Men worship and fear power and so give their loyalty to those who dispense it.
Ernest Becker
It's a miracle that as many as 8 billion humans have been able to coexist up to this point. Cooperation comes easier in smaller groups but we have nations of multi millions. There is something very aligning that happens when we all look up in the same direction. It could be Eddie Vedder treating the stage as monkey bars or Michael Jordan dunking from the free throw line. There are thousands of people in the crowd and they are all thinking the same thing: “Wow.” We experience awe when we observe greatness and it helps us have a sense of direction amidst the chaos of life. A hero to look up to is beneficial to our social order and well-being, but real men and women are rarely great enough to garner so much adoration, so we deify them. We transform real people into legends and myths because now they symbolize something greater than their human capabilities.
Cultural heroes, if properly anointed, unite people across vast nations and throughout generations. They connect the present to the past by depicting a civilization and its values to its current predecessors. They provide something to which diverse peoples can relate. And they solidify the authority and dominance of the cultural values of the time.
If cultural values change then the hero’s legacy may last long enough to become that of a villain. Winston Churchill defeated Hitler, instituted the first minimum wage, won the Nobel Peace Prize and was voted greatest Briton in history. His views on racial hierarchies, his inaction in regards to the Bengali famine, or his using of chemical weapons against the Kurds make some people in today’s moral environment more likely to boo and hiss at his name rather than cheer it.
When one culture is defeating another in a military sense, one of the first orders of business is to remove statues, memorials, and cultural artifacts from the conquered. When the Ottomans defeated Constantinople, it was immediately renamed Istanbul to usher in the new era. The Bolshevik revolution was capped off by the tumbling of the statue of Tsar Alexander III, symbolically and perhaps even officially marking the end of the Russian monarchy and the beginning of Communist rule. When the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, they tore down the statue of Austrian chancellor Engellbert Dolfuss, and then when the Nazis were defeated, Germans removed all of Hitler’s namesakes. Symbols and myths are powerful. Recall that stories convince people, more so than mere facts. Symbols of heroism can motivate and unite revolutions and insurrections of all kinds. Leaders know that to thwart potential revolts and establish their dominance, they have to cut off the cultural power and its symbolic source by destroying and denigrating the heroes of the vanquished.
We are now in a culture war in which interest groups and ideologies battle over the interpretation of political figures, historical symbols, and cultural icons. What is of interest here is the observation of who is currently winning the battle over how these figures are portrayed. Cities across the Western world are renaming schools and public buildings with the hopes of increasing sensitivity and acknowledgement to people who don’t share the same veneration for Western cultural heroes. This is an indication over who is winning the culture war.
Throughout the world there are statues of people that many of us would find controversial, for instance, there are over 2000 statues of Mao Zedong in China still to this day. There is a 130 ft statue of Ghenghis Khan near Ulaanbaatar, not to mention their international airport named after him. Russia has approximately 6,000 monuments to Vladimir Lenin that stand, as well as many of Josef Stalin. Christopher Columbus and James Cook oversee parks from New York City to Sydney, Australia. Men who have all demonstrably committed atrocities are being memorialized, but only some of them are having their sins tried by today’s court of public opinion.
In conventional warfare one side will have strategic targets based on logistical and political centres of power and resources. Typically you don’t bomb civilians (although that does happen). Generally a military target will be a munitions factory or bridge. The strategic targets in a culture war, fought with the tactics of psychological operations, are heroes and symbols. Even when the target is a specific person, the aim is to make them a symbol. Every conservative needs to be painted as rude as Milo Yannopolis and as loud as Ted Nugent, and every liberal is portrayed as insufferable and woke as the worst examples found on Tik Tok. If you can get them to represent the lot then you bring everyone down with one shot.
This is one reason many movements will never anoint a clear leader or mouthpiece. The collective can remain nebulous and undefined while still driving the message. Instead of a strict hierarchy like the Italian mafia, it’s like splinter cells of the Russian mafia. You can’t cut the head off the snake if the snake doesn't have a head. Islamist terrorist groups often operate this way as well, where one cell will work independently from others, not even being aware of each other’s existence. If a specific mastermind were elevated as the supreme leader, then they would have a massive target on their heads. This is not necessarily a nefarious tactic, in fact it is an intelligent strategy in a war of ideas. Many of the most vocal Black Lives Matters supporters receive a lot of criticism. Leading voices in the social justice sphere like Ibram X. Kendi, Robin Diangelo and Nikole Hannah-Jones have built successful careers as advocates and writers, but since they are front and centre, their work and their character is put under a microscope. That being said, none of them proclaim themselves to be leaders in their movements. When Critical Race Theory came under fire for its philosophical and political shortcomings, Kendi distanced himself from the movement despite having admitted weeks earlier in an interview with Slate that his brand of “antiracism” is inspired by CRT and that CRT is foundational to his theory. A good leader will take a hitgoes first and has to be both the scapegoat and the giant for the team; that’s the heroic part ofthat is what is heroic about being a leader. It’s a huge social risk and in today’s age few are willing to take it.
Here’s a hot take, at least for someone of my generation. I understand why Queen Elizabeth II, who passed away a few days before me writing this, was a hero. I’ve always thought the British monarchy was pointless and a century or two past its time. As a Canadian I never really saw the point. But I think I now recognize in the monarchy, how grand and heavy it might be to willingly represent something as big as a kingdom. When you are King or Queen you take on a mantle and responsibility that is beyond political. The monarchy exists, as Nassim Taleb suggests, “not to rule but to prevent politicians and office climbers from thinking they can be kings.” There’s a stabilizing effect that Elizabeth in particular had on Britain. She played that role longer than anyone else that has ever lived. Of course, she lived in luxury and privilege the likes of which most of us will never comprehend. She doesn’t deserve an award for that, but for so many people the Queen represented a steadiness and poise in the face of chaotic and sometimes exciting change. She was stoic and caring as she led her people forward.
The point is, every generation needs a hero of some kind. Usually the hero archetype represents the rebellion of a new generation. The hero ventures into the unknown and is required to save and then eventually replace their father. The culture war then, is the battle between heroes in the collective unconscious of each generation.