Template:Heroes

Heroes admired

Heroes exemplify cherished values, display qualities we admire, show us how to overcome challenges – and call us to stand up for others. They help build a better world for us all. ... Talking to your children about heroic qualities (empathy, courage, compassion, sacrifice of self for causes which are measured more important than personal comfort) and all the people who are displaying those qualities right now sows the seeds of those social virtues in the minds of your children.

When that admiration degenerates to veneration there is a danger of the development of hero cults

Hero cults like the philosopher Epicurus can lead to a form of public religion like the Imperial Cult of Rome which degenerates the people of society through its covetous practices and raises the power of government to dangerous levels.

Yet the stories of heroes can remain an important part of the development of the next generation if a healthy approach to all social virtues is maintained.

Killing Heroes

Tearing Down Statues Of Heroes is an attack on the courage of the next generation.

Tear down those heroes, focus on their frailties rather than their achievements, and you rob your coming generation of a natural path to the development of social skills and values.

Carl Jung's idea of archetypes inherited as unconscious images, ideas, or thoughts, are retained in our genetic memories through our common experiences warns us that affirmation of those values comes in stages of development of the human mind.

Those images include both heroes and demons. If we are robbed of our heroes, we are left with our demons.

Our first heroes are those who rescue us from the elements of hunger and pain while we are helpless in our crib. From that nurturing and protection, the love, appreciation and admiration of all heroes and heroines begins to grow.

"The legacy of heroes — the memory of a great name, and the inheritance of a great example." — Benjamin Disraeli

Presumably our parents and caregivers, even brothers and sisters, touch the roots of those genetic connections of our ancestral past.

The sacrifices of untold generations of our ancestors remain recorded deep in the cells of the human genome and call to be awakened in each of us to forge the heroic pattern and pathways in our own DNA.

The stories of heroes reveal and reaffirm those values and moral qualities, reinforcing our views of right and wrong. Our popular stories and fables serve a didactic purpose, showing us the desired behaviors that are needed to succeed in life and society, and defeat those demons or destructive elements of the world.

“Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory there would be no civilization, no future.” — Elie Wisel

Heroes grow in us as we grow to become adults we admire. In the love of our cherished heroes loses its unknown sting.

"The brave die never, though they sleep in dust, their courage nerves a thousand living men." — Minot J. Savage

They are our model and may cause us to physically reject the qualities of those who fall short of those heroic dynamics.

Heroes save us and are admired. If we are to receive approval and admiration, it is the superhero who becomes our inspired model. Or just society’s heroic protectors – police officers, firefighters, doctors, nurses, paramedics, or soldiers.

"Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die." — G.K. Chesterton

Life's problems are common experiences for the participants of society. Heroes are likely by their stories to inspire us to overcome whatever adversity may challenge us, or we may be required to face.

"Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering." — Theodore Roosevelt

Their stories strengthen us emotionally and spiritually before disaster even occurs.

They give us hope from a reservoir that is independent of our own experiences. That hope can give us light in the dark places of fear and loneliness.

The stories and adventures of the heroes of our history may overtime reinforce our merely learned moral ethics, blazing a trail for our thoughts and emotions to follow. By the instilling in individuals those essential social values through stories repeating in our minds and dreams until a psychological and emotional pattern of faith is ingrained within us until our timidity is pushed aside and our frailness is forearmed.

"This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave." — Elmer Davis

Knowing the stories of those who faced death in the trials of our past history gives us their courage to face the trials of our present. Hearing the tales of heroes told in admiration and reverence imparts a sense of immortality, at least to them. Hearing of the courage and sacrifice of the heroes from our past who survive in the admiration of our fathers and mothers, the heroes of our own childhood, allows us to grow in the light and memory of their courage without fear so that our own sacrifices do not give way to those demons that feed upon fear in the day of our own trial.

"There can be no mercy without truth."

The heroic myths are not mere entertainment but reset the human mind to those honored patterns of our past which can give our personal freedom meaning and a singularity of purpose which spans the history of humanity.

Heroes have solutions which save society through willing services and sacrifice.

Heroes have one or more social virtues like wisdom, courage, patience, mercy, or desire for justice. They tend to the weightier matters of righteousness

To kill the heroes of our history or those heroes and heroines of our myths and medias is to strangle the hope of the natural development of our youth, our next generations.

In destroying the treasured and admired heroes from our past, we are left at the mercy of Demons and Devils who know not mercy.