...do u mean heroes, or ppl u simply admire?
... I find I have no heroes; they have become idols with feet of clay, inspirational humans maybe, yet humans all the same, with their fears and hates and delusions like the rest of us...
Yes, I admire Lenin. Or at least, I admire the character given to me by Solzhenitsyn (sp?). Yes, I admire Neitzche, Jesus, and Siddhartha, but I still believe they might have picked their noses or had a sneaky wank. Yes, I admire Irvine Welsh, but by all accounts he's a bit up his own bum...
... believing in heroes beyond the age of six is a bit naff really, surely?
...some studies have shown that women who as girls are impressed with romantic hero type themes are more likely to tolerate domestic violence, and be passive vicitims of male aggression but that's by the by...
I have a hard time with heroism, yet impressing upon ppl notions of heroism means that some of them will then also be heroes!
that's a result for us all!
this means free police! have a go heroes! ppl who really want to join armies and potentially die! firefighters who risk life n limb to save others! suicide bombers! grasses! tattle tales! ppl who will break their backs for the good of the cause! result!
see, belieiving in this heroic ideal is a two edged sword... giving ur own life for that of others is a noble intention, but its completely foreign to most animals- it is only mothers of young animals and some humans who are stupid enough to sacrifice themselves for the good of others, and at least with the mothers of the pack we can understand their ardour...
die for others? erm, no thanks.
I die, they live, or they die, I live....
no contest really, is there? Hurrah for rationality! I am alive for a wee bit longer! ta dah!
yet- society doesn't want cowards, does it? We dont show ppl dvd's of blood and guts and let them smell the burnt flesh and the **** running down Johhny's legs as he clutches his stumps and cries for his mother like a five year old boy after he runs over a land mine in Basra. We don't show Brad Pitt crying in a trench with his best mates brains on his face blubbing like a baby, do we? of course not...
no, as the hero hardly ever gets killed in the movies, does he? he doesn't cry. He is a brave little soldier, isn't he? Its his so called acts of bravery and heroism which we notice, and we notice them because really it's presented to us as feel-good human interest stories played out against a backdrop of war...
how noble it is for Johny to fling himself over the trench onto certain death so that some government official can make money or maintain status...
how great it was that Johhny didn't get home to his wife and kids and have to suffer the indignity of being branded a coward in such a meaningful crisis!
yes, he's dead, but wow, they gave us a medal to stick in his coffin and they had a band...
u die in a big tower? u die on a plane that some loony has blown from the sky? harsh words, but that doesn't make them heroes. It makes them victims. They didn't get advanced warning, offerred any idea as to what would happen that day if they went to work or got on that plane. If they had, most of them wouldn't have gone. You die deliberately? for others? then u need to be locked up, as u are a danger to urself...
