Heroes

We need heroes. Not personally, I mean - somebody to save us individually when we're in a jam, although that's very nice indeed (if you're in a jam).

We need heroes. Us. Society. Psychologically, they are a basic and deep seated need.

Captain Chesley ("Sully") Sullenberger is one. He saved a bunch of people who were in a jam, which was very nice indeed.

He's not the only one, which is the important part. It's been quite some time since we've heard "women and children first," and it's good to see it back, unmocked. It was the passengers who uttered these words, and well done to them. Boats in the area swarmed to the rescue - one captained by a Vince Lombardi, no less, and while that's what you're supposed to do, it takes guts anyway.

Heros. Joseph Campbell described their function in his masterpiece, The Hero With A Thousand Faces:

The hero, therefore, is the man or woman who has been able to battle past his personal and local historical limitations to the generally valid, and normally human forms. Such a one's visions, ideas, and inspirations come pristine from the primary springs of human life and thought. Hence, they are eloquent, not of the present, disintegrating society and psyche, but of the unquenched source through which society is reborn.

Campbell's book title refers to the universal need for heroes - all societies, in all times and places honor the hero. Gilgamesh. Horatio. Child-of-the-Water. Sam Woodfill. Someone who look into the abyss, and who does what needs to be done to save those who need saving.

Their greatest service is to remind us that we are that man, if we let ourselves dare. Campbell again:

It is not society that is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse.

Thank you, Captain Sully. And Captain Vince. And the good men and women on the plane that walked the "women and children first" walk.

May I be that man, if I am called to that duty.

UPDATE 16 January 2009 22:30: ASM826 has some thoughts on how to be that man.