In the perpetual melee between Orwellian history revisionists and guardians of the sacred past; propagandists and journalists; storytellers and purveyors of unadorned truth; opinion-makers and idea-makers; fear-mongers and hopeful visionaries; some precious and ultimate kernel tends to be forgotten: The people who are actually creating the events being reported or distorted, lionized or slandered, enshrined or erased, learned from or ignored. These people are Alive in a way that is difficult to express for those who live in a box of words and assumptions, and where Change might as well be the result of inexplicable divine passions rather than the decisions of human beings like themselves. But there is no magical barrier separating them and you:
See the Hero, and then be the Hero.
I. The Ancient Hero
The conception of the Hero has changed greatly over time since the concept first appeared, primarily in ancient Greek oral traditions such as the Homeric epics. Originally, the Hero had no moral connotations one way or another: There were good heroes, evil heroes, and heroes who were as flawed as any normal person. What defined the hero was eagerness to test their limits against challenges seemingly beyond their capabilities, and characterized by an honesty that would (usually) not allow them to rationalize failure.
In defeat, they may brood in self-pity for a while, but they would not make up excuses or demonize the enemies who defeated them to salvage their self-image. Rather, they would ultimately come to be filled with a passion to redeem themselves through further heroic deeds. They may hold grudges and go to ridiculous lengths on behalf of their conception of "honor," but really that is irrelevant to who they are - what drives them is not the arbitrary mores and codes they observe, but the challenge of observing them and still being victorious.
This property of the Hero is what came, over time, to change the concept from merely "one who is strong and valiant" to "one who is strong and valiant in defense of virtue," and while I am not a professional historian or classicist, it appears to me this happened quite by default. The simple fact is that it's harder to win - or at least, appears harder to win at the outset - for an ethical and humane person than for a ruthless bastard, so a good person who is victorious has achieved a more heroic feat in the eyes of Classical Heroism than a cruel and deceitful person of equal bravery.
So, without any apparent conscious design, the heroic tradition came to have a moral dimension that was originally lacking. An ancient hero of the oldest tradition would be heroic regardless of whether his "valiant" deed was to rescue a kidnapped woman or to be the kidnapper himself - the defining criteria were simply that the odds were against him, and that he succeeded without "cheating" (i.e., failing to truly challenge either his courage or intelligence).
But a hero was not foolhardy - not someone who simply ignores their limitations and blindly charges into their own destruction. Rather, he had to be ever-mindful of his limitations or risk committing hubris and inviting the wrath of the gods. And while being an agent of Change through the will and courage of his heart, and perhaps (in some cases) also the wisdom of his mind, he was inextricably bound by fate and divine whim.
The ancient hero was therefore always a tragedy: One who is both utterly free, and yet utterly enslaved. The one challenge he must always shrink from or face destruction - defying the will of heaven. Heroism in the ancient sense was thus fatalistic, and motivated by a sense of "Well, it's out of our hands anyway, so we might as well go for it." And as paltry consolation for being part of inescapable doom, the Hero is merely assured that their name will be praised in poetry - a pale shadow of immortality.
II. The Medieval Hero
With the introduction of Christianity, the Hero became both something more and less than the ancient tradition. Due to the extreme emphasis on humility and asceticism in the medieval Church, the flamboyance, will, and demonstrativeness of the pagan Hero came to be seen as impious and barbaric. Thus, even though the archetype of the Hero persisted in limited form through various stories, the Medieval Age is not considered a "Heroic Age." Piety - i.e., observance of both religious and feudal duty - became the standard of worth in the Medieval hero rather than passion, courage, intelligence, and eagerness for challenges.
The legends of Arthur would have been interpreted quite differently by an ancient audience than the peoples of the Medieval era. Lancelot would seem un-heroic or even un-manly for not simply running off with Guinevere or challenging Arthur (or a champion thereof) for the throne and the lady. But in the Medieval Christian mythos, this would be impossible because God has ordained Arthur King and Guinevere his wife, and therefore the whole arrangement is even more tightly fatalistic and hostile to the idea of the hero as an agent of change. Rather, the hero has become merely a guardian of the status quo: Defender of the faith and protector of pious virtue.
In other words, the "hero" in the Medieval era has been inverted, and become virtually the opposite of his ancient meaning: He is no longer an agent of change, but simply an ossified bulwark meant to hold the line against chaos and heathenism. This is a revealing comment on the mentality of the time, and a perfect example of its lack of creativity relative to other eras. The "hero," such as he exists in this time, is just a lifeless, unyielding statue rather than a force of nature. While they do not lack for courage and wisdom, those with passion are deemed sinful, and thus the most lionized are little more than robots acting out feudal ideals. Thus, they are not even really heroes, because they change nothing - they are just protagonists.
III. The Modern Hero
Heroism was reborn with the Renaissance and the Age of Exploration, as long-pent-up desires for adventure and new possibilities were realized. An unfortunate side-effect was that people filled with passion and lust for challenge were, once again, unleashed by social control and perfectly willing to conduct themselves like Julius Caesar marauding through Gaul despite operating under the aegis of Christianity. The Church was quite happy to encourage the savagery, as it brought new "converts" (i.e., slaves) into the fold, and added to the wealth under its control.
The Hero was no longer pious, except when politics demanded it - he was once again a far-flung adventurer, seeker after treasures for his own glory rather than for some principle, and a swashbuckling character who dares great challenges whether natural, mystical, or human. For the first time in centuries, characters who would in the Medieval era have been treated as Satanic and worthless - pirates, mercenaries, thieves, and other forms of rogue - are instead revered for their independence. It was in the early Renaissance that the first versions of the tales of Robin Hood came into being, although they take place in the Middle Ages and the term "Robin Hood" had been in earlier use as a general term for criminals.
Yet this was not a full return to the ancient ideal: Something had changed in the psyche of the archetypal Hero since the days of Heracles. He was no longer just a narcissistic, raging torrent of passion and desire for trial unconstrained by self-awareness - he was seeking to contribute something, or was at very least either aided or constrained in his desires by awareness of his affect on others. And this was not the robotic observance of pious principles, but a natural and personal awareness that sprang from within. This is how the seeds of the anti-hero and the redeemable villain were planted, and how fatalism had finally decreed its own demise.
In the 20th century, the Hero in fiction (particularly, comic books) came to be defined by a moment of choice: A point of decision where someone, whether an ordinary human being or one of special talents and powers, decides that they are going to be agents of change for good in the world. In the ancient ethos, Superman would have been indistinguishable from General Zod, or might even have been judged un-heroic for using his powers to defend weak, ungrateful people rather than ruling as their king in exchange for his protection. In the Medieval ethos, Superman would be seen as a barbarian for being guided by his own conscience rather than some tradition or ideology.
Batman, however, is the epitome of the modern hero, and more apropos of the point of this diary: A normal human being, distinguished only (apart from his financial resources) by being relatively intelligent and moral. He is, in other words, a lucky man, and yet he eschews the enjoyment of his fortune for an often thankless, dangerous, and depressing struggle to keep Gotham City alive and out of the hands of those who would enslave or destroy it. Bruce Wayne is a more Saturnine character than is typical of a Hero, and yet he clearly takes some level of enjoyment in fearlessly confronting and foiling the plots of his enemies. He is as creative in undoing these plots as the villains are in conceiving them.
But therein lies the key to an important distinction: These are all examples of "negative Heroes" - they stop other Heroes (i.e., villains) from preying on weaker people, but usually do nothing to expand the freedom and lives of those they defend. They are creative in doing what they do, but they do not create - they are simply sentinels. And the same is true of most real people who come to be called heroes - they have usually protected something or saved someone, not created something.
Thus we come across the Heroic Dichotomy: Hector vs. Odysseus. He who is mighty in defense of what is, and he who ranges far and wide in search of the possible. It is important to note that "sentinel" Heroes are not comparable to the Medieval paradigm - they defend the weak through intrinsic motivations, and a personal sense of decency and compassion, not through observance of pieties that could just as easily compel them to do things we would consider monstrous.
The Odysseus side of the equation gets short shrift in comic books, for whatever reason - in fact, it is often demonized, as "visionaries" are usually the villains - but it is the underlying basis and animus behind science fiction literature and most of the best SF visual media. These Heroes are the mythic representations of human innovation, curiosity, wanderlust, and fearless desire to know and experience the New. They are driven by the "fierce urgency of now" to change what is, and bring about things barely yet imagined. They are benign, creative forces of nature who, through the power of vision and choice, take what exists in their imagination and bring it out into the world for others to know.
IV. Frank Herbert & The Ultimate Hero
In the core tetralogy of his Dune series (Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, and God Emperor of Dune) Frank Herbert illustrates the ultimate conception and purpose of the Hero in three characters, all of whom would be regarded as villains in any dogmatic interpretation of fiction: Muad'Dib, feudal heir, terrorist insurgent, prescient dictator, and subsequently God-Emperor of a pan-Galactic totalitarian theocracy; Leto II, son of Muad'Dib - half-human, prescient, virtually immortal, and often genocidal Tyrant containing the memories of all ancestors going back to the beginning of time; and Siona Atreides, deliberately bred by Leto II over thousands of years to be beyond his own capability to predict.
In each book, the context of vision broadens, and we discover the limitations of Heroic deeds that had previously brought about what seemed to be a liberation. Muad'Dib overthrows the existing Empire through his prescience, and plans to build a better and brighter future, but is undone by the very thing that made his ascent possible: He is trapped by his own ability to foresee, caught in webs of causality that ultimately doom him and force him into the tragic, fatalistic role of the ancient Hero. He is trapped by what he knows.
Leto II, his son, is born with the entire memories of the human species already in his mind, along with all the prescience of his father. To both control and harness these abilities, he undergoes an eternally agonizing symbiosis with an alien creature that will make him virtually immortal and allow him to plan on timescales otherwise impossible. Rather than being ensnared in the webs of foresight as his father was, Leto II, now called the Worm Tyrant, carefully manages his use of prescience, playing the future like a delicate musical instrument and hiding some things from himself to avoid becoming trapped.
The Tyrant sees that humanity will become extinct unless he can free it from prescient powers, including his own, and molds the human species over millennia to create human beings who can "walk without footprints" in the domains where prescience operates, and avoid predictable behavior that would ever again allow them to come under control. His dream for mankind, which he calls The Golden Path, is an infinite future of inexhaustible surprises across infinite time, beyond the power of any vision to control or any phenomenon to destroy. And to realize this vision, he creates - through a brutal selective process over millennia - people (such as Siona Atreides) whom he cannot control, so that they will ultimately kill him and put mankind on the Golden Path.
Thus the ultimate expression of the Hero is Deicide: He or She who breaks the foundations of heaven and all previously assumed limitations to discover/create a larger and more wondrous context. If we generalize this principle, then the ultimate Hero is he (or she) who creates boundless possibilities beyond constraint, or at very least has a vision of such in mind when pursuing their objectives.
V. Real Heroes
No human being can ever literally be a Hero, because a Hero is an archetype - a fictional character designed according to the needs of narrative storytelling. But to the extent there have been heroes in history, we know that there is a basis in reality for the concepts expressed in these stories. Rescuing people from disaster or defending the defenseless against attackers is heroic, but so is walking into a room full of people trapped in their own assumptions and then shattering everything they believe in with a speech.
The greatest Heroic myths of history (and modern myths that emulate them, e.g. Tolkien) have to do with the symbolic breaking of the Old Order: Achilles abandoning his allies on the battlefield for having been insulted by a King who is technically his superior; Alexander's cutting of the Gordian Knot; even Washington's chopping of his father's cherry tree has resonance in the same vein.
Gandhi, for instance, was not a hero for preaching non-violence - the Earth is littered with the bones of people who preached non-violence and were rewarded for it by being slaughtered: He was a hero because he knew the British people well enough to know how much they value fairness, and was courageous enough to know that such a tactic would work when it had never before worked in history. He changed history, and opened the eyes of the world (including one Martin Luther King, Jr.) to new possibilities. Gandhi was not a passive observer of history, a corrupter of history, nor a whiny or caustic heckler of other people's actions - he made history as he went. Though others lied about him, his actions transcended their lies.
A hero cannot be stopped, because in most cases they aren't even recognized until they've already irrevocably succeeded. And the amazing thing to realize is that there is nothing special about a hero: They are people like anyone else, who have simply come to a point where they are aware that they have a choice, and they make that choice - they choose to change things, to find a Better Way, to create what is not there, or to stand between forces of destruction and people who haven't yet figured out that they don't have to be victims.
VI. Taking My Own Advice
This diary is not idle philosophizing from a deluded book-worm: I have thought carefully about how I can best act for change, and various ideas had occurred to me, some more potent than others. One of the most seductive ideas was that I would go on a public hunger strike until every American had healthcare - and believe me, had I gone that route, I would not have stopped short of dying or achieving the objective. In some ways, I very much wanted to do that, because it would be an amazing and powerful thing to do, even if I didn't live to see it succeed. I don't under-value my life, I was just getting bored.
Unfortunately, there were a few things wrong with the idea: (1)I would be a sub-optimal candidate for such a moral demonstration - far better for it to be a beautiful woman with a lot of friends and a likeable personality than an obnoxious, wise-ass young man who isn't very good with people, and would probably end up convincing them to root for my death. And (2)it would require total commitment, and I just have too many other interests. Which is a way of saying I'm kind of a flake, and I like to have a number of different projects going on at once so that if I get bored with one I can just pick up another one. That would be difficult if I was bedridden and delirious with malnutrition. But I am not lying or exaggerating when I tell you a hunger strike was very tempting.
Instead, I decided to write a book about the Bush Regime. Let me rephrase that - I decided to write the book about the Bush Regime. The One. The definitive work on the subject, so that when people say "He wrote the book on the Bush Regime," they'll be speaking literally, not just figuratively. In fact, I've been diarying about my research for the book for about a month now, and you can read about them (if you can stand pitiful whining about the irritations of internet research) by looking at my diary list and reading the "Operation EchoLand" and "Book Project Diary" entries.
No, there is no danger involved, unless some of the more pungent CT that gets thrown around has more validity than it appears. And I wouldn't really be saying anything new so much as clarifying and catalyzing the plain truth in an environment saturated with lies, bullshit, and delusional perspectives. But given the sheer size and complexity of the task, the environment into which the output would occur, and how depressing the subject matter is, I think such an undertaking is reasonably Heroic - at least in a nerdly sort of way, provided I actually succeed, of course. Losers and quitters can't be Heroes.
And writing the book is by no means an end in itself: It is intended as a platform and facilitator, setting the foundation for understanding the origins of current situations and acting to remedy them in full knowledge of their nature and structure. I will also guarantee that if I make any significant amount of money from the book, the possibilities for Heroic mischief will greatly multiply and become much more interesting. If you read my diaries, you know I'm an imp (a good imp, not a bad imp), so count on the world becoming a lot more interesting if I ever get rich.
VII. Be The Hero
The message here, if I haven't already made my point clear, is that you are the makers of the world in which you live, and you can either make of it something more or be content to crouch with what you have in the futile hope that entropy won't ultimately take it all away from you. It will, so you better hurry up and change the world before it does. Be fleet of foot and quick of mind, and create new history faster than liars can pervert the past in order to control the future. Be the searing edge of creation from which the world unfolds, if only for an instant.