In Praise of Anti-Heroism

Given the circumstances, this kind of coverage isn't too surprising, but I'd caution against labeling the brave and facile pilot of US Air Flight 1549---or anyone else, for that matter---a "hero." Perhaps I'm over-semanticizing here, but the word strikes me as one of the most overused, and hence meaningless, in the language, like "genius," or "artist."

Personally, I really don't think there's anything as a hero per se among homo sapiens. Such an appellation suggests the possession by a small group of adepts of some sort of superhuman powers that simply aren't available to us mortals. It's a convenient way to explain the inexplicable, such as yesterday's disaster averted, but it's also a convenient mechanism for letting ourselves off the hook when things go wrong. ("Our heroes have failed us!" is a common meme trotted out by certain public thinkers as an attempt to explain the failure of Utopia to materialize in our lifetimes, despite their best assurances.)

Now, that's to not say, that there aren't people who aren't capable of performing what we would call heroic acts on a moment's notice by virtue of their training and temperament, because there clearly are. And judging by his resume, it would certainly appear that Capt. Sullenburger was, simply put, the right man at the right time and place to bring down a mortally wounded Airbus safely in that particular environment.

Put it this way: what if the pilot of Flight 1549 had been a certain Capt. Jones, who, while possessed of nearly the same degree of experience as Capt. Sullenburger, had made just the slightest, minutest fractional deviation during his emergency landing maneuver while following all other procedures to the letter, and laid down the A320's fuselage just the slightest bit too soon, causing the plane to break apart and killing all passengers and crew? What if Capt. Jones had followed the exact same procedures as Capt. Sullenburger before running into a bit of bad luck---a sudden wind shear, perhaps--- a hundred feet above the water line, causing the Airbus to plunge nose-first into the Hudson? Would Capt. Jones be a hero to us today, or merely another casualty to be background-checked by the NTSB? I think you can see where we are going here.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, while we celebrate the good fortune, and the great skill, of the US Air pilot, his crew and the passengers, we should be careful not to lapse into sloppy and careless thinking when offering up our tributes. After eight years of beholding manufactured heroes strutting the decks of aircraft carriers in flight suits, and serving up plastic turkeys in Marine barracks in Iraq, we should be aware by now of ascribing superhuman qualities to all-too-ordinary people.

---Vitelius

Comments

I wish I could find the exact quote, but, I remember Frank Zappa saying," When a genius tells you you're a genius that means something. But, when a 16 year old says it to you backstage, it doesn't mean much."