Category Archives: Commentary and Analysis

Heroes Coming and Going: Our Sensitivity to the Changing Fortunes of Others

Commentary and Analysis

By Scott Allison, Athena Hensel, & George Goethals

People are highly sensitive to changing fortunes. We closely monitor our own changing fortunes, of course, but we also show strong sensitivity to the shifting fortunes of others. We want to know who’s doing better and who’s doing worse than they were before. Is Obama’s approval rating going up or down? Is China’s economy still growing rapidly? Are public schools in decline? Is my friend’s health improving?

We’re drawn to changes in our social environment because they may have implications for our own well-being, or because we find those changes to be a source of drama or entertainment. We are especially dazzled by unexpected changes in fortunes – the triumphs of obscure underdogs and the failures of established powerhouses.

In short, when we witness changing fortunes, we are often witness to either the creation of heroes or the demise of heroes (Allison & Goethals, 2011).

With the NCAA basketball tournament soon reaching a crescendo, conversations at the electronic watercoolers — Facebook and Twitter — are focusing on the changing fortunes of various teams. Ohio University, for example, is this year’s surprise success in the tournament. Earlier the twitterverse exploded with Duke University’s surprising exit at the hands of unheralded Lehigh University.

The labels we assign to teams such as Ohio and Lehigh tend to reflect our observations of their changing fortunes. Historically unsuccessful teams that finally enjoy some success are said to be plucky underdogs, up-and-coming programs, rising upstarts, and Cinderella stories. We seem to have fewer labels for fallen giants. We briefly revel in their misfortune, as befitting our schadenfreudian tendencies, but our focus is usually more on celebrating the unexpected successes of the downtrodden.

Changing fortunes can result in changing categorical labels. Gonzaga University’s sustained success in basketball has expelled them from the category of underdog. Butler University’s back-to-back appearances in the final championship game placed them on a strong trajectory toward top dog status, but the school’s relatively poor year this past season may have put their graduation from underdog standing on hold. Sometimes we just aren’t sure whether a team meets the criteria for underdog status, and when a team is in category limbo we may become especially attentive to cues that will pull them into one grouping or another.

Whereas our categorization of teams into underdog or top dog groups would seem to depend on their history of success, a change in that categorization would appear to depend on the direction that a team is heading and whether the team has sustained that directional change.

Let’s first look at the history variable. No team better fit the underdog prototype than did the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team. The Soviet Union had won every gold medal since 1960 and the U.S. was a predictable flop during those years. Stunningly, the 1980 U.S. team defeated the Soviets to win the gold medal, but the Americans had been entrenched underdogs for so long that no one dared to suggest that their change in fortune was anything more than an aberration. The dismal U.S. performance at the subsequent Olympic hockey competitions confirmed their continued status as underdogs.

In some areas of human judgment, the direction of change appears to matter more than one’s absolute position. For example, people are happier when their 3 dollars grows to 5 dollars than when their 8 dollars shrinks to 6 dollars. Similarly, we’re more attracted to people who dislike us but are starting to warm up to us than we are to people who like us but are beginning to criticize us. Sensitivity to direction of change is high in these contexts.

But the direction of change would appear to matter less in our practice of labeling people. Our categorizations of people into underdog and top dog groups are glued tightly in place, especially in the sporting world. Even during lean years, baseball’s New York Yankees are viewed as behemoths. Duke, the UNC Chapel Hill, and Kentucky have enjoyed so many decades of sustained success in basketball that it would take decades of futility for their top dog labels to wear off.

Outside the world of sports, categorical changes are volatile and more permanent. Consider the case of MySpace, which a decade ago was the unquestioned king of social media. MySpace had no rivals and was firmly entrenched as the top dog when Facebook took the social media world by storm and quickly rendered MySpace irrelevant. Almost overnight in the business world, a David can beat a Goliath and there is no question that Goliath will never get up again. Google+ is currently trying, without much success, to do to Facebook what Facebook did to MySpace. If Google+ fails, it will be yet another David we’ll never hear from again.

Other corporate examples abound: In the mobile phone industry, the BlackBerry quickly went from being cool and hip to becoming a dinosaur thanks to the cooler and hipper iPhone. Sometimes top dogs fall, not because of the new top dog on the block, but because several hungry underdogs eat into their business. Crocs shoes – those multicolored rubber clogs – came and went because cheaper knock-offs appeared on the market.

Whereas no one gives MySpace or Blackberry much of a chance of regaining their top dog status, there is always plenty of hope for individual athletes or sports teams to rebound from a downturn. The Pittsburgh Pirates have suffered 19 consecutive losing seasons, the longest streak in North American professional sports history. In a non-sporting business environment the Pirates’ survival prospects would be bleak indeed, but every year brings new hope for the lowly in athletics.

And speaking of hope for the underdog, the story of Jeremy Lin is a fascinating one. Deemed a marginal player from Harvard University, Lin was cut from two NBA teams and was languishing at the end of the New York Knicks bench for a long time before his coach, out of desperation, brought him into a game on February 5, 2012. He stunned everyone by scoring 25 points and leading the Knicks to victory. His greatness on the court continued game after game, and “Linsanity” was born – fans were erupting into a Beatlemania-like frenzy whenever Lin touched the ball.

Not surprisingly, Lin has been unable to sustain his phenomenal level of performance. Linsanity turned into Lin over his head. Perhaps the fragility of underdog success is what makes that success so very special to us. Cinderella may have lived happily ever after, but most sporting underdogs only enjoy the Andy Warhol fifteen minutes of fame before they retreat and ultimately disappear from our radar screens. We revel in their changing fortunes for the better, but we fully expect that change to be an ephemeral one.

The Goliaths of the world attract a peculiar mixture of admiration, envy, and resentment, but those Goliaths give us a sort of comforting stability that we need. Our sensitivity to changing fortunes, and our delight in perceiving those changes, probably depends on people’s stable fortunes remaining the norm in life.

References

Allison, S. T., & Goethals, G. R. (2011). Heroes: What They Do and Why We Need Them.  New York: Oxford University Press.

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The Hero Round Table Conference This November in Michigan

Commentary and Analysis

By Scott T. Allison

This November 9th and 10th, 2013, a one-of-a-kind event will take place — The Hero Round Table Conference, to be held in Flint, Michigan. This is the first interdisciplinary conference on heroism ever held, and it has been masterfully organized by Matt Langdon, founder of the Hero Construction Company.

Matt Langdon (pictured below) has lined up a group of speakers whom he calls “an extraordinary group of experts from the fields of psychology, education, business, sports, philosophy, and entertainment”. Speakers from around the world will be sharing the latest developments on theories, research, and practices of heroism.  And YOU can attend, too!

The star speaker is Dr. Phil Zimbardo, the world famous social psychologist who currently heads up the Heroic Imagination Project.   Yours truly, Dr. Scott Allison of the University of Richmond, will also be speaking, having published two books on heroes and running a blog on real heroes and a blog on ‘reel’ heroes.

In the field of education, speakers will include Zoe Weil, the legendary humane educator, author, and speaker; Christian Long, an international education consultant with experience studying heroism in the classroom; Aaron Donaghy, who transformed the concepts of charity and heroism for students using the GO-effect; and Ann Medlock, who has spent decades discovering and promoting heroes through the Giraffe Heroes Program.

Speakers from the realm of business include George Brymer, author of “Vital Integrities” and “Franciscanomics” and the creator of The Leading from the Heart Workshop; Dr. David Rendall, who shares his freak factor with audiences around the world as a speaker and author; Whitney Johnson, author of Dare to Dream, who suggests tapping into the power of the female hero’s journey; and Doug Knight, a non-profiteer making the connections between heroic action and the non-profit business world.

Additional speakers include Mike Dilbeck, the conference’s keynote speaker, who lays out the steps to heroic action in his everyday heroes presentations to audiences around the country; Jocelyn Stevenson, a star of children’s television and one of the pioneers for educating through television shows; Jeremiah Anthony, who, frustrated with the efforts of professional anti-bullying speakers, changed his school by himself; Pat Solomon, who created the documentary Finding Joe to honor the work of Joseph Campbell; and Dr. Ari Kohen, who teaches heroism at the University of Nebraska and is the host of the podcast, The Hero Report.

Finally, the conference is privileged to have speakers such as Nolan Harrison, who played defense in the NFL for 10 years and now works to help former players as a senior director at the NFL players association; Drew Jacob, professional adventurer, currently making his way from the source of the Mississippi to the mouth of the Amazon River under his own power; and Ethan King, who is changing the world through his project, Charity Ball, which provides soccer balls to kids living in poverty.

There will also be dozens of breakout sessions, featuring Chad Ellsworth from Building Heroes, Andrew Jones from Philosopher’s Stone, Sean Furey from the Hero Support Network, Greg Smith, from Agile Writers and Reel Heroes, Jensen Kyle from Moral Heroes, Elaine Kinsella from the University of Limerick in Ireland.  Students will present posters on their work in the areas of altruism, the bystander effect, personality constructs, and pro-social behavior.

You can attend this great event by visiting the Hero Round Table website.  Please check out the promo video:

10 Reasons Why We Need Heroes

Commentary and Analysis,

By Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals

People often ask us why we need heroes.  Although the phrase “why we need them” is in the subtitle of our first HEROES book, we’ve never really offered a succinct list of the many reasons why heroes are so important to us.  Here we aim to do just that, hoping you’ll forgive us for offering up yet another top-10 list.

Below we’ve assembled 10 major reasons why people need heroes.  This list isn’t meant to be exhaustive by any means.  But it’s a good start.  Here goes:

1.  We’re born to have heroes — More than a half-century ago, Carl Jung proposed the idea that all humans have collectively inherited unconscious images, ideas, or thoughts, which he called archetypes.  These archetypes reflect common experiences that all humans (and their ancestors) have shared over millions of years of evolution, and the main purpose of these archetypes is to prepare us for these common experiences.  Two such archetypes, according to Jung, are heroes and demons.  Current research appears to support Jung – scientists have found that newborn babies are equipped with a readiness for language, for numbers, for their parents’ faces — and even a preference for people who are moral.  Humans appear to be innately prepared for certain people and tasks, and we believe this may include encounters with heroes.

2.  Heroes nurture us when we’re young — Our research has shown that when people are asked to name their own personal heroes, the first individuals who often come to mind are parents and caretakers.  All of us owe whatever success we’ve had in life to the people who were there for us when we were young, vulnerable, and developing.  When we recognize the great sacrifices that these nurturers and caretakers have made for us, we’re likely to call them our heroes.

3.  Heroes reveal our missing qualities — Heroes educate us about right and wrong.  Most fairytales and children’s stories serve this didactic purpose, showing kids the kinds of behaviors that are needed to succeed in life, to better society, and to overcome villainy.  It is during our youth that we most need good, healthy adult role models who demonstrate exemplary behavior.  But adults need heroic models as well.  Heroes reveal to us the kinds of qualities we need to be in communion with others.

4.  Heroes save us when we’re in trouble — This principle explains the powerful appeal of comic book superheroes.  People seemingly can’t get enough of Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Iron Man, and many others. We are moved by stories of magical beings with superhuman powers who can instantly remove danger and make everything right.  This principle also explains our extreme admiration for society’s true heroic protectors – law enforcement officers, firefighters, EMTs, paramedics, and military personnel.

5.  Heroes pick us up when we’re down — Life inevitably hands us personal setbacks and failings.  Failed relationships, failed businesses, and health problems are common life experiences for us.  Our research has shown that it is during these phases of great personal challenge in our lives that heroes are most likely inspire us to overcome whatever adversity we’re facing.  Heroes lift us up when we’re personally in danger of falling down emotionally, physically, or spiritually.

6.  Heroes give us hope — Independent of our own personal well-being, we cannot help but recognize that the world is generally a troubled place rife with warfare, poverty, famine, and unrest.  Heroes are beacons of light amidst this vast darkness. Heroes prove to us that no matter how much suffering there is in the world, there are supremely good people around whom we can count on to do the right thing, even when most other people are not. Heroes bring light into a dark world.

7.  Heroes validate our preferred moral worldview — One fascinating theory in psychology is called terror management theory, which proposes that people’s fear of death strengthens their allegiance to cultural values. Just the simple act of reminding people of their mortality leads them to exaggerate whatever moral tendencies they already have.  For example, studies have shown that reminders of death lead people to reward do-gooders and punish bad-doers more than they normally would.  Just thinking about the fragility of life can lead us to need and to value heroes.

8.  Heroes provide dramatic, entertaining stories — Psychologists have long been aware of the power of a good, juicy narrative.  Stories of heroes and heroic myth have entertained humans since the dawn of recorded history.  Joseph Campbell documented recurring patterns in these hero stories in his seminal book, and virtually all hero stories feature these time-honored patterns.  Today’s media are all-too aware of our hunger for hero stories and take great delight in building celebrity heroes up and then tearing them down.  People have always been drawn to human drama and they always will be.

9.  Heroes solve problems — Our research has shown that people’s heroes are not just paragons of morality. They also show superb competencies directed toward the goal of solving society’s most vexing problems.  Jonas Salk developed the first polio vaccine.  George Washington Carver introduced crop rotation into agriculture. Stephanie Kwolek invented the material in bullet-proof vests that have saved the lives of countless law enforcement officers.  Heroes give us wisdom and save lives with their brains, not just with their brawn.

10.  Heroes deliver justice — People from all cultures possess a strong desire for justice.  After members of the Boston police captured the Boston Marathon bomber, crowds of citizens lined the streets to applaud their heroes.  Research has shown that we need to believe that we live in a just world where good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.  The preamble to the 1950s Superman television show spoke of superman’s never-ending quest for “truth, justice, and the American way”.  Heroes quench our thirst for fairness and lawfulness.

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So there you have them – 10 reasons why people need heroes.  These reasons tap into basic human needs for survival, nurturance, growth, education, safety, security, healing, happiness, health, hope, wisdom, and justice.  None of us can meet these important needs without significant help from others.  We certainly hope – and strongly suspect — that as long as humans have these needs, we’ll have extraordinary people whom we call heroes willing to step up to help us.

For more information, here are some academic articles we’ve written about heroes and the psychology of heroism.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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10 Ways You Can Become a Hero

Commentary and Analysis,

By Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals

Sometimes we make the mistake of believing that the only heroes out there are the people we watch on television, read about in news reports, or see in the movies.  The truth is that each one of us has the ability to become a hero to someone.  Opportunities for heroism are everywhere!  We hesitate to bring you yet another top-ten list.  There are so many of these lists that someone once compiled a top 10 list of top 10 lists.

But because people have frequently asked us what it takes to be a hero, we feel the time is ripe to offer some suggestions.  We don’t claim that these are the only things one can do to become a hero.  But they’re a good start.   Keep in mind that this list reflects our own personal view of heroism as exemplary actions directed toward improving the lives of others.  If your idea of a hero is someone who scores many touchdowns or who sings great songs, then this list is certainly not for you.

Here then is our list of 10 ways that you can become a hero.

1.  Study the Greats – Almost all of us have personal heroes and legends who have inspired us.  Read their biographies and strive to discern the qualities that made them great.  Look for common patterns.  The Nelson Mandelas, Mahatma Gandhis, and Martin Luther Kings of the world had a vision of a better world and were willing to make life-altering sacrifices to achieve that vision.  They were smart, strong, courageous, resilient, and selfless.  They didn’t let setbacks deter them and showed great leadership.  Cultivating these traits and life habits can send you on your own heroic journey.

2.  Be the Change You Want to See in the World – This line, a paraphrased version of a quote from Gandhi, is saturated with truth and wisdom.  People can easily spot a hypocrite – the person who cries for energy conservation but drives a Hummer; the person who tells us to give to the poor yet gives little himself; or the person who advocates world peace yet spouts hatred on Facebook or Twitter.  True heroes live the words they speak.

3.  Listen for the Call – The famed comparative mythologist, Joseph Campbell, noticed that all heroes in world literature are “called” on a heroic journey.  C. J. Hayden refers to a calling as a “strong intuition, sudden realization, divine transmission, or just a subtle wondering.”  Many heroes report having a calling to act on behalf of animal rights, to teach in Africa, to run for President, or to quit their high-paying jobs to serve others at low pay.   Your own calling may be less dramatic but no less important to those you help in life.

4.  Promote the Good rather than Oppose the Bad — The most successful, heroic people focus on the positive.  They know that negative energy, even when directed against dark forces in the world, is ineffective for promoting positive change.  Mother Teresa is famous for saying, “I was once asked why I don’t participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I’ll be there.”

5.  Look for Opportunities – Psychologist Phil Zimbardo believes that all of us are potential heroes waiting for the right moment to fulfill that potential.  Most heroes are everyday people, not the superheroes we see in movies.  Zimbardo has begun an ambitious Heroic Imagination Project dedicated to helping all of us become heroes. “By promoting the heroic imagination, especially in our kids through our educational system, we want kids to think, ‘I’m a hero in waiting, and I’m waiting for the right situation to come along when I can act heroically.’”

6.  Use the Power of Small Gestures – A good friend of ours, Paul, tells us that he once hugged a male friend in a grocery store simply because the man looked a bit worn and unhappy.  Later, that man thanked Paul profusely for that hug.  “He said it completely changed his outlook, and maybe even his life,” said Paul.  “He said I was his hero.  It was such a little thing I almost didn’t do it.  I’m so glad I did.”  Simple gestures of kindness can mean the world to someone who is fighting a tough personal battle.

7.  Perform Random Acts of Kindness – In 2000 the movie Pay it Forward resurrected an idea first proposed by the ancient Greek playwright Menander:  If someone has done you a good deed, you can repay the act by performing good deeds to others rather than to the original benefactor.  Others call it anonymous giving.  You can start a wave of human kindness by helping a student with tuition, raking someone’s leaves, buying someone groceries, paying the highway toll for someone behind you, cooking a meal for a neighbor, etc.

8.  Volunteer Your Time – These last three suggestions focus on serving others.  Your service can take the form of your time.  Spending some loving, caring time with others can be far more meaningful than spending money on them.  Visit a nursing home.  Volunteer to help adults learn how to read.  Spend time with children.  Make someone feel loved today, especially those who are on the fringes of society.

9.  Volunteer Your Talent – Everyone has a talent they can share to enrich the lives of others.  We have a friend who volunteers to play the piano at a retirement home.  Another friend with great empathy and listening skills volunteers to help teenagers who are growing up in troubled homes.  Another friend with good business instincts holds fundraisers and bake-sales for charities.  Make an inventory of your talents and use them to improve the lives of others.

10.  Volunteer Your Treasure – Many of us engage in some form of tithing – the practice of donating a portion of one’s income to help others in need.  Don’t feel like you need to contribute vast amounts to make a difference.  The aggregation of small amounts from many people can add up and make a significant impact.  Make sure the charities you donate to are worthwhile and well-run.  Charity Navigator can help you make an informed choice.

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You don’t need to wear a cape or possess a superpower to make the world a better place.  To perform heroic acts, all you need is the willingness to make some major sacrifice, or even many small ones that add up over time.  Serving others builds relationships, spreads love, and creates a ripple effect.  The remarkable truth about helping others is that it invariably helps us as much, or more, than the people we are helping.  It builds our self-esteem.  That should not be the primary reason for wanting to improve other people’s lives.  But it’s a wonderful side-effect.

We discuss more about heroes and heroism in our book, Heroes: What They Do & Why We Need Them.

The Everyman Superhero in Three Recent Films

Commentary and Analysis

By Greg Smith

At Agile Writers we are guided by the principles of storytelling that were exposed by Joseph Campbell in The Hero With A Thousand Faces.   In it, a hero (the central character) has a missing inner quality and must go on a journey to discover that quality and satisfy it.  The hero starts out in his ordinary world where “something happens” that pushes him into some other “special world” where he meets friends and enemies.  He accomplishes some goal and in so doing he fulfills his missing inner quality.

The classic super hero story is often just such a journey.  The hero has some character flaw that is exposed early in the story.  The hero attains a power that throws him into a special world of being “super.”  He spends the next part of the story learning how to master the power.  By the end of the first 30 minutes of the film, our hero has mastered his powers and he has an enemy to overcome.  Meanwhile, we’ve also learned that the hero has a severe inner pain that must be salved.  And we’re off.

Today I’d like to look at three very similar films.  These films depict ordinary people who take up the cause of the super hero and attempt to right the wrongs of society from behind the mask.

In Kick-Ass (2010) we meet young Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) who has all the problems of the typical teenager.  He wants to meet girls, he gets his lunch money stolen by older boys, and he feels powerless in a world of adults.  Dave becomes so tired of being a victim and of watching others play the victim that he dons a green scuba outfit and becomes Kick-Ass the crime fighter.  He confronts the local hoodlums who quickly stab him and throw him under a bus.  Dave undergoes multiple surgeries to reinforce his bones with steel and as a result of his accident he has a reduced sensation to pain.  He befriends other local self-made heroes and takes on the crime syndicate.

In Super  (2010) we’re introduced to Frank Darbo (Rain Wilson) who is a thirty-something short order cook.  He’s done little with his life – so little in fact that the two main events of his life are getting married to his lovely wife (Liv Tyler) and pointing out a thief at a fruit stand.  His recovering addict wife of seven years leaves him for Jacques (Kevin Bacon) who supplies her with drugs.  Frank becomes inspired by watching late night Christian broadcasts depicting a super hero who leads children away from the devil and into a life of righteous living.  Frank decides that he is going to recover his wife by becoming the Crimson Bolt.  He befriends a young girl who clerks at the local comic-book store and together they take on the local drug syndicate.

From Australia comes Griff the Invisible (2010), the story of an ordinary office worker who believes that he has harnessed the power of invisibility.  Griff (Ryan Kwanten) dons a black scuba suit and lurks around at night looking for evil-doers. Along the way he meets a pretty girl who recognizes Griff for his ability to maintain a child-like innocence and sense of wonder.
What these characters have in common is a sense of powerlessness.  They feel so powerless, in fact, that the only way they can overcome it is if they cocoon themselves in garb and mask and change their identities.

Unlike the super heroes of comics and film, they aren’t hiding their identities to protect those they love, but to protect themselves from detection.  Once hidden, they are able to distance themselves from the limitations they feel when they are their ordinary selves.

And that is the message of these films. We each have the capacity to go beyond who and what we are right now.  The things that often hold us down are the preconceptions that we have about ourselves, and the prejudging that others impose upon us.  When these heroes don the mask and cape, they isolate and separate themselves from these limitations.  They are telling us that when we ignore the ties that society uses to bind us, and we unleash ourselves from our self-imposed limitations, we each become super.

Kick-Ass, Super, and Griff all follow super hero patterns that you’ll recognize.  There is an origin story, the definition of the villain, a pretty girl to acquire, a deep disappointment followed by a gathering storm and finally a climactic battle to set things right.  What is different about these films from other super hero films is that in the end, each hero returns to his origin:  ordinary, healed, and newly super.
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This essay is reprinted from Matthew Killorin’s excellent Capes on Film blog.  Greg Smith founded Agile Writers in 2011 with the mission to discover a method for helping beginning writers complete a first-draft novel in 6 months.  The Agile Writer Method is based upon the writings of experts in mythology, screenwriting, and psychology. His seminars on the Agile Writer Method have delighted hundreds of writers, scholars, and university students.  In 2012 Agile Writers completed 12 first draft novels, 5 published novels, and two members of the Workshop have been nominated for the coveted James River Writer Best Unpublished Novel Contest.

Do We Expect Too Much From Our Heroes?

Commentary and Analysis

By Scott T. Allison and George R. Goethals

In a recent New York Magazine article, Frank Rich argues that no one should have been surprised at the downfall of highly decorated U.S. Army General and CIA Director David Petraeus.  After the reputational demise of so many heroes before him — Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, and Joe Paterno, to name a few — why should we have expected anything different from Petraeus?

According to Rich, “What’s really shocking about the Petraeus affair is not Petraeus’s affair but the fact that once again, we were taken in by a secular plaster saint who turns out to bear only a faint resemblance to the image purveyed by the man himself and the mass media that abetted his self-glorification.”

Rich’s essay raises many interesting questions:  Why do people we admire tend to succumb to repeated moral failings? Do we expect moral perfection from those who show great competence in one sphere of life?  Why do we conveniently overlook the obvious fact that all human heroes are inevitably as human as they are heroic?  And then why do we seem to punish heroes more for their human foibles than we do non-heroes?

Prior to their downfall, we personally never imagined Woods, Armstrong, or Petraeus to be perfect individuals.  Perhaps people are too quick to assume that greatness in one realm implies (however naively) greatness in all realms, including — and perhaps especially — morality. Our thirst for heroes may be so urgent that we cannot help but harbor unrealistic impressions of their universal virtue.  In our first book on heroes, we discuss how the higher standards we hold for heroes make it easier to topple them from their pedestals.

Rich also reminds us of the often-heard speculation that ever since the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s, public figures’ misdeeds are sought out by the media rather than covered-up by them.  Untarnished heroes of yesteryear, such as George Washington, JFK, and FDR, were probably as riddled with flaws as were Paterno and Patraeus.  The media of their day simply placed a higher priority on building heroes than on tearing them down.  We recommend Susan Drucker’s book, American Heroes in a Media Age, for a cogent analysis of this topic.

Lost in all the media frenzy about the many recent fallen heroes is the observation that many, many extremely successful people (and heroes to many) continue to maintain almost impeccably clean moral reputations.  These individuals come from all walks of life and a partial list of them includes Coach K at Duke University, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama, Meryl Streep, Stephen Hawking, and Michael Jordan.  Frank Rich’s essay suggests that it may only be a matter of time before at least a few of these icons crumble.  We hope he’s wrong.