Be Careful Who You Put On Your Pedestal
In One Handshake Away, episode 4, there’s a recording from an old interview between Peter Bogdanovich and legendary director John Ford. Ford says it’s good for a country to have heroes to build up. Listening to their conversation in today’s context, it hit differently.
Somewhere along the way, we lost that compass. Or maybe the United States just changed who they called a hero. Too often now, the people elevated to pedestals are those who reflect our worst instincts: greed, cruelty, spectacle. The villains became the celebrities, and the spotlight became a mirror.
It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more we celebrate the ruthless, the more ruthlessness we breed. And the more starved we become for genuine examples of courage, humility, or integrity.
Ford wasn’t naive, he knew heroes weren’t flawless. But he understood the cultural need for figures to aspire toward. Not perfect people, but people whose better instincts pulled us up instead of down.
Maybe the question is: who are our heroes now? And what does that say about us?