Are our "heroes" really heroes, or are they heels?

[Archae]

I've read about in the past, how the people who were hyped by our teachers as heroes, really could be heels, we found out later.

It wasn't until I was out of High School I found out just what assholes Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh were, their vicious anti-Semitism, racism and open pro-Nazi Germany advocacy.

So imagine my surprise when I find out that Cesar Chavez was heavily involved with a dangerous, murderous fraudulent cult.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synanon

Most of the book is an encouraging, tightly argued narrative that shows us how the UFW overcame obstacles, and gathered a strategic capacity and the power to compel growers to recognize the union and to negotiate fair contracts. But (Marshall) Ganz quickly dispatches the reasons other scholars and commentators have offered for why the UFW began to unravel at the height of its success in the late ’70s. Ganz knows because he was a member of (Cesar) Chavez’s inner circle or “leadership team” during the period Chavez was coming under the influence of Charles Dederich, founder of Synanon (“a Los Angeles-based drug treatment program that had evolved into a cult and had declared itself a ‘religion’ a few years earlier”).

Chavez compelled his top leaders and organizers to participate in Synanon’s fiercely confrontational encounter group technique he called “the game.” Ganz describes it as “an intensely political kind of group therapy. In emotionally aggressive sessions with 10-15 persons, participants verbally attacked each other to air problems” for periods of one to three hours.

Ganz concludes, “Chavez transformed UFW deliberations into a controlled, exclusive and judgmental process in which one’s loyalty was constantly on the line.” Chavez sought to make “the game” as central to the practice of the union as it was to Synanon. In the Spring of 1978, Chavez required 200 staffers to travel as much as five hours to attend weekly sessions.

http://www.religiondispatches.org/books/politics/1716/why_david_sometimes_wins%3A_what_we_must_learn_from_cesar_chavez

Why would Cesar Chavez do this?
I don't know.

[L0oniX]

1. When NASCAR drivers became heroes ...the word lost all real meaning.

[patrice]

4. 1+

[tularetom]

2. Yeah and Rev. King was known to have had some extramarital affairs

But it doesn't detract one iota from the good he did.

Of course, many of our heroes do have feet of clay, but the failings attributed to Chavez seem rather petty next to the anti-Semitism of Ford and Linbergh.

Guess we have to keep it all in perspective.

[patrice]

3. Perhaps because of, or at least co-incidental with, what was going on with about 50% of

Labor as a result of the fact that it had sold itself to Nixon for the illusion of power. Thus splitting the richer better established unions from the poorer ones along race lines. This was especially important because the poorer unions were still struggling with organizing, so their internal issues about who was with them and who wasn't REALLY with them would have been paramount.

Read about that here: http://books.google.com/books/about/Stayin_Alive.html?id=xz-EINoBGNcC

Having been around grassroots' organizing of various kinds, off and on, for about 30 years, one of my dominant impressions is the need to be up front about differences, so that everyone knows who exactly everyone else is, so they all can trust one another to whatever extent possible, but without fracturing the working relationships or inadvertently exposing the teams to what remains of effective covert actions within their ranks. Teamsters were actually intentionally fucking with the Farm Workers too at that time, See Cowie.

I can see how that need would have been intensely magnified by what was going on around Chavez at that time, especially since his organizers would have included so many different dimensions of the relevant issues.

[patrice]

5. BTW, that's a false dichotomy. People are more complicated than our rather

arbitrary categories for them: both heroes, and heels, and neither, and something else entirely besides.

[surrealAmerican]

6. Perhaps heroism is not some act that is taken ...

... by a special, perfect person, but rather something ordinary flawed humans are capable of given the right circumstances.

It's a lesson we need to be teaching our children.

[patrice]

9. 1++++++++++++

[rustydog]

13. The problem with heroism is the heroic acts performed by everyday people have been cheapened

because an athlete excells at their sport and are called a hero...A single mom is called a hero, a crime victim is called a hero simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The definition of a heroic deed has been watered down to the point that if you take in a breath and go to work, you are called a hero.

You can be someone who has a different poitical, religious or ethical outlook on life and still be a hero of business or industry. Henry Ford may be all that the OP claims, he still revolutionized the auto industry...You can be a perfect asshole, a drug addict, a wife-beater and still be capable of performing a heroic task: Save a drowning victim, pull a person out of a burning building, automobile etc...

[Archae]

7. Except no one has answered the important question.

Why would Chavez join up with this bunch of vicious con artists?

[patrice]

8. Jefferson Cowie's book explains quite a bit about that and much else besides. It's very

heavily researched, lots of end-notes and cites and such, so it isn't just opinion and speculation.

[Archae]

10. Just looked it over at Amazon, looks like a good book.

I "came of age" in the mid to late 70's, so I lived through all that.

Especially my (rather rude) introduction to the work force when I turned 16, and got my first job at the Sign Of The Fallen Arches.

[Tom Ripley]

11. Redd Foxx- "Heroes are not born, they're cornered"

[randome]

12. Why would Ray Bradbury turn to conservativism?

Why would Bob Dylan turn to Islam?

We should not look up to heroes at all. They are on the same plain of existence as the rest of us. And subject to the same foibles.

[rustydog]

14. Bingo! At one point in time, a moment in history someone does something memorable, heroic,

unselfishly brave...Heroic.

Their action does not make the person(s) better than us, smarter than us and they do not deserve to be deified.

[randome]

16. Sometimes it's the deification itself that turns a person astray.

If a hero starts thinking of him or herself as a hero, they start thinking they are infallible.

And then, because they can't accept the idea of infallibility, they become cognitively disconnected from the rest of us and from themselves.

It's our hero worship that destroys our heroes.

[gkhouston]

15. Binary thinking: works for computers. People, not so much. n/t

[Edweird]

17. 'Hero' and 'dick' are not mutually exclusive.