“Universal History, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here. They were the leaders of men, these great ones; the modelers, patterns, and in a wide sense creators, of whatsoever the general mass of men contrived to do or to attain; all things that we see standing accomplished in the world are properly the outer material result, the practical realization and embodiment, of thoughts that dwelt in the Great Men sent into the world: the soul of the whole world’s history, it may justly be considered, were the history of these.” –-Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History.
Carlyle, with his “Great Man†theory, stands in contrast to, say, Marx who believed in history determined by great social struggles and therefore more by Carlyle’s “general mass of men†than any individual leader of such. Herbert Spencer wrote this: “You must admit that the genesis of the great man depends on the long series of complex influences which has produced the race in which he appears, and the social state into which that race has slowly grown…Before he can remake his society, his society must make him.”
Are heroes made? Or are heroic people heroic regardless of circumstance? Would the qualities held by Abraham Lincoln, for example, still qualify as heroic had there been no Civil War or no slavery to emancipate slaves from?
Interesting as I remark that by my intimate nature I have always (beginning with the moment where I can recount my self-consciousness) been a Carlylean, as opposed to a Marxist.
Ashamed as I am to know close to nothing about Carlyle either than he was Scottish, I counterfeit my ascent nigh his bold idea, declaring my affiliation, positing my support. Notwithstanding the fact that a correlation between a possible Great Man and the Nietzschean Ubermensch could provide a bedrock for any aberrant fascist movement, I see this type of theory as orientated towards a positive result. I like to think that the prototype of a Great Man would be Goethe’s Faust - a character not devoid of certain flaws (usually such individuals possess a wide variety of them), but whose creative gusto alone is the key to his accomplishments on a wider scale.
According to this view, Great Men are actually the ones who shape the path of history. I’d say that they are the ones who shape the form of a culture as well. A civilisation should always be judged by its high achievers, and sparingly by the average of its population. Taken as a whole, the mass is usually an unkempt mob of soap opera watchers, with little variations depending on geography. Taken as a peak it is Plato, Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Einstein (the peak of Jewish expatriats, that is). One could say they were only skilled jiggers of words but nevertheless their works still inspire up to this day.
Usually, such people managed to get their works done despite the historical contingecies - that is, a lot of their work was a response or was directed to the social mediocrity of their kin. Jesus came from a poor background, being the son of a carpenter, Michelangelo used to be beaten by his father for his artistic inclinations, most brilliant footbal players play so they can one day evade their poverty stricken neighbourhoods. The incidence of genius individuals risen from unlikely conditions is very big. Also, the statement that “Before he can remake his society, his society must make him” contradicts itself when considering education as a circular construct. One cannot be entirely dependent on what his society gives him - otherwise he would be in no way different and could never stand up against it.
According to Nietzsche, nature always puts a genius in a prison, so as to foce him to use his genius to break out. This is the interaction between society remaking the man and the man remaking society.
I think the remark that society has to remake the great man before he can remake society is true - but the transformation the great man undergoes is less profound than the one he instigates - at core the great man rermains the same, whereas he might entirely overthrow society.
I see it as the shaping force of resistance: for example, I was just working in the garden and had to hose a stretch of soil 25 feet away. I put my finger on the end of the hose to increase the pressure and the reach of the water. It’s a simple metaphor but I think it works more or less like that with human will as well. Block it in part, and it will increase in pressure. When I look at Nietzsche himself, the blokades nature had imposed on him and the result of that, I wonder what he had been worth as a philosopher had he been born, with his intellectual capacities, in a healthy aristicratic family where he could enjoy the abundant bounty of the universe. What would he have become?
I find a couple of possible answers, and they are usually seen together. One, the willingness to be seen as wrong, and two, the unwillingness to take no for an answer. The real heros are the creators, those who have a vision and drag the complacent with them to that vision. It may be an unconventional point of vew, because Hitler qualifies under that definition, but the genius of heroism has nothing to do with positive or negative consequences. It is the willingness to act on one’s convictions that is heroic. History judges the positive or negative aspects of anyone who would dare act out their visions. My very favorite cartoon is a Calvin and Hobbs piece:
Calvin: Know what I pray for?
Hobbs: What?
Calvin: The strength to change what I can, the inability to accept what I
can’t, and the incapacity to tell the difference.
Hobbs: You should lead an interesting life.
Calvin: Oh, I already do!
After laughing at the obvious, we intuitively see the creativity, the heroism underneath…
The hero as a nostalgia, as a metaphor, represents a narration of the moral idea: great heros can be both “good” and “evil,” and are only magnitudes of romantic and ethical power toward one degree or another of absolution; creation, destruction, protestation, pascification, revolution, all forms of inspiration and engagement and virtue. The metaphorical idea of the hero is the “version of an ethical extreme,” to put it one way.
However there are two elements here that cannot be interchangeable: the story and effect of the hero publically and his personal life. Note in popular culture the hero is often struggling with personal affairs that transcend his importance to the public. He is therefore a dual personality whom, to himself, can only attribute his heroism to the successes of accomplishing his own goals against struggles that are arbitrary to his role as ther public hero. This perhaps takes a bit of the nostalgia away.
“In the end one only experiences himself”- Nietzsche
Kierkegaard also mentions a case of having been the “life of the party” at a public event, where “wit flowed from my lips” and “everyone admired me,” after which at home he felt like shooting himself. The “dash was as long as the earth’s orbit,” he said, representing the insignificance and suddeness of such a profound distance crossed in a moments reflection: what you think about me does not matter. I must judge myself, and no party will ever relieve me of that struggle. This reflection is rude and intrusive…it smacks one in the face upon arrival. It is a tragic intermission in the story of the hero.
I also think that the “hero” is the ample expression of a deed that the insufficient cannot achieve. His very elevation depends on the inequities of those who fail, and therefore the reverence of the hero is a public conviction-- it is idoltry. To notice a hero is to also acknowledge one’s own insufficiencies.
The goal of the hero, therefore, is paradoxically the attempt at ridding the world of heros, and more crucially, the instability that results in the evolution of heros and followers; the need for leaders and followers and the division between them is the problem, not the solution.
One should declare “its a shame that we have heros” rather than “how great that we have heros.”
His initiation against forces can be seen conversely as a settling of forces and turbulance. He is a bit of a contradiction if he is at each time he exists the intended “last man,” the last straw, a solution, the device by which a final change is made in a structure that was shaken. Heros exist so that heros might be overcome and no longer necessary.
Did not Conan sit lonely on his thrown with nothing to do after conquering the world?
That is what happens to heros, my friends. Don’t let it happen to you.
But are there heroes, or are there simply heroic qualities, qualities that many men share but some are simply in the right place at the right time and such qualities manifest themselves and the men holding them subsequently become famous? Such manifesting might inspire others to reveal their inherent qualities under different circumstances, maybe even profoundly personal circumstances where such heroism is never revealed to the world. In which case, the question isn’t so much whether it’s a shame to have heroes or great to have them. They just are. And they are because life is a struggle and demands heroic qualities from time to time, from all of us, famous and unknown alike.
This issue is essentially a deterministic question which, if true, relieves the metaphor in the idea of any value it once had. Part of the glorification of the hero idea originates in the idea in unison that the efforts of the hero are against odds, and this creates a dichotomy where, as I say it would be determinstic, it would otherwise be insignificant to the point of being able to credit no-one with the deed itself by concluding that heroic deeds are merely events that are destined and forlorned.
The nature of the metaphor dealing with the hero relies on the supposition that there is an activity of freewill, or in the least, free and non-reactive power. I am objecting to the traditional implication of the hero as-a-destiny and as a “pawn” of the powers of gods. Pure non-obligated alliance to a moral authority out of sheer will without any thought of personal loss or gain, this depersonalization of the idea of the hero, mistakes the value of the heroic deeds which come natural as the real struggle that makes one a hero. The personal decision and struggle with doubt, despair, anxiety, etc., are the real trials which determine the hero.
The hero cannot know he is and will become the hero, but to be famous to the public he must be fated to save us.
The hero is both “sent by God,” as the public sees it…a destiny, a fate. To the hero, he is up to his neck in personal choices and struggles.
This double-play is neccessary for erecting the plot in which the metaphor can manifest; because it is a version of an ethical extreme, as I said earlier, it obviously functions by valuating opposing moralities so that there can be the movement of heroism and accomplishment against odds. Each team and each teams hero is the representative of that particular moral virtue to its greatest power, and if this is not an effort of will and decision it is no wager…no risk…not worthy of the title of a great feat.
So you see that it is very important that part of the greatness of the hero is in the possiblity that he fail terribly, that there is much at stake and that his deeds are sweeping and passionate in their alliance to the ethical code.
The hero himself does not consider himself a hero in achieving what is natural for him, what is easy for him, but consequently what is impossible for the others. His deeds are not “morally thoughtful,” that is, he does not struggle with moral values before acting, and therefore does not contemplate long on the deed, on the decision to act and the effects, if any, on his beliefs and personal opinions. For the hero, being a hero is just another day at work. His public effects are not challenging. He is a hero with ease. Yet to the public, just as the heros deeds are exalted as the highest virtue, so to is the fact that his personal struggle, where he is faced with bigger and more difficult tasks, is entirely ignored, and the mistake is made that the hero is a hero because he has chosen to do such great feats where in reality they are not difficult at all. In reality, his heroism is in his inward choice and the weight of its consequences on his opinion about himself.
To clarify a bit better, I am saying that the element of “freedom” and the suspense that it creates in the public when the public sees the hero “suddenly seize the day” is crucial to the value of the metaphor of heroism , because the deed is not great unless it is against something, and where there is opposition there is a dichotomy. This dichotomy, I suspect, originated in the first religious metaphors where the concepts of transcendent values of “good” and “evil” were founded. Following this line of thinking the next step would be the necessary feature of freewill in the hero character who negotiates the great weight of choosing between the gods and the alliance to one or another. For this context to happen and to be in place, there cannot be any trace of ethical determism…there cannot be any fatalism, there cannot be any destiny, but there must be good and evil to be chosen and represented in the expression of the heroic deed.
Only here do I see the concept of freewill and determinism working comfortably together. The hero, to be appealing, must be determined but also one who has great big balls. And where there are balls there are risks and consequences. Consequences that must be odds.
So don’t take the beauty out of it like that, Jerry. Get off the Spinozic determinism and quit trying to make heros the expression of Gods and stuff.
You need to see that it IS BECAUSE the hero cannot know his fate, and that he struggles so intensely with his choices, that he earns the rank of hero, that he experiences and conquers himself.
Jesus Christ, Jerry, there is no fun in assuming that God made it all happen and the hero was just in the right place at the right time for an assemblage of effects to assemble and assembilate another assembly. I am not just a particle, Jerry. I am not an extension of God. I am a suspense between Gods and Devils. Something more, something greater than Gods and Devils. Like Pascal’s reed.
There has to be Gods and Devils and the fate of the world must hang in the balance. It must be uncertain, it has to be able to go either way. One must not be able to sleep at night because they are glued to the edge of their seat.
For God’s sake, Jerry, determinism will not work because freewill is the currency of the battle between good and evil!
I wouldn’t go to the movie if the hero didn’t have freewill, Jerry.
I didn’t mean to take away free will. I am not a Spinozan determinist. I’m only suggesting that heroic qualities are available to us all. We can certainly choose to utilize them. That is to say, we can act heroically. But the general usage of the word ‘hero’ seems to include some degree of fame which only comes about, I’m thinking, with unique circumstance. As I alluded to in my initial post, Lincoln may have been somebody who was going to choose to act heroically whether he was saving the Union and emancipating slaves, or balancing his checkbook. Absent the circumstances of 1860, would we consider Lincoln a ‘hero’? Even with the circumstances he certainly would not have considered himself such and I think it’s fair to say that he would be stunned to learn that in every poll taken by historians on the presidency, he’s always ranked the best. He surely fits your criteria of a hero who struggled “with doubt, despair, anxiety, etc.â€
I am only wondering whether he became a ‘hero’ because of the time and place he found himself. Maybe his heroic qualities, qualities he was going to live by and use to guide his life by regardless of circumstance, intersected with a specific moment in history thus rendering him a ‘hero’. Otherwise one must believe that it was the circumstances themselves that produced the qualities.
Maybe the question is, do heroes make the moments, or do the moments make the heroes?
Right. We are asking if particulars are universals. A simple question with a difficult solution. We would have to turn to hermeunetics I believe and attempt to ask if there is an idea of the hero and what features are universal in each particular case of heroism.
Problem is all this takes place within descriptions and if an idea actually did exist it couldn’t be reached in direct communication.
We couldn’t just announce our heros, because that would make them pets. (to modify a Derrida quote if I may)
For one to be a hero, one must first have a goal.
One must have a philosophy or a mission and one must live their life by it.
However…this mission, or goal, or philosophy…must be something important, it must be something imperative and revolutionary. It must be something that is truly beneficial for all, it must be for the greater good.
The true hero is loved by few and hated by most. Because the dedication to their goal must be a selfless dedication. The true hero must be a vassal of their own idealogy.
The true hero is not just a truth-seeker but one who has found truth and can use it not just for themselves but for everybody.
The true hero is ready to die for what they believe most…for if they do not…then their life would be pointless.
The true hero…is a rare find.
And considering all of this…if one does not aspire to be a hero, then what should one aspire to be?
*If you read a reasonably objective autobiography of Hitler’s, like John Toland’s, you will see in young Adolf an energetic and purposeful individual, and maybe even come to admire him. There’s nothing wrong with that, I still believe Hitler was a destructive maniac. I just mean to show you that when you put heart in what you do and are also efficient, you come out as somehow cool.
There was this thing a few weeks ago, where the president of my country was filmed having a drink at a restaurant with the president of a successful
football club. The catch is that the president of the club is an uncultured boor, and the president came out either as a boor himself, or as a deceitful liar, trying to gather as many votes as possible from the unkempt masses. The predictable outcome was that all analysts questioned his morality and the issue risen that a head of state should be a model of integrity as well as efficiency, meeting the general expectations of a powerful man, powerful enough to abstain from certain things - an idea close to detrop’s “version of ethical extreme”.
This is, however, one version of our hero friend, whereas I think there are at least two.
One would be the hero that is our friend - the voice of many, one who does things that you wish you could do but haven’t got the power to, one whom you want to identify with, one whom you want to hear speaking you own silent thoughts. The top of the pyramid. This guy has to be perfect, or at least to appear so. No one wants to identify with an adulterin or a cheat. The example of Parnell springs to my mind, the one who the Irish had put their hopes into, who was supposed to gain Ireland’s independency. His whole career went down the drain when he was discovered to have had an extra-marital affair; lost almost all support and eventually died in disgrace. This is when the hero has to identify with the ideal of good so as to comfort or revitalise the hopes of a distraught few.
A different kind would be the hero that he himself shapes the idea of good in your head. Sometimes by force. He’s the guy that smacks you in the head when you least expect, showing such bravado and skill that you feel a mix of awe and gelousy. He’s the artist, the football player that scores an outrageous goal in the last minute, the guy that is great without having to necessarily be so. He is not so dependent on other’s support as the pyramid guy, and therefore is less likely to be affected by moral judgement.
Sure, you’ll think : this guy is so great, cause he trudged half a day to get this slab up here. But you’ll be lloking with a conspicuous eye at the bastard who managed to do it in half an hour with a pulley. In the end, though, you’ll be using the pulley.
This is the guy I think that interests me. This is the guy who has heroic qualities that, regardless of what he’s doing with them, inspire. As a little boy growing up in Pittsburgh I idolized the great baseball player Roberto Clemente. He turned out to be a hero off the field as well, but as a little boy I didn’t know much about that part of him. I just know that when I watched him play he seemed to give everything he had to the game, diving after fly balls, crashing into the fence to make a spectacular catch, turning doubles into triples not so much by speed as by sheer will.
I had a sense even back then that this would be a good approach to life itself. What made him a hero to me wasn’t that he saved lives, won wars, changed culture, or sparked revolution. What made him a hero to me was that he was a living embodiment of passion. This was inspirational to me. It is still.
Those who inspire with the qualities they possess, regardless of their place or time in history…these I am thinking are heroes.
I think a hero is someone who is able to recognize what is important and what is less important. Yes, a hero is someone who can prioritize and because a hero can do this, it allows them the freedom to make tough decisions when others don’t… A hero is Robert Horry, NBA basketball player. Ask him why he thinks his heroic shots are no big deal, and he will tell you about his daughter dealing with a rare neurological syndrome that is similar to cerebral palsy.
Along a similar line to Thirst’s last comment Portsmouth’s highly talented striker lost his son earlier this year while on international duty at the African Cup of Nations. Portsmouth narrowly avoided relegation this season after a superb run under reinstalled manager Harry Redknapp and Lua Lua has been central to their good form, scoring good goals and leading the line superbly. To be able to put such grief to one side and focus on getting his team out of trouble shows tremendous character. Unfortunately I’ve not seen any player of the season or team of the season polls that have recognised his achievement. That’s life at a small club, I suppose.
He’s also got the best goal celebration in world football though I’m struggling to find a video of it. He did himself an injury earlier in the season after scoring an equaliser against Arsenal. news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal … 898742.stm
Now, in this clip he doesn’t do the whole thing, normally it’s three flips then a somersault. latestgoals.net/detail.php?id=1619&league=23
The second file, the goal on 41 minutes by Lua Lua.
I was reflecting on what the word ‘hero’ evokes in me. I immediately saw myself laughing, enthousiastically - at someone who finally does what no-one managed or dared to do before, but which was exacly what I wanted to be done, possibly without imagining it beforehand. I think a hero is someone who meets certain demands, who does that which many people wish would get done - not so much something which many people wish to do. This is an idol, I think. There is a difference - even if the two titles often go together.
The Kierkegaard situation of being the life of the party reminds me of something I read in ‘Journey to the end of the Night’ by Celine today - the ‘hero’ of the story, who is a genuine anti-hero, saves himself from being lynched on board of a ship by the crew and passengers by completely doing away with what he had left of his honour - putting up a show of outrageous praise for the people who threatened him (colonial officers) and thus becoming the life of the party - and in a sense a hero, because he met the demands others could not meet. But Zorro they’re not.
‘A Hero is a man who can undress a woman with a few swift strokes of his sword.’
detrop, Just trying to follow your train of thought…
Are you saying the masses don’t wan’t a hero? or wish one did not exist? Aren’t the masses/mobs the very entities that create/foster this hero worshipping environment (your average channel 6 newscasters seeking out a hot juicy story) while the hero struggles away unawares (I am assuming we’re disregarding the occasional glory hound of the poser variety). While these masses erect all devices good and evil in which to situate the hero, if only to find themselves perched at the very end of their couches with popcorn in hand and whatever soft drink would suffice, the hero does not recognize them… um, the devices specifically…well, let’s throw the masses in there too for good measure. Essentially it’s not the hero shouting, ‘wheee, look at me’ but the masses chanting, ’ it’s a bird, it’s a plane, …and so goes the story.
So, how could the masses not want a hero, if they themselves seek said entity out? Did I misread you? Why does Tina Turner’s name keep popping up in my mind?
Either because she at one time had a nice set of breasts, or because she was the matriarch of Thunder Dome. Since I am a ruthless leather-clad warrior who prefers a sawed off to a rifle and always gets the girl in the end, it is likely that you made the association between me and Mad Max, and maybe then thought of Tina’s breasts as viewed through a chain-mail blouse. I’m not sure.
All I’m saying with the hero bit is that the people would always rather not have needed a hero, just as they would have not needed politicans, leaders, enemies or tyrants for which to oppose the hero in the case that the hero opposes men or politics.
Of course there are other kinds of heros, such as the hero who discovers a vaccine or builds a machine, etc., but I’m talking about the version where the hero is involved in a moral battle, a fight against a conflict that has arised from a division in people and politics.
