Roles without models, models without roles
HUMANS need role models to give them directions in life in the same manner night time navigators can use the Southern Cross in the Southern Hemisphere and the Pole Star in the Northern Hemisphere. Role models are people who inspire others. A teacher can be a role model to his students, while a terrorist can be the same thing to aspiring bullies. Role models in that sense are persons whose behaviour, examples or successes are emulated by others, especially younger people. Who do we have amongst us to fit that bill, a lighthouse or a beacon light for the young and the restless?
We have got raft of roles and multitude of models. We have got politicians, bureaucrats, professionals, academicians, corporate executives, lawyers, entrepreneurs and philanthropists. We have got a Nobel laureate, an international cricket sensation, many international award winners and countless men and women who are qualified by global standard. Yet we have got dearth of models where there are roles and dearth of roles where there are models.
American entertainer Queen Latifah said in jest that she didn't wish to be a supermodel but a role model instead. Everyone aspires to become a supermodel in life, but many fail to see the connection. A supermodel isn't necessarily a role model for the same reason artificial light can't be compared to radiance from the stars. Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and Naomi Campbell are phenomenal figures, not exemplary lives taught in classrooms.
Exemplary lives are those which lead by examples. They are leaders, warriors, inventors, reformers and revolutionaries whose life and work, seeded in sacrifice and struggle, make a difference in the lives of others and uplift mankind. Many of them have been successful people, others defeated in their fight. Che Guevara's life was cut short in the Bolivian jungle at the age of 39, yet he remains a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global icon in popular culture.
That separates the milk from the whey. The supermodels by definition are commercially successful ventures, which isn't true for the role models. Charles F. Kettering is an inventor, who said that logic was an organised way to do things wrong. He insisted that a logical course wasn't always the right one.
It bifurcates the word “right” in its logical connotation. Right means something either morally or socially acceptable that brings us to this discursive swamp: Is morally right also socially right and the other way around? Is the social definition of success tenable as the moral definition of success? If something is popular, does it also mean it's ideal and optimal?
In this country we have got many celebrities, who are treated like embodiments of visions and virtues. These prominent figures are ubiquitous; seminars, workshops, television talk shows, human chains, inaugurations and rallies use them like curries use turmeric as a common base. And, anytime one of them passes away this nation mourns that loss as irreparable, although his work is forgotten before the body turns cold in the grave.
The best role models are supposed to be like seeds, disappearing once the trees are grown. They are not to be missed because they are never gone from us, multiplied amongst those who follow their examples. It's the supermodels who should be missed. Michael Jackson could give us more musical hits if he lived. Uttam Kumar could give us more memorable performances on the screen.
But nobody feels that way about, say, Einstein or Gandhi. They are remembered not for what they could give in future but what they have given already in the past. Their words inspire us long after they are gone, their glows never fading because their ideals burn in enkindled hearts. One could compare them with the moonlit night, whose illumination can't be undermined even by the worst national grid shutdown.
According to the 2008-2009 survey done by the Horatio Alger Association, 75% of America's children said that family members, family friends, teachers, coaches and community leaders were their role models. Fewer than 25% acknowledged that entertainment figures, artists, sports figures and national or international leaders inspired them.The survey makes sense since children are expected to be influenced first by adults who are close to them.
The latter role models indirectly influence children by the way of influencing the former ones. They, however, start influencing these children directly once these children have become adults themselves. Some of them grow up to be role models to generations after them.
Spanish poet Antonio Machado writes that by walking one makes the road.Whenever an eminent citizen of this country passes away, it's not for nothing that we are overtaken by a sense of loss. Our minds hit the dead end and we feel lost, as we helplessly realise that obsessed with the signposts we forgot the road.
The writer is Editor, First News, and an opinion writer for The Daily Star.
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