Douglas Adams on the English–American cultural divide over “heroes” | Blog

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Douglas Adams on the English–American cultural divide over “heroes”
January 14, 2026

In 2000, Douglas Adams made an interesting observation that I keep returning to.
A user on Slashdot named “FascDot Killed My Pr” had asked the following question (where HGttG = Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy):

Comedy….or Tragedy?
First, a big thank-you. You’ve made a lasting contribution to “our” culture (or should that be “culture”?)
I first read HGttG in my early teens. I doubled over laughing the whole time. I read and reread the entire series, bought both Dirk Gently books AND Last Chance to See. Loved them all and wouldn’t trade having read them for anything. (btw, the first mental ward scene in Long Dark Teatime is a no-foolin’, all-time classic.)
However, a few years ago I was talking to a (then) classmate. Very smart, philosophy-major type. He said (paraphrased) “I thought that HGttG was depressing. Such nihilism.” At the time I thought “Hmmm…I didn’t SEE a black beret on his head….”. But every reading of the series since then his comment has struck me as more true–especially in the case of Arthur Dent. In fact, far from being funny, I now find Dent’s character depressing–he’s not just a loser, he literally has no control over his life at all (except in So Long for a while). And the control he does have does him no good (e.g. Earth is destroyed while he’s trying to save his house.)
So my question is: When you were writing these books did you feel you were being gaily whimsical or did you instead feel frustrated and cynical?

Douglas Adams replied with:

I suspect there is a cultural divide at work here. In England our heroes tend to be characters who either have, or come to realise that they have, no control over their lives whatsoever – Pilgrim, Gulliver, Hamlet, Paul Pennyfeather (from Decline and Fall), Tony Last (from A Handful of Dust). We celebrate our defeats and our withdrawals – the Battle of Hastings, Dunkirk, almost any given test match. There was a wonderful book published, oh, about twenty years ago I think, by Stephen Pile called the Book of Heroic Failures. It was staggeringly huge bestseller in England and sank with heroic lack of trace in the U.S. Stephen explained this to me by saying that you cannot make jokes about failure in the States. It’s like cancer, it just isn’t funny at any level. In England, though, for some reason it’s the thing we love most. So Arthur may not seem like much of a hero to Americans – he doesn’t have any stock options, he doesn’t have anything to exchange high fives about round the water-cooler. But to the English, he is a hero. Terrible things happen to him, he complains about it a bit quite articulately, so we can really feel it along with him - then calms down and has a cup of tea. My kind of guy!
I’ve hit a certain amount of difficulty over the years in explaining this in Hollywood. I’m often asked ‘Yes, but what are his goals?’ to which I can only respond, well, I think he’d just like all this to stop, really. It’s been a hard sell. I rather miss David Vogel from the film process. He’s the studio executive at Disney who was in charge of the project for a while, but has since departed. There was a big meeting at one time to discuss, amongst other things, Arthur’s heroicness or lack of it. David suddenly asked me ‘Does Arthur’s presence in the proceedings make a difference to the way things turn out?’ to which I said, slightly puzzled, ‘Well, yes.’ David smiled and said ‘Good. Then he’s a hero.’
In the current, latest version of the screenplay, I think that Arthur’s non-heroic heroism is now absolutely preserved, and I’m pleased with the way he works out.

(Douglas Adams Answers (Finally) - Slashdot)
I think I have more to say about this, and will try to come back and add more here, but meanwhile a few things at random:

As a matter of fact, I have read The Book of Heroic Failures (1979) with great enjoyment. (Post from 2011 — I only wrote four sentences of my own, but one of them was “Too many books have been written in praise of competence; this book provides an antidote by celebrating failure as only a British author can.”)

I think he is right that this goes over better (generally speaking) in England than in the USA. Of course one can make jokes mocking failure, but someone who fails does not automatically become endearing (in a kind of everyman way) in America the way they would in England. It seems to me that Americans are more likely to feel either contempt or pity than to feel kinship: or at any rate, they regard the failure as a setback or interesting circumstance, rather than the natural/default state of the world. (As someone who is neither American nor English, I am of course not someone whose opinions you should pay any heed to.)

As we live our lives, are we merely victims subject to winds of chance and external circumstance, or are we powerful agents fashioning our own stories, making our own luck? Obviously the answer is “both”, but perhaps the most distinctively American trait is to lean more towards the latter.

Douglas Adams meticulously explores a fundamental cultural divergence between England and America, specifically regarding the perception of heroism and the acceptance of failure. The core of his argument, as articulated in his response to a Slashdot user, centers on a distinct English sensibility regarding characters like Arthur Dent from *The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy*. Adams posits that the English celebrate defeat, withdrawn observation, and a lack of control—qualities exemplified by Dent—while American culture tends to prioritize competence and actively seek to overcome adversity.

The impetus for Adams’s reflections stems from a direct question regarding his intent during the creation of the *Hitchhiker’s Guide* series. He confronts the assumption that his work is merely “whimsical” and instead reveals a deeply cynical, perhaps even melancholic, perspective. He highlights the apparent disconnect between the American expectation of a heroic protagonist—someone with agency and a clearly defined goal—and the reality of Arthur Dent’s experience. Dent’s story is defined by catastrophic events thrust upon him, a frustrating powerlessness, and a tendency to grumble rather than triumph.

Adams’s argument gains significant weight through his reference to Stephen Pile’s *The Book of Heroic Failures* (1979), a book that achieved immense success in England yet remained largely unnoticed in the United States. Pile’s book, according to Adams, perfectly encapsulates the English appreciation for acknowledging and celebrating failure as a fundamental aspect of the human condition. This concept, Adams explained, is deliberately absent from American comedic sensibilities, where failure is often viewed with either condemnation or pity, failing to evoke a sense of empathetic kinship.

The difficulty Adams experienced when pitching his work to Hollywood further illuminates this difference. The persistent questioning regarding Arthur Dent’s “heroicness”—specifically, whether his presence influenced the narrative’s outcome—reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the series’s core. David Vogel, a Disney executive, repeatedly probed Adams regarding Arthur’s agency, demonstrating a desire for a traditional hero. Adams countered by asserting that Arthur simply wanted things to stop, a sentiment that aligns with the English appreciation for a character resigned to circumstance— a fatalistic acceptance mirroring the country’s historical narratives of battles endured and defeats faced.

Ultimately, Adams defends his creation by insisting that Arthur's non-heroic heroism is preserved in the current screenplay, a deliberate effort to authentically capture the English perspective. This highlights a deeper philosophical divide: the American inclination to actively shape one’s destiny versus the English tendency to acknowledge the limitations of control and find solace in accepting the inevitability of misfortune. The story, Adams suggests, isn't about achieving victory, but rather about recognizing the inherent absurdities of existence.