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uppityperson Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-07-05 05:06 PM
Original message
What is a Hero?
I hear this word and wonder what the meaning of it is.

Is it someone who does something to win a sporting event when their team was behind? Is it someone who is killed by a random, or not so random, event, becoming a hero by simply dying? Is it someone who does their job which is a dangerous job? Is it someone who stands up for what they truly believe in, even though that opinion may not be popular, or is difficult to hold? Is it someone who has a disease and gets treated, regardless of the outcome? Is it someone who has a disease, gets treated and dies? Is it someone who has a disease, gets treated, maintains their humaneness throughout the disease and then dies or not? Is it a person who is rich? Is it a person who struggles to do something beyond what most of us would do or be able to do if in their position?

What is a hero anyway?
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AuntPatsy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-07-05 05:17 PM
Response to Original message
1. Using the term Hero is pretty relative is it not? Good question
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bryant69 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-07-05 05:21 PM
Response to Original message
2. I think the real heros are internet bloggers
Hint Hint

No actually, I think a hero is anybody who inspires you to be better than you are - Hero's can't exist without being observed and heroized? Does that make sense.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com
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ayeshahaqqiqa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-07-05 05:22 PM
Response to Original message
3. I have my own definition
and wrote an article about it called "True Heroes" which you can read at

http://www.geocities.com/ayeshahaqqiqa/heroes.html
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polmaven Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-07-05 05:36 PM
Response to Original message
4. I'm not sure I can define it,
but I think we know one when we see one. The man who ran TO the burning plane in Toronto to help get people out of it....HE is a hero.
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Son of California Donating Member (467 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-07-05 05:38 PM
Response to Original message
5. I've been bothered a lot
by the way the word Hero has been thrown around really loosely since 9/11. I heard a lot of people unthinkingly refer to all the victims from that attack as heroes. Some where, no doubt, the ones who kept a cool head and tried their best to help the people around them, but I would say that majority of the people who died on 9/11 were not really heroes, but just regular people in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I think a real Hero is someone who does amazing things and gives people hope, who does the right thing at a time when the wrong thing was a lot easier to do, who speaks truth to a corrupt power, who saves lives, who opposes tyrants, who is brave and acts when others are too afraid, who sets the bar just a little bit higher and demands and inspires better from the people around them.

In WWII, my grandfather volunteered over an over again for missions that were considered suicide. He survived every single one -that is Heroic. So I am sure there are plenty of heroes being created by this unheroic war -ironically, I am sure, many men are becoming heroes not by fighting, but by showing restraint and saving innocent lives -you see, sometimes a hero is a hero, not because he fights, but because he chooses not to fight, when it is for the greater good that he not.

I really think that the word 'hero' has been cheapened in the last few years, by means of misguided patriotic propaganda. I don't think every single person who signs up for the military is necessarily a hero -they are brave and conscious of duty on a level that approaches heroism -and at the risk of sounding calloused, I don't believe you become a hero just by losing your life in battle, but I think the true heroes are the ones who go far beyond what was expected, who accomplish things that should have been beyond the reach of a mere mortal.

T.E. Lawrence did that. So did Che Guevara. So did Beethoven, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Christ.

when politicians cheapen the word, and throw it out every time they want to make a patriotic sounding speech, they make it harder for people to realize that there were, in fact, men and women who pushed back the boundaries of human capacity in ernest, who accomplished and inspired godlike achievements.
We cannot lose this incredibly important Mythos and Archetype. It is the tiny kernel of hope inside all of us when we stand before an seemingly impossible task that also just happens to be the right and just thing to do. We look up into the pantheon of stars and see a deaf man writing the most beautiful music ever, an asthmatic fighting victoriously in a balmy climate that should have killed him, or a gentle, benign, emaciated man bringing an entire empire to it's knees.
We look up and say, "It can be done: nothing is impossible."
That is the potency of the Hero -and we cannot let the politicians destroy that.
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uppityperson Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-07-05 05:53 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. Thank you for putting it so well.
Being a victim does not make you a hero. Using the word wrongly has cheapened it. Thank you for what you write. I am glad to see others feeling the same way and able to express it well.
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orpupilofnature57 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-07-05 07:07 PM
Response to Original message
7. The doctor ,in Ibsen's " Enemy Of The People"
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riverrunner Donating Member (16 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-07-05 07:08 PM
Response to Original message
8. someone who knows the responsibility
that comes with freedom
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Ellipsis Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-07-05 07:12 PM
Response to Reply #8
9. Gee, I thought it was a sandwich.
But, I see your point.


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uppityperson Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-07-05 07:28 PM
Response to Reply #8
11. Dupe
Edited on Sun Aug-07-05 07:29 PM by uppityperson
sorry.
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uppityperson Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-07-05 07:28 PM
Response to Reply #8
12. Someone who accepts and acts on that responsibility with dignity.
welcome to DU!
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fighttheevilempire Donating Member (183 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-07-05 07:21 PM
Response to Original message
10. Cindy Sheehan. Read up on her - now THAT'S what a hero is. n/m
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texanwitch Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Aug-07-05 07:29 PM
Response to Reply #10
13. Beat me to it.
Cindy Sheehan is my hero. :patriot:

Cindy is doing her son proud.

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