Short-Haired Superheroes?

Why men of action unnerve me, in the neighborhood and at 30,000 feet

By Joel Stein Monday, Apr. 16, 2012
    • Illustration by Tomasz Walenta for TIME

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    Admittedly, I'm not the kind of man who has any heroism in him. If I had been on that JetBlue flight, I wouldn't have been one of the men who tackled the pilot. I would have been one of the people recording him on my phone. Not because I'm a journalist. Just because it would be fun to put it on my Facebook wall with the caption "LOLpilot: I can haz Lexapro?"

    Neighborhood-Watch Guy and Pilot-Tackling Guy are two sides of the same type of man. He's a man with much, much shorter hair than mine. He's a man who says words I've never used, such as vehicle, correct, altercation and windpipe. He is able to weigh an enormous amount and yet never eat dessert.

    So while we should indeed celebrate the short-haired men who save our lives, we should know that sometimes all they're doing is saving us from other short-haired men. Yes, we want them on that wall, we need them on that wall, but they're a little too excited to find that wall. Which is why, perhaps, we should spend a little more time celebrating and encouraging us long-haired, conflict-avoiding men, the ones who apologize when people bump into us, who agree to disagree, who give $50 to your Kickstarter campaign, not because we want to see an antifracking documentary but because it's easier than saying no. We are the silent heroes, keeping everyone safe through our nonactions. And one day, when the world finally appreciates us, Nicolas Cage will play us in a movie. By then he'll have done so many movies he'll have no other option.

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