What Is A Hero

I'm reading a lot about heroes these days. The media keeps reporting about this hero or that who in truth seem not so heroic at all, and as a result, I am confused as exactly what hero is.  Just the other day my local newspaper said a guy who jumped in a shallow river and pulled out a swimmer who was in distress was a "hero". Since that rescuer was in no peril himself I don't call him a hero. There has to be some grave risk on the part of the person if he or she is a hero. And can a person be a hero if he or she commits only one "heroic act", but is ordinary or even meek the rest of the time?  I always thought heroes were predictable, that you could count on heroism from them whenever it was needed. And that implies that there must be very few heroes out there.

The poet Ralph Waldo Emerson had a good definition of a hero. He wrote once that a hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer. It's probably as good a definition as any because heroes have always been defined by the times in which they lived. Our own confused age is reflected by the fact that there is no universal definition of a hero today, just as most things in our lives are viewed from a relative standpoint so are "heroes". How do you identify a real hero in an age of moral relativism? It's not easy.

Everyone would probably agree that heroes exhibit certain qualities. Bravery, courage,  selflessness, a sacrifice, perseverance are all heroic qualities. But non heroes can exhibit those, for the wrong or bad reasons, too.  Some of the worst thugs in history had all four of those qualities present, yet their behaviors were so cruel we would not consider them to be heroes. Then again, misguided people in Libya who supported Mummar Ghadaffi probably identified him as a hero.

Sometimes we only regard public figures as heroes, a child may regard the football star who wins the game  as a hero. But when that child is grown and mature he will long have forgotten the football "hero" and defined a parent or someone else who is unknown to the public as a hero.  And what about the patriotic types who claim that soldiers are heroes. Surely, not every soldier is a hero. Being placed in danger does not constitute heroism. Maybe those who make soldiers heroes just do it because they need someone to be a hero in the confusing world in which we live.

I suppose there will never be a universal definition about who is a hero because heroes are not real anyway. They are more often just creations of our imagination that we use to help us cope with our "ordinary" lives