Summary: While we watch superhero films, the modern opiates of masses, there are real inspirations unnoticed in our cultural storehouses. Here is one example. In the comments post others that you believe can provide a spark to America’s spirit.
“People need stories, more than bread, itself. They teach us how to live, and why. …Stories show us how to win.”
— The Master Storyteller in HBO’s wonderful Arabian Nights.
Everywhere I go looking to agitate for reform of America I see the yearning for a hero to save us. We want flying Jesus beyond the petty concerns and limitations of our world. This dream short-circuits even potentially powerful grass-roots movements, such as the Tea Party and Occupy movement, draining them of seriousness. As James McAuley writes about the Yellow Vests movement in France …
“… the gilets jaunes include shopkeepers seemingly content to destroy shop windows. There is an aspect of carnival here: a delight in the subversion of norms, a deliberate embrace of the grotesque. …They have no official platform, no leadership hierarchy, and no reliable communications. Everyone can speak for the movement, and yet no one can.”
I see this when talking to the middle ranks of the Boy Scouts’ volunteer leaders, to the best of the military’s field grade officers (active duty and vets), to Wall Street executives worried that their industry is destroying itself and wrecking America, to college students and professors. By now everybody at least senses, often inchoate, that we have chosen a path that cannot end well for us. But few act. Some out of a kind of paralysis. Most from apathy and baked-in passivity.
This creates the popularity of superhero films. All societies have mythological heroes. The modern American superheros were born during the agonies of the Great Depression, in the shade of the coming world war. But they were largely a children’s literature, lightly read by many adults. The current phenomenon is different. As I have written in so many posts, this is a symptom of a serious affliction in our culture (see the For More Info section below).
But we can have other myths, other stories that can inspire us (others are listed below). Many lurk on the fringes of our collective imagination. Others are forgotten. All await our need, reminding us that we will be strong when we choose to be.
From Marauders of Gor
We came then to a great arch, which marked the entrance to a vast room, lost in darkness beyond the flickering spheres of our uplifted torches. We stopped. Over the arch, deeply incised in the stone was the single, mighty sign, that which the Forkbeard had not explained to me. We stood in silence, in that dark, lofty threshold.
The Forkbeard was trembling. I had never seen him so. The hair on the back of my neck lifted, short, stiff. I felt cold. I knew, of course, the legends. He lifted his torch, to the sign over the door. “Do you not know that sign?” he asked.
“I know what sign it must be,” I said. “The sign, the name-sign, of Torvald.”
“Yes,” said he. “This is the chamber of Torvald. …Torvald sleeps in the Torvaldsberg, and has done so for a thousand years. …When his land needs him, he shall awake. Again he will lead the men of the north. …We must waken him.”
Ivar Forkbeard, lifting his torch, entered the great chamber. … {He} stood at the side of the great stone couch, which was covered with black fur. At the foot of the couch were weapons; at its head, hanging on the wall, under a great shield, were two spears, crossed under it, and, to one side, a mighty sword in its scabbard. Near the head of the couch, on our left, as we looked upon the couch, was, on a stone platform, a large helmet, horned.
The Forkbeard looked at me. The couch was empty. He did not speak. He sat down on the edge of the couch and put his head in his hands. His torch lay on the floor, and, after some time, burned itself out. The Forkbeard did not move. …But I heard him sob once. I did not, of course, let him know that I had heard this sound. I would not shame him.
“We have lost,” he said, finally, “Red Hair. We have lost.”
I had lit another torch, and was examining the chamber. The body of Torvald, I conjectured, had not been buried in this place. It did not seem likely that robbers would have taken the body, and left the various treasures about. Nothing, it seemed, had been disturbed. It was empty. …
“This is a sleeping chamber,” he said. “There are no bones of animals here, or of thralls, or urns, or the remains of foodstuffs, offerings.” He looked about. “Why,” he asked me, “would Torvald have had carved in the Torvaldsberg a sleeping chamber?”
“That men might come to the Torvaldsberg to waken him,” I said. …
From among the weapons at the foot of the couch, from one of the cylindrical quivers, still of the sort carried in Torvaldsland, I drew forth a long, dark arrow. It was more than a yard long. Its shaft was almost an inch thick. It was plied with iron, barbed. Its feathers were five inches long, set in the shaft on three sides, feathers of the black-tipped coasting gull, a broad-winged bird, with black tips on its wings.
I lifted the arrow. “What is this?” I asked the Forkbeard.
“It is a war arrow,” he said.
“And what sign is this, carved on its side?” I asked.
“The sign of Torvald,” he whispered.
“Why do you think this arrow is in this place?” I asked.
“That men might find it?” he asked. …
“I think,” I said, “I begin to understand the meaning of a man who lived more than a thousand winters ago. This man, call him Torvald, built within a mountain a chamber for sleep, in which he would not sleep, but to which men would come to waken him. Here they would find not Torvald, but themselves, themselves, Ivar, alone, and an arrow of war.” … “In building this chamber,” I said, “it was not the intention of Torvald that it should be he who was awakened within it, but rather those who came to seek him.”
“The chamber is empty,” said Ivar.
“No,” I said, “we are within it.” I put my hand to his shoulder. “It is not Torvald who must awaken in this chamber. Rather it is we. Here, hoping for others to do our work, we find only ourselves, and an arrow of war. Is this not Torvald’s way of telling us, from a thousand years ago, that it is we on whom we must depend, and not on any other. If the land is to be saved, it is by us, and others like us, that it must be saved. There are no spells, no gods, no heroes to save us. In this chamber, it is not Torvald who must awaken. It is you and I.” I regarded the Forkbeard evenly. “Lift,” said I, “the arrow of war.”
I stood back from the couch, my torch raised. Slowly, his visage terrible, the Forkbeard lifted his arm, the arrow in his fist.
I am not even of Torvaldsland, but it was I who was present when the arrow of war was lifted, at the side of the couch of Torvald, deep within the living stone of the Torvaldsberg.
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What can you do after you life the arrow of war? See suggestions at the Reforming America: Steps to a New Politics page.
My next post will be depressing beyond anything I have ever written, admitting that the very foundation of the FM website project was flawed. But there is always a next inning. I have few useful ideas, but will continue looking for them.
For more information
Ideas! For some shopping ideas, see my recommended books and films at Amazon.
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all film reviews, posts about heroes, and especially these …
- The problem with America lies in our choice of heroes.
- Robocop is not a good role model for the youth of Detroit
- We want heroes, not leaders. When that changes it will become possible to reform America.
- Are our film heroes leading us to the future, or signaling despair?
- Captain America: the Winter Soldier – high-quality indoctrination for sheep.
- We like superheroes because we’re weak. Let’s use other myths to become strong.
- Hollywood’s Hero Deficit – both a cause and symptom of our weakness.
- A bright note amidst the gloom: “Justice League” is the film we need, not the one we deserve.
- Some places to look for energy: We need better heroes. They are there, in stories from our past.
- More ideas: Inspiration. The missing element that can reform America.
- Where we can find the inspiration to fix America?
- Captain Marvel – fun for kids, swill for adults.
Suggestions where to start
Teamwork and powerful institutions built America. They were not just in our history books but also our in legends. Marvel Comic’s had SHIELD and the Justice League
Post your ideas in the comments.