Heroes 2020: from my food blog

We finally have a sign acknowledging the heroism of essential workers in our society.

Sign installed on our lawn.

Heroism is a concept that's very appropriate, in my mind, for many of the workers who are risking their own well-being for the sake of others in this terrible pandemic. The medical professionals who risk their own health in order to help sick people come to mind most readily, but many others are also working in dangerous conditions. Whether their prime motive is altruism or just making a living and providing for their families, I see an element of heroism in what they are doing.

Sadly, some of their sacrifice is needed as the result of poor leadership and greedy business practices that started long before the emergency. Our federal government could have decreased the high number of infected people by taking action earlier, making the work of governors like ours (Michigan) more effective. For years, American industrial practices, notably in meat packing plants, could have been regulated to be more humane to workers, but it's too late now. That doesn't diminish the heroic actions by workers!

Another of the many signs in our neighborhood

Heroism has fascinated writers throughout the ages, elevating self-sacrificing behavior through literary admiration. While wartime heroics are more often cited, many writers have seen a broader picture. Take for example this quote from Henry David Thoreau, upon seeing a "panorama" which would be a large painting shown in some sort of temporary exposition:

"I went to see a panorama of the Mississippi, and as I worked my way up the river in the light of to-day, and saw the steamboats wooding up, counted the rising cities, gazed on the fresh ruins of Nauvoo, beheld the Indians moving west across the stream, and, as before I had looked up the Moselle, now looked up the Ohio and the Missouri, and heard the legends of Dubuque and of Wenona's Cliff, - still thinking more of the future than of the past or present, - I saw that this was a Rhine stream of a different kind; that the foundations of castles were yet to be laid, and the famous bridges were yet to be thrown over the river; and I felt that this was the heroic age itself, though we know it not, for the hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men." -- Henry David Thoreau, "Walking," THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS. VOL. IX.-JUNE, 1862.-NO. LVI., p. 664-665. (https://www.walden.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Walking-1.pdf)

Or consider these often-quoted lines from Bertolt Brecht's play The Life of Galileo:

Andrea: Unhappy the land that has no heroes!…
Galileo: No. Unhappy the land that needs heroes.

Finally, a quote that applies to the self-designated heroes (with or without guns) pressuring for reckless reopening of inessential businesses and recreations:

"The suicide bomber's imagination leads him to believe in a brilliant act of heroism, when in fact he is simply blowing himself up pointlessly and taking other people's lives." -- Salman Rushdie, quoted in Der Spiegel, Aug. 28, 2006

Or as Joe Biden says:

"President Trump's ... goal is as obvious as it is craven: He hopes to split the country into dueling camps, casting Democrats as doomsayers hoping to keep America grounded and Republicans as freedom fighters trying to liberate the economy." (Washington Post, May 11, 2020)

Blog post copyright  © 2020 mae sander for mae food dot blog spot dot com.

2016 Wrap-Up and Looking towards 2017

First, I wish all my readers a Happy New Year, and as much hope as possible for the coming year, though some aspects of the future do now seem awfully dark!

At the beginning of 2016, this blog was nearly dormant. I started it as an exploration of "heroes" and "antiheroes" for secular Jews like myself, and I wrote mini-biographies of a few hundred figures from many cultures and many eras, as well as some general cultural thoughts.

"Judaism provides a code of ethical conduct," I wrote in 2010 when I started this blog. "Many secular Jews feel they’ve left all the belief, rituals, and taboos behind but kept the moral code." I continued: "Some of the heroes of secular Judaism aren’t Jewish. For example, Abbe Gregoire, active during the French Revolution, was instrumental in freeing European Jews from discrimination by defining them as human. Buddha and Martin Luther King are heroes to many secular Jews. Their lives have meaning or they are recognized heroes of secular Jews. Conversely, there are lots of anti-heroes: individuals who are intensely not-respected by most if not all secular Jews."

Unfortunately the idea of a hero has become all-too-relevant under the coming administration. Soon after the November election, I started finding new heroes to write about, not so much from the secular Jewish viewpoint, but from the viewpoint that alas, we might need a few heroes to avoid normalizing the coming disaster and directly or indirectly supporting destruction of valued institutions, disruption of efforts to rescue the environment, terrible bigotry including antisemitism, and persecution of minorities. I've been blogging this theme regularly, and feel sure I'll continue to find new material for posts in the new year.

 

To reflect my new approach to writing about heroes, I have adopted a new motto for my blog:

"Unhappy is the land that needs a hero." -- a quote from Bertolt Brecht.

Brecht, of course, reminds me of the lurking parallel between our time and his youth in Germany, where a beautiful era of freedom for the arts and music became a nightmare. I'm trying to avoid overdoing these parallels, and to keep my focus on the here and now and our own heroic potential.

Kurt Weill (March 2, 1900)

When I think of the legendary atmosphere of 1920s Berlin, Kurt Weill’s music echoes in my head – as sung by his then-wife Lotte Lenya. The Three Penny Opera, Mahagonny, and his other German works are among my favorite 20th century musicals. Against the rising Nazi threat, they defy and also create a brilliant counter-culture.

Then Weill and Lenya, driven out of Germany, became a force in American popular music. His American musical theater successes include Lady in the Dark (collaborators Moss Hart and Ira Gershwin) and One Touch of Venus (with collaborators S.J. Perelman and Ogden Nash). An amazing body of work!

Like so many composers of the era, Weill’s music had great appeal for a wide audience, not at all limited by his ethnic background. Nevertheless, his roots were Jewish and he appears to have remained loyal to them, whatever his actual religious beliefs. Weill’s father was a cantor. Further, he worked for Zionism and Jewish relief causes during World War II. (Note: Weill’s Berlin collaborator Bertolt Brecht and his wife, singer Lotte Lenya, were not Jewish.)

Source: Kurt Weill Foundation