- 15 Apr 2017 20:56
#14797137
The idolization or worship of a hero often comes as as a product of the hero's death at the height of their power or influence. Naming political activists, religious leaders, cultural influences, painters, musicians, and all other types of influencing people. And I think there is a problem with this, as it undermine's the humanity of the hero, having never given the hero the opportunity for their true humanity to be properly expressed. It undermines their flaws and limitations we all, as people, share. Of course these heroes are inspirational and had a significant impact on our culture and history, but the truly inspirational aspect that many people forget, and idolization actively works to undermine, is that these heroes, as heroic as their words and actions may have been, were human whose only separation lay in their philosophy, worldview, and individual will. An attainable prospect to which we can all aspire.
The problem with idolization is in how we attribute the status of hero superficially. We focus on the hero's history, origin, and circumstances and presume that because our's is so ostensibly banal that we couldn't possibly be a great writer, or a great speaker. We focus our attention so heavily on what has made these heroes so different, that we forget to focus on what made these heroes the same — so human.
The problem even extends to our pervasive and unconscious choice to preserve the 'integrity' of the hero. The teaching of a hero's story may purposefully omit many aspects of their character that would defame or bring into question the 'legitimacy' of their hero status. The close friends of Martin Luther King Jr. understood this when they assisted in burying his adultery out of fear of his message being delegitimized by his infidelity. And when the humanity of the hero surfaces into public light, many people do not hesitate to defame or delegitimize their words or actions.
We assume a definition of a hero in our culture which presumes an absence of imperfection — a higher, more ascended member of the human race closer to that of a god than of a human being, and in doing so create an image most of us feel we cannot attain. And in that we fail to ascertain the true value of a hero is in that their accomplishments were produced despite their humanity, despite their flaw, despite their imperfections — not as a product of their absence. We are all flawed, even the most prestigious and respected figures among us. And in recognizing that we offer ourselves inspiration not from an external outside figure, but from within ourselves merely as a product of being, likewise with our heroes, human. And that humanity is the true power behind the false image we project of the human hero that a tragic death often serves to circumvent.