What Our Love for Dolly Says About Us
- 2 hours ago
- 6 min read
“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.”—Dolly Parton
Absolutely everywhere I turn today, I’m hearing accolades about Dolly Parton who died in Nashville yesterday (a friend - thank you, Suzanne, sent me a beautiful tribute of one of her most famous songs, I Will Always Love You done by Jon Batiste).
Dolly was only a few years older than I am, and she grew up less than an hour from where I grew up in Morristown, Tennessee. Her childhood home in the Smoky Mountains was close enough to feel like part of my own East Tennessee landscape.
I recognized the poverty she described, the mountain culture, the importance of family, the music, the faith, and the humor people used to get through hard times.
Now people across the country are mourning her. Flags are flying at half-staff!
Musicians, politicians, teachers, parents, children, and ordinary people are sharing stories about what she meant to them. The response has been unusually widespread and affectionate.
I was on the treadmill this morning when John returned from his hike up the hill despite the yucky smoke from the Little Giant fire (We are celebrating he could make that hike since his twelve-foot ladder slipped and took him with it on Friday!).
“What are you doing there on the treadmill without any television or music going? What are you thinking about? He asked.
“I’m thinking about Dolly Parton.” Then I told him some of her quips which made him laugh. But this is what I was really thinking about.
What does our love for Dolly Parton say about us individually and as a country?
The question matters because psychologists who study heroes tell us that the people we admire act as moral mirrors. Our heroes do not merely show us whom we like. They reveal what we believe a good and meaningful human life should look like.
Researchers in the psychology of heroes, argue that heroes help satisfy our need for hope, meaning, wisdom, inspiration, and growth. Heroes generally serve three functions: they lift us up, protect us, and provide moral models. They do not simply entertain or impress us. They show us something about how a human being can live.
Our choice of heroes can therefore reveal our values. But simply asking, “Who is your hero?” is not enough. We must also ask, “What is it about that person that you admire?”
The parts that made me choke up about Dolly Parton were that she created the Imagination Library providing millions of free books to young children. She did this because her father could never read or write and was always embarrassed by it. She started giving out free books, 1 a month, to children in her home county, Sevier County; now they are distributed worldwide. When I tried to contribute today, the website was wonky...I suspect from many like me trying to honor her with a contribution.
Dolly started a “buddy program” for seventh and eighth grade students. The school had a 36 percent dropout rate. The program which partnered buddies to motivate each other took that percent down to six! The program expanded into other areas as well.
But the thing that probably choked me up the most was the big check she gave for Moderna research when everyone was scared to death of COVID and the vaccines. She took a shot of the Moderna vaccine herself for all to see.
People did not love Dolly only because she had a beautiful voice, wrote memorable songs, or appeared in popular movies. They loved her because of what she did with her gifts.
Researchers call people like Dolly moral exemplars. They give us a living picture of qualities such as kindness, courage, and generosity. A list of virtues can feel abstract. A person turns those virtues into a story we can remember.
Dolly also possessed something especially valuable in a self-important age: she could laugh at herself. Here are a couple of the quips I shared with John.
“It costs a lot of money to look this cheap.”
When asked whether she was offended by dumb-blonde jokes, she replied, “I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb. And I also know that I’m not blonde.”
People like Jonathan Haidt have studied an emotion called moral elevation. It is the warm, uplifted feeling we experience when we witness unexpected goodness, courage, generosity, or self-sacrifice. Moral elevation can bring tears, goosebumps, a feeling of warmth in the chest, renewed hope in humanity, and a desire to become a better person.
Admiration says, “What an extraordinary person.”
Moral elevation adds, “That person makes me want to live differently.”
Dolly created both responses. We admired her talent, but we were elevated by what she did with it.
Other research on role models adds an important insight. Exceptional people inspire us most when something about their example feels attainable. A person who appears completely beyond our reach can leave us feeling inadequate. A relatable hero helps us imagine a better version of ourselves.
Most of us cannot write “Jolene,” sing before thousands of people, build Dollywood, or give away millions of dollars. But we can imitate the pattern of Dolly’s life.
We can notice people who are overlooked. We can give what we have. We can help a child read. We can retain our humor. We can refuse to treat other people as inferior. We can use whatever influence we possess to make life a little better for someone else.
Heroes give us what psychologists sometimes call a script for action. “Be generous” is an admirable instruction, but Dolly showed us what generosity can look like.
Of course, admiring a hero does not automatically make us more heroic. Inspiration can fade. We may praise generosity without becoming generous, celebrate courage while remaining silent, or honor kindness while continuing to treat people harshly.
Heroes can also be imperfect. Mature admiration does not require us to pretend that any human being was flawless. The question is whether a person consistently embodied qualities worthy of our attention and whether those qualities call something better out of us.
This is where the public response to Dolly gives me hope for America.
We are living in a time when cruelty often masquerades as strength, humiliation is treated as entertainment, and public attention frequently goes to people who are loud, angry, and contemptuous. It would be easy to conclude that those are now the qualities Americans value most. I have honestly wondered and worried about that.
Then Dolly dies, and millions of people stop to honor a woman remembered for kindness, generosity, humor, humility, loyalty, courage, and service.
To me that honoring and grief are a testimony of our American, maybe even our human values.
It says that despite our divisions and cynicism, we still recognize goodness. We still want public figures who are generous and good-spirited. We still understand that greatness is not measured only by what a person achieves, but by what that person gives.
The breadth and diversity of the mourning matters too. Dolly was loved by people who agree on almost nothing else. Conservatives and liberals, rural people and city dwellers, churchgoers and people suspicious of religion all found something to cherish in her. In 2019, The New York Times ran a story with the headline “Is There Anything We Can All Agree On? Yes: Dolly Parton.” (Evidently according to some polls 80 percent of Americans feel favorably toward Dolly.)
Heroes do not automatically make us better. But they can awaken our moral emotions, clarify what we believe matters, expand our sense of what is possible, and give us examples to follow. When a large and diverse population admires someone for kindness, generosity, humility, courage, and service, that admiration is evidence—imperfect but genuine—that those values remain alive in our culture.
It does not prove that America is living by those values.
But it shows that we have not stopped longing for them.
And longing is not nothing. It is often where moral renewal begins.
I once was in a retreat where we listed three people we admired and why we admired them. It was very revealing. Perhaps we can honor Dolly and move us closer to the good life personally and collectively by asking ourselves:
· What quality in Dolly do I most admire?
· What does that admiration reveal about the person I want to be?
· What could I do today to put that value into action?
And when we do that, we may just find out more about who we are and do it on purpose as Dolly suggests. And we may find light even on a smoky day.
How might we use the research on heroes and moral elevation and the real life of Dolly Parton to nudge forward the best in ourselves (and to appreciate our fellow Americans) this week while the flag flies at half-staff?
You may want to read the Wikipedia entry on Dolly Parton. I guarantee you will find some very interesting tidbits (her mother had 12 kids by the time she was 35!) and perhaps a smile or two.
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