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HEROES AND VILLAINS March, 2009
In our world, in every land, amongst every people, throughout every age of history and certainly in the present, we have heroes and villains. And let’s face it – heroes need villains far more than villains need heroes. And also let’s face it – many societies have in some way an implicit or explicit worship of heroes. Heroes are honoured. Villains are shunned. Heroes are given great power in the mind of the public. Villains are something to fear and to be wary of. This is a highly structured dichotomy in the nature of most societies.
And yet … the way the world really is, is rarely pure black and white. But of course, the public (and most decision makers) are not presented with the myriad of shades of grey. They are presented with the “black and white” case. These are the heroes, these are the villains – you are either with us (the heroes), or you are with them (the villains). The trouble is ... villains sometimes masquerade as heroes.
And so, throughout the age of mankind, and certainly into the present, it is all too easy to pick a target, to present “evidence” of villainous behaviour and present oneself as the hero ready to make a stand against the villains.
Is this recognisable?
Sometimes the threat is real. Most of the time it isn’t. And when it isn’t, but presented as being real, it is clearly a manufactured threat for the purpose of demonising a people or a nation state, to create a crisis, to create the illusion of threat and galvanise people behind the “hero” figure all too ready to make a stand and do “what is right”.
Honestly, is this more recognisable now?
And so, the unscrupulous political, religious or social leader – or just the plain insane – creates, maintains and increases power through the manufactured process of hate and fear and threat. Even if the threat isn’t real, the hate and the fear produced certainly become real – real enough to cause otherwise sane and rational people to hand over all power to the insane and the irrational, real enough to distract from the many mistakes and inhumanities caused by the leaders of hate to severely distort global dynamics, trade, finance, communication and the future, in the guise of being heroes.
I see a lot of evidence for this in many areas of the world. In some regions the media screams pure hate against the manufactured threat of another people. The weak national leader needs hate in order to manipulate and to destabilise. The smart national leader will reach beyond this to create communication, to create understanding … and financial stability.
The world will always have its heroes and villains. But sometimes, just sometimes, the hero is the one who talks rather than screams, someone who offers the hand of friendship rather than the one who starts shooting at the first shadow that appears. And so when you look around ... why are there so few heroes? Why are there so many villains masquerading as heroes? Why is the world in such turmoil? Because this is real life and in this day and age too few good people are willing to stand and be recognised as being heroes. If there is any time the world needs heroes, for sure it is now ... especially in light of yet more extremist events caused by people consumed by hatred and bent only on destruction, seeded by those preachers and politicians of hate.
Regards
JS
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