[lit-ideas] Re: Follow Up to Fly in the Fly-Bottle
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 09:08:15 -0600
DR:
I'm wondering if I have any such remaining allegiances.
Do others?
Linus Pauling: "Young people should always listen to their elders, but not
necessarily believe what they say."
I was annoyed by the media incessantly calling Chesley Sullenberger, the
pilot of U S Airways plane that ditched into the Hudson, a hero. He was no
hero. He was a wonderfully competent pilot and everyone is enormously
grateful for that, but he was not a hero. A hero is someone who voluntarily
risks his life or limb or place-in-the-world to help or safe someone else.
Sullenberger had no choice in the matter. It doesn't diminish the value of
what he accomplished to say he was not a hero. It does diminish the meaning
of "hero" to use it in situations that don't warrant the term.
I know of one hero, a teacher who tried to stop an attack by a gang of high
school boys on another boy. The teacher got cut up pretty bad, but he
probably saved the kid's life. I can't even remember my hero's name. We
taught at the same school 38 years ago. I doubt I would have had the
courage to step into that situation. I have no idea what I would have done.
He probably didn't either at the time.
Other than that guy I can't remember having personally come across any
heroes. There are several people I admire -- social activists mostly
(imagine that!) and some artsy-fartsy rebels, not much at stake there
though.
Mike Geary
Memphis
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Ritchie" <ritchierd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2009 1:44 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Follow Up to Fly in the Fly-Bottle
I was wondering why I wrote what I wrote. It came to me that the adoption
of heroes is not something I understand well. In the old days the choice
of heroes was a limited one--choose among the locals. Now we are told
that we live in a media-rich culture--what a term--and that, far from the
green valleys in which we once hacked coal or made sho-fly art, we are now
at the mercy of media. At the same time, we learn that the media's powers
are Lear-like, and we're not talking jets.
So, heroes.
Was Popper a hero, and for whom?
I'm wondering how Donal came to be a supporter of said person and why?
I'm wondering if I have any such remaining allegiances.
Do others?
David Ritchie,
coming to terms on a Pendleton blanket, with awkward questions in
Portland, Oregon
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