REBELS, AND NOT CONFORMISTS!

Continuing in the vein of the preceding discussion, what kind of men and women must a great nation honor? Which biographies are worth reading? Which lives are worth living?

Not so simple. In order to become a biography, a great life must first become a legend. Heroic legends have much in common, the most striking similarity being their non-conformity to the normal ‘standard of living.’ It turns out that greatness transcends the rules, disregards them, breaks them. A hero is always a revolutionary of sorts, a rebel against the norm; and there is something in each great life which proves it. It is the stuff all legends are made of.

Stable, well-to-do societies have little appreciation for heroes. In a sense, heroes are anathema to those who measure life in terms of perpetuity, survival, and success: the earthly goals of the middle-class mentality. It is worth noting that in Russia the rather unique social class of the intelligentsia (habitually misunderstood, and hopelessly mistranslated into other languages as intellectuals, there is no similar concept in existence within non-Russian societies, as will be properly explained and elaborated in the Russian Section) encourages an extraordinary state of mind where higher goals and hero-worship are the norm. The American society, on the other hand, has depreciated the value of heroes to such an extent that the proper meaning of the word hero has virtually been lost with too many “heroes” walking around, just as the true meaning of winning is also lost, under the rules where everybody gets a blue ribbon of the winner, to bail out the sensibilities of the losers.

The American society of today loves the pre-scripted freedoms of political correctness in the broader sense of the word and does not suffer self-propelled rebels in its midst gladly. But, alas, without such rebels, there can be no heroes, and America is paying the price for the grounding of her dream.

Albus Dumbledore, commenting on Harry Potter’s character, observes a certain disregard for the rules, as an integral part of his heroic nature. Even Harry’s friend Hermione, purportedly the epitome of the teacher’s darling, resorts to rule-breaking, as soon as she enters the realm of the heroic. Considering that the genius of J. K. Rowling as an adept in authentic folklorizing is established, and folklore is the domain where legends are made, we are learning something else about the nature of the hero, namely, that he is most likely to be a maverick, a rebel, and never a conformist, which word sounds offensive both to the heart and the mind, like a sentimental impossibility and a logical contradiction in terms.

And here is Nietzsche of course with his On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, Section 6:

“…And if you want biographies, then not those with the refrain “Mr. So-and-so and his Time,” but rather, those, on whose title page shall be inscribed: “A Fighter Against His Time.” Satisfy your soul on Plutarch, and dare to believe in yourself, when you believe in his heroes. A hundred such men, educated against the modern fashion, that is, men who have ripened, and who are used to the heroic, could now silence forever the whole noisy pseudo-education of our time.”

How modern, how urgent does this sound, against the backdrop of this hero-free, education-free American society! And yes, the best of history is necessarily great and splendid fiction. So, to return America back to her greatness, give back to her the greatness of her legends! Return her to Plutarch!