Supermarket stackers, nurses and doctors, delivery people, police, farmers, teachers, cleaners, refuse workers etc etc, have all been declared key workers and heroic individuals.
All of a sudden.
Only a few short weeks ago, heroes were self made millionaires, football players, and astronauts, and key workers were bankers, industrialists, and and similar 'wealth creators'.
100 and 80 years ago heroes were soldiers who fought in the Great Wars.
But what is a hero really?
Here is my opinion - except perhaps for Herkules, there are no heroes. Only people who act heroically when the need arises. I remember talking to quite a few war veterans, and don't recall a single one who was comfortable with being called a hero. "I was just doing my job," they all said.
I bet when we talk to nurses and carers and delivery people after the current crisis is over, they will similarly refuse the title of 'hero'. "I was just doing my job," they will say, and "what else was I supposed to do?"
All those people who didn't strip the shelves of supermarkets, who didn't endanger their neighbours by gadding about instead of staying at home, who joined the National Help Service to volunteer, and all those who performed the little acts of kindness that make life bearable - what do you think they will say when questioned about their motives?
I bet they will not offer any complicated philosophical reasons for their behaviour, nor pet themselves on the back for their decency. Instead they will all say, "Well what did you expect me to do? Beggar my neighbour? Endanger fellow citizens? Stand by watching when I could help?"
The people who are currently stepping up and doing their jobs as best they can, or helping with keeping the country going, aren't heroes.
They are something much better - they are decent human beings who do what needs to be done.
They have not suddenly become different, more worthy people. Their situation has changed, and allowed them to show us what they have always intrinsically been - decent, honourable people.
I wish we would stop this division of people into heroes and common folk. Most of us are decent enough, and act 'heroically' should the need arise.
Let's not get carried away thinking that the few idiots, profiteers, and antisocial individuals that now make the headlines are normal human beings. They are not - if they were, humanity would have become extinct a long time ago.
And how about 'Key Workers'?
The term has always irritated me. It was used widely when discussing subsidised mortgages and such like some time ago. I remember thinking, what do you mean, 'Key Worker'? We are all important. The man who brings the milk, the lady who runs the shop where people buy newspapers, the journalist who writes the newspaper, the farmer who milks the cows, the bus driver who gets us to work, the IT people who keep us connected - ete etc ad infinitum.
We are all important. We all matter. We are all 'Key'.
It is about time we returned to some kind of sane system of remuneration, which reflects the inherent worth we all have. There is enough wealth for all of us to comfortably live on, and if those who work extra hard or are extra gifted get a little bit more, no one is going to begrudge them.
But no matter how clever, how gifted, how enterprising someone is, they can achieve nothing unless the rest of us do our bit and support the society that nurtured them.
In the end we are social creatures, and the coin we all value highest, consciously or not, is social approbation. Only psychopaths prefer money or power.
No billionaire is 'Key'.
