#9 said:
“Real heroes never want excessive praise, and always say they just did their jobs.”
That is a popular assumption in this day and age, but it is nonetheless completely mistaken.
While it is most certainly true that many people who have acted heroically have subsequently behaved modestly, that does not mean that the two actions necessarily dovetail into one another. Nor must they for the person to be considered a true hero.
My opinion? Sully has earned the right to cash in any way he sees fit. If he chooses not to, fine. If he chooses to, then nobody – not for a single second – has the right to devalue him or what he’s accomplished.
I don’t like the preachy tone of this article at all. It’s the kind of petty moralizing that finally persuaded me to skip going to church. It’s an advocation of the mediocre and a suppression of the exceptional. What’s next? Is this the next article we’ll receive from Simberg?
So the cockpit tapes of the Mars Landing Craft have come out, and the media renews its swoon over the calm, cool behavior of Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger Jnr as he became the first man to set foot on the red planet.
Let me start by saying that my intent is in no way to criticize the pilot. He obviously did nothing worthy of criticism, and he should indeed be praised — just not to this degree — and I suspect that he is more than a little bemused and even embarrassed over the attention, which would be in keeping with the character that he has demonstrated so far.
How bitter. How small. Puts it in perspective, doesn’t it?
The ancient Greek understood the value of hero-myths, and used them to exhort their people to exceptional actions at Marathon and Salamis. That’s what we do too, unconsciously, when we raise up men or women who have accomplished something wonderful. Should we have refrained from building the Lincoln Memorial because Abe would have blushed?
Simberg, a man whose name is unlikely to be sung by the bards in praise, needs to spend less time whining about how heroes should and shouldn’t be praised, and more time trying to do something to improve his evidently faltering self-esteem.
