Are there are no heroes in our world?

Perhaps, you should lead by example, by enumerating how Canada, your country, has been a role model of good international relations? Please include that whenever Mother England needs assistance from her Commonwealth Nations, someone advises Canada to join their effort. I thought Canada usually complies, since Canada is the loyal "sidekick," in my opinion to Mother England. Sort of like the Cisco Kid and Pancho, or the Lone Ranger and Tonto?

Regardless, just giving a litany of what America did that was not in JTT's liking is not the best way to teach (assuming JTT wants to teach). Teaching by example is better, I believe. So, how should the U.S. learn to emulate Canada? Join the Commonwealth Nations? However, I'm afraid the U.S. likes its independence, especially from Mother England, since the U.S. was once a colony and was not treated respectfully in that capacity, as I learned in school.

Regardless, I would like to learn how Canada might be held up as a role model, since if JTT criticizes the U.S., I would have to believe that JTT is talking from a position of being a citizen of an exemplary nation. I would not want to think that JTT is the "pot calling the kettle black."

When I mentioned the Red Baron in WWI, I am including Snoopy's cartoon version of the Red Baron. Snoopy is a hero to many a dog lover.

"was not in JTT's liking"!!??

Are you inferring that all the war crimes, all the carnage, all the terrorism that the USA has committed is in anyone's liking, Foofie?

You have shown that it is in your liking.

Good definition, Cyracuz. Thank you.

This parallels my own thinking about hroism. The true heroes are the ones who do what is necessary without any thought to their own well-being. It may involve a risk to life, it may not. That's not the point. The point is that the so-called heroic deed is the diametrical opposite of anything remotely selfish.

...you mean you believe in true altruism...I don't, and yet act like one time to time...this idea of helping others without expecting nothing is all very catholic...I personally help others when I can because I know is essential for my well being...

I believe in the concept of true altruism, Fil. I'm not at all sure that it exists in our sphere of existence.

I find this impossible to even begin to believe that's true, Merry.



Most assuredly it does not exist in your narrow, blinkered existence, Foofie.

Whatever you believe you ought to present some reason down the reply no ?
Personally I don't have a problem with believing altruism as long it fits an lets say more abstract selfish frame...and that's mainly because I believe in equilibrium, from where I stand there are no free trades of energy...cycles in nature always prove the opposite...not only direct competition as cooperation concerning for instance complex group tasks are very good for the long term evolution of a species, thus who's to say is not altruistic to expect others to be at their best and let them know it ? ...but there you go there is always a catch as I see it altruism is investment not free lunch...

Merry's [and a large number of other Americans] provided ample proof over the years, Fil. Nothing is really required from me in this respect. I realize that this is more a philosophical issue than a pointed one. I was just pointing out to Merry what an incredible hypocrite he is.

Carry on with the philosophy stuff.

You want a working definiton of hero. It is someone who is self-denying, and who always commit selfless noble deeds without false intentions, but with true purpose through overcoming adversity with little regard for themself.

People who believe there are heroes don't seem to understand, because none of them seem to understand how delusional they have become.

By such standards of these delusional gofers, even an average person with an average life is a hero.

nah...take the always out of it...to much Lord of the rings in your definition...

Although you believe in such concept, do you act on it every single moment of your life. Nope, cause you're human, and I'm human. We are weak at times, and err in our ways.

Show me a person who's been altruistic every damn second of their life, and I'll say, a hero exists.

...often heroes are quite the opposite, people who for once have a final selfless daring action in desperate situations after a life of wrongs and mistakes...redemption is a powerful cathartic feeling among social beings...

Just an antihero, is what you are describing.

Of course not. I say that in my second sentence, if you'd be kind enough to bother to read it. I said I believe in the concept "in principle." And I quite agree that you should omit the word "always" and phrases such as "every damn second of their life" from your musings. Nobody is ever just the one thing their entire lives, regardless of whether you're talking about heroes, villains, cowards or anything else. There are no universals, only individuals. And the actions of any individual are never consistent on a constantly predictable level.

Indeed. Therefore humans can not be truly heroes, nor can they be truly villains.

Humans justify their deeds from their own ethical systems or general cultural ethos. If they singularly follow their own moral codes strictly, they are the epitome of such morality. If an individual justifies everything they do by their morality, then they therefore are a paragon of their own ethos, their own fictive moral codes.
But humans are never consistent, as I've known, and as you suggested.

Society and media is a whole another case. The false label of the hero and the villain is one for social conditioning. Nothing more.

...if you mean that anti heroes are a realistic sublimation over what heroes were supposed to be and can't I agree...but don't get deluded the anti there doesn't change any of the heroics they have or what is essential to it...

Hello Shithead,

Quote me anywhere in my "rant" where I've said the person shouldn't deserve respect. Otherwise you're wasting my time.

Worst Regards.
Rorschach

To a great extent, the very concept of a "hero" is a literary convention rather than a philosophic concept. In ancient Greece, the earliest "heroes" were actually gods or demi-gods; no mortal could be expected to be that perfect all the time. The word "hero" did not come into English until 1387 . If we accept the classical definition of a hero as a virtually perfect specimen of the human race, it becomes obvious that there can be no such a thing as a hero in real life.

So, what, exactly, are we talking about here?

No it doesn't make the heroic nature in us any more sublimed that it is. What I'm getting to is that humans are dual in nature. In all of us, there is a heroic nature, as well as a savage and wild nature.