“But you’ve left out one of the chief characters: Samwise the stouthearted. “I want to hear more about Sam, dad. Why didn’t they put in more of his talk, dad? That’s what I like, it makes me laugh. And Frodo wouldn’t have got far without Sam, would he, dad?”’ Frodo Baggins encouraging Samwise Gamgee, J.R.R Tolkien, The Two Towers
I like heroes. That’s one reason why I like Tolkien’s writings. They are filled with heroes. Samwise is one of my favorites.
When I grew up, we were taught about people who made substantial contributions to the world. Many of them were called ‘heroes’. Some of them as part of American or world history were: Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Mahatma Gandhi, Dwight Eisenhower, Winston Churchill, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln. There are also the everyday type of hero; soldiers, police, firefighters and other life-safety personnel who put their lives on the line in the name of freedom, public safety, and well being. The personal kind matter also; good moms, dads, siblings, favored friends, teachers, athletes and so-on can all be heroic in their own way. Perhaps the personal ones are the most important because they affect us most when we are very young and very impressionable.
Of course, heroic or not, all people are fallible, and we need to remember that fact when we venerate them as heroes. The foibles and failures of heroes are often glossed over, either to spend more time accentuating the good things, or to minimize the failures. Perhaps this is to the detriment of the historic record and the people who learn about the good deeds of these figures. They might be disappointed when they discover their heroes are not perfect. Maybe that’s why Biblical heroes like Abraham and David are presented with their strengths and failures side by side. They show that we can be fallible and heroic at the same time. David was, after all, a man after God’s own heart.
Recognizing heroic figures is important. We are wired with a need to look up to someone for inspiration and guidance. If we don’t have moral and courageous people to look up to, we will likely become empty people without purpose, or worse yet, we will follow immoral destructive people.
Sadly, there is a contingent of our culture that is trying to remove any sense of the heroic. To them, there can be no people who stand out as individuals with extraordinary accomplishments, no heroes. This is a collectivist mindset and is dehumanizing and corrosive to the soul. In this view, heroes must be removed to elevate the collective and attempt to teach that personal agency does not matter. People of good character; courageous, wise, compassionate and substantive in their contribution to the world are minimized while self-centered, cowardly, takers and self-described victims are elevated. We can see how that works in our society today.
As for me, I’ll continue to uphold and accentuate the heroic in our society be it in fact or fiction, especially for the benefit of young people.
Random Thoughts 