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- Mar 5, 2005
gambit215, I did not properly explain myself so let me attempt to.
What you must understand, and what my first post was attempting to explain, is that the concept of the hero is central to the proper functioning of any civilization (in this example the United States). Every cultural system, whether it is the high heroism of a Churchill, a Mao, or a Buddha, or the "low" heroism of a coal miner, a peasant, or a priest, cuts out a role for performances of various degrees of heroism.
It doesn't matter whether the cultural hero-system is magical, religious, primitive, secular or scientific. It is still a mythical hero-system in which people serve in order to earn a feeling of primary value, of cosmic specialness, of ultimate usefulness to creation. People, including you and me, earn this feeling, this necessary feeling which sustains the desirable and elusive feeling of primary value, by carving out a place in nature. Whether one does this by building a building, nurturing a family that spans generations, fighting in a war, or building a company, humans hope and desire that the things they create are of lasting worth and meaning. That they outlive or outshine death and decay.
No matter how scientific or secular Western society claims to be, it is still as "religious" as any other. CIvilized society is a hopeful belief and protest, that science, money and goods MAKE MAN COUNT for more than any other animal. How would our modern societies contrive to satisfy such an honest demand, without being shaken to their foundations? Only those societies we today call "primitive" provided this feeling for their members. The minority groups in present-day industrial society who shout for freedom and human dignity are really clumsily asking that they be given a sense of primary heroism of which they have been cheated historically.
In the more passive masses of mediocre men, heroism is disguised as they humbly and complainingly follow out the roles that society provides for their heroics and try to earn their promotions within the system: wearing the standard uniforms-but allowing themselves to stick out, but ever so little and so safely, with a little ribbon or a red boutonniere, but not with head and shoulders.
This paragraph is not to support what that Lone guard represents (guarding the remains of unknown and thus unrecognized heroes), but rather to point out that the hero, and the myth that surrounds them, is a necessity to civilization, which is what my brief post was about.
I hope you read this and understand what I actually meant. If you do decide to respond to this post I hope you can muster something a bit better than some emoticons and a claim that I know nothing of the country I live in.
You and I agree that the concept of the hero is "patriotic kool aide" however this patriotic kool aid is just one manifestation of the concept of the hero that is found in all human societies from antiquity to present day.
What you must understand, and what my first post was attempting to explain, is that the concept of the hero is central to the proper functioning of any civilization (in this example the United States). Every cultural system, whether it is the high heroism of a Churchill, a Mao, or a Buddha, or the "low" heroism of a coal miner, a peasant, or a priest, cuts out a role for performances of various degrees of heroism.
It doesn't matter whether the cultural hero-system is magical, religious, primitive, secular or scientific. It is still a mythical hero-system in which people serve in order to earn a feeling of primary value, of cosmic specialness, of ultimate usefulness to creation. People, including you and me, earn this feeling, this necessary feeling which sustains the desirable and elusive feeling of primary value, by carving out a place in nature. Whether one does this by building a building, nurturing a family that spans generations, fighting in a war, or building a company, humans hope and desire that the things they create are of lasting worth and meaning. That they outlive or outshine death and decay.
No matter how scientific or secular Western society claims to be, it is still as "religious" as any other. CIvilized society is a hopeful belief and protest, that science, money and goods MAKE MAN COUNT for more than any other animal. How would our modern societies contrive to satisfy such an honest demand, without being shaken to their foundations? Only those societies we today call "primitive" provided this feeling for their members. The minority groups in present-day industrial society who shout for freedom and human dignity are really clumsily asking that they be given a sense of primary heroism of which they have been cheated historically.
In the more passive masses of mediocre men, heroism is disguised as they humbly and complainingly follow out the roles that society provides for their heroics and try to earn their promotions within the system: wearing the standard uniforms-but allowing themselves to stick out, but ever so little and so safely, with a little ribbon or a red boutonniere, but not with head and shoulders.
This paragraph is not to support what that Lone guard represents (guarding the remains of unknown and thus unrecognized heroes), but rather to point out that the hero, and the myth that surrounds them, is a necessity to civilization, which is what my brief post was about.
I hope you read this and understand what I actually meant. If you do decide to respond to this post I hope you can muster something a bit better than some emoticons and a claim that I know nothing of the country I live in.
You and I agree that the concept of the hero is "patriotic kool aide" however this patriotic kool aid is just one manifestation of the concept of the hero that is found in all human societies from antiquity to present day.
