The Hero concept: What is true heroism?

In the days of the ancients, the term hero usually a son of a king who is an almost god who went around preforming feats. Heroes come in great varieties and they exist in many cultures throughout human history but like most things in this world, what is considered to be ideal in one culture is not necessarily revered in the other. While heroes are usually portrayed as being larger than life figures, they also have many vices to them that makes them human. In the Bible, David was an adulterer who killed one of his soldiers so that he can get said soldier's wife. Achillies was an arrogant, insufferable and often angry individual who commited a great taboo of not burying someone. Odysseus really wasn't that much better than Achillies but they all get better although it usually costs them.

My question and point is this, we all praise our heroes both real and fiction for being brave, strong, courageous, awesome, daring and good leaders but what exactly makes them so heroic anyway? I ask this because we all seem to have some idea of what makes someone a true hero but what exactly is true heroism?

edited 17th Jul '12 11:18:06 AM by GAP

A hero is somebody who takes risks or makes sacrifices to protect someone else, and chooses the harder road rather than betray his beliefs.

edited 17th Jul '12 2:45:58 PM by EdwardsGrizzly

I'm going to hazard a guess now and say that you'll get a huge range of possibl answers, many of which have some element of truth to them.

Here's what I come up with, your mileage may vary:

Doing what is right or necessary for the greater good, despite the presence of fear/ridicule/pressure/personal doubts. Going above and beyond the expectation of your duties. Doing what is needed or correct when no one else will.

Someone who protects other living beings and who fights for peace with mercy and love. Who sticks by their moral codes and doesn't vilify others or seek to harm them out of spite. Someone who fights on regardless of the odds or what people think of them because they know that what they are doing is right. And who goes beyond what is expected even at the risk or loss of their life.

Heroes can be flawed and can grow. They may not hit all of these things perfectly for myself. This is what I consider to be heroic however. Guanyin best personifies this image of a hero for me.

Heroism can also come in the form of a person like Samwise Gamgee. He isn't the leader and he never was; he was in fact a servant. He was brave, loyal, and very strong. He pulled up his master when he was down and kept him going even in the face of fear. Even when there seemed to be no hope at all Sam went on. He battled a giant spider and snuck into an orc infested castle all in the name of loyalty, love, and a desire to see things through. He knew he was likely going to die in the end, but that didn't fucking matter. Sam had a job to do even if he didn't feel like it was for a person of his stature and he did it far better than many would have. He had to watch over his master and insure that the world was saved and by god he did it.

Nah, that's just being a decent person.

A hero has to do what an ordinary person could -or would- not.

edited 17th Jul '12 3:13:31 PM by InverurieJones

Any attempt to correct another person's view of a hero is futile.

Apart from being on the side of the good guys, the mark of a true hero is courage.

Of course, there are many ways to express 'courage', and thus as many ways to be a hero.

A hero is a paragon of any ideology you want to lionize.

A hero is anyone who believes the same stuff and values the same things as me, but actually fights for these things (literally or figuratively).

A hero, to me, is defined by what a person is willing to risk in the pursuit of unselfish ideals.

Being willing to even risk your own life for the safety of another is just as good as actually being killed in the service of protecting another.

It's courage, which in my mind is going up against extreme challenges and adversity in the name of a good cause. Being a whistleblower on horrible things being done by ones company is courageous, because it means you're willing to risk your livelihood to see the mistake corrected and the bad guys brought to heel, regardless of if you get fired for it or not.

Doing a really good deed when you aren't in a position to lose anything isn't really courageous, unless you seriously have a lot to gain for taking the low road. Someone who sees a winning lottery ticket fall out of someones pocket, and actually gives it back to them, that's pretty damn courageous. Giving it back isn't giving up anything you already have or even risking that, but it's giving up a lot of stuff that you could gain if you had pocketed it yourself.

Integrity and risking sacrifices is courage to me. The greater the rewards given up or the greater the risk taken, the more courageous the act.

Someone who does something great in your opinion?

Plenty of people can do great things, but it doesn't make them a hero.

I would say anyone from the local concerned citizen who volunteers with the Boys & Girls Club or Big Brothers/Little Sisters all the way up to a guy who jumps on a grenade to save his friends in war are heroes of varying degrees.

That concerned citizen is giving up their free time to help mentor children, something that can immeasurably help lives in broad ways. The guy jumping on the grenade is sacrificing the greatest thing any human being can possess, their life, for his friends. They are both heroes in their own way.

What Barkey said. From the little actions like helping out when no one else will, to sacrificing one's own life for a friend or a total stranger. Being a hero usually entails some element of personal sacrifice, be it time, resources, well-being or their life.

The actual details aren't that important. It's the concept behind it that is important.

See, now I always figure that 'hero' implies something above and beyond the norm, while things like sticking to one's moral code no matter how hard, helping people and personal sacrifice when required are what I'd expect of any halfway-good person.

A hero, to me, is ultimately The Übermensch but only abiding by the greater benefit for the greater future / greater laid plans

^^

I wouldn't expect anyone to sacrifice their life for me. Or to even risk it.

Hell, when the chips are down, the majority of people aren't willing to risk their personal safety for people they don't know.

Even when it's clearly the right thing to do?

You wouldn't leave somebody stuck in a burning car, would you? Or ignore someone who'd fallen in a harbour, or was being mugged?

edited 18th Jul '12 7:48:36 AM by InverurieJones

A lot of people would, yes. Many others wouldn't. I worry about being stuck in a situation where I've fallen victim to the horrors of the bystander effect...

I can tell you first hand that bystander effect is horrific. You wouldn't believe how paralyzing it can be. It was like my arms and legs wouldn't do what what I told them.

I was thinking 'I should go and help' but some part of me kept saying 'no, not yet, wait a bit'.

Eventually somebody else moved first and I joined him, but I was so ashamed afterward that now I have a little voice in my head that waits 5 to 10 seconds then says 'Oi, shithead, that's long enough' if I haven't already started moving.

edited 18th Jul '12 8:27:27 AM by InverurieJones

I would say that heroism involves standing up for your beliefs and refusing to back down, no matter how much your ego suffers, no matter how alone you are.

It's about fighting to free the people everyone else has forgotten are enslaved, or helping the oppressed group everyone else ignores.

It's about establishing a moral code that you follow, instead of just crossing the line because it's Tuesday and you feel like it.

I've thankfully never had to deal with that in a serious situation. Save with arguments in the family when I feel I should do something to mediate...

In terms of "SOMEONE IS BEING MUGGED" I haven't though.

Which leads to my other question, is saving your friend or stranger from trouble any less heroic than fighting for your country, defending an ideal or even 'saving the world'?

edited 18th Jul '12 11:50:19 AM by GAP

To your friend or that stranger that you saved? You saved their world. That counts.

^^

All those actions are heroic, how heroic one is versus another is open to interpretation. The person who was saved will obviously think it was absolutely heroic, where as others might think the person who saved the world is more heroic.

I try to look at such things from the POV that the more people saved or protected, the bigger the net good. Also depending on sacrifice.

For me, the guy jumping on a grenade scenario is one of the most heroic, because you make a snap decision, right there, in the heat of the moment, that you know you are going to die, and instead of trying to jump out of the way and save yourself, you choose in that very moment to save the lives of your friends, knowing that you will die.

You really can't give anything up that is more valuable than your own life.

Here's a question.There have been a lot of good points about making sacrifices and risking your life (or giving it up) to save another person. But what if you fail? What if you sacrifice your life to save someone, but it doesn't work? Are you still a hero? Were your actions still heroic? I would say yes, and I imagine others would too.

Heroism is more than heroic actions. Sometimes, "hero" is used interchangably with "protagonist, but I'm using "hero" in the sense of "heroic person", as I imagine the rest of you are. I just thought it was worth mentioning.

If you save someone for a purely selfish reason, are you really a hero? To them, you might be, and the actions itself is still admirable. But to me, a hero has to have the right motivation as well. The "good guy" should be a good guy.

On the other hand, sometimes the specific heroic action is independent of the rest of a person's life. You can be a "bad" person and still do something heroic. In my opinion, it's the motive behind the action that matters, not necessarily the rest of the personality.

I also feel very strongly that a hero must stick to their moral code, not compromising their principles to make things easier. There is a trend for characters who do something horrible "for the greater good" to be viewed as heroic. As far as I'm concerned, though, a hero isn't a hero if they act like a villain. I don't view them as heroic, simply because I feel that there are some actions that are never justifiable, even for the greater good. Of course, that's not a black-and-white concept since not every situation is the same, and exactly how far is too far is a very subjective matter.

I hope I don't sound like I'm contradicting myself. Basically, a hero has to be heroic, but they don't have to be perfect, and heroic actions don't always make a hero. However, heroic actions are usually admirable regardless of how "good" a person is, although the motive behind such actions must be taken into account.