The Hero Syndrome

I’ve always enjoyed watching American political races.  I dare say even more than Canadian politics, which is equal-parts sad and revelatory when you start to think about it.  In the last few weeks, Canada has been embroiled in a ghastly scandal in which someone had been nefariously calling voters during the last election and misleading people where to cast their ballot.  The stakes are high during elections, maybe never so much like the last one, in which the NDP were poised to break through and seize a minority government, the Liberals’ slow dive into the muck seemed certain, the Bloc Quebecois appeared to no longer prop up their journeyman leader as they self-imploded, and Stephen Harper’s Conservatives were facing a watershed moment, where they were going to either make it big, maintain the status quo, or slip under the wheels of the orange machine helmed by then-ailing/now-iconic leader Jack Layton.  We know how it turned out.  It turns out, however, that someone was lurking behind the curtain, misdirecting unsuspecting voters and potentially skewing the results.  It’s funny, really.  No one seems to be happy with the current government, and while the NDP’s rise in popularity was almost assuredly the result of one charismatic individual, voters across Canada still elected the Conservatives, only this time to a majority.  These scandals that pop up when the ‘bad guy’ wins aren’t new.  In the States, Al Gore was almost certainly going to beat George W. Bush, but when he lost, suddenly there was a scandal involving the automated ballots in the state of Florida.  They called it ‘Dipplegate’, or something like that.  If they didn’t, they should have.  Anything scandalous should end in ‘-gate’.

It’s all about what is fair and what is not.  We all grow up listening to stories about heroes and villains.  The hero needs to win in the end, even though the best stories have the villain win once in a while, or at very least get the upper hand before the hero saves the day.  We live vicariously through superheroes, in both our imaginations and the real world.  Who are some of the heroes of the last hundred years or so?  JFK was one.  He was so young, dashing and suave.  He was a Democrat, which is a great thing to be if you want to be a hero in the United States.  Other similar heroes include his brother Robert, Bill Clinton, and most recently Barrack Obama.  There were non-presidential heroes of course, like Martin Luther King, that police officer who took a bullet for Ronald Reagan, the entire NYPD and NYFD on 9/11, and there have been countless athletes, celebrities and do-gooders over the years to fill a small library with tales of courage and valour.  Can Republicans be heroes?  Sure, W. was a hero after 9/11 for his unwavering strength and determination to vanquish the foe (whoever that is or was).  Mayor Giuliani was definitely one.  Before that, it’s hard to think of any.  No one is going to bestow that mantle on Reagan or Nixon any time soon.

Sometimes heroes want to be heroes a little too much.  That is a dangerous line to cross, because sometimes the ends don’t actually justify the means.  I was watching The Incredibles this afternoon with my family, which is one of my favourite films in recent years, regardless of it being a cartoon.  The antagonist is a villain named Syndrome, who began his career as a wannabe sidekick to Mr. Incredible, who repeatedly spurned his good intentions.  As an adult, the would-be hero dwelled on his jealousy and resentment until he became that which he once would have fought—a villain.  Yes, it is a cautionary tale for all would-be heroes.  Ask Anakin Skywalker.  If you become too self-absorbed, you can become that thing you wish not to be.  It’s the great paradox of good intention.  Some say the road to Hell itself is even paved with it.  Scary stuff.

Now take a brief glance at some of the world’s most nefarious villains.  Let’s begin with the one we all shake in our boots at even the sound of his name.  Adolf Hitler.  He was without a doubt one of the worst.  No one can argue that.  However, there were plenty of people around him back in the day who thought he was a hero.  And he did some really heroic things.  Germany was an absolute mess after the Great War, and try as they did, none of the lackeys that attempted to build the country back to respectability had any luck or success whatsoever.  People were hungry, they had no jobs, and they were just itching for some good news.  Who doesn’t like good news?  Insert Hitler.  He was a fiery speaker, he made huge promises, amassed a loyal retinue of sycophants that echoed his radical yet appealing views, and he even fashioned a fancy logo.  He branded himself as a marketable product.  And in people’s darkest hours, they look skyward for a hero to deliver them.  The exiled Israelites in Babylon were so destitute that prophets started telling tales of redemption and deliverance.  Read the book of Isaiah sometime.  He was just a man who was waiting for a superman to save them.  One day they were freed, but the epilogue to that great tale wasn’t written until Jesus arrived.  Turns out the red and blue cape fit him just fine.  Hitler’s cape was not red and blue; it was red and black, and eventually his heroism turned out to be a cruel ruse.  Did Hitler ever have any actual good intentions?  It seems unlikely, and if he did, they were so distorted that he was doomed to become Syndrome from the get-go.

There are a lot of things wrong with all of this.  First, Hitler was one of many, many villains in the last hundred years.  Everyone reading this knows who he was.  And we should.  Ask yourself how much you know about Pol Pot, Nikolai Ceausescu, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung, Augusto Pinochet, Kim Il-Sung, or Idi Amin.  There are more recent ones you may be more familiar with, such as Saddam Hussein, Mohammar Qadaffi, and Fidel Castro, to name a few.  All of the above were heroes to many.  All of the above committed terrible atrocities; some are akin to and perhaps worse than Hitler.  And what no one wants to know is how western governments appeased, befriended, or ignored the actions of all of them at one time or another.  Add the Syrian dictator to that list.  Bin Laden was one.  Joseph Kony is another one; now it seems the audience has finally had enough of this guy, and are demanding the screenwriters to bring in the heroes to save the day.  There are reports of widespread murder, torture, and least-tolerable of all, children are being kidnapped and forced to do unspeakable things.  Somebody has to do something!

I first saw Kony’s name a few days ago.  It was on Facebook of course, and there was a link being posted that read ‘Kony 2012’.  At first I thought he was a presidential dark horse picking up on the social media train and gaining support.  The follower of American news I am, I thought it odd that this one slipped past me, so I looked into it, and to my utter disappointment, he turned out to be some Ugandan resistance leader.  He’s not even a Republican.  From his picture, I thought he could have been a member of the Wu-Tang Clan, or maybe that new collective Odd Future.  No.  He’s just another villain.  There’s a half-hour video, that I have yet to actually watch, I should say, which apparently tells the unimaginably awful horrors of Kony and his resistance group fighting in Uganda and half a dozen neighbouring countries in central Africa.  What has polarized this issue on the internet is not the crimes he has committed, nor the government in Uganda his organization has been fighting (no one knows if they are as bad as he is), the fact that a social media platform had to drag his dirty laundry into the street for us all to pick over, and that our heroic governments are doing nothing to stop it.  Maybe the people of Uganda felt this way before Kony arrived on the scene.  Maybe he flew in with a flapping cape and a whole bunch of good ideas, only to turn out to be more like Hitler than Jesus.  Heroism is really a perception thing.  And it is subject to change from scene to scene, or chapter to chapter.  That’s what makes it so exciting!

What makes me angry about all this Kony stuff is that everyone thinks they can solve the mystery.  A half-hour video, a shared link on Facebook, and boom—we know the ending.  Nothing unites us like a common enemy.  Senator McCarthy counted on that.  The coalition- government-that-never-was in Canada a few years ago tried that angle, but Harper vanquished that enemy pretty quickly.  Who was the hero, Harper or the Coalition?  It depends on your perspective.  Who are the heroes in Uganda?  It doesn’t really matter if you can’t even point out where on the map Uganda actually is.  Some sharp readers might recognize Idi Amin from my list of villains above.  He was actually a former Ugandan villain.  There was a movie made about him recently, so he must have been a really juicy one.  Finally, why Kony, and why now?  The deeper questions are as follows:  who is profiting from this exposure?  Is that picture actually of him, or is it just one of those ‘anybody’ pictures, like the ones that come with picture frames?  And what are you going to do about it?  Before I sign off, here are the questions no one is asking:  Who made those clothes you bought last week at Aeropostale?  Who grew and harvested the coffee beans that are ground up in your Tassimo?  How much were the workers paid that manufactured all those MacDonalds Happy Meal toys, Dollar Store trinkets, and party favours laying in boxes in your garage?  How old were they?  What are they eating for supper tonight?  What do their heroes look like?  Imagine who their villains are.

Nightfall at the Museum

When I think about my favourite albums of all time--and I do this frequently--I always tend to gravitate towards the same titles.  They come from distinct eras:  the years between 1969 and 1973, during which arguably the best music of all time was created, the early nineties when the so-called grunge movement threw rock music it's last obvious curve ball, and around the year 2000 curiously enough, as a millenium had dawned and pop music collectively yawned.  I could list a hundred different titles with a hundred reasons why they are on my own personal music Dean's List, and typically when I review music or recommend it to people I like to try to give all sorts of important-sounding artistic-integrety driven diatribes about why said title is in fact amazing.

Somehow I always drift back to Burton Cummings' 1977 album "Dream of a Child".  Those who know me know that Burton is my favourite singer of all time.  I have seen him in concert a total of three times.  First, at Moncton High School in 1986 with my parents and my sister.  I still remember some of the jokes he told on stage that night.  Next, on his 'Up Close and Alone' tour in Moncton, this time at Sweetwaters, which was (is?) a small nightclub, which was not a great venue to be honest, but at least I had a great vantage point.  He wore a god-awful red blazer and checkered pants.  His performance was nothing short of brilliant.  The last time was in 2000 in Saint John, this time at Harbour Station with the Guess Who on their 'Running Back Through Canada' tour.  That show was especially cool because Randy Bachman was with him.  Wide Mouth Mason was the opening band, and for the daunting task of opening for the greatest Canadian band of all time (yes Hip fans, I said it), they did very well.  Memories of growing up listening to Burton's music, either solo or with the Guess Who, are among my most cherished.  My mom was in her teens when I was born, so she had a real youthful vitality back then.  She used to dance with me in her arms, and she used to spread records out on the floor and play music in the days before I even knew what was going on around me.  Reportedly, Kenny Rogers' "Coward of the County" was the first song I ever sang word-for-word, and it is recorded on audiotape somewhere, but Burton's music just found its way into my soul.  'Dream of a Child' really isn't the greatest album ever made.  In fact, it has some pretty bland tracks when you sit and dissect it.  But that doesn't matter in this case, because the album has a certain intangible quality about it that no one can describe.  Even me, and I'm the one touting it as so special.

People attach themselves to things and there is no logical reason why.  I have an antique dresser and mirror that belonged to my great-great-aunt, whom I never met, yet that piece of furniture is very important to me.  I have my grandfather's engraved cigarette case and Zippo lighter.  My great-uncle's watch.  A different great-great-uncle's .45.  I don't hunt.  I was not even ten years old when he died.  I don't even have it stored in my own house; it's at mom and dad's with the Dionne Warwick 45 and my Sunday School service bars.  But I know it's there, and if I needed to, I could go retrieve it and store it in my own personal Smithsonian of old trinkets, antique yet unremarkable otherwise furniture.  Gradually, year after year, I bring stuff from mom and dad's house that I know they never intend to use or even look at again because I find value in preserving it, and half the time I can't even explain why.  The teacher of elementary school science that I am, though, I have a hypothesis for your curiosity.

I believe that when I become personally attached to an item or a place, I leave a little piece of myself behind or with that particular item.  Not in the sense that I am fractioning myself into ever-smaller bits of my corporeal self, and not even in the sense that I would claim that it's my 'soul', or an essence of me that lingers, but that there is a connection below our consciousness that remains after we're gone.  I don't believe in ghosts.  I don't think my spirit will float above me when big streaming lights are frying me on an operating table.  I've spoken before of Nature as God, to which my body will return when I die.  However, I think we do leave a part of us behind when we let go of something.  There has to be more to it than sentiment that keeps me holding on to the belongings of people who died before I was born, or when I was too young to have a meaningful bond with them.  Otherwise it just doesn't make sense to me.  People that uncontrollably hoard things (and I feel bad for those poor folks on those hoarding reality shows, they are just being exploited so other messy people and collectors can feel better about themselves, myself included) are able to latch on to things much quicker than most people.  It is more than psychological; they physically feel ill when they need to detach from their stuff.  I only keep specific things, and I am very capable of purging unwanted items, but I understand why people hoard.  Some folks see value beyond dollars, and the price they pay for their frugality is in unkempt, often unkeepable homes, disorder, and public humiliation.

My collection of old records, which over three generations of collecting has also included cassettes, eight-tracks, and compact discs, is probably my most valuable collection, in terms of personal value in any case.  There was a time when each title could sell for upwards of $8-10, depending on what style of music it is, the format, and the condition it's in.  Most of them aren't worth that much anymore, individually that is.  The collection itself might be worth something, but it's worth will only reveal itself after I'm gone, when my heirs have the unimaginable task of figuring out what the hell to do with it.  Neither of my sons seem too interested in my music, which is fine, but I often wonder what my collection will fetch them after my carcass is finally back in the ground, hopefully helping nourish a young sapling in a park somewhere.  I recently read an article about the CBC's plans to unload, and even destroy some 100 000-plus titles from it's Vancouver archive in the interest of digitizing it's catalogue and saving on storage rent.  You'd figure the government shouldn't have to pay storage fees for stuff like this--how old is the CBC anyway?  I likened this to walking into the Lord Beaverbrook Art Gallery, or the Museum of Natural History in Ottawa, taking digital photos of all the art, then throwing the actual pieces out to save on space and utilities.  I have a book with the Dead Sea Scrolls transcribed alongside reasonable facsimiles of the actual parchment, but would anyone dream of throwing away the actual scrolls themselves?  Most historians would give their eye-teeth and yours to have the Library of Alexandria back, with those countless volumes of now-forgotten human history so we could find out if Atlantis actually was a place, or maybe just a great idea for a dime-store novel.

Artifacts matter.  They matter for cultural relevance.  They matter for sentiment, whatever that means.  They matter for our own personal relevance in the world in which we live, and will one day cease to occupy as we do now.  Burton Cummings once wrote in the liner notes of the GuessWho's "Track Record" compilation that one day, someone would dig out a copy of 'Share the Land' from some attic, put the record on, and he would be alive once again.  He's right.  A few months ago, I had my JVC turntable, rescued from a school trashcan by my father, hooked up to my bookshelf stereo with a half-dozen records spread out on the living room floor.  Kieran asked me what I was doing, and I put on 'Dream of a Child' for him.  I closed my eyes for a moment, and mom was holding me and dancing again.  The sun was setting.   "Dream of a child; the song of a man; the key and the time are at his command..."