Back in June I made a post bemoaning the state of heroes and myth in modern culture. Oddly, just a few days later a guy who seems to be a scholar of some type on the subject posted a video discussing almost the same thing, but in somewhat less gibberish language. I think it’s worth a look. His basic point: in myth there are two types of heroes: the “aspirational” hero, those who are just naturally pure good and right (i.e Superman); and there are the “cathartic motivational” hero who needs to be taught to be good and right (the example he uses is Spiderman, who, when he first develops superpowers, uses them not to rescue people but to make money). And in recent years, “aspirational” heroes such as Superman and Luke Skywalker have been “deconstructed,” turning them into.. well, scumbags often enough.

While on a certain level it can turn a somewhat bland character more interesting if you make them flawed (let’s face it, Batman is *seriously* mentally disturbed, and he’s way more interesting than Superman or Captain America), doing this on a wide scale has the possibility of doing damage to the wider culture. Because what do people strive for? It has been a constant throughout history that people have had legendary heroes that have been held up to be the standard of proper behavior (in the US, our legendary heroes have often been historical figures such as Washinton, Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, Abe Lincoln, etc.). Often thee heroes are far beyond *your* piddly abilities… you can’t fly or stop bullets like Superman no matter how hard you try, or wield the Force like Luke Skywalker. But you *could,* theoretically, strive to be as “good” as them, to try to uphold Truth, Justice and the American Way as much as they do. You won’t succeed, but that’s ok. You can’t stack up against the heroes of legend. But you can try your best.

But… if you cut the legs out from underneath your heroes, you lower that standard. Superman is now an SJW scumbag? Captain America now hates conservatives and Republicans? The Founding Fathers are now just a bunch of greedy slaveowners? CMH-awarded war heroes are all a bunch of saps doing the bidding of war profiteers? Luke Skywalker is a whiny emo, uninterested anymore in right and wrong? What you’re doing is lowering the standard for “unachievable” down to the level of the actually achievable. And the fact is, people will adjust their own goals downwards.

Obviously, efforts in the last generation or so to deconstruct sci-fi and comic book heroes and wave their flaws like a flag are not solely responsible for the ills of society But they are a part of it.

IT’S OK TO BE SUPERMAN.

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