What does it take to be a hero these days? Apparently not
much.
Since 9/11, the word “hero” has been tossed around
like a tennis ball, it’s caught on like the flu, and
it’s gained the use-on-anything properties of super
glue. The word “hero” is everywhere, used to refer
to all sorts of people. Pick up the newspaper, you’re
bound to find a hero stuffed into a story somewhere.
We’ve noticed a few things about heroes. Mostly, they’re
white. Often, the only remarkable thing heroes do is expire
in unfortunate circumstances. The most obvious examples are
the victims of 9/11. We’ve read and heard of them repeatedly
being labeled heroes. Some of them, those few airline passengers
who rebelled against their hijackers, undoubtedly were. But
the majority simply died. It’s controversial to say
it, especially on a topic so emotionally charged, but the
simple act of death does not a hero make. If death was all
it took, then why aren’t the victims of the Asian tsunami
heroes? Why not our dogs? Our grandmothers? 
Heroism is remarkably subjective. Take George W. Bush for
instance: plenty of people call him a hero. More think he’s
a villain. Who’s right? It gets even hairier when you
talk about survivors of illness or professional athletes.
If you lived through a disease, are you a hero? What about
kids who outlast a really bad case of the chicken pox, or
the teenage girl who recently became the first person ever
to survive rabies? If you can whack dingers out of Fenway
Park, but you shoot steroids before the game, what then? How
could Pete Rose go from hero to anti-hero for something unrelated
to actually playing the game? Is Michael Jackson’s music
now anti-heroic? It’s all very confusing.
The bottom line is this: “hero” has been so overused
that its meaning has crumbled. The Italian artist Piero Manzoni
used to designate some people as walking works of art, an
idea we like but want to expand upon. We now propose a radical
new idea: everyone is a hero, which takes the current usage
to its logical conclusion. This concept acknowledges that
there’s a dormant hero in every single one of us; but
it also recognizes that many of us are heroes in ways that
go unnoticed. We are citizen heroes, we are lover heroes,
we are private and public heroes. Calling some people heroes
and not others is an insult to humans everywhere. We hereby
suggest that the meaning of the word be changed. “Hero”
should now be defined as:
“a person; any human being whomsoever, under any
given circumstance; plural: people.”
Here are a few examples of the new definition, used in everyday
sentences:
- “I went to the store today and there were tons
of heroes everywhere. I stood in line for like 45 minutes.”
- “Heroes are pretty stupid. They don’t realize
that giant corporations, through the media, control their
lives, their decisions, their fate.”
- “Man, did you hear about all those heroes who were
killed by the tsunami? I can’t believe it. After the
wave, there were heroes lying all over the place.”
- “I took my kid to see the firefighters’ parade
yesterday. They drove down the street in this big truck
and waved to all us heroes standing on the sidewalk.”
- “A hero came by my apartment last week and sprayed
the place down. I haven’t seen a cockroach since.”
As these examples show, no one is left out with this new definition.
We urge everyone to adopt it, and to help ensure that “hero”
starts to mean something again.
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