The
Hero Dilemma
September 10, 2002
by Warren Farrell, Ph.D.
September 11 presents a dilemma for
every family who loves their country and loves their children. We are
grateful beyond words for the firefighters and policemen who sacrificed
their lives for the possibility that others might live. When someone
does this for a stranger, and in defense of his or her country, that
is the quintessential example of heroism.
What, then, is the dilemma? As we sing these men's praises, we send
the message to our sons (and some of our daughters) that they will be
held in the highest esteem if they too are willing to sacrifice their
lives for a stranger, especially on behalf of country.
The first dilemma, then, is that our praise may tempt a son or daughter
in great need of attention to risk death to gain appreciation. As a
firefighter, he is likely to die earlier of lung cancer or other toxins;
as a soldier he or she is more likely to die on a Mideast battlefield
than in a midtown office.
The second dilemma involves taking care of country vs. taking care of
family. If our son or daughter has children at home, is it right to
have him or her put the children's life in jeopardy? His willingness
to die contributes to protection of our country and homes, but jeopardizes
the well-being of his own family. A father who is a hero at war may
never come home.
The third dilemma becomes apparent with an understanding of the personality
that often develops as a man becomes a hero. To be successful
as a hero, it helps to repress feelings, not express feelings.
("When the going gets tough, the tough get going," not "when the going
gets tough the tough see a psychologist.") To be successful in
love, it helps to express feelings, not repress them.
The more a man values himself the less he wants to die. To teach
a man to value himself by dying-- to give him promotions to risk death,
to tell him he's powerful, he's a hero, he's loved, he's a "real
man"-- is to "bribe" a man to value himself more by valuing
himself less. Thus volunteer firefighters are virtually 100% males;
all the Drug Enforcement Agency officials who have died in "The War
on Drugs" are male; men died in the Gulf War at a ratio of 27 to 1,
and, overall, 93% of people killed in the workplace are males.
The psychology that perpetuates this paradox includes calling our firefighters
and police officers "heroes." "Heroes" comes
from the Greek word "serow," from which we get our words "servant"
and "slave."
We think of a hero
as someone who has power. In fact, a servant and slave possess
the psychology of disposability, not the psychology of power. Many men
have learned to define power as "feeling obligated to earn money
that someone else spends while he dies sooner." Real power is best
defined as "control over our one's life."
Why do we praise men as heroes when they compete to be disposable?
Virtually all societies that have survived have done so by socializing
men to be disposable.
After our acknowledgement of our heroes, then, we are
faced with a dilemma of morality and survival: whether the incentives
and laws that produce our heroes also produce the men most capable of
loving.
It was part of our genetic heritage to socialize both
sexes for disposability. Women have questioned their genetic heritage;
men have not questioned theirs. The result is that women are still
falling in love with a sex that is less well socialized to love.
Is that good for our children's genetic future?
On the other hand, if we don't socialize men to die, will women take
on 50% of the responsibility to fight in our wars, save our homes from
fires, build bridges and be the truckers, miners, lumberjacks, welders
and sheet metal workers who build the next World Trade Center?
And if so, will they become the women we want our daughters to be?
There are no perfect answers. But our heroes have
left those of us who live the challenge of deciding how much to encourage
future generations to die so that others may live to praise those who
have died.
Warren
Farrell
