newtonfinn

The question is rhetorical, as it would be if posed about Matt Dillon, Lucas McCain, or any other hero of the old TV westerns. Running through those post-WWII morality plays were common themes of courage and decency, a manly code of honor. Only bounty hunters, depicted (apart from Josh Randall) as a despicable breed, played it safe and deliberately brought ‘em back dead instead of alive. Real men, the heroes that we boys of that era looked up to, wanted to grow up to be like, risked their lives to capture the bad guys, no matter how vicious and dangerous. And once captured, the bad guys were to be brought in to stand trial, even if that meant you had to stand up to a crowd of otherwise law-abiding citizens itching to stretch a rope.

No matter how mythological this Old West code of honor may have been, it reflected an ideal of American society that survived into the 1970’s, a value system internalized by many members of a generation who later fought for civil rights and refused to fight an unjust war. As has been noted, the best part of the counterculture, the idealism as opposed to the hedonism, judged America by American values and found it wanting. Watch again those old westerns and what do you see when Native Americans, Blacks, Mexicans, or other miscellaneous “foreigners” appear as characters? Generally, they are virtuous and deserving of respect. Often, they are noble victims of small town American ignorance and bigotry.

The Navy Seals who shot an unarmed man in the face in front of his family, rather than capture him so that he could face trial, did not grow up with Paladin, Matt Dillon, and Lucas McCain. A more militant code of honor had become popular, with a coarser kind of courage. While willingness to risk your life was still admired, only a fool failed to maximize his odds and seek every advantage. Overwhelming force was always to be preferred. And if decency might increase the possibility of defeat, then you chose to win ugly. The new hero was no longer the man of principle who hated violence and used it only as a last resort. No, the new hero was a fierce warrior who gloried in being “a lean, mean fighting machine.”

As a man moves into his autumn years, it is natural for him to become nostalgic, to remember what seem to have been better days and lament what has been lost. Thus I find myself sitting on the couch, watching reruns of the westerns of my boyhood. Inside, little has changed. I still see men that I aspire to be like, living by a code of honor that continues to call to me. But outside, much has changed. The ideals and myths of manhood that a boy takes into his heart and hopes someday to embody have been altered to the point that I feel like “a stranger in a strange land.” It makes me less regretful that the leaves are falling and the cold wind has begun to blow. As necessary as they may be, as hard as it is to become one, I want no part of a Navy Seal-worshipping world, celebrating assassinations.

So when I cash in my chips, they will not have to pry a gun from my cold, dead hand. In my day, there were other ways to fight the bad guys. But they will have to pry a remote.