“Unhappy the land that needs heroes”

-Bertolt Brecht

happy the land that has them

Who or What makes a Hero/Heroine?

Is it Within Us?Or

A Societal Choice?

By Benjamin Rosales

noun.1.a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.

A wise studentonce said:“To be honest… to be moral… to be, in essence, as close to what we consider perfect without crossing the line into irritating.”-Babak Zarin

What is a Hero?The Dictionary says:

I say: To display noble and heroic qualities is the true essence of being a hero; despite the society’s approval.

But if it’s not t he society?

Who defines a hero? What are the noble qualities of a hero?

Is it the heroes themselves?

Or the society around them?

• Nelson Mandela

Apartheid Sign

• South African Government

the answer?

US

We can define heroes and the noble qualities of a hero that previous societies could not acknowledge.

Admirable

Conviction

FortitudeValor

Self-Sacrifice

We will . . .

• Recognize false heroes

• Accept heroic qualities that others wouldn’t

• Venerate heroes that other societies haven’t

George Armstrong Custer who died at the Little Bighorn and was famously remembered as an American hero can be studied by us as a war craved and blood thirsty General.

Remembered as a Civil War and Indian Wars hero he was responsible for the highest mortality rates of any calvary in the Civil War and held responsible for the massacres of thousands of American Indians.Although considered a hero by Americans, he was

the perfect example of how society may sometimes be blind and that it takes future generations to ask “Is that person really heroic?”

Recognizing False Heroes . . .

Custer was involved in expansion of the United States to the West with the use of military power and aided in the displacement of American Indians onto reservations.

Accepting heroic qualities that others

might not . . .

Thích Quảng Đức was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist Monk who in protest of the persecution of Buddhists in Vietnam set himself on fire.

Is he a Hero?

Some Christians might say that the act of suicide would disqualify him from being a hero.

What we know is that he sacrificed himself in protest to fight for the rights of his fellow Buddhists.

Aren’t these qualities heroic?

We respect heroes for their noble characteristics.

Admirable Qualities Like . . .

Loyalty

COURAGE

Perseverance

SELFLESSNESS

But one act of heroism doesn’t make you a hero . . .

•Napoleon Bonaparte was the Emperor of France who attempted to conquer the world and waged war with all of Europe.

•He became hated and despised and was considered the Anti-Christ predicted by Nostradamus

•But Napoleon wasn’t just bad. He did do some heroic deeds. He freed the Jewish people of France from Ghettos and gave them equal rights that societies hadn’t. He also advanced scientific progress by spreading the use of the metric system across Europe.

“To me the Jews are the same as any other citizen in our country. It

takes weakness to chase them out of the country, but it takes strength to assimilate them.”

-Napoleon Bonaparte

How was someone with such a righteous view of Justice, have

the need to rule the world?

IS HE A HER0

0rA VILLAIN?

A true hero won’t just fight for himself but the welfare of the

people around him.

Thurgood Marshall was a very successful lawyer and Civil Rights Litigator.Not only did he fight for abortion rights and the end of capital punishment, he also fought for and ended segregation in public schools in the famous Brown v. Board of Education case.

In 1967 President Johnson appointed Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court and was the first African American judge to serve on the Supreme Court.

Not only did he show an immense amount of fortitude in a world of racism. He was trail blazer who was the first of his time. He fought for justice and opportunity for all and proved his detractors wrong. He left a hero’s legacy.

”(It was) the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place.”

-President Johnson

But most importantly as he made himself an iconic figure he didn’t do it out of greed, for power or money. He was an honest man. He stood up for ‘la clase baja’ that wasn’t treated justly. It is these selfless actions that make Che Guevara an international hero.

Che Guevara, who when traveling through Latin America was deeply changed by the economic injustice. He believed that it was a result of monopoly capitalism, neocolonialism and imperialism. This was basically the upper class harassing the lower class.

He believed that to have economic equality the working class must unite and form a coatilition to over throw the oppressive capitalist governments of Latin America.

Captain Chesley (Sully) Sullenberg was piloting flight 1549 when his plane had it two engines explode when running into a flock a of birds. After ditching directly into the Hudson he saved the entire crew and passengers.

Does he think of himself as a hero? This is was a man who believed he was doing his job. "One way of looking at this might be that for 42 years, I've been making small, regular deposits in this bank of experience: education and training. And on January 15 the balance was sufficient so that I could make a very large withdrawal.” –Captain Sulley

Captain Sully in an intense crisis understood the inherent danger and responded with poise and cool headedness. In doing this he saved the lives of 155 people. A feat that Superman would have a hard time pulling off.

It is not important how radical and unknown our heroes were when first introduced, maybe seeming more like villains than

heroes.

What matters is how loved, admired and emulated they are as time passes and venerated for their noble qualities.

Fin