The Heroes Hidden Among Us

No one has ever accused me of being an optimist.

“Curmudgeon” I have heard more times than I care to remember.

Despite spending months studying Martin Seligman and his band of positive psychologists, my general view of homo sapiens is skeptical, negative, and getting worse by the day.

If you are looking for labels, “misanthrope” would not be far off.

I am drawn to books like “Humans: How We F**ked it All Up.”

In Ancient Greece, they would have called me a “cynic,” convicted me of corrupting the immorality[1] of the youth, impiety, and they would have rewarded me with a cup of hemlock.

As I have studied history, however, I cannot deny discerning a force in the universe.

It comes unexpectedly in the guise of an unassuming and unexpected hero.

Neither brash nor arrogant, the hero acts without concern for reward or acclaim, focused solely on doing the right thing.

This force manifested in a shepherd boy named “David,” coming out of obscurity to defeat a monster they called “Goliath” to save the nascent land of Israel.

It later appeared in the case of a young soldier named George Washington.

Unlike David, who rose from a zero to a hero with one sling of the stone, Washington stumbled out of the gate.

Washington botched his first primary battle by killing (some say “massacring”) a group of innocent French diplomats, mistaking them for enemy soldiers in the French & Indian War.

Oops!

I hate it when stuff like that happens.

It did not bolster the CV of a young man who aspired to become a career soldier.

That stain plagued Washington for years like a bad case of herpes.

Heroes must overcome obstacles like that.

It’s the only way to get into the club.

Washington went on to make up for his initial faut pas when, during a brutal winter at Valley Forge, he led his troops across the Delaware River in the dark of night on Christmas to strike a decisive blow against the dreaded Hessians at the Battle of Trenton, turning the tide of a losing war.

And there was Grant.

For every ten generals who refused to take on the plantation owners who would fight like banshees to keep their slaves, there was one who battled alcoholism with little success, failed at farming, couldn’t sell real estate worth a damn, and even flunked working retail.

Like Washinton, Grant’s ascent was not smooth and even.

Grant suffered significant casualties at Shiloh and lost other important battles before emerging as the unlikely hero of the American Civil War and later President of the United States.

Before entering the international stage at perhaps the most critical point in the history of Western civilization, Harry Truman never succeeded at much of anything.

As a young man, Truman opened a men’s clothing store (a “haberdashery”).

The business went bankrupt, but Truman was personally liable for the debts.

Because of his personal code of ethics, he continued to pay his creditors until 1950, after he had ascended to and descended from the White House.

Heroes are like that.

FDR named Truman as his running mate in 1944.

He knew little of Truman but believed that he brought balance to the ticket: the elite New Yorker and the Tim Walz of his day.

Two months after winning an unprecedented fourth term[2], FDR died.

He left the debt-laden haberdasher with the problems of securing WWII's victory, whether to use the Atomic Bomb and negotiating the Treaty of San Francisco, among others.

David[3], Washington, Grant, and Truman did not look like heroic archetypes.

They did not resemble Yul Brynner in the Magnificent 7, the Lone Ranger, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, or Napoleon.

We might consider David a prodigy.

How many boy heroes can you think of?

Grant, Truman, and Washington could present as bumbling and unassuming as Columbo.

Yet, they had what I call the “heroic force.”

The heroic force also manifested in King Arthur, Abraham Lincoln, Rosa Parks, and Sully Sullenberger.

Note that the heroic force does not appear until the situation is dire.

It takes a major crisis to bring it out.

The worse things get in our country, the more I believe a hero who possesses this force is hidden among us.

I believe he will emerge to smote the oligarchic thieves who have stolen our democracy.

Maybe there is a touch of optimism in me after all.

That inspires me to stay the course and fight on as a member of “The Resistance.”

Our mantra is the immortal words of the Dude (aka “Lebowski”), quoting George H. W. Bush:

“This aggression will not stand, man!”

[1] Intentional play on words; reference to Socrates.

[2] An exception to the two-term limit because WWII continued to rage on.

[3] Yes, David had that little scandal over Bathsheba, but the hero in him emerged when he was an unassuming shepherd boy. Eisenhower defeated the Nazis and saved western civilization and even he had his weaknesses. Ah, the powers of women!