Obama and McCain Offer Two Very Different Kinds of Heroism

Americans have never been very eager to turn war heroes into presidents. George Washington did not set much of a precedent. Only five of the 42 who followed (Jackson, W.H. Harrison, Taylor, Grant and Eisenhower) made their reputations in war. In the 20th century a few could claim minor war heroics (Teddy Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, George H.W. Bush), but at the century's end a onetime war protester, Bill Clinton, handily defeated two veterans of "the good war": a onetime fighter pilot, Bush (even though he'd waged a successful war in Iraq), and a permanently disabled warrior, Bob Dole.

Now we are at war again, and the stock of war heroes seems to be on the rise. Although the war is unpopular, the candidate whose main claim to fame is wartime heroism has a chance to win in 2008, or so the polls suggest. The same polls say that John McCain trails Barack Obama on nearly every issue except war, national security and "strong leadership." Never underestimate the polling power of a war hero, or the power of a hero to whip up public support for a war -- especially if that hero is the president of the United States. That's why the question of heroism and its appeal matters to all of us.

Conservative cultural critics have been lamenting the decline of heroism in America for years. Their argument is at the heart of the McCain campaign. It goes like this:

People become heroes -- they muster the courage it takes to suffer and risk all for others -- by strictly controlling their selfish impulses. By demonstrating self-discipline, heroes prove their superior character. And that earns them the right to wield political authority. Only people with such strong self-control deserve to be in charge of controlling social boundaries. Only a hero's example can control the impulses of the unruly mob and maintain the social order.

But, the conservative argument continues, in our postmodern society everything is just image -- including heroism. Few of us can distinguish any longer between real heroes like Sgt. Alvin York or Audie Murphy, who risked genuine suffering or even death, and fictional ones like Ironman or Indiana Jones, whose risk and suffering is all make-believe. As the fictional heroes become the models for all heroism, we come to believe that the impossible can be done effortlessly, with no need for the enormous self-discipline that is the essence of real heroism.

We are blind to real heroism because we take it as nothing but image. The success of "Swift boating" in 2004 showed how readily the public will accept an advertising campaign in place of the historical reality of heroism.

The worst effects show up among America's young people. Having grown up in a time without real heroes, they know about heroism only from screen-image substitutes. So they fondly imagine that they, too, can achieve great things without strenuous effort and self-discipline. They expect to "do their own thing," "let it all hang out," blur all cultural boundaries and still somehow lead successful lives. And when they are presented with genuine heroes, the young turn cynical and refuse to be guided by their betters. They may even refuse to follow the authorities into war when our nation's very existence is at stake.

This year Republicans find the demise of heroism tragic not only for American society but for their party, because they think they've got an authentic hero as their candidate. And it's no coincidence that he gained his laurels in war. War has always been the prime arena for the kind of heroism that most Americans have prized. It all started with the Minutemen (or so the story goes): ordinary farmers who knew evil when they saw it, picked up their guns to defeat it, and then went back to their ordinary, everyday lives. They mustered the courage to do extraordinary deeds, to risk suffering and death, because they knew that democracy was worth every sacrifice.