All nations have their heroes. Almost all people, too.
Undoubtedly, throughout history there have been heroic figures who have become examples of courage, dignity, sacrifice ...
However, the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who once recognized that his purpose in writing was to "complicate" the lives of his readers by wanting to dynamize their thinking by pushing them to question what they had always taken for granted, wondered to what extent this social tendency to cultivating admiration for the hero is good or even desirable.
Admiration leads the heroes to lie down on the sofa
“You can admire a person swimming through a canal, a second who knows 24 languages or a third who walks on his own hands. But if that person is assumed to be superior to universal values by virtue, faith, nobility, fidelity, perseverance ... Then admiration is a deceptive relationship ... What is superior to the universal must not be presented as an object of admiration but as a need ", wrote Kierkegaard.
In essence, the philosopher warns us that mere admiration for the figure of the hero, assuming he is above most mortals, is a comfortable path that leads us to lie down on the sofa. Admiring the hero thinking that he is a superior person does not produce any change in our behavior, so it is useless.
Kierkegaard, in fact, points out that "There is a huge difference between an admirer and an imitator, because an imitator is, or at least tries hard to be, what he admires". For the philosopher, admiring the hero would be the modern equivalent of giving a like on social media to a post related to a noble act. Nothing more. Once we leave the Internet, that momentary admiration for the anonymous hero no longer has any impact on our behavior.
The problem arises when admiration is largely based on the belief that there are superior people who can do things unthinkable for the rest of mortals. We admire them, but by placing them on a pedestal. And this leads us to immobility. We get caught up in admiration without wondering what we can do to put into practice the values we believe in.
Heroism as a synonym of maturity and freedom
For Kierkegaard "Admiration has no place or is a form of escape" because it does not lead to action, but becomes a kind of consolation to preserve the positive image we have of ourselves. Through the psychological mechanism of introjection, we attribute to ourselves characteristics of the people we admire. This makes us feel good about ourselves. But without having to lift a finger.
Kierkegaard recognized that every person brings with them different internal obstacles, but one of the most common is the temptation to think that it is enough to admire the Good Samaritan to become one, ignoring the possibility of becoming one out of simple laziness.
Psychologist Philip Zimbardo agrees on some points with Kierkegaard: “A conclusion from my research is that few people do evil, but far fewer act heroically. Between these extremes of humanity's bell curve are the masses, the general population doing nothing, whom I call the 'reluctant heroes', those who reject the call to action and, by doing nothing, often implicitly advocate. the authors of evil ".
Kierkegaard was convinced that being oneself is an ethical requirement that does not simply appeal to "exceptional singularities", to admired heroes, but concerns each of us.
However, dehumanization, the spread of responsibility, obedience to authority, unjust systems, group pressure, moral disengagement and anonymity are some of the social conditions that lead us to admire the hero, but in an apathetic and distant way.
Indeed, although the word hero has been popularized to refer to demigods - who had supernatural powers and, therefore, unattainable to the common man - one of the oldest theories on its etymology refers to the fact that "The hero is the one who has reached maturity and fully expresses his human condition".
In this perspective, which fully coincides with Kierkegaard's vision, the figure of the hero would be that of a person who manages to overcome his determinisms, both social and mythical, historical and autobiographical, to reach freedom and get out of that curve. bell where most withers.
So, if there is something admirable about admiration, it is its ability to reveal to us what we believe to be adequate or correct, to show us the values with which we feel identified and to give us clues about the behaviors to follow.
However, if admiration does not push us to action, if it does not lead us to perform those little acts of daily heroism, such as helping the people around us, then admiration becomes a comfort zone in which we languish falling into the simple worship of idols which Erich Fromm had already warned us about.
Sources:
Marino, G. (2022) Why Kierkegaard believed it's lazy to admire our moral heroes. In: Psyche.
Collin, D. (2021) Ethical heroism according to Kierkegaard: being true to oneself. Revue d'éthique et de théologie moral; 132 (4): 71-84.
Zimbardo, P. (2011) What Makes a Hero? In: Greater Good Magazine.
Admission Admiring heroes makes us feel better people, but it doesn't change anything, according to Kierkegaard was published first in Corner of Psychology.
