Myth of the Modern Hero by Bownas Jane L.;

Author:Bownas, Jane L.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782845171
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Published: 2017-10-18T00:00:00+00:00

FOUR

Extreme Altruism and

the “Heroic Imagination”

In previous chapters I have shown how the mythical signifier ‘hero’ has been applied to many different concepts resulting in the production of many different signs, the Homeric warrior hero, the American patriotic hero, the soldier hero, the freedom fighter, the resister, the state-sanctioned hero and the heroic leader. One concept to which the signifier ‘hero’ has more recently been applied, and has for many people come to be the idea of the ‘hero’ with which they most readily identify, is that of the person who is ready to risk their own life for the sake of others. An organization very much involved with increasing awareness of this type of ‘hero’ is the Carnegie Hero Fund which was set up in America in 1904 by Andrew Carnegie and Silas Weir Mitchell with the aim of recognizing ordinary people who undertake extraordinary actions on behalf of others. Mitchell had made a study of what he called ‘extreme altruism’ and used the word ‘hero’ to describe someone, usually a civilian, who voluntarily risks their life while saving or attempting to save the life of another person. In the previous century, those designated as ‘heroes’ were predominantly military leaders who fought and often died for their country’s honor, but one condition for the award of a Carnegie medal was that the recipient should be an ordinary civilian rather than part of an organization such as the army which expected its members to behave in a suitably ‘heroic’ manner. Becker and Eagly in their research paper of 2004 comment that the usual dictionary definitions of ‘heroism’ which emphasize ‘courage and risk of one’s life as well as nobility of purpose . . . do not clearly indicate that it is the conjunction of risk taking and service to a socially valued goal that yields heroic status’. They continue, ‘people who take risks merely for pleasure or to attract attention, as in extreme sports are not deemed heroic, nor are people who serve valued social goals without risk to their own life or health’.1 Becker and Eagly, along with the founders of the Carnegie Hero Fund, are obviously adopting their own definitions for the signifier ‘hero’, but for many people the great sportsperson who brings honor to their country, or the doctors and nurses working under extreme pressure in the British National Health Service also qualify to be signified as ‘heroes’. The difficulties encountered in defining the word ‘hero’ and the fact that most people who use it, although having a vague feeling of what the word might signify, choose to adopt their own definitions to suit their own purposes, means that the signifier ‘hero’ becomes a true mythical signifier with no natural meaning.

Herbert Spencer, writing in The Study of Sociology, attempts to explain why people have a preoccupation with ‘remarkable persons and their doings’, attributing this to the handing down of stories about warriors and men of action from primitive societies to modern times, examples being Homer’s stories of Greek warriors like Achilles, and stories of mythical heroes like Sigurd in the Old Norse Edda.

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