Heroes. I'm anti-heroes. Even Super-Heroes don't float my boat. Why should we be impressed with Superman? He's an alien. Of course he's super here, we're not the same species. And don't get me started on Batman. He's probably the coolest superhero, but he's just some rich dude. Bill Gates could become Batman. And that right there makes it inherently uncool. Historically, the "great man" theory is bunk. No one is perfect, nor will they ever be and to teach them that way does both their legacy and the current audience a disservice.
All that being said, I do kind of have a hero. Or at least someone I admire. Admire is a weird word though because he's probably not too admirable. Hunter S. Thompson is my main man. How about that? Can I say that without seeming like a hypocrite about heroes?? Hopefully.
So what's so...great about him? I have never encountered someone so unabashedly themselves (go back to the authenticity post on that one). Sure, I never met him, but I have read a lot of his writings, from his letters to his essays to his novels. He was wicked smart and had a critical eye that he turned toward everyone and everything, including himself. Thompson was a writer and had that artistic predilection that so many American writers seem to have: toward instability. His antics were well known, but his commentary on how he couldn't escape this aura that had been created around him refers back to what I wrote about previously in regards to our obsession with labeling everyone. People wanted to see him stumble around drunk/high/wacked out 24/7. They wanted the Thompson show. And that was him sometimes, which he readily admits, but it wasn't to be regarded as America's first reality show, it was for his own entertainment/enlightenment/escape (whatever you want to call it). He did not advocate the use of anything by anyone but himself.
Politically, he leaned libertarian, with a strong anti-authority streak and a penchant for guns (and whiskey). He ran for political office in Aspen, Colorado under the Freak Power ticket. His love for this area of the country was evident - it was up and coming, yet still beautifully full of open, undeveloped space. Although the campaign was tight, his hopes were dashed by his opponent's scare tactics (that HST was the pied piper of some sort of speed freak circus that would rape your daughters). His political unpacking of American politicians (esp Nixon) is brutal; he leaves nothing to question about what he dislikes - surprisingly, it isn't politicians' policies, it's usually their dishonesty toward their constituents. You get a sense of what he was so angry about from his obit of Nixon: Nixon will be remembered as a classic case of a smart man shitting in his own nest. But he also shit in our nests, and that was the crime that history will burn on his memory like a brand. By disgracing and degrading the Presidency of the United States, by fleeing the White House like a diseased cur, Richard Nixon broke the heart of the American Dream.
The "American Dream," is actually in the subtitle of the iconic Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey into the Heart of the American Dream. From a young age, HST wanted to be a writer, and he was obsessed with, among other American greats, F. Scott Fitzgerald. I read that he typed and retyped The Great Gatsby over and over so that he could understand the process of writing. Having read TGG multiple times, I can imagine how this practice might start to influence your own view of the world too. TGG portrays the tragedy, the falsehood of the American dream that so many of our forebears had believed in. Gatsby's dream doesn't come true, even though he worked so hard, had everything planned out just so. If you're doubtful on this, then I'd argue that the younger generation does not seem to hold out much hope for an American dream to come true for themselves, which is why the book still resonates with so many teens today. And it also may be why.so many older Americans see the younger generation as so terrible (they're lazy! they have no hope! no drive!). Sadly, I think the youth may be right - they're not cynical, they're realistic.
HST was an imperfect man in imperfect times. He stood up for what he believed in and tried to make himself heard. The line he walked between sanity and insanity was so worn that many tuned him out, or pre-judged him as being over the line. The only difference between the Sane and the Insane, is IN and yet within this world, the Sane have the power to have the Insane locked up. A similar tune has been sung by philosopher Robert Pirsig, who was driven insane by his own inquiry into the meaning of quality and "good"ness in this world. Pirsig underwent electroshock therapy that radically altered his personality, making him near unrecognizable to his own son. In both HST and Pirsig's cases, their experimentation with expansion of the mind, through drugs, philosophical inquiry and medical treatments gave them a much wider perspective on the world than most people around them. Their openness to life is admirable. Even if you're not inclined to achieve a more gestalt perspective in the same way, you could still learn something from them.
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