our culture. Look no further than current legislation to prove this, look no further than the protestors on the corner or Michael Moore’s new film. Look no further than the criminals who, somehow, have no fault of their own: after all, it’s just human nature.

Today’s real life heroes are no longer the gifted or the successful men. Instead, they are the beggars on every street corner. Instead, they are the men who take away the gifts or the products of those who are successful or gifted. Instead, they are the men who aren’t consistent, except in that they make mistakes, consistently. We value the flaws over the strengths. The product of such values are the people who proclaim to love others for their flaws, who attempt to take pride in their shortcomings.

Before you ask what has happened to our country or our world, first ask: What has happened to our heroes? What has happened to ourselves? What has happened to the things we value? There you will find your answer.

Edited October 3, 2009 by Iudicious

[spaceplayer]

Hi, Sean, and thanks for sharing. Just a few quick comments, and I'll leave the grammatical suggestions to others: overall, I like where you're going with this in its theme, and ending on a question (where are we going as a culture?) is a great idea, leaving it open-ended for further discussion for the audience. The Superman-Batman comparison is, for the most part, right; you may encounter nit-pickers who will go into nuances, and perhaps not unjustifiably, given that there have been many writers and many variations over the years. Batman is also depicted as "Rorshach-like" at time (i.e., psychotic), but usually to counter his selfish motives in fighting crime as a positive thing.

And if you haven't yet read it, I'd highly recommend Andrew Bernstein's THE PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF HEROISM: http://www.andrewbernstein.net/heroes/2_heroism.htm.

You may also be interested in my blog, Superhero Babylon, where I and Landon Erp discuss these themes in depth. If you need further clarifications on the Batman-Superman characters, I'd recommend two entries:

"Batman Unmasked: What Makes Batman A Hero?"

and

"The Epic Song of Superman in Five Parts"

The Superman essay especially touches on your theme of how a hero mirrors a culture, tracking how Superman has changed with the times from his first appearance to today (and especially touches on the whiny heroes of today.)

And if you'd like, once you get your speech finalized, we'd be happy to host it there.

Good luck with your speech, keep us posted!

Edited October 3, 2009 by spaceplayer

[Iudicious]

Thank you for the feedback, spaceplayer.

I've only recently gotten interested in superheroes. After being exposed to Ditko's works (I think that's his name), with The Question and Mr. A, I began getting interested. I've been wanting to go out and buy a few comic books, but I'd have no idea where to start.

Once I do have the speech in it's absolute finished form, I'd love to have it hosted by you. I think that before I do that, though, I'd like to expand on it. The speech is, as I said, limited to a 10 minute length, so what you see here is not all that I'd like to include in it. Further, it was designed for an audience that may or may not be very susceptible to Ayn Rand's ideas, so I tried to tone down those other ideas and instead put more emphasis on the central theme of heroes and how they reflect our culture. I may consider putting more emphasis on Objectivist ideas if I do end up expanding on the speech.

I've bookmarked your page, and I'm going to read that essay now. Thank you for the links!

[spaceplayer]

You're welcome, my pleasure, and thank you.

[AlexGrant]

Loved the speech.

Unfortunately there is something that is nagging at me quite badly; the critique of Maynard Keenan.

As far as I know, the (partial?) purpose of Puscifer is to satirize our societies' views on sex. I'm sure it doesn't make him a hero who can stand shoulder to shoulder with Superman, and he's of course not an upstanding Objectivist role model, but I don't think he belongs down with Michael Moore either.

Edited October 3, 2009 by AlexGrant

[Iudicious]

As far as I know, the (partial?) purpose of Puscifer is to satirize our societies' views on sex. I'm sure it doesn't make him a hero who can stand shoulder to shoulder with Superman, and he's of course not an upstanding Objectivist role model, but I don't think he belongs down with Michael Moore either.

Maybe he doesn't belong down with Michael Moore - but the goal of the speech isn't to weigh the evils of certain people against others. Quite honestly, I think Maynard Keenan is one of the best people I could have chosen. Going up on stage and showing off his cock to an audience isn't respectable, nor is it artistic, nor is it something people should be paying to see when they go to see a performance. Maybe if he were a porn star, my criticism would be different, but he's not.