The Age of
Corporate Heroes
by William E. Hazelgrove
I was reading about
a lawyer writer who said Hemingway was wrong about saying
that you write for the ages. The lawyer writer said all writing
is contemporary art and there was no way Hemingway could know
what was going to last and what wouldn't. I think there was another
lawyer writer who said one day he would write something literary
as if it were a faucet one turned on and off at will. Will anybody
read
lawyer writers one hundred years from now? Don't bet on it. Their
books will be dust but that isn't the age we live in now. We
live in the age of corporate heroes.
Oh, I know, Bill Gates and all those people are good for the
economy and employ people and all that. Why even the show Survivor
was won by a corporate trainer. And if you didn't tune into that
show then surely you were either out of town out of contact or
out to lunch because as a cultural event it was gigantic. Seems
we need heroes now and the only ones left are corporate. Lets
go down the list, Ted Turner, Bill Gates, Donald Trump. And the
lawyers are writing the books. And there's some guy who keeps
trying to go around the world in a hot air balloon--he's a millionaire
stock broker.
Speaking of millionaires. The hottest show on television is
all about
who wants to be a millionaire. Well, everyone does, so everyone
tunes in. Is this new? Not really. There was a show in the fifties
that captivated audiences. People were asked questions and if
they gave the right answer they won...you got it, money. The
shows demise was when Charles Van Doren, a noted scholar from
a prestigous family admitted he was given the answers. People
were mildly dissapointed and the show went off the air.
What about heros? Well, our old heroes...well they actually
did something. Charles Lindbergh really was a kid from Minnesota
without a penny to his name and he really did fly the Atlantic
in a small plane
nonstop when no one else could do it. Audie Murphy really did
win battles in World War II with incredible bravery. FDR really
was a great president who dug us out of a depression and won
World War II. Martin Luther King really did fight for Civil Rights
and paid with his life. Ernest Hemingway really
did commit his life to his art and really did write great works
of literature for all time.
But what about these lawyer writers and these corporate heros
of today who say art is contemporary and money is good and mergers
are good and casinos are good and no our browser doesn't corner
the information highway. Well, there's another episode on Survivor
coming up...we'll just have to wait to see who our next hero
will be. For that week anyway.
