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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3115 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for October 16, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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Split from my prior comment in the CW thread to consolidate among the people I want to ask this question: What is a hero? How do we define heroism?

Particularly, asking @minotaur @daseindustriesltd @octopus_eats_platypus @sliders1234 who all seemed to object something like "Zelensky was maybe brave but not heroic because..."

Merriam Webster gives us:

Heroic: : of or relating to courageous people or the mythological or legendary figures of antiquity : of, relating to, resembling, or suggesting heroes especially of antiquity

2a: exhibiting or marked by courage and daring

b: supremely noble or self-sacrificing

Heroism: heroic conduct especially as exhibited in fulfilling a high purpose or attaining a noble end

I'd define heroism as "Extraordinary bravery in service of a goal or cause, without undue thought to the risk of personal loss or death." It does not matter if the goal or cause is moral, or beneficial to humanity as a whole in the observer's view, the goal merely has to be noble to the hero. Even if, as @minotaur hilariously claims, Zelensky was doing it for the pussy that would still be heroic! How many other men have done that much at risk to life and limb just to get laid?

Or perhaps Hemingway describing his self-insert in For Whom the Bell Tolls says it better:

This was the greatest gift that he had, the talent that fitted him for war; that ability not to ignore but to despise whatever bad ending there could be.

I will not keep it from you then. The Pilar told me that we would all die tomouow and that you know it as well aJ she does and that you give it no importance. She said this not in criticism but in admiration.

That is heroism to me, taking the risks and consequences of one's actions as mere facts, unworthy of being invested with emotional weight. It is irrelevant that the mission they are on (blowing the bridge) ultimately was in service to a cause (Communist forces in Spain) that I might not agree with, or even that it was ultimately pointless (because the attack the mission was in support of was doomed to failure).

In addition to earlier objections: it is not, in fact, expected of a national leader to run away in case of his nation suffering a (survivable) attack.

Russians wanted to force Zelensky into this Ghani role of an opportunistic Western puppet (the way Yanukovych turned out to be, with sides reversed), Westerners seemed ready to accept that, but he was a normal president doing his duty.

And heroes are those who do the exceptional.

I split this off particularly to get away from nitpicking Zelensky/Putin/Ukraine, and talk about heroism more broadly.

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