Heroes: Dealing with the Flaws of Martin Luther King Jr. and Others

There are two responses one can have after witnessing greatness. One is to bow down and worship, hoping to someday reach such a level of heroism yourself. But you are faintly aware that you could never achieve greatness yourself. That is why the hero becomes the hero. The hero is your greatness and he masks your insecurity, your doubts about your own greatness.

The other response is to nitpick and needle the greatness, criticize it until the greatness relents, admits the faults you have observed (or invented) and ceases to be great. Then, by some arbitrary mathematical principle you attain some greatness. Again, the hero is your greatness. His good far outshines your own, but the flaws you see in him are chasms, at least to you. So they mask your flaws. The hero hides your insecurity.

Ere are many more people in the first category than the second, although the second is the louder and more obnoxious. I am in the second category. The one that topples the statues, the clambers up onto the rubble, placing myself on some great pedestal.

Sometimes the hero deserves tarnishing. Last week Lance Armstrong finally admitted to using illegal methods to improve his cycling performance. He did this after spending his entire career maintaining his innocence and suing anyone brash enough to accuse him of the obvious. He was a hero to many, and an important figure in the fight against cancer. But he was an arrogant prick, a liar and a cheat. Now, in addition to his official fall from the public's grace, he faces a slew of lawsuits and counter suits that could cost him millions. Good riddance, I guess.

It seems inevitable that all heroes, being - you know - human beings, suffer from character flaws which are often swept under a rug. Thomas Jefferson (and many of the Founding Fathers) owned slaves. JFK carried on with extramarital affairs. Ben Franklin exhumed corpses upon which he conducted various dissections and experiments.

The FBI began their surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr. in December of 1963. From that point until the civil rights leader’s assassination, J. Edgar Hoover tapped King’s phones and surveilled his every move. They wanted to undermine his credibility, shame him out of the public sphere of influence. Their first push was to prove King had communist associations. The Bureau was able to connect King with communist sympathizers, but other discoveries would prove to be more damaging to the Reverend’s character.

These are the allegations that cause people to, after listing off the numerous accomplishments of Martin Luther King Jr., after praising the positive and necessary change he was able to create in the United States, say, in a hushed voice that “he still had his faults.” Then the discussion moves off to the corner in order to make room for a spacious awkward silence.

We don’t know what to do with our heroes, because, unfortunately, they are human beings. Most, I think, would prefer to ignore any flaws, any contradictions we may find to the narrative of perfection that fills second grade textbooks. Any time I’ve heard the extramarital affairs of MLK Jr. (or JFK or Thomas Jefferson or…) brought up in conversation, the conversation suddenly dies. People don’t like talking about it; people don’t like bringing it up, fearing an accusation of attempted character assassination.

That’s fine. No, it’s better than fine. Ideals exist for a reason. They give us something to strive for. The allow us to believe that perfection can be achieved. And we want perfection…for some reason.

The Hellenic gods of millennia past are often lauded for their realism. They are the most human gods to have entered the modern Western consciousness. Zeus was a womanizing adulterer. Hera was a typical nagging, jealous wife. Athena had a monster temper. Actually, all of them had terrible tempers.

And their personalities are held up as a testament to the great understanding of human nature that the Greeks had. They knew, understood and accepted that humans were doomed to be flawed beings, so much so that even the anthropomorphic gods were terribly flawed beings.

But that isn’t really the case.

The Greeks and Romans had plenty of perfect beings in their mythology. Hercules, the greatest hero, may be the best example of this. This demi-god was essentially immortal; he was brave in battle; he was smart and wise. He handily defeated a slew of monsters that others were too afraid to even challenge. He was, for all intents and purposes, perfect. Even the Greeks, the wise and knowing Greeks, needed and wanted a perfect figure to follow.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t find one in existence, and were forced to create that type of person.

These words are taken from the first Man of Steel trailer:

You will give the people an ideal to strive towards. They will race behind you, they will stumble, they will fall. But in time, they will join you in the sun. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders.

That’s why we need heroes; that’s why we need the ideal. At least, that’s why we want those things. We want to be in the sun. We want to accomplish wonders. We want those things to be possible.

So we ignore everything that points to the contrary, and we do so happily.