Doesn't anyone here believe in heroes anymore?

[Joe Fields]

You all are much too young to be so fucking cynical and hard-hearted. When I was growing up I had a lot of heroes. Real life heroes, like my parents, like John Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy and MLK. I had sports heroes like Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Micky Mantle. I had heroes of the silver screen, like John Wayne, Spencer Tracy, Gregory Peck.

I looked up to those people, and they gave me something to believe in. And, even as I got older and found that most of them had feet of clay, I was wise enough to realize that they were human, just like me, and that they weren't perfect. But it didn't tarnish the overall feelings I had for these people, or cause me to chuck my values. Or become cynical. Why? Because they HAD performed heroic feats, and deserved to be looked up to with some amount of admiration.

I've never believed in tearing anyone down, unless they were just plain evil. Which brings me to Steve Irwin. He was one of my heroes. Yes, this 50 something year old male admired the hell out of Steve Irwin. As I stated, nobody is perfect, but Mr. Irwin displayed many of the characteristics that mark someone for me to look up to and say, "that person made this world a much better place."

Yeah, this is still a free country, and you all have the right to say anything negative about a man whose body isn't cold yet, but having that right, and knowing when to exercise it are one of the marks of maturity.

I'm surprised at many of you.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

1. Thank you for saying it so eloquently.

You are absolutely correct.
Duckie

[WindRavenX]

2. amen, bro, amen

:cry:

[johnnie]

3. Heroes are for comic books

I admire some people, but I have no heroes.

[Deja Q]

9. And sports figures who get booked several times per year by the police...

Funny how a guy who hits a ball with a stick and runs around in a big diamond-shaped circle is called a hero by folks.

Not to equate Steve with those professional losers; Steve is infinitely better!

But Steve was a tv personality who engaged in sensational acts for ratings. (the baby incident being the one everybody likes to point out...) He misfired on a STUNT he was FILMING, which resulted in his (fortunately quick) death. This is not the action of a hero. A fool, maybe... even if he did do good things, and yes he had done good things!! But he did questionable things too and it's ASININE for people to label this guy as some sort of god and the rest of us don't amount to a pile of poo by comparison.

[johnnie]

10. Well, OK....

Bender is a hero, other than that I agree with you.

[RevolutionaryActs]

4. That was wonderfully put.

You're my new hero. :)

[Joe Fields]

8. Thank you, but I couldn't stand up to the scrutiny!

[Withywindle]

5. Beautifully said...

I'm Gen X myself (37), we're supposed to be too cynical for heroes from the cradle. But I'm not, and I'm proud that I'm not. Like you said, it doesn't mean pretending the people you admire have no flaws. It means honoring their achievements and being inspired by them. (Heroes with no flaws don't inspire - they're too much above ordinary humanity to make anyone think "maybe I could do something like that!" Fortunately, these people don't really exist).

I have tons of heroes, in lots of different fields of achievement. What they all have in common is that they've contributed in some way to the increase of knowledge and understanding and compassion in the world.

RIP, Steve Irwin. I think the admiration he had from millions was well-earned, flaws and all. I think his work for the benefit of the environment will go on in some way, and that's probably what mattered most to him.

[RiffRandell]

6. Totally agree.

Shit,

I hate to think what DU would have been like when Diana or JFK Jr died had it been around.

Shit, I may have just opened a can of worms--sorry.

[Bucky]

11. Actually, relatively few are being crass.

I counted the snark vs sympathy postings in another thread. People with good taste outnumbered the ghouls about 2 to 1.

[LongTomH]

12. Glad to hear it!

Unfortunately, the ghouls and the assholes seem to attract more attention, which seems to be what they're looking for.

R.I.P. Steve Irwin :cry:

[Fox Mulder]

7. Agreed.

[Benfea]

13. I have no problem with my cynicism.

The Dune series is a parable about hero/leader worship. Even when your hero has every possible superpower you could want in a leader (super intelligence, perfect empathy, ability to defend him/herself, ability to see the future, etc.), at the end of the day he or she is still human, still makes mistakes, still has flaws, and things can still go terribly wrong.

John F. Kennedy was a failure as a hero; he was a drug-addled womanizer. But as a man? As a man, JFK was impressive as hell, warts and all. Gandhi got a little booty on the side and had a few attitudes we today would consider racist, yet he acheived something that to this day is breathtaking in its scope and daring.

You see the recognition of flaws as some kind of an attack on heroes, I see the recognition of flaws as a contrasting element that makes the virtues that much more impressive, and the men/women that much more real. Hero worthip denies humanity to the hero.

[Joe Fields]

14. No, I see attacks on, and rejection of heroes because they

have flaws.

[Benfea]

15. That's the problem with hero worship right there.

People expect perfection and get humans. Feeling betrayed, they lash out. The past tendency of the media to gloss over (or even hide) the flaws of great men led people to have unreasonable expectations of great people. The very thing you long for is what generates the backlash you decry. As I said, hero worship denies humanity to the hero.

[Joe Fields]

17. I'm afraid you didn't read my post. You have mistaken my argument.

[L A Woman]

16. Joe, I think it IS very much a generational issue

I'm in my late 30's and I'm just scraping the edge of those who still believe in heroes. Many kids who grew up after me were never even taught how to lose or win. Everyone wins. We don't want little Johnny to feel inferior, so let's give him a blue ribbon, too, even though he clearly lost the race.

The truth is - some people ARE better than the rest of us. We may all be born equally and we may all die equally, but in the middle there is a big difference in the way we live our lives and the things we accomplish.

Steve Irwin was certainly a hero to a lot of people, especially those who care about wildlife. And I imagine that to many people who grew up in the 1990's and early 2000's, he was a rather big part of their childhood in the same way that Mister Rogers was a big part of mine.

[ContraBass Black]

18. I don't think I do.

Getting to know churches and political organizations that I I used to idolize, and finding them full from wall to wall of the hatefulness, cowardice, greed, and other evil that I most despise, the idea of an ideal champion of the people embodied has become foreign to me. However, it might not take more than the action of one hero or heroine to restore it to me.

I did not follow the career or advocacies of Mr. Irwin. All I know of him is that he was a wildlife documentarian who took personal risks with animals, exclaimed "Crikey!," and was often parodied.

Why are so many people "shocked," "struck," "amazed," "surprised," "appalled," etc. about the negative responses to Irwin? I can't remember a day when several people on DU didn't piss all over something or someone I hold dear (or me myself).

[Rabrrrrrr]

19. I don't believe in heroes - I believe in people who do exceptional things.

People who do (or did) amazing things - but I don't believe in "heroes". There are only human beings, and we are all flawed.

I admire to the end of the universe Frank Zappa, Cy Twombly, David Gilmour, Mahler, Gandhi, MLK, Jr., Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Churchill, Mark Twain, Heisenberg, Newton, Hammurabi, etc.... but I would never, ever, ever pretend that they were without fault or anything less than human beings.

I admire them, I wish to be like them in a great many ways, and they inspire me: so I guess in that sense they are heroes to me, but I don't like that word.

They are very great people who have much to admire and look up to and to emulate; but they are not superhuman, ultrahuman, beyond human, or in any way sinless, unflawed, or perfect.

[Joe Fields]

21. I think we're talking about the same thing here. Only I choose to use

the word hero.

[lost-in-nj]

20. You are so right

He was crazy-wild
But he introduced people to things they never knew existed
I didn't watch him much....my Mom loved him
but what I did see amazed me.


lost