Feet of Clay (Armstrong and Saville)

Recent developments around the reputations of Lance Armstrong and Jimmy Saville have highlighted the gap  between perceptions and the edifice these figures have constructed and reality.

Mrs T and Sir Jim

Are we all witting and unwitting accomplices in the construction of heroes with unrealisable virtues (or at least virtues without any compensating vices)?

I'm not sure that I can blow the whistle on any figure particularly but perhaps I think I am not without guilt in terms of agreeing to keep quiet about things I shouldn't have.

It is true that Saville as a working class lad born between the wars was something of dinosaur even on the 60s and 70s but there are plenty of other figures from the time who did not carry out child abuse so this does not provide the answers.

Lance and Sheryl

And Armstrong what drove him to break so many rules, was it for some approval that he did not receive previously?

While not knowing the answers to these particular  characters what we can reflect on is the further removal of innocence around public figures which might not be such a bad thing.