Hero or loser

Thanksgiving night, Mitt Romney’s son Josh was driving home from dinner with his wife and children when he witnessed a car crash. After lifting four people to safety and ensuring all involved were not injured, the Romney son made sure to post his efforts across social media, posing next to the wreckage with an All-American hero grin.

But the question posed by his decision to share his altruism is one that analyzes our “deplorable” selfie culture. Is an inherently good deed tainted by the immediacy of our need to tell people about it?

A sociological study by University of British Columbia professor Karl Aquino found people are more prone to perform acts of kindness after observing them. If you saw someone buy coffee for a stranger, you would be more likely to return something lost or hold open the door should the occasion arise .

By posting, Romney could have been trying to produce a ripple effect of compassion, particularly during a holiday that celebrates thanks and togetherness.

But because our culture values self-promotion, it’s much more likely that he saw an opportunity for recognition, praise and approval. Our society values silent heroism but doesn’t practice it.

Romney did an extraordinary thing for people in need, and hopefully, in the moment his actions were propelled by morality and not political motives or a hunger for publicity.

But while a military member wouldn’t think twice about having served others, the common folk — particularly students our age — tend to immediately factor in how goodness could benefit their public image once it’s carried out, even if it means telling just one other person we put spare change in a stranger’s meter.

While that commonplace quality is a twinge arrogant and desperate in anyone, the fact that Romney is a 38-year-old man with a family also affects the perception of his posts. Partisanship aside, why would a grown person demonstrating heroism in front of people with the most primacy in his life need to seek further
acknowledgement?

Why would anyone?

Many people will attack Romney’s motives based on his party affiliation, just as they would if he were a liberal or democratic figurehead. The posts will be turned into a political agenda.

But the need to selfishly document virtue is a deeper issue. Since it’s become intrinsic in everyone’s lives, it’s less important to assess what each of us is trying to accomplish with it.

That much is already fairly evident.

Make the committer of kindness arbitrary.

Before chastising a share as “gross” and needy, writing off the actual deed that prompted the story in the first place, try to embrace the positivity.

If your friend sends a snapchat of the girl they saved from stepping off a curb, don’t turn it into an internal battle of praise or scorn. Digest the goodness for what it is. Your willingness to pay it forward serves yourself and society, but contempt does neither.

‘Tis a far, far better thing doing stuff for other people.

­— ashhendr@indiana.edu