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| Philip Moore |
By Philip Moore, Class of 2016
Growing up surrounded by technology, I have felt the pressure and influence of the media. From my viewpoint, the media thrusts celebrities, wealthy elites, athletes, and people in powerful positions as men and women who we should choose as role models, but when the media places ordinary or even extremely talented people on a platform for all to see, the public figures receive a great weight and burden that hardly any person can carry. By elevating men and women to an unnatural height, the media gives them a disease which continues to grow until it causes the public figures to fall back to their natural position. While I am not holding that this process always occurs, I do believe it is common and generally happens more often than not. Thus, I have been motivated to look for the source of true role models because obviously the media is not that source.
My next idea of what makes a person a role model is having a life story filled with difficult situations and selfless actions which inspires others to act like him or her. One of the people that jumped out at me was former Director David Petraeus; when he came to visit the McConnell Center and the University of Louisville, he spoke of leadership and his experiences, and I was inspired by his speech and the journey that his life has taken. Two months later, I see David Petraeus as a different man, a man not befitting of a role model. I think my view of him really has helped me understand what it means to have a role model and the purpose of one. In my opinion, a role model is not meant to be an idol, and we are not supposed to follow our heroes all the time; we have to be ourselves, but when we are in difficult situations, we should look to the people we choose to be our role models and see how they were able to be successful. It is important to be critical of the people we admire and approach them with strict scrutiny, and we should never have expectations of them; we should only look at what the remarkable things they have done in the past and how they were able to persevere. When taking this mindset, I have realized that while I am completely revolted by the personal transgressions of former Director Petraeus, he is still a man who has accomplished much. He is a man who was able to exemplify what it meant to be a leader as he led operations in Iraq and created the method of counterinsurgency. What I have been able to take away is that a role model is not meant to be an idol and that a person is not supposed to be a role model in all situations; however, there are particular occasions when having a role model can help me to do more than I think I can.
In closing, I guess I have really rethought what a role model is for me. No longer do I see role models as people who I should always look at as a hero. I have come to understand that a role model’s purpose is to help to provide an example of someone who has overcome because that will give me the belief that I will overcome too.
Philip Moore, of Louisville, Ky., is a freshman McConnell Scholar at the University of Louisville. He is studying economics, finance and political science.