Heroism in the time of Trump

There are words so heavily overused that they lose any real meaning.

What does ‘literally’ mean any more? “I literally phoned twenty times yesterday”. There’s a glorious irony in that kind of statement, because almost certainly the speaker didn’t really make twenty phone calls. It just felt that way. In other words, the statement is about an impression, not an accurate count, so exactly the opposite of literal.

Something similar has happened to the word ‘hero’. 

Today we use the word for the player who scores the winning goal in a tight-fought football match. Or for more or less anyone in one of the emergency services who does the job well. Even for the targets of a terrorist attack, as though being needlessly killed turns a victim into a hero. 

These are admirable, or in the case of the victim of terrorism, vile incidents. But heroism, in my view, is something much more specific. 

It used to apply to someone who took on an overwhelmingly dangerous challenge. In many cases, the hero knows the challenge is too great, but rises to it anyway. If it’s the right thing to do, heroes do it, even if it's likely to destroy them.

That’s what happened to the 300 Spartans who gave their lives to hold the pass at Thermopylae, just long enough to allow the Athenians to prepare a defence against the invading Persians. 

Even more heroic are those who take on terrible odds alone. Edith Cavell was a British nurse working in Belgium when World War One broke out. She made it clear that she would nurse anyone who needed her help, from either side of the fighting. “I can’t stop while there are lives to be saved,” she declared. 

Even more striking at a time when patriotism is constantly celebrated as uniformly good, are Cavell’s words on the plinth of her statue near Trafalgar Square in London: “Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone”.

The Cavell statue in London
Patriotism is not enough

However, because she didn’t limit herself to nursing, but helped some 200 Allied soldiers escape Belgium, she was executed by the German occupation authorities.

Another figure that I’ve always found attractive is that of Bill Millin. He was the lone piper on Sword beach in Normandy, during the D-day landings in June 1944. His commanding officer, Lord Lovat, ordered him to play the pipes. According to Millin, he warned Lovat that War Office regulations prohibited playing the pipes in combat. 

“Ah, but that’s the English War Office,” Lovat replied. “You and I are both Scottish, and that doesn’t apply.”

He stood and played his bagpipes to the men, on a beach that was being raked by enemy fire. He emerged unscathed. When he later spoke to some German prisoners, they explained that they hadn’t fired at him because they thought he was crazy.

Bill Millin’s unit landing at Sword Beach
Lord Lovat is to the right of the column, in the water
Millin is on the right of the landing craft, waiting to disembark
- with his pipes

That craziness is another important element in heroism. Not because the hero is crazy but because, to most of us, it seems crazy to face such danger.

All of those aspects of heroism make the latest instance impressive.  

This was the case of Eugene Goodman, the lone Capitol policeman who faced the mob that broke into the building on 6 January . He knew there was no way he could stop that number. But he also knew that he could lure them away from the targets of their violent fury.

So he used himself as bait. He pushed the figure in the lead of the crowd, Doug Jensen, now arrested and facing five criminal charges. He threatened him and others with his truncheon. Then he turned and ran upstairs, drawing the baying crowd after him and away from the Senate chamber, where a number of elected officials and staff were sheltering. Again and again he did it, though he must have known that at any time a mob in a mood that ugly could overpower him and injure him horribly or kill him – as happened to his colleague Brian Sicknick.

Eugene Goodman confronts Doug Jensen
with the 6 January mob behind him

There have been calls for him to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor or the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor, and I hope it happens. What he showed was real valour. Indeed, true heroism.

A great story. On the other hand, the best hero stories have two figures. The other one is the villain, out to destroy the hero, like Sauron out to get Frodo in The Lord of the Rings.

In this case, the mob were just like Tolkien’s orcs, merely the evil armies of the Dark Lord Sauron. He, The Lord of the Rings tells us, was “the Power that drove them on and filled them with hate and fury”. 

Not, of course, that Donald Trump is Sauron. Even though he's just as unappealing, he’s also a lot more ridiculous. Look at how, the moment he realised the coup attempt had failed, he tried to distance himself from it by condemning the violence. Can you imagine Sauron being such a loser in his evil?

That only makes it all the more wonderful that there are heroes like Eugene Goodman prepared to stand and face such forces of darkness and cry, metaphorically if not literally, “you shall not pass”.