In Need of a Hero

When we're young, it's easy to imagine ourselves as always being on the right side of history. We like to think that, if we were trapped in cruel or barbaric societies, we would be the brave ones stepping in to stop injustice.

Yet as we grow older, we realize that heroism can exact a daunting price.
John Powers "Heroism Exacts A Daunting Price In 'Wife Of A Spy' And 'Azor'"

When I was young, the general consensus was, as Mr. Powers points out, that stepping in was all that was needed to stop injustice. By my early twenties, I'd come to view that as false. The forces of injustice, I presumed, had the will and the way to deal with those who opposed them, and that they were willing to use murder and fear to keep people in line.

I eventually came to see that rather conspiratorial mindset as itself false, because I realized that cruelty, barbarism and injustice are all subjective. Very few people are intentionally cruel, in the sense that they inflict pain primarily for the enjoyment of seeing others suffer unnecessary torment. When the Greeks coined the term that is now the English "barbarian," it was out of a sense of cultural superiority over those who spoke languages that, as far as the Greeks were concerned, were simply babbling. English still uses the term to denote those less "civilized" than the speaker's in-group, often crediting them with a love of the backwards and unenlightened. Robert Howard's critiques of "civilized" people from his Conan the Barbarian stories are lost on most, it seems. And most injustice is simply another person's idea of justice. Again, few people are willfully unjust. And the determination of whether standing up to one's society is a brave stand for justice or an ill-conceived rebellion against it is made after the fact. Not to mention that such determinations are often fickle. Today's heroes can be tomorrow's villains as standard shift.

The youthful ideal that justice is as easy as stepping forward comes from the common storytelling trope that posits that true justice is a self-evident thing; something that everyone is naturally aware of. People are born wanting "to do the right thing" but due to a lack of communication, feel that they are the only ones who yearn for something different. And so while it may be brave for the Special Chosen Person to make that first stand, the change is autocatalyzing as people realize that they aren't alone in wanting change.

But it may be more accurate to understand justice as a broad consensus of social norms, traditions at various scales and personal understandings. While this may be unsatisfying to a moral realist outlook, it is, as I experience it, much more in line with how the world actually works.

Given this, "the right side of history" is something that's unknowable in the present; it's determined by people who may not even have been born when an individual feels called upon to make a stand. Here in the present, standing up to one's "cruel or barbaric" society in order to be the brave one that steps in to stop injustice is simply rocking the boat. When heroism exacts a daunting price, it's because it's not seen as heroic. One person's freedom fighter is another person's terrorist, and one person's smart fighting is another person's atrocity for a reason. Even a secular saint such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wasn't widely regarded as a hero until after he became a martyr. It wasn't until the bend in the arc of history was clearly evident that people rushed to proclaim their support.

And for many, the price of heroism is daunting because people, especially affluent people, tend to be easily daunted. For all that people like to dream of being willing to face prison or execution in the name of standing up, the most common barrier is simply the disapproval of family and friends. Sometimes, the threat of being lonely is all that it takes to prevent someone from attempting to drive a change.