THE NEW HEROES AND ROLE MODELS.

Why separating celebrity from merit is good for merit

what does it mean that the funeral of Princess Diana in 1997 attracted so much more media attention than did the funeral, the same week, of Mother Teresa? What significance should we give the appearance of such figures as Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley on recent U.S. postage stamps?

Fame, it is often argued, used to reflect merit; now it reflects commercializing forces. The commercial generation of fame, according to many critics, leads

to a society weak in virtue. Are such critics right?

Daniel Boorstin, the former Librarian of Congress, argued in his 1962 book The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America that the concept of transient celebrity is replacing the concept of the true hero, who serves as a role model and exhibits moral leadership. Pondering what he perceived to be the lack of giants in modern society, Winston Churchill asked in 1932, "Can modern communities do without great men? Can they dispense with hero-worship? Can they provide a larger wisdom, a nobler sentiment, a more vigorous action, by collective processes, than were ever got from Titans? Can nations remain healthy [ldots] in a world whose brightest stars are film stars?"

If these worries are valid, then the separation of fame and merit is indeed problematic. We risk the danger that commercially successful heroes may invite dangerous forms of imitation by their fans, and fail to help their societies organize around noble ideals. Plutarch wrote nearly 20 centuries ago of great men as a kind of looking glass, in which we see how to "adjust and adorn" our own lives. The contemporary question is whether today's heroes provide a foundation for a desirable moral discourse.

The Changing Nature of Fame

Over time, entertainers and sports figures have displaced politicians, military leaders, and moral preachers as the most famous individuals in society, and in some cases, as the most admired.

An 1898 survey of 1,440 12- through 14-year-olds asked them the following question: "What person of whom you have ever heard or read would you most like to resemble?" Forty percent chose either George Washington or Abraham Lincoln. Clara Barton, Annie Sullivan (Helen Keller's teacher), Julius Caesar, and Christopher Columbus also received prominent mention. One bicycle racer and one boxer were mentioned, but otherwise sports figures accounted for few of the answers. Seventy-eight percent of the selections came from history, both contemporaneous and past, including politicians, moral leaders, and generals. No entertainers were picked (though 12 percent were characters from literature).

Another poll was conducted a half-century later, in 1948, with a comparable number of schoolchildren of similar age. The children were asked, "Which one of all these persons that you know or have read about do you want most to be like 10 years from now?" This time, only a third of the respondents chose historical figures; Franklin Delano Roosevelt topped the list for boys and Clara Barton topped the list for girls. Sports figures accounted for 23 percent, with baseball players Ted Williams and Babe Ruth heading that category. Entertainers accounted for 14 percent, with boys picking radio and movie heroes like Gene Autry and girls preferring movie figures such as Betty Grable. Characters from literature were completely absent. Religious figures fell from 5 percent in 1898 to less than 1 percent in 1948. Figures from comic strips, such as Joe Palooka, were selected much more often than Jesus Christ.

In 1986, The World Almanac listed the 10 figures most admired by American teenagers that year, all of whom (except Ronald Reagan, a former actor) were entertainers:

1. Bill Cosby 

2. Sylvester Stallone

3. Eddie Murphy 

4. Ronald Reagan

5. Molly Ringwald

6. Chuck Norris 

7. Clint Eastwood

8. Rob Lowe

9. Arnold Schwarzenegger 

10. Don Johnson

Postage stamps from the 19th century commemorate political and military leaders almost exclusively, especially George Washington. Recent U.S. postage stamps feature rock, blues, and jazz singers. Until the late 1960s, only two entertainers had made it onto U.S. postage stamps. The 1970s and 1980s combined brought a total of nine entertainers on stamps. During the first half of the 1990s, 32 entertainers appeared on stamps. The most famous such stamp featured Elvis Presley. After Elvis' death, his fans lobbied for a stamp to honor him, and bickered over whether it should feature a young, thin Elvis or an older, fat Elvis. The subsequent public vote attracted so much attention that the networks televised the press conference that announced the winning portrait.

At the beginning of this century, political biographies accounted for 46 percent of magazine biographies published in the United States, as measured by one extensive sample. By 1940 the figure had fallen to 25 percent. The market share of entertainment biographies picked up most of the slack, moving from 26 percent of the market in 1900 to 55 percent of the market in 1940. In the 1901-1914 period, 77 percent of all entertainment biographies covered "serious" high art. The figure had fallen to 38 percent by the 1920s, and by 1940-41, only 9 percent of the entertainment biographies addressed high art.

Commercial Morality

When commerce de-links fame from merit, merit does not disappear from social discourse. We can talk about merit without talking about fame in the same breath. Although separating fame and merit may be perceived by some as negative, it can also be viewed quite differently. It can be seen as the liberation of merit from fame, and from dependence on the famous for moral instruction.

Even if the fame of entertainers corrupts the realm of moral discourse, moral discourse adjusts by relying less on fame. Audiences may respond to the charisma and wealth of Eddie Murphy and Madonna, but most people know that such performers are not the most virtuous individuals in society. Rather than looking to stars for moral inspiration, many turn elsewhere, to parents, relatives, or people renowned in realms where fame and merit are more closely linked than they are in popular culture.

In fact, moral discourse may operate more effectively when imperfect and blemished individuals are in the public eye. Athletes, entertainers, and characters in television shows provide more complex models than do many saints, and thus they may serve as more fruitful topics of discussion.

When the meritorious and the famous are different individuals, the social vision of virtue rests less upon the adulation of personalities, and more on the critical analysis of personality traits. Since fans do not expect the famous to be fully moral or meritorious, they can separate the good and bad qualities of celebrities more sharply and cleanly. Thus, fans could approve of Michael Jordan's quest for excellence in sports while disapproving of his excessive gambling.

The severance of fame and merit allows us to evaluate different aspects of an individual's behavior separately, rather than judging that person as uniformly good or bad. This more cautious kind of moral discourse may be more appropriate and more realistic than the uncritical elevation of moral and political leaders as heroes and heroines. Commercialized fame, by directing fame away from moral merit, frees ideas of virtue from the cult of personality. Pace Churchill, when it comes to working through complicated moral and ethical issues, the healthiest nations may well be those "whose brightest stars are film stars."

Heroes, by their very nature, serve as highly visible and sharply focused reflections of various qualities in their societies, including morality. To the extent that such heroes dominate moral discourse, morality will be excessively black and white, some individuals will be undeservedly idolized, and personalities will be conflated with moral qualities. Because commercialization shifts moral discourse out of the realm of fame, it actually may improve

Role models don't automatically induce either moral or immoral behavior. Many people have already decided to act a certain way, and they seek out whichever role models will validate that behavior. Or else they interpret and reinterpret the qualities of role models in ways that support their preexisting agendas. In this way as in others; fans are not guided by the famous, they use the famous for their own purposes.

The original nature of a given "role model" has less influence than does the transformation of that model by fans and others. The story of Cal Ripken Jr., a very durable baseball player, has entered the public consciousness as a tale of heroism, even if Ripken is not a true hero by any exacting moral standards. Thomas Jefferson has moved from being a virtuous Founding Father to a morally ambiguous slaveholder.

Celebrities and television figures can serve as useful subjects for moral discussion even if they are not fully virtuous, or even if the characters are not real. A television character, such as the eponymous heroine of the controversial show Ellen, may have been a focal point for public acceptance of lesbianism. The commercialization of her identity does not detract from this function; arguably, it enhances it by spreading information about the show, the sex life of her character, and the real life lesbian identity of the actress who played the part. Many other changes in American social behavior, such as greater acceptance of premarital sex, have been promoted through situation comedies and their ability to spark broader social discussion. Fan discussions of morality exert their force whether the original topic was a saint or a Seinfeld character.

The coordinating images--television personas-need only be highly visible; they need not have done anything real. Daniel Boorstin has complained that "pseudo-events"--the manufactured products of mass media--have replaced real vents, but for many purposes pseudo-events are just as good or even better.

The Taming of Fame

Fame and merit have never been tightly connected, no matter what era we examine, or whether and how we define merit. Kings and queens were the best-known people of their times, but hardly worth praising in many instances. Commercialized fame, while taking relative recognition away from moral leaders, also has taken renown away from tyrants and violent rulers.

Many of the supposed "heroes" of the past were liars, frauds, and butchers. The association of fame with entertainers, for all its flaws, departs from earlier concepts of heroic brutality and martial virtue. Most of today's famous people have had to persuade consumers to offer their allegiance and their dollars. Nowadays fame is attained through a highs-takes game of pursuit and seduction, rather than a heroic contest or a show of force in battle. The shift in fame to entertainers is a modern extension of the Enlightenment doux commerce thesis that the wealth of the market civilizes morals and manners and supports an ethic of bourgeois virtue.

Cervantes was the first writer to recognize the importance of commercializing fame and the new breed of hero in commercial society. His protagonist Don Quixote seeks to create a chivalrous image that he took from the old world of medieval fame, in which knowledge of great fighting deeds was spread by word of mouth. Cervantes portrayed this ideal of martial virtue as an ironic farce. Book 2 of Don Quixote showed that Don Quixote does in fact attain fame, but only by virtue of being the subject of an entertaining novel. Cervantes self-consciously presented the new world of fame achieved through commercial entertainment as displacing the older world of fame achieved through chivalry and heroism.

Greek mythology illustrates the depth of the connection between heroism and violence throughout Western history. A fragment of Menander's work associated heroes with evildoing rather than with benevolence. Athletes of the classical period were elevated to cult status not for their sporting achievements, but for their "deeds of violence demonstrating their wrath." Thomas Hobbes, writing many centuries later, recognized that the classic heroes were honored for their "Rapes, Thefts, and other great, but unjust, or unclean acts," including "Adulteries[ldots] [and] Frauds." John Locke, in his book on education, went further: "All the Entertainment and talk of History is of nothing almost but Fighting and Killing: And the Honour and Renown, that is bestowed on Conquerours (who for the most part are but the great Butchers of Mankind) farther mislead growing Youth, who by this means come to think Slaughter the laudable Business of Mankind, and the most Heroick of Vertues."

Not surprisingly, early Christian writers were strongly opposed to fame-seeking, which they viewed as unholy. Saint Augustine wrote that the search for glory and praise at the hands of other men will lead to "open crimes." Many other Christian writers viewed fame-seeking as an impious attempt at self-aggrandizement and recommended Christian mercy as a substitute. Milton's Paradise Lost presents this view to a 17th-century English audience that had grown to expect glory-seeking and warfare as a virtuous norm.

The traditions of antiquity also illustrate the essentially male nature of concepts of the heroic. Heroic standards were defined largely by males, and martial virtue was exhibited primarily by men. Women (albeit imaginary ones) achieved mythological fame in their roles as goddesses, such as Aphrodite and Hera, or as mothers and wives of warriors, but they had a hard time winning fame for their independent, mortal achievements. Contemporary culture, in contrast, has erected a growing number of female icons.

Calling Princess Di

Princess Diana provided one example of the new feminine heroine ideal. She embodied the quality of vulnerability, and that is one reason she attracted so much interest, especially from women. Diana struck an emotional pose, spoke openly of her feelings and her failures, and admitted her problems with depression, bulimia, and her marriage. She did not hesitate to cry in public. Nor did she hide her own fascination with fame and popular culture, so different from the prevailing aloofness of British royalty. In her 20s, Diana wanted to meet John Travolta. Compare this to earlier young European rulers, who sought their place in history by conquering other nations.

The use of fame and renown to support a male-dominated vision of society runs consistently through the history of ideas. During the Renaissance and Enlightenment, critics of commercialization frequently objected to the "softness" and "effeminization" engendered by market society. Rousseau, the archenemy of modern civil society, feared that martial virtue would decline, and wanted to use shame and fame to recreate his ideal Spartan community. In Letter to D'Alembert, he called for the creation of a government-run Court of Honor to be charged with approving or disapproving of individual actions whenever a suit was brought. The court would not wield coercive powers but instead would issue judgments of condemnation or praise.

This court was to be especially concerned with the behavior of "all the estates in which one carries a sword, from prince to private soldier." In the same work, Rousseau criticized the portraits of virtue issued by the entertainment-driven French theater. He complained bitterly about the heroes of the playwright Racine, who were "given over to gallantry, softness, love, to everything which can effeminate man and mitigate his taste for his real duties." Unfortunately for Rousseau, the "whole French theatre breathes only tenderness; it is the great virtue to which all the others are sacrificed, or, at least, the one which is made dearest to the spectators."

Today most people use the word "Spartan" as a term of disapproval or opprobrium. We consider a Spartan lifestyle to be distasteful. Two hundred years ago, most educated Englishmen and Frenchmen held the austere Greek city-state Sparta in high regard. The modern culture of entertainment has in large part driven this shift in attitudes and role models.

Thomas Carlyle, writing in 1840, summarized the martial concept of the hero and the male nature of early concepts of heroism: "We come now to the last form of Heroism, that which we call Kingship. The Commander over Men; he to whose will our wills are to be subordinated, and loyally surrender themselves, and find their welfare in doing so, may be reckoned the most important of Great Men. He is practically the summary for us of all the various figures of Heroism; Priest, Teacher, whatsoever of earthly or of spiritual dignity we can fancy to reside in a man, embodies itself here, to command over us, to furnish us with constant practical teaching, to tell us for the day and hour what we are to do."

An anecdote from the Second World War illustrates how far the United States and the West have moved from the ideals of Carlyle. During lulls in the shooting, American GIs needled Japanese soldiers by shouting "Fuck Hirohito!" The Japanese, rather than yelling back "Fuck Roosevelt!"--the logical riposte--instead screamed "Fuck Babe Ruth!" The Japanese knew that Ruth, not some leader, personified the American ideal.

Ironically, the taming of fame also entails a growth in the number of violent images. In a peaceful world, many fans seek cathartic experiences, and fame- and profit-seeking performers respond by meeting this demand. Clint Eastwood, Bruce Lee, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and many other contemporary and recent heroes represent the modern sublimation, transformation, and simulation of violent impulses. The same institutions that deglorify actual martial deeds--the entertainment businesses--end up glorifying images of martial deeds. In network television programming for children, each broadcast hour averages 22 simulations of acts of violence.

Modern commercial society therefore cannot fulfill the Enlightenment promise of civilizing manners. While commercial society defangs fame and weakens the ethic of martial virtue, it provides new ways of experiencing violent images. Popular culture often portrays violence as fun. The same processes that lessen the status of real violent acts make simulated violence appear more glamorous and more attractive.

Yet commercialization also induces individuals to aim their glory-seeking impulses toward peaceful ends. Rather than centralizing the rewards of fame in an absolutist state, or repressing fame-seeking impulses, commercialization decentralizes fame into market-based niches. In highly commercial societies, fame-seekers can achieve renown in science, sports, entertainment, and many other fields. These famous individuals cannot start wars, sway elections, or exercise coercive control over the lives of other people.

Contemporary stars are well-paid but impotent puppets. But these market-based heroes are truly meritorious in one essential way: They serve their fans rather than making their fans serve them.

Tyler Cowen ([e-mail]) is professor of economics at George Mason University. This article is adapted from his new book, What Price Fame? (Harvard University Press). Copyright (c)2000 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

How Fame Tames Politics

Public morality, as expressed through the famous and their stature, does not and should not coincide with merit. Morality, like most evolved institutions, Serves many functions and is pulled in many differing directions. The modern world uses public images and fame to control behavior, not to reflect merit.

Looser moral standards are part of the price we pay for constraining politicians through celebrity status and media scrutiny. Every move the president makes is scrutinized, photographed, reported, and analyzed on the evening news and in the newspapers--a far cry from the situation of the Hobbesian absolute sovereign. Today, virtually every known fact about Bill Clinton has been reported. We hear about his taste for Elvis Presley, his golf score, and his affair with Monica Lewinsky--in exquisite detail. The ability of presidents to orchestrate their own images has decreased as information sources have become more competitive and technologies of reproduction have become more acute.

The press, following the wishes of its viewers and readers, devotes special attention to embarrassing moments and gaffes. The modern image of a leader is not Theodore Roosevelt charging up a hill, but rather Jimmy Carter fighting off a rabbit with a canoe paddle, Gerald Ford stumbling and bumping his head, or George Bush vomiting in the lap of the Japanese prime minister. Bill Clinton will be defined forever by his handling of the Monica Lewinsky affair. These images demystify power and produce a culture of disillusionment with politics and moral leadership.

A Celebrity politician is both a low-stature politician and a constrained and trapped politician. The monitoring and visibility associated with fame also discourage incumbent politicians from taking large risks. The fear of negative publicity forces politicians to track public opinion rather than implement their own visions. Politicians will take risks to win office in the first place, but they typically pursue safe courses of action once in power, in order to hold onto their position.

These conservative political decisions are appropriate for societies that are already on the right track. Citizens cannot discard the policies of leaders who choose risky, failed undertakings, but rather must live with the outcomes. If a president or prime minister makes a mistake, millions of lives and jobs may be adversely affected; in some cases the fate of countries or the entire world is at stake. Significant political risk-taking is most appropriate for societies in desperate straits (such as societies on the verge of losing wars), because they need to overcome otherwise fatal obstacles.

Note that unsuccessful risks pose fewer dangers in the arts. If Garth Brooks puts out a bad recording, the world is barely worse off, and it is even less worse off if a minor star fails to deliver a good product. The outcomes of failed projects can be discarded with few external social costs, while the good outcomes can be reproduced and distributed to wide audiences. This ability to pick and choose the successful projects raises the social benefits of artistic risk-taking. In the arts we can pick and choose from the very best of generated outcomes, but in politics we cannot. For this reason, protections against risky outcomes are especially important in the political sphere, even if the associated media scrutiny lowers the moral authority of leaders.