Bohaterowie

Właśnie ponownie obejrzałem drugi odcinek serialu Northern Exposure (Przystanek Alaska). Jeden z wątków przykuł moją uwagę w kontekście jednej z bieżących spraw w polskim życiu publicznym. Magnat miejski Maurice Minnifield wyrzucił z pracy prowadzącego radio Chris'a, gdy ten robił sobie żart z jednego z amerykańskich poetów. Gdy całe miasto domagało się przywrócenia Chrisa na miejsce, Maurice wpadł w furię. Jednak następnego dnia powiedział:

When I was a boy growing in Oklahoma City I would go to the show on Saturday. My favorite was John Wayne. It didn't matter what kind of movie it was: cowboy picture, war movie, I was with him all the way. Except for The Quiet Man; that one bored the hell out of me. By the time I was nine years old, I was walking and talking like the Duke. Then one day, the walls came crashing down. I was playing army with the Marshall boys, Jed and Jeff, in Bailey's Woods. Jeff said kind of off-handedly that John Wayne didn't do his own fighting, didn't throw his own punches, didn't take his own hits or his own falls. Well, I kicked the hell out of the Marshall boys. Then I ran all the way home and asked my daddy if it was true that John Wayne didn't do his own fighting. He said yes. John Wayne was my hero and the Marshall boys gave him feet of clay.

Now I don't give a damn if Walt Whitman kicked with his right foot or left foot or that J. Edgar Hoover took it better than he gave it or Ike was true blue to Mamie or that God knows who had trouble with the ponies or the bottle. We need our heroes. We need men we can look up to, believe in. Men who walk tall. We cannot chop them off at the knees just to prove they are like the rest of us. Now Walt Whitman was a pervert. But he was the best poet that America ever produced. And if he was standing here today and somebody called him a fruit or a queer behind his back or to his face or over these airwaves, that person would have to answer to me. Sure, we're all human. But there's damn few of us who have the right stuff to be called heroes.

Dlaczego człowiek ma tendencję do degradacji bohaterów? Może jakiś kompleks? Może nie może wytrzymać tego, że sam nie może się z nim równać w górę? Może dlatego chce bohatera zrównać w dół?

Tylko czy stać nas na to, żeby niszczyć takich bohaterów? W Polsce mamy ich przecież tak niewielu.