Every generation has its heroes.
These figures all have critics, but people in almost every demographic category revere them. Their importance shapes our culture.
What about this generation, though? Our hero is more difficult to find. We could look to politics, but even President Barack Obama, who conducted one of the most inspiring campaigns in American history, failed to deliver on his out-sized promise.
Entertainment celebrities are similarly ill-suited for the role. As for entertainer-politicians; Arnold Schwarzenegger and Donald Trump were hardly President Ronald Reagan.
But the continuous success of Apple has meant that Jobs will remain in the public consciousness for a long time to come. His passing was a tremendous loss -- and the public’s unprecedented response to it -- suggests he might just be our generation’s hero.
His death has shown how the role of the traditional hero is falling and a technological innovator leader such as Jobs could be the new hero.
It might seem ridiculous to grant him this title barely six years after his death. He was an important public figure for some time, but the term hero is rather emotional and subjective.
Yet, frankly, so are the comments on his death. Business and technology leaders have responded with reverence, but so have people who have almost nothing to do with his line of work.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg remembered Jobs with eloquence: “Again and again over the last four decades, Steve Jobs saw the future and brought it to life long before most people could even see the horizon.”
So did Ashton Kutcher, who played Jobs in a less than memorable 2013 biopic: “We have all surfed on the wake of Steve Jobs’ ship. Now we must learn to sail, but we will never forget our skipper.”
Emotions also ran high at Apple stores across the country the day of Jobs' passing. When asked how much he has spent on Apple electronics, one customer simply said, “You know what, today it doesn’t even matter. It doesn’t matter. I loved them.”
Jobs’ hero status has several implications for our generation. Some of them are related to technology. Others, though, have more to do with what we will come to expect of our future leaders:
- The utilitarian days of technology are ending. Value will be determined through something more powerful than logic: feeling.
Though the last few decades have been full of rapid innovation, Jobs stood out by personalizing our relationship with gadgets. For evidence, spend an evening watching Pixar’s 'Toy Story 3' or hide your significant other's / roommate’s iPod/iPad/iPhone and see what happens.
Nowadays, it’s practically mandatory to include the personal touch.
Think about the way dysfunctional web pages look. They used to say, “404 not found.” Modern websites add in a small apologetic message, as if to demonstrate the Internet wants to say sorry.
That’s the path Jobs set us on. Judging by the way people revere his ideas, that’s the path we want technology to take. Perhaps one day we’ll shell out extra for beautiful microwaves in much the same way he once did for a new family washing machine.
More broadly, the way people idolize Jobs suggests Americans (and very likely other nationalities) are prepared for a new kind of leader.
Traditionally, we appreciated heroes who knew how to sympathize — people who listened first and acted next (or at least appeared to do so). Jobs didn’t fit this mold. His style is only traditional in the rarefied context of Silicon Valley: it was unorthodox, informal and more than a little impertinent (even brash). One of his most famous quotes is about not listening to anyone but yourself: “Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice.”
He gave people what they wanted before they even knew they wanted it at all.
These values could very well transcend the tech world. In 2008, the buzzwords of the presidential race were “hope” and “change.”
In a few more decades, they might be bolder; they might sound more like “think different.”