Who Is A Hero?
Gregg Zegarelli Esq.
Managing Shareholder at Technology & Entrepreneurial Ventures Law Group, PC
By definition, a "hero" is a "person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities."
A hero is an object of another person's opinion; that is, one person cannot be a hero in the first person, such a hero to himself or herself. It takes at least two persons to make a hero. The admirer and the admired.
Now, many people think that a hero is a good person, but the term "good" begs the question. What is "good" is in the eye of the beholder, such as a good warrior tends to be good at making war, and a good pacifier tends to be good at making peace. [1]
Many of us tend to think of people like Socrates, Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John F. Kennedy as heroes, because we our opinion is that they are "good" (having admirable qualities), and we tend to repress that Genghis Khan, Al Capone, Adolf Hitler were heroes to others, who thought that they were "good" (having admirable qualities). Whether we like it or not, different people have different sets of standards, developed in accordance their respective education, experience and self-interest. Some people loved Jesus, and others clearly despised him; and, while we know that many people detested Adolf Hitler, we also know that other people clearly loved him.
Therefore, it's tricky business to define a hero by an absolute standard of "goodness," as what is good for a wolf is not so good for a sheep. [2]
But, here's the thing: having a person as a hero implies the necessary element of admiration. That is, the road to heroism runs through admiration. Not everyone who is admired is a hero, but everyone who is a hero is admired. So, for any hero, we must first look to that quality in the person that is admired.
The quality of admiration is relative, not absolute, such as we know that goodness is not absolute. [*1] But, getting underneath heroism, there are two universal traits in a hero, irrespective of the definition of goodness:
Choice and Strength.
The quality of admiration roots from the fact that a hero did something difficult, made a choice, stood for a principle (irrespective of the principle's general acceptability to any or every culture). Sometimes that choice is manifested by discipline to stop when others were going, or the courage to go when others were stopping. It might be the ability to be alone when the inclination is to be in a group, it might be to study longer, to work harder, to walk farther. It might be the free choice to live when the inclination is to die, or to die when the inclination is to live.
The antithesis of choice and strength is luck. [3] Luck might be good luck, or it might be bad luck. If a person inherits great wealth from parents, that is getting lucky; but, rather, to have earned that money by demonstrating intelligence, courage and discipline, in a competitive environment, well, that is something very different. There is no heroism in luck, good or bad.
What makes people like Socrates, Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John F. Kennedy heroes to many of us is not so much about how they died, per se, but, rather, how they lived.
Heroism is found in the choices they made, the principles they professed, in conjunction with their exceptional personal power of discipline and courage.
Without the attributes of choice and strength in life, someone who dies by the hand of another is simply a victim, no more, no less. The result for any victim is tragic, but that tragedy does not per se create a hero. Death itself can make a person a symbol, but death itself is incompetent to make a person a hero.
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A hero's life, such as every person's life, will end in death, but death does not create the hero. It is the life, and how that life is lived, that creates the hero.
"Non est heros in casu." ("There is no hero in the accident."); "Non est virtus in casu." ("There is no virtue in chance."); "Heros debet facere arbitrium." ("The hero must make a choice."); "Et victimam non est heros." ("The victim is not a hero."); "Arbitrium facit heroas. Mors non facit heroas." ("Decisions make heroes, not death.") ~ grz
* Gregg Zegarelli, Esq., earned both his Bachelor of Arts Degree and his Juris Doctorate from Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His dual major areas of study were History from the College of Liberal Arts and Accounting from the Business School (qualified to sit for the CPA examination), with dual minors in Philosophy and Political Science. He has enjoyed Adjunct Professorships in the Duquesne University Graduate Leadership Master Degree Program (The Leader as Entrepreneur; Developing Leadership Character Through Adversity) and the University of Pittsburgh Law School (The Anatomy of a Deal). He is admitted to various courts throughout the United States of America.
Gregg Zegarelli, Esq.,?is Managing Shareholder of Technology & Entrepreneurial Ventures Law Group, PC.?Gregg is nationally rated as "superb" and has more than 35 years of experience working with entrepreneurs and companies of all sizes, including startups,?INC. 500, and publicly traded companies.?He is author of One: The Unified Gospel of Jesus, and The Business of Aesop? article series, and co-author with his father, Arnold Zegarelli, of The Essential Aesop: For Business, Managers, Writers and Professional Speakers. Gregg is a frequent lecturer, speaker and faculty for a variety of educational and other institutions.? 2020 Gregg Zegarelli, Esq.?Gregg can be contacted through?LinkedIn.?
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