That's the title most bloggers are going with around the recent mental breakdown of astronaut Lisa Nowak. Since I've listed Philip Kaufman's 1983 "The Right Stuff" as one of my all time favorite films, maybe I'm more legit...
We make heroes because we need them so badly. Mired in our own myriad struggles, humankind is always looking upward for a leader, a prototype, a standard-bearer. That's legitimate (or at least "normal") societal behavior. Our celebrity-driven media is on a hyper-steroid dose of that drug.
We break heroes too, mostly because of the unrealistic expectations to which we held them in the first place. Among history's greatest of heroes, Israel's King David was a superstar of his time, and his scandal of adultery, conspiracy and murder (and kids who didn't all turn out just right) was epic.
Dr. Sanity's blog offers her analysis of the pressures of "spac-e-men:"
I'm sure it is shocking to find out that they have unhappy marriages; engage in affairs; have problems with their kids; act out in all sorts of inappropriate ways. Why, they even get depressed at times. Of course, you don't hear about this side of things too much. Nor should astronauts private lives be the subject of Hollywood gossip columns.Nevertheless, if you treat astronauts like Hollywood superstars; promote them to the public as if they were God's gift to humanity; cater to their narcissistic fantasies; and indulge them in all sorts of special ways, it is not too hard to predict that they will behave just like any other entitled superstar (or politician) whose ridiculous exploits the public follows with obsessive interest.
Perhaps NASA held on to its own 1960's self-image too long, or believed its own PR.
Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log scans the blogosphere for other commentary.
We need heroes, but don't make the pedestals too high. You could break your neck falling from up there.
We make heroes because we need them so badly. Mired in our own myriad struggles, humankind is always looking upward for a leader, a prototype, a standard-bearer. That's legitimate (or at least "normal") societal behavior. Our celebrity-driven media is on a hyper-steroid dose of that drug.
We break heroes too, mostly because of the unrealistic expectations to which we held them in the first place. Among history's greatest of heroes, Israel's King David was a superstar of his time, and his scandal of adultery, conspiracy and murder (and kids who didn't all turn out just right) was epic.
Dr. Sanity's blog offers her analysis of the pressures of "spac-e-men:"
I'm sure it is shocking to find out that they have unhappy marriages; engage in affairs; have problems with their kids; act out in all sorts of inappropriate ways. Why, they even get depressed at times. Of course, you don't hear about this side of things too much. Nor should astronauts private lives be the subject of Hollywood gossip columns.Nevertheless, if you treat astronauts like Hollywood superstars; promote them to the public as if they were God's gift to humanity; cater to their narcissistic fantasies; and indulge them in all sorts of special ways, it is not too hard to predict that they will behave just like any other entitled superstar (or politician) whose ridiculous exploits the public follows with obsessive interest.
Perhaps NASA held on to its own 1960's self-image too long, or believed its own PR.
Alan Boyle's Cosmic Log scans the blogosphere for other commentary.
We need heroes, but don't make the pedestals too high. You could break your neck falling from up there.
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