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"Most of the people we consider heroic today were, in fact, very ordinary people who happened to be in the right place at the right time."
I agree with the statement insofar as our heroes tend to be ordinary people like us. However,
I strongly disagree with the further assertion that people become heroes simply by being "in the right place at the right time." If we look around at the sorts of people we choose as our heroes, we real/ze that heroism has far less to do with circumstance than with how a hero responds to it.
I concede that heroes are generally ordinary people. In my observation we choose as our heroes people with whom we strongly identify--people who are very much like us. In fact many of us call a parent, grandparent, or older sibling our hero. Why? My intuition is that the more a person shares in common with us----m terms of experience, heritage, disposition, motives, and
even physical attributes------- e more accessible that person's heroic traits are to us, and the
stronger their attraction as a role model. And few would dispute that we share more in common with immediately family than with anyone else.
However, the statement's further suggestion that people become heroes merely as a result of circumstances not of their own choosing is simply wrongheaded. Admittedly, circumstance often serves as a catalyst for heroism. After all, without wars there would be no war heroes. Yet this does not mean that we should lionize every member of the armed forces. I find quite telling the oft-used idiom "heroic effort," which suggests that mere coincidence has little to do with heroism. If one examines the sorts of people we select as our heroes, it becomes evident that heroism requires great effort, and that the very nub of heroism lies in the response, not in the circumstance.
Consider the ordinary person who overcomes a personal obstacle through extraordinary effort, fortitude, or faith---thereby inspiring others toward similar accomplishments. Sports heroes often fall into this category. For example, Lance Armstrong, a Tour de France cycling champion, became a national hero not merely because he won the race but because he overcame a life-threatening illness, against all odds, to do so. Of course, widespread notoriety is not a requisite for heroic status. Countless individuals with physical and mental disabilities become heroes in their community and among their acquaintances by treating their obstacles as personal challenges--thereby setting inspirational examples. Consider the blind law student who inspires others to overcome the same challenge; or the amputee distance runner who serves as a role model for other physically challenged people in her community. To assert that individuals such as these become our heroes merely by accident, as the statement seems to suggest, is to completely misunderstand the very stuff of which heroes are made.
Another sort of hero is the ordinary person who attains heroic stature by demonstrating extraordinary courage of conviction--against external oppressive forces. Many such heroes are champions of social causes, rising to heroic stature by way of the courage of their convictions; and, it is because we share those convictions--because we recognize these
champions as being very much like us----- at they become our heroes. Such heroes as India's
Mahatma Gandhi, America's Martin Luther King, South Africa's Nelson Mandela, and Poland's Lech Lawesa come immediately to mind. None of these heroes was born into royalty or other privilege; they all came from fairly common, or ordinary, places and experiences. Or consider again our military heroes, whose courage and patriotism in battie the statement would serve to completely discredit as merely accidental outcomes of certain soldiers being "m the right place at the right time." I think the preposterousness of such a suggestion is clear enough.
In sum, the statement correctly suggests that heroes are ordinary people like us, and that opportunity, or circumstance, is part of what breeds heroes. However, the statement overlooks that serendipity alone does not a hero make. Heroism requires that "heroic effort," or better yet a "heroic response," to one's circumstances in life.
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