When your chosen profession is ‘saving the world’ to what extent can you play the hero?
Those in the 3rd sector are often viewed as excessively pious and self-aggrandising when they choose to talk about their work. Whether it’s human rights, environmental or disease related, they can’t help but be in the business of saving the world. Now, I can honestly say that in my line of work the aim is to create real change, making the world a better place for all. I sit at a desk, email people doing wonderful, innovative things, and ask if we help them do it better. Most of the time their answer is no, but sometimes we get to do some great thinking for great people. But I’m no heroine.
Let’s take Oedipus. Famous figure of Greek tragedy, Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex was regailed by Aristotle as the perfect tragedy and hasn’t lost it’s status since. Oedipus is fundamentally a good King of Thebes and a good hero. In Sophocles’ play Oedipus is trying to stop a terrible plague which is ravishing Thebes by finding the source of pollution in the city (the murderer of Laius). As people tell him to stop his quest, Oedipus accuses them of being the murderers and brags, ‘I was the one who defeated the Sphinx’. Oedipus’ inquisitive mind and ability to solve problems got him appointed King of Thebes in the first place, when he answered the riddle of the Sphinx, so when he is told to leave well enough alone and stop trying to find Laius’ murderer he is, understandably, quite annoyed. However, as he keeps asking questions he finally realises that he is the murderer he seeks, which does stop the plague but hurts those around him (his wife and mother commits suicide, his children are incestuous outcasts and the city is left to be ruled by the eventual tyrant Creon).
For some the moral of the story is that Oedipus is a great hero but he should’ve stopped asking questions and trying to save the city. However, what I can learn from the tragedy of Oedipus is that when you’re in the business of saving people you can’t stop playing the hero. Oedipus solves problems because it is in his nature. Even when Tiresias, the one person that everyone in all Greek tragedies should listen to, tells him to stop Oedipus can’t. He may be prone to fits of rage against lame, old men but Oedipus is fundamentally a noble person and it is this nobility, by birth or developed when he took on the mantle of solving the riddle of the Sphinx and the role of King, which makes him who he is. It is his fate to kill his father and marry his mother because he couldn’t of acted otherwise within the scope of his character.
For those who think Greek tragedy is all about the time in which it was produced and bears no connection to our modern lives. Yes, this story was written 2000 years ago, but we read with our own preconceptions and we see things in the story that we want to see. Personally this means that when you’re compelled to take on a certain lifestyle/profession, you do it because your character could not do otherwise. Sure, there are options, I’ve often wondered if I could do another job but I continue to work at HOST. And as I’ve learned I’ve become more invested in saving the world because it’s become part of me, my character. I’m certainly not equipped for the role of hero (too disorganised, silly and selfish) but forgive me for trying to play the hero anyway. Even if it ends in tragedy, could any of us in the 3rd sector do any differently?
aminamakele 