Does the world need a Super Wo/Man?

One can only guess at what characteristics a super hero would have in order to take or be given the mantle of a world superhero. In some way it would be easier to hold onto the characters that are portrayed in sci-fi / action films, bestowed with exceptional powers or enhanced ‘human’ abilities that are put to a use, presumably beneficial to humanity and sometimes against the negativity of an opposing force. But these characters are often put into a scripted context that bears little reality to the actual everyday life of the ordinary world. They are just figments of someone’s imagination viewed as a limited two dimensional character unhindered by the sustaining complexity and minutia of just drawing real life breath. Occasionally in the normal world someone will be called a hero for doing something exceptional but it will be a classification given to a person for a local outstanding action and not, in effect, an exceptional activity spread throughout the world with any lasting prominence or historical impact, so no superhero.

That there has been notable characters throughout history is a given but they did not come close to being seen as ‘super’, for being an exceptional presence on the world, as a superior force known then and still known as such now; as an active powerful influence that has pervaded through time. Any good that is assumed attributable to notable characters which they independently did, whilst around, will have faded with their footprints to the extent that the interpretation placed on their historic actions will have been overlaid by contemporary understanding and out of full contextual substance to the overall demands of their period. This ought not to undermine whatever notable action was ascribed them, but ‘super’ they were not and many people today will possibly find it difficult to place a name to more than a few notable characters and also be unable to attach the causes for their historic fame.

In some way it may be useful to put any ‘good’ characters alongside one that is made up of ‘bad’ ones and find which of them comes easier to mind with a charge sheet of deeds for each. One thinks that it will be possibly an easier task listing the ‘bad’ ones (say of the 19^th/20^th century) and highlight the nasty deeds ascribed to them and a little more difficult to list the ‘good’ ones but in either case, in an historic or ‘modern’ sense, for all, it will be a matter of judicious opinion. For each character will have probably a short term in which to have made a mark on history and is unlikely to have had an impact that rolled forward into decades or centuries, preferably with the imparting of action and attitudes of equitable righteousness for humanities civilisations development.

As in all things there are points at which some exceptions can or could be inserted to include individuals that historically will be known as characters of influence, primarily for their contribution to the knowledge and creative understanding of the philosophies and sciences that had application into the cognizance of creation for the natural material world such as:- (not in any order or importance):- Plato, Socrates, Thomas Aquinas, Voltaire, Galileo, Descartes, St Peter, Augustine of Hippo, Aristotle, H. Martineau, Durkheim, A. Comte, Newton, Mozart. + Etc etc?

Or perhaps a list of those that had none-creative / destructive influences such as: - (not in any order or importance):- Genghis Khan, Attila, Nero, Caligula, Ivan the Terrible, Hitler, Stalin, Vlad Dracula, T.de. Torquemada, Pol Pot, Mugabe. + Etc etc?

But none of the above, one thinks, qualifies them as ‘super’ (good or bad) from the point of view that their ‘good’ deeds shaped humanity as a species for the better and equally the destructive influences of the ‘bad’ ones do not really match up with the adage of ‘lessons of history’ for the same transgression against humanity to reoccur. No doubt they all had an effect on the procession of history as exceptional or malevolent people for their thoughts and actions but can it be said that any have had an ongoing qualitative noticeable improving impact on the nature and substance of humans today?

Up to now one has not been able to accept that there has been anyone whom it could be said to be of ‘super’ substance and of exceptional global determining impact. In the undemanding list of above, they are all males which points to a distinct lack of historic inclusiveness of females whom also must have had a role to be inserted in a listing but one has to dig them out from the overburden prejudices of historical narratives and who have been carelessly disregarded by the paternal patronising of the male dominance for their own insertion of outstanding or dubious contributions. So few females have reached a pinnacle of easy (or not) memorable notoriety good or bad such as: - (not in any order or importance):-  Boadicea, Catherine the Great, Empress Wu Zetian, Zenobia, E. Pankhurst, F. Nightingale, Amelia Earhart, Ada Lovelace, Rosa Parks, Joan of Arc. + Etc etc?  

In looking at the tensions of the world today and bearing in mind the difficulty that some individuals have had and still have, whom may have been seen to have better or enlightened ‘human’ attributes and ideas, are still not endowed with any super-power but they may have offered a direction to a use for their ideas and pointing to a way which may be beneficial to humanities survival. These sorts of people are sometimes quickly up against the pessimism and apprehension of stronger opposing forces that is advantaged by the apparent meekness of their perhaps un-strident presentations. The conflicting powers intent is to destroy beneficial perhaps progressive ideas.

It can be difficult for these progressive individuals and their open-minded ideas to make any clear progress in being acceptably tolerable. So it is strange yet common to see the relative ease in which forces of negativity perhaps built of uncertainty, fear, anger, or voracity gain traction in the undermining of any acuity that people may have, in assessing a ‘balance of probability in truth’ surrounding proffered inspirations. Destabilising such people is to be seduced into willing disbeliever of perhaps truth or facts and it does seem to have become easier to hold onto those ‘reality’ detractors due to the limited exposure they have to critical factual analysis of challenging ideas, inspirational or destructive ones. Now (in ones opinion) there is sufficient indication to support ones accusation of the decrease in acuity within an increasing segment of populations and it is being exploited by power factions with blatant actions like: - In the face of unacceptable condemning truth, lie with any diverting speciousness to circumvent reality and keep on lying, ignore provable evidence and fabricate alternative disconnected factoids. For believers in the purveyors of the spurious fiction of calculated lies, misinformation and obscuration’s, projected by their preferred representatives on the political public platforms, would rather keep a 'faith' in the lies and liar than move to a factual truthfully considered position of their own, or one measured by others, for them to ‘consider’, than admit they have been inculcated within errors.

As a matter of (one’s own) empirical evidence in the decreased ability of people to be their own analysers, on the probability of the balance of relative truths in assessing opposing views, one offers the following as a test. Find in school / educational establishments, any attempt to regularly train the youth in the ability to seek and balance evidence of the impact of societies created policies on the civics approach of their neighbourhoods. Or evidence of considering reasons / consequences of ‘strap lines’ ‘headlines’ or ‘memes’ and to follow (or research) global ‘news breaking’ items. There is none. Or assess for a number of people that assiduously read or follow a particular, self selected ‘news worthy’ item and who also look to examining a different stream provider on the same subject; the scope is somewhat miniscule as most tend to adhere to a favourite source. It will be all but impossible to establish a quantifiable large effective number within a population. In being wary following ‘believable news’ it is difficult, time consuming and requires a good measure of concentration to follow any ordinary news promoted issue that may be multifaceted in its delivery by providers. And as many people are either too busy or ‘switch off’ from engagement; so increasingly many people have opted for the easily digested, accepted, single strap line news, memes, gossip and hearsay all without any complex thinking addition of their own. This results in the intent of the subtle corruption of what passes for truthful news upon which deceits are imbedded to manipulate an unwary populace to camouflaged dishonesty.

This projection of dishonesty is so much in evidence now on the world political stage demonstrated by the 1st worlds move to be open to accept “strong” leaders who are invariable holders of bizarre intense unstable views, corrupt, egotistical, power-grabbers, dictatorial and liars. However whatever unsavoury characteristics they have, they are accepted and given a odd popular reception such as seen with;- Trump, BoJo, Putin, Modi, Erdogan, MBS, Khamerci, Orban, Netanyahu etc; and none of them have any qualities that are ‘superior’ so one looks on in dismay on those followers that have fallen for conviction in them. As human history demonstrated the fad of lauding strong leaders does not end well so all those people that have their own dreams, expectations, desires, fears, disappointments, and prejudices with knowledge or not thereof, of their own modes that directs their judgement choice, commit to stand behind their chosen leader. With this complicit alliance, all these followers generate a force that is amalgamated into a murmeration of a constructed tribal outlook, building a blockade to the counterbalance of truth however and against whoever presents it. How can this be? 

It is one thinks an indictment of the degradation in the intelligence of populations that reside in countries where it is assumed that by virtue of expansive education, peoples should be capable of assessing some elements of supported information as being closer to an accurate proposition of detail as presented against unsubstantiated information. However when looking at the state of the main displays of public disseminated information, it is apparent that there is an astounding inability to assess and probe such output for its reasonableness to fact or fiction. Whether this is due to the sophistication of media subtle presentations, the acceptance of strap-line news or memes and deceptive reporting as being possibly contributing factors but also one may extraordinarily offer the deleterious diets effecting brain function of ‘normal people’, or many just abrogation of personal responsibility. How many, do you think of such ‘normal’ people would be willing to sit through, without restraint, something like, (for example) say the 5 complete Reith lectures by Jonathan Sumption on Laws etc (1) and comprehend with some understanding the complexity of the ‘discussion’ before pressing the off button. 5% to 50% could be a generous number of willing participants however it is just a guess. But one assumes that this low conjecture possibly explains the raise in the obtuseness of populations one is accusing. Perhaps this also account for the selected prominence of the current batch of disagreeable leaders?

In one limited circuit and from overheard conversations, which one knows is not any form of proof that what one is about to commit to words of inky substance is an immutable commonly held fact however within those obtuse people the degree of compassion for anyone not of their deserving charity or indeed not of their tribe, which also encompasses the undeserving poor, beggars, street sleepers, homeless, destitute, disabled, unemployed, child poverty, working poor, hungry, foreigners or anyone who may have the temerity, by being in existence to cause them vicarious upset; also to offer a different perspective of how these others are living in a different reality with supportable factual truth of their condition, is a disconcerting affront to their settled view. There is a positional conflict one assumes, between what they (the obtuse?) prefer to believe as the reason for their own deserved comfort / security and the deserving fragile life style choices afflicted onto others. It is an internal divergence, a dissonance which simply hardens their closed perspective which may be bolstered by the fabricated outlook of popular leaders with everything’s OK balm of snake oil comfort.

The superficially of what passes for civility understanding in the obtuse is surprisingly a thin veneer, to see exposed part of the bases of their beliefs built on self deception and fabrication. It does come as an unexpected unpleasant experience to be witness of vitriolic expressed prejudices; not that one is paragons of virtue nor does one claim to be on distant terms with unsound emotively driven expressions or being without considered prejudices however one can see when their form of considered fairness morphs to calculated unfairness and their relative affluence uncovers the effluence in the meanness of their spirit. Even from those that on the one hand did not obviously have the beneficence of a favoured life and of those that apparently did, for them to locate themselves to the conservationist’s (Cons) existence, can be a surprise. So it is disappointing to have a view that so many saps are much less than their presumed better capabilities. In general one would state that half (?) appear less than the sums of their didactic ingredients, to direct with dubious conviction, in the fabrication of misrepresentations smothering the actuality of truths?

Well, none of this is really of any use to move closer to an answer to the heading but into the morass of the existential threats, now that the world is being made cognizant to; tenuous global peace, humanities environment and economic instability etc (?). There is an inclination for the common people to throw up unsound leader pretenders, posturing pop solutions, who are probably incapable of charting a foundation upon which to build a secure sustainable future for humanity. Even while the tumultuous adjustment required are laboured through on the watch of unsafe leaders, perhaps culminating in the proclamations of “never again” and “lesson will be learnt” afterwards from their Machiavellian acts, their significant legacy will in decades be soon irrelevant and of course none are ever likely to be able to be given or carry the mantle of being a ‘super’ person.  

From the above and one knows it is just insubstantial opinions, it does appear then that the era now is stuck in a continuing cycle of disappointments; assurance in good leaders does not really have the power to redirect humanities development throughout the ages just as the bad ones fade into the milieu past. And there remains a disappointment in the ability of the rise of a super hero (wo/man) outside the two dimensional veneer. However in looking for some indication of a personage that over centauries has had an indelible presence, not noted as being ‘super’ but whom have most undoubtedly laid a presence onto the centauries and from which the world continues to suffer or benefit from in their directives for humanity; brings up a number of characters: such as Abraham, Jesus Christ, Mohammad, Buddha Etc. and as usual no females, unless one put in Jezebel, Miriam, or Mary M(?) but it is obvious that their influence if they had any is not as substantially endemic as the four culprits one has picked on. One can elect to pick at the influential practicalities whatever these four espoused, for being of any relevance to a modern era but the evidence of the persistence of their directives is still seen as belligerently suffused consequences, throughout the world.

Were they ‘super’, probably not, even leaving aside any notion of (superpowers) miracles or extraordinary eruditeness, they were souls of their time who offered a script potentially beneficial to humanity. These beings were a presence on the world as a (superior) probably dangerous force, known then and still known as such now, as an active causative energy that has pervaded through time; they were not super wo/men. Unwittingly they may be ascribed as being examples of ‘super’ now due to their long-term impact legacy left on global cultures but were they just inspired souls before the ‘super’ term was established?

Given the state global uncertainty to resolve or mitigate expanding tempestuous issues and the uplift of dubious charlatan leaders overlooking expanding inequality and the seeming renunciation of guiding humanity principles etc; so far as the saps species is concerned one is not sanguine on its future when it seems willing to acquiesce to travesties on honesty and truth with leaders of incompetence and liars. So in answer to one’s own question, the answer is yes. It does need a super wo /man, only GodAllahTetragrammaton knows where one can be and anyone can make up a list from which to choose attributes that would be considered disquieting against the devious charlatans: - Humility, not to tolerate uttering lies or the lying of others, a challenging vision of a integrated (nirvana?) earth, speak its truth to power, hold to virtuous foundation principles based on concerted integrity, unconcerned for own self gain, speak for justice, equality, have superior cognitive and emotive intelligence and hold misapplied influential powers to account. Maybe (being fictional) throw in some unused remarkable abilities for god measure to get the attention of the sheep however even with these attributes, one is not sure that the saps treatment of a proffered potential super wo /man would be any different than other times; for when saps are faced with paradigm shifts in thinking, actions and a need to adjust mores, the forces of destructibility do not respond well.   

Is there an obscuring mote in the eye of the souls of all such acuity deficient saps, well perhaps or not; there is one in one's own but one does try to pick at it, anyway by the time a super Wo/Man turns up, one will have gone home.

© Renot

121201539

(1) www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/ Reith Lectures 1-5.