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 because he wanted to invigorate their thinking and push them to question what they had always taken for granted, wondered to what extent this social trend to nurture admiration for the hero is positive or even desirable.
Admiration leads to heroes lounging on the couch
“One can admire a person swimming across the channel, a second knowing 24 languages, or a third walking on his hands. But if that person is supposed to be superior to the universal values for virtue, faith, nobility, fidelity, perseverance… then admiration is a deceitful relationship… What is superior to the universal should not be presented as an object of admiration but as a requirement,” Kierkegaard wrote.
Basically, the philosopher warns us that the mere admiration of the figure of the hero, assuming that he is above most mortals, is a carpeted path that leads us to stretch out on the sofa. Admiring the hero thinking that he is a superior person does not usually lead to any change in our behaviors, so it would be quite useless.
In fact, Kierkegaard points out that “There is an infinite difference between an admirer and an imitator, because an imitator is, or at least strives to be, what he admires”. For the philosopher, merely admiring the hero would be the modern equivalent of giving a ‘like’ to a post about a praiseworthy act on social media. It goes no further. Getting out the Internet, that momentary admiration for the anonymous hero has no further impact on our behavior.
The problem arises when the admiration is largely based on the belief that there are some superior people who can do unthinkable things for the rest of the mortals. We admire them, but placing them on a pedestal. And that leads us to immobility. We get caught up in admiration without asking ourselves what we can do to put those values we believe in into practice.
Heroism as a synonym of maturity and freedom
For Kierkegaard “Admiration has no place or is a form of evasion” because it does not lead to action, but rather 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. That makes us feel good about ourselves. But without having to lift a finger.
Kierkegaard recognized that each person carries 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, while ignoring the possibility to become one out of simple laziness.
Psychologist Philip Zimbardo agreed on some points with Kierkegaard: “One conclusion of my research is that few people do evil, but far fewer act heroically. Between those extremes of humanity’s bell curve are the masses, the general population that does nothing, whom I call the ‘reluctant heroes’, those who reject the call to action and, by doing nothing, often they implicitly support the perpetrators of evil.”
Kierkegaard was convinced that being oneself is an ethical demand that is not addressed simply to “exceptional singularities”, to those admired heroes, but concerns each and every one of us.
However, dehumanization, diffusion of responsibility, obedience to authority, unfair 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.
In fact, although the word hero was popularized to refer to the demigods – who had supernatural powers and, therefore, unattainable for ordinary humans – one of the oldest theories about its etymology refers to the fact that “The hero is the one who has reached maturity and fully expresses his human condition”.
From 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, in order to achieve freedom and get out of that bell curve where most wither.
Therefore, if there is something admirable in admiration, it is its ability to reveal to us what we consider adequate or correct, to show us the values with which we feel identified and give us some clues about the behaviors to follow.
However, if that admiration does not impel us to action, if it does not lead us to carry out those small acts of daily heroism, like helping the people around us, then admiration becomes a comfort zone in which we languish as we fall in the simple worship of idols that 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 morale; 132(4): 71-84.
Zimbardo, P. (2011) What Makes a Hero? In: Greater Good Magazine.
