American Document/The Hero in Our Time
Thomas, Clarence
The Hero in Our Time by Clarence Thomas W hen I was young, there was a deep appreciation of heroes and heroic virtue. Art, literature, and even popular culture often focused on people who...
...Heroes demonstrated perseverance in the face of adversity and used hardship as a means to strive for greater virtue...
...I am sure you can imagine what it was like when I returned home to Savannah, and informed my grandparents that with the education I had received because of their tremendous foresight and sacrifice, I had discovered our oppressed and victimized status in society...
...He was a deeply religious man who lived by the Christian virtues...
...Most significantly, there is the backlash against affirmative action by "angry white males...
...Many in today's society do not expect the less fortunate to accept responsibility for (and overcome) their present circumstances...
...It seemed that we all had heroes—not role models, a term of far more recent vintage...
...This pattern of ignoring and deconstructing heroes stems from the rise of radical egalitarianism...
...Often, it seems that those who have succumbed to their circumstances are more likely to be singled out than those who have overcome them...
...One of my favorite memories of my grandfather is how he would walk slowly by the corn field, admiring the fruits of his labor...
...Nearly everyone who attended grammar school in the 1950s or earlier can remember a favorite account of the integrity and work ethic of George Washington, or of Abraham Lincoln, or of George Washington Carver, or even of some baseball or football legend...
...Human beings have always faced the temptation to permit adversity or hate to dominate and destroy 54 The American Spectator December 1995 their lives...
...They rose above their circumstances and inherent imperfections...
...To counter this tendency, society had heroes—people capable of overcoming the very adversity or injustice that currently affects today's victims...
...These building blocks of self-reliance were replicated and reinforced at home, school, and church...
...On this view, differences in ability and level of achievement are random or uncontrolled, and to permit these characteristics to dicAdapted from remarks delivered by Justice Thomas to the Federalist Society's Ninth Annual Lawyers Convention on September 22, 1995, in Washington, D.C...
...I have often thought that just the sight of a tall stand of corn must have been more nourishing to his spirit than the corn itself was to his body...
...What I am saying is that it requires the leadership of heroes and the best efforts of all to advance civilization and to ensure that its people follow the path of virtue...
...His standard is a useful one for thinking about the instruction that our law should be offering: "take care to ensure that in every place, action, and outward occupation you remain inwardly free and your own master...
...But something far more insidious is afoot...
...Ultimately, without a celebration of heroic virtue, we throw ourselves into the current state of affairs, where man is a passive victim incapable of triumphing over adversity and where aggression, resentment, envy and other vices thwart progress and true happiness...
...A s victim ideology flourishes, more and more people begin to think that they must claim victim status to get anywhere in this world...
...In his book The Abuse Excuse, Alan Dershowitz criticizes countless examples of conditions that "victimize" people and thereby release them from responsibility for their actions...
...I saw no value in rising with the chickens, and, unlike him, I was not obsessed with what I will call the "reverse Dracula syndrome": that is, fear that the rising sun would catch me in bed...
...If we do not have a society that honors people who make the right choices in the face of adversity—and reject the bad choices—far fewer people will make the right choices...
...Now, they did not like segregation or think that it was right...
...I do not quarrel with this...
...flourish...
...Today, victims of discrimination, racism, poverty, sickness, and societal neglect abound in the popular press...
...Denigrating heroic virtue fits quite well with the notion that we must all be the same and that there can be no significant differences in our achievement, social standing, or wealth...
...Because they are given no chance to overcome their circumstances, they will not have the chance to savor the triumph over adversity...
...Needless to say relations were quite strained, and our vacation visits were somewhat difficult...
...am not saying that we should expect everyone to be a hero all of the time...
...a free man...
...Only so can you be a master and ruler of your actions, not their servant or slave...
...Heroes cherished freedom, and tried to accomplish much with what little they had...
...He was a man who believed in responsibility and self-help...
...In fact, there was no question that it was immoral and that anyone who promoted it was morally reprehensible...
...And heroes accepted responsibility—they did what they did despite fear and temptation, and tried to do the right thing when presented with a choice between good and evil...
...There are many people like my grandfather alive today...
...Control circumstances, and do not allow them to control you...
...urban survival syndrome," which claims that violent living conditions justify acts of aggression in the community...
...Today, there are few (if any) heroes...
...The cultural elite does not honor them as the heroes they are, but instead views them as people who are sadly ignorant of their victim status or who have forgotten where they came from...
...self-victimization syndrome," which maintains that people become less productive and creative, and become severely depressed, as a result of societal neglect and discrimination...
...But there was work to be done...
...171 The American Spectator December 1995 55...
...0 f course, de-emphasizing heroism exacerbates all these problems...
...I may not have realized it as a child, but my grandfather was a hero who had a tremendous impact on my life...
...But having a set of norms to guide us and to push us along—the stuff of heroes—can be a source of great strength...
...This is a poor substitute for the empowering rewards of true victory over adversity...
...For some white men, preoccupation with oppression has become the defining feature of their existence...
...We should seek to pare back the victimology that pervades our law, and thereby encourage a new generation of heroes to...
...They have fallen prey to the very aspects of the modern ideology of victimology that they deplore...
...We humans are weak by our very nature...
...I do not question a person's belief that affirmative action is unjust because it judges people based on their sex or the color of their skin...
...tate human happiness and well-being would be unfair...
...Our culture today discourages, and even at times stifles, heroic virtues—fortitude, character, courage, a sense of self-worth...
...But these critics should hold themselves to the same standards, resisting the temptation to allow resentment over what they consider reverse discrimination to take hold of their lives and to get the best of them...
...These critics expect the intended beneficiaries of the civil rights regime to break away from the ideology of victimhood: to cherish freedom, to accept responsibility, and, where necessary, to demonstrate fortitude in the face of unfairness...
...Art, literature, and even popular culture often focused on people who demonstrated heroic virtues—courage, persistence, discipline, hard work, humility and triumph in the face of adversity...
...Though barely able to read and saddled with the burdens of segregation, he worked hard to provide for his family...
...It would not be until I was exposed to the most fortunate and best educated in our society that I would be informed that all this time I had been a victim...
...And, because of the role law has played in perpetuating victim ideology, and because of the influence law can have in teaching people about right and wrong, lawyers have a special obligation here...
...They are instead given the right to fret and complain, and are encouraged to avoid responsibility and self-help...
...They must remember that if we are to play the victim game the very people they decry have the better claim to victim status...
...In all the years I spent in my grandparents' house, I never heard them complain that they were victims...
...Some critics of affirmative action, for example, fault today's civil rights movement for demanding equality yet supporting policies that discriminate based on race...
...Mygrandfather was no victim and he didn't send me to school to become one...
...But today, our culture is far less likely to raise up heroes than it is to exalt victims—individuals who are overcome by the sting of oppression, injustice, adversity, neglect, or misfortune...
...Our social institutions do not train today's young to view such people as heroes and do not urge them to emulate their virtues...
...all of us at times will permit hardship to get the very best of us...
...Thomas a Kempis wrote more than 500 years ago about the human spirit...
...Indeed, is it any surprise that anyone and everyone can claim to be a victim of something these days...
...It is awfully hard for society to inculcate these values without some useful models from the past and present...
...He certainly would not be a celebrity by today's standards...
...I am reminded of what St...
...I assure you that I did not enjoy the demands he placed on us...
...Here are just a few examples: • the "black rage defense," which asserts that blacks who are constantly subjected to oppression and racial injustice will become uncontrollably violent...
...In the 1960s, many of the cultural elite saw a need to ensure absolute equality...
...And though this could not bring him freedom in a segregated society, it at least gave him independence from its daily demeaning clutches...
...For so many, the will, the spirit, and a firm sense of self-respect and self-worth have been suffocated...
...Indeed, it would have been odd for a child of several decades ago not to have had a hero...
Vol. 28 • December 1995 • No. 12
