Gang vs individual re prowess

Getting attention seems involved, in some of the news media articles, and the people involved seem central to what supposedly is about events instead of about people.

Maybe it is because I grew up in a time when fantasized exceptional individuals became virtual mentors on how to be: Captain Midnight, Superman, The Lone Ranger, Tom Mix, the Green Hornet, Batman, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Roy Rogers, are some names of those exceptional individuals of fantasy and fiction that formed examples to follow by the developing kids of the time. Gangs, groups, tended to be destructive and led by a particularly mean individual, usual a male crazed with urge for power over others.

But - perhaps only in my imagination - there seems to have been a reversal and increasingly so in recent decades. The team led by a small faction portrayed as achieving great things constructive, whereas the lone individual just freaks out and causes havoc, messing things up and hurting people - just the opposite of back when I was growing up, and individuals were more self aware and responsible-acting.

Yesterday's news seems to me to show a - maybe too clear? - example of this. The big news of the day was a live video telecast on BBC showing the raising of the capsized luxury liner Costa Concordia over in Italy, the shipwreck the largest ever attempted to be moved. Over a year of work by hundreds of skilled people, guided by engineers, had built the enormous framework and mechanisms to slowly rotate the enormous vehicle, while keeping it from breaking apart and ruining the local environment. This was a constructive effort of the gang as led by the few who coordinated the whole picture to function as a whole, and was successful in uprighting the ship. It was a "yay team," kind of thing. This ought to have been the top news of the world yesterday, a "good for us we can work together and achieve great things," kind of thing as led by competent engineers. There were none of the highly visible glib politicians or wealthy businessmen portrayed as implied being the high achievers and worthy of so much attention, because in this case, the best outcome is just to get the wrecked ship far away then scrap it; and besides, remembering that the shipwreck was caused by a team, the ships crew, does not put the team portrayed better than the individual. So as the Costa Concordia got tilted over upright, it was the lead engineers themselves up front, instead of the wealthy and the politicos, for a change. Or would have been except it all got upstaged.

However, coincidentally (??) yesterday while that was going on, another of those spectacular events was going on, getting the attention, an individual who for no apparent reason had gone to great lengths to get lots of attention simply by going bang bang at a bunch of helpless people.

So yesterday's news was the gang vs the individual, but in this case the gang's constructive efforts were upstaged by the individual's long travel and clear preparation to do a freakout.

That the news will as usual just imply the, well, individuals like that get a gun and blow people away, as if spontaneous despite the obvious long preparation to do that exact freakout - why? - maybe to pass the time of day, individuals just do those kind of things, right? And as for group accomplishment that is extraordinary, well, that is noteworthy only if it has the politicos and wealthy businessmen spotlighted implying they achieved the great stuff.

People-stuff is complicated.