Who are your Heros....

[Gurtie]

no, I've gone to reply several times, and my hero's seem to be generally scientists and activists, I think - Galilao, Darwin, The Pankhursts, Bill Clinton (that last for his eco campaigning rather than for other political reasons), Caroline Lucas (for sticking with it through all the ridicule)

But all my hero's are definitely flawed, and its made me wonder what actually constitutes a hero. For example I tend to agree with RC that just being a soldier or a fireman is not the definition of a hero. But actually hero's are really personal - I don't get why at least half the names in this thread are peoples hero's so it has made me wonder if I have any right to say "bollocks - just because you got a crew cut and can march 30 miles does not mean you're a hero"?

Too profound for 9am.  I'm off to raid the biscuit tin...

[dogboy]

Well, let me add some thoughts to what I said...

I don't really think actors are heros, I think the characters they play are heros, and just like sports heros (ex michael jordon), these heros are important because in a sense they symbolize the something much bigger.

We create sports and actors and attribute immense value to them, in astronomical real dollar terms, because we purposely put them in struggles and watch how they react. Its entirely voyeristic. In one sense, it's just a game, or a movie, but in another, it's not. The affects are measurable and emotions are connected in ways among large groups of people, only seen elsewhere in the form of religion or politics. Your team wins, the city is elated. Your team looses and the city sinks.

For me, heros are people that I want to be, or have qualities I wish I had. Your heros in other words, define who you are in some extent, because they reflect your value system, and they provide you a yardstick with which you can measure your own accomplishments. 

[ergophobe]

I don't really think actors are heros

Depends on the actor, doesn't it? I know what you're trying to say - don't confuse the person with the characters he or she plays. But for a lot of people, for example, Newman is a hero because of the way he lived his life. A friend was a United first class flight attendant met lots of celebrities and felt that Newman was the nicest one and of course he supported good causes, took good roles, raced cars just because he loved it and had more money than God so he could.

Same with Ali. Great boxer, but the reason Ali is a hero and Tyson is not has nothing to do with the ability to take down an opponent. For Ali, it has to do flare in and out of the ring, but what really catapulted him to the ranks of "hero" were his courageous stands on civil rights and his willingness to risk jail and sacrifice the world heavyweight title because he believed the war was wrong.

Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I'm not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn't have to draft me, I'd join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I'll go to jail, so what? We've been in jail for 400 years.

My conscience won't let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people, or some poor hungry people in the mud for big powerful America. And shoot them for what? They never called me gentleman, they never lynched me, they didn't put no dogs on me, they didn't rob me of my nationality, rape and kill my mother and father... Shoot them for what? How can I shoot them poor people? Just take me to jail.

10,000 people might have said the same thing, but without being world heavyweight champ, it wouldn't mean anything.

To me, most often, heroes are people who stand in the raging river, but they are the rock and  stand where they stand no matter how much water rages around them.