Nov 195 min read

We Don't Need Another Hero

A myth, Robert Guyker tells us, confirms a “group’s sense of self-image, orientation, and worldview; [it] creates models of behavior and instills habits.” A community is sustained and strengthened by a unifying myth. But right now, the USA lacks a unifying myth.

Cultural historian Richard Tarnas sees two opposing myths at work (Tarnas, 3). One is the myth of the fall, which casts history as a long falling away from Eden. It sees the way things used to be as something we need to get back to. The second myth is the myth of progress, the idea that the best is yet to come. This myth tells us that a better future is something we are obligated to make happen.

Neither myth is rooted in the here and now. Our political scene has been a never-ending tug-of-war between those who want to go back and those who want to go forward. And as Michael Meade notes, right now the dominant myth is one of “division and collapse.”

Heroic Mindset

Most social activism—regardless of which myth the activist holds to—almost always involves a “heroic” mindset. To wit:

Heroes traditionally fight on behalf of others to fix a problem threatening the community. The community is passive, putting all its hope in the hero.
Heroes see things in terms of right and wrong. They operate out of righteous anger.
Heroes believe it is villains who cause the problems. They hate and fear these villains.
Heroes think any problem can be solved through what feminist author Sheri Tepper calls “the single wondrous thing” (Tepper, 190). The hero only has to defeat the villain or destroy that villain’s source of power to make everything okay.
What the hero really does in these stories is to restore things to how they used to be. The hero reinforces the status quo.
If the hero wins, he often has to put most of his energy into maintaining control over the losers. Thus, as film scholar Kim Hudson observes, heroes can become tyrants (Hudson, 15). If the hero does not win, they may become fanatics or even terrorists in desperation.

Is there another way? Is there a kind of activism that is rooted in the immediate present, one that counters the myth of division and collapse? For that, we can look to the heroine of fairy tales and women’s novels.

The Heroine’s Story

Usually her story goes like this: others are trying to force their ideas of who she should be on her. She will not acquiesce. If resistance isn’t enough—and it usually isn’t—she doesn’t fight them. Instead, she leaves and goes right to the place that she has been told to fear: the woods in fairy tales, the big city or the university in modern stories.

There she learns what she never could at home: new ideas. There she finds her teacher, the witch—the woman of power. In hero stories the witch is a threat. But the heroine bows before her and says “I want to learn. I will do anything you ask.”

The witch sets the young woman tests that involve winnowing out the good seeds from the bad, the wheat from the chaff. These tests require the heroine to put her emotions aside, look at things objectively, and choose appropriately.

She learns discernment. She learns how to see things as they really are. Once she can see with clear eyes, she can live a value-driven life. She continues to resist everything that’s not in keeping with her values, but she doesn’t focus on the bad seeds. That’s not where she puts her energy. She doesn’t obsess about how wrong the bad seeds are, and she doesn’t try to fix or punish them.

Instead, she focuses on creating or gathering more of what she values. No matter how many bad seeds come her way, the heroine persists in holding onto and promoting what she values. She brings and nurtures more and more of the good in her own life. And because she can think critically, which includes being able to reflect on and find the flaws in her own approach, her own thinking, she finds creative ways to do things differently.

No matter how many bad seeds come her way, the heroine persists in holding onto and promoting what she values. She brings and nurtures more and more of the good in her own life.

Then the slow miracle happens. Other people notice and say, “I like what I see, I like what she’s doing. I’m going to try to do things that way too.” She gives them an experience of something new, something different, something they can try out. That sets in motion a ripple effect. More and more people see the new thing and start trying it. When enough people in the community embrace the new way of doing things, the entire community changes—organically, without force (Bower, 239).

The Heroine in Activism

Hunger Project activist Lynne Twist realized years ago that throwing money at people doesn’t change anything; worse, it teaches people to think of themselves as powerless victims. Instead, her group started vision sessions where they invited villagers to imagine their communities as thriving and happy, and then come up with their own ideas about how to achieve that. People wept with joy as they shifted their thinking from poverty to abundance, from victimhood to agency. The Hunger Project funded the ideas that the villagers came up with, and the villages prospered. Then those people helped expand the program to nearby villages. Time after time, with very little funding, villagers raised themselves out of poverty and made their dreams reality, then helped others do the same. Twist says, “What you appreciate appreciates. When you make a difference with what you have, it expands. Collaboration creates prosperity” (Twist, 120).

People wept with joy as they shifted their thinking from poverty to abundance, from victimhood to agency. The Hunger Project funded the ideas that the villagers came up with, and the villages prospered.

The heroine invites us to let go of fear, blame, and right/wrong thinking. She invites us to believe that change can come into being easily and organically when we show others a better way. She invites us to put our emotions aside, concentrate on what we value most, and become role models. She invites us to embrace the myth that we all have the power to make life better here and now.

Click here to learn more about this blog's author Jody Bower!

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