Our Heroes

​Daffy duck is my husband’s hero: he doesn’t tweet, is not subject of #metoo movement scorn, and doesn’t appear in public without his pants like Donald Duck does (my husband claims DD is banned in many countries for going pant-less). For me, however, Daffy is a bit too wild, I used to like Betty Boop until I realize how body conscious and shallow she was and dumped her. Now I don’t know. 
Halo effect is, of course, human, we tend to put our heroes on a pedestal and accept their judgment in all matters.  But having a hero is becoming harder and harder these days as we discover things we may not like about our hero: Thomas Jefferson owned slaves and had not only a long term affair, but also six children, with a woman 19 years his junior and very much under his thumb (talk about having power over someone). Bad Thomas, not my hero anymore! Never mind that he wrote the constitution, sent Lewis and Clark to explore the West, and doubled the size of this country without shedding a drop of blood.
It is no wonder good marketing people these days create, or ‘employ’ Computer Generated Imaginary, CGI, influencers for the rest of us to follow. The best CGI’s, the likes of Lil Miquela, Shudu, and Bermuda, have upwards of tens of millions of followers. Soon enough, we can create our own CGI’s based on our real heroes “sans” their faults. In this case a Julius Caesar CGI will forgive all the Gauls and Germans saving one million lives, doesn’t cut the hands of people who have resisted his army, and gives a pension to all women and children  their husbands and fathers were killed by his men ‘accidentally’. Thomas Jefferson CGI, meanwhile, frees all his slaves and marries Sallie Hemming in a grand ceremony in Monticello, and Germans soundly reject some creep named Adolf Hitler in the polls.
Can you imagine how great the world would be?