They teach us that only a special kind of elite class can be heroic, and we have to be vain, delusional, childish or foolish to think we can be like them. — Wosret

Come back to the light-side, Luke. The first Superman comic came out the same year Seabiscuit beat War Admiral. It means that there's something Super that's latent in every regular everybody.

The first Superman comic came out the same year Seabiscuit beat War Admiral. It means that there's something Super that's latent in every regular everybody. — Mongrel

This.

But I think @Wosret's picked up on something in the air. If heroes give every regular everybody something to live up to, then some will fail, and isn't the experience of failure now seen in some quarters as something that people need to be protected from? I'm thinking of the notion that seems to be popular in education and parenting, that in a kids' athletics race, for example, everyone's a winner just for taking part, and you're amazing just for being you, and so on.

Have you noticed that one drop at a time, you're turning into a conservative? The saying advises that this happens to everybody who isn't an idiot.... but still, it's weird to see it. It happened to my little brother when his first child came along.

I think the bleeding-heart liberal response is: "Life brings us all to our knees sooner or later. There's no need to worry that a liberal agenda is going to annihilate all hardship and rob the next generation of the stress that nature requires for the creation of strength and flexibility. What we liberals are on guard against is rationalization of carelessness or malice, which may give rise to billionaires, but also creates cynicism amongst millions.

Uh... I just lost my train of thought.

That was wonderful.

Sorry this didn't have anything else to contribute but praise... But I can't make that better.

Your sentiment is echoed in one of my favorite band's song "Kill your idols"

"Cosmetic photogenic
This pain is fleeting, ring out
Mechanical the passion
Your head is bleeding, slow down

Can't keep doing this
What you want me to
Marching sheep herd said
See my broken head

Live your own life
I got myself
Out of my sight
Kill your idols

It's ugly, you see
I don't care what you think now
Forgive me, forget
Don't take the easy way out

Can't keep doing this
What you want me to
Marching sheep herd said
See my broken head

Live your own life
I got myself
Out of my sight
Kill your idols"

He seems to indicate that if you're not your own hero you can't live your own life to its fullest. By giving into the mechanical passions we get from society to worship heroes we are left weak when injured, and we are left seeking out the hero, begging them "see my broken head." So if you want to be like the heroes, you've got to "kill your idols" which I suppose to mean, critique them and surpass them and you know, not ACTUALLY murder them.

I think there's a difference between having heroes and worshiping them though. Having hero worship for your favorite actor might limit your ability to be a good actor. Having a hero-worship for Aristotle may mean you'll never surpass his ideas. But I do see Socrates as a heroic and inspiring figure so I see him "heroically" and I am inspired by that heroism. I don't worship him and disagree with him on many levels, and like Wayne Static I seek to "kill my idols" by surpassing their wisdom in philosophy.

The song, I like the lyrics.

Isn't the 'Idol' for sheep a goat.


A Judas goat was used to herd sheep, to bring them to slaughter at the slaughter house, where they would take a sledge hammer and crack them in the head stunning them. a fleeting pain, before killing them.

The hero is different in kind from the herd of humanity that follows it, from pasture to pasture, or to the slaughter house. Passion becomes mechanical, following culture's lead regardless of its direction. This is the "easy way out", no thought needed, we are all marching along in life with a " broken head", stunned.

The ugly part is in the following, it is ugly because it is blind/stunned adherence to an Ideal, a Hero, an Idol, which may lead to our own destruction. The lyric suggest that one can stop, escape. It implores us to "Live your own life", beyond the herd of humanity.

Socrates, I think, would deny being anyone's hero, but he certainly did go his own way, with his own followers and he was killed for that. The herd does not like wanderers, it goes against their mechanical " Cosmetic photogenic" values.

We can aspire to be heroic, even if we will never be a hero. A hero is made not born, I think, from someone preforming heroic acts. A demigod that is inactive is but a potential hero.

They teach us that only a special kind of elite class can be heroic, and we have to be vain, delusional, childish or foolish to think we can be like them. — Wosret

You don't read any Marvel comics do you?

Nearly every "hero" in the Marvel world is a very flawed person, who became a hero due to an accident, a mutation or somehow being talked into taking up that role. The line between "hero" and "villian" is a very narrow one and often they cross back and forth between the roles.

Deadpool... a hero? (or a postmodern philosophical perspective of "just fuck it")

X-Men... heros? (or people who by no fault or choice of their own had a mutating gene that caused them to be different than the norm... they are both hero and villian inspired by the discrimination they've had to endure, as well as the fear of being different)

The Guardians of the Galaxy... heros? (or simply some people (crooks, bounty hunters, murderers, freaks) who ended up together and happen to band together to fight off a psychopath... with the original intention to get money... units... lots of units!)

The beauty in Marvel comics is that the heros are just a flawed and are outcasts as the readers often felt themselves to be; thus have an uplifing quality about them, as well as a realistic feel to the fantasy.

Michel de Montaigne stated: "Kings and philosophers shit, and so do ladies."

You can add heros to that list as well, but if you are wearing a latex body suit that can be quite a difficult and potentially messy thing.

Meow!

GREG

I agree with JR. Women are the real heroes

You make some good points, tied into Marvel's inception was the notion that it would be unlike DC, and have flawed characters.

I haven't read any comics, no, but watched some cartoons as a kid, and the movies and stuff. I do think that they're just more fun, and relatable than DC heroes, and other heroes. They still solve 100% of their problems with violence though, which isn't instructive.

I haven't read any comics, no, but watched some cartoons as a kid, and the movies and stuff. I do think that they're just more fun, and relatable than DC heroes, and other heroes. They still solve 100% of their problems with violence though, which isn't instructive. — Wosret

Well, Professor X (Charles Xavier) of the X-Men is just the opposite, as he solves things via reasoning with the people. Now... he does have a psychic connection to people and can enter their minds and some might call this activity violent. It depends on the application of anything one wishes to mention or isolate as a skills/action and it is valued relative to the standard of measure one holds for what is violent.

In addition to this, I notice that more often than one cares to notice the concept of epiphany is often the means with which super heroes in the Marvel Universe end conflicts. It is not really a "black and white world" of moral polarities. As I said before, all Marvel characters, heroes and villains, are flawed people and indeed find themselves being tossed back and forth between being hero and villian.

One thing I really like about Marvel is that no one is perfect and no one has the perfect answer. Indeed they have to kill ass and break stuff now and then, as they are responding to an aggressive force that isn't open for reason (usually representing a totalitarian rule - Stan Lee is very anti-totalitarian), but I find in Marvel there is a realism in the moral dilemmas. Marvel questions all authority and very much questions blind faith.

Anyway...

... have you seen the X-Men Trilogy?

If not, I'd encourage it.

OK... the special effects and bombastic fight sequences tend to be what many come to see and unfortunately that is all they take away. What I have from this trilogy is a question... what are we as a human species? What is fair? What is justice? What is a monster?

The monster issue runs big in the whole Marvel Universe.

This seems to be everywhere:

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. - Freddi N

I could go into a lot of specific and deal with the person struggles of the characters within the Marvel Universe (and get this... I'm not really a big time geek in this scene), but I would not really sell heroes short in that they exclusively use violence for every answer to every problem. In fact, I find that the vast majoirty of key questions are answered via non-violent reasoning. The violence is just an illustration of the unwillingness of people to respond to reason; thus the violence is not as glorified as it seems.

Maybe I'm a bit biased here, as I view Stan Lee to be one of the greatest figures in philosophical literature.

Meow!

GREG

I mentioned earlier in the thread that I was more just playing devil's advocate, and don't really think that heroes are bad, but saw a ted talk that was saying that, and thought I'd bring it up here. I actually think that there is certainly no link between violent video games, movies, tv shows and such and real world violence, unless the demographic is five. Everyone else understands metaphor, sublimation of violent energies into games or fantasy is distinguishing it, and separation it from everyday life, and giving it an outlet. Furthermore, I think that pumping people up, motivating them getting them interested, engaged and in positive moods, without giving them specific rules, principles, or mores to live by is probably better. People need to think for themselves, develop their own discernment feel powerful, and direct that into their lives.

Also yeah, I don't think that there's anything wrong with setting the ideal with the excellent rather than the mediocre. Some people suck, get over it, sorry for them. Not really important, as all you have to do is be sufferable, and you're lovable, but being excellent makes you more respected, and treated better. Being great at this or that doesn't make you better over all, or more valuable, but people behave as if it does, and the inclination to protect people from the abuses of those that treat others as less valuable because of perceived inferiority, incompetence or lack of skillz seems just. We definitely shouldn't protect anyone from failure, but we shouldn't treat people like failures either.

So, whose your favorite marvel hero? I liked spider-man because he was funny, I used to watch his cartoon in middle school.

I think that there is an important distinction to make in this discussion, just for clarification purposes. I think that really 2 questions about heroism are being mashed into something slightly messy (although messy is quite fun). I think there is one strain asking the question: is the innate supremacy of many heroes discouraging for people who do not feel innately superior? And there is another vein along the lines of: is the existence of truly skilled and admirable people socially desirable?

To me, by separating the questions, each answer seems almost trivially simple. In essence: Yes and No. Heroes that are elevated by prophecy, by divine descent, by unbelievable ability (I make no claims about how strongly they dominate, or don't, literature and culture), are markedly "distinct". I can never beat Achilles regardless of my skill as a warrior because I am not a descendant of Zeus. Of course, the question becomes more complex when we consider the illusion of choice in character. We decide who and what we are, but those decisions are always based on factors which are not to are deciding–things such as previous mental states, genetics, and foreign influences. Is it unhealthy, then, to pursue stories in which the heroes are perhaps unbelievably kind, or have an intense passion for some goal? It seems that generally, there are forces that societally we consider achievable and not achievable. For example, we seem to think that we can instill passion, it is something everyone can have, and likewise, that intelligence is either present at birth or never to be had. I think neither of these case are realistic, that most of the time, most traits are dynamic and intelligence, for example is a combination of a striving (which we are, through a recursive definition of our selves which bottoms out somewhere outside our abilities of influence) and innate talent. The next question to ask is about the realism of heroes being different or special. I know that on a personal level, I have a bit of a hero complex, and I particularly try to make myself stand out in the ways which heroes are typically perceived to, as if that might somehow increase my chances of my self being a hero rather than someone else. But on a greater level, is it a realistic message to suggest that everyone can be hero? Or that heroic actions performed by different people are equal in their ability to improve society? Clearly, one's power is not of no consequence in this matter. Someone with the ability to save the world is in more of a position to be hero. It is easier for people like presidents and policemen to be heroes (just as it is easier for them to be villains). Nonetheless, I think that instilling in the general populace the belief that they can be heroes propagates the ordinary towards heroism. And maybe the ordinary Joe, maybe I, for example, am not well equipped to be a hero; democratizing heroism means that I am more likely to try–it means I am more likely to do my best to do what I think is important and correct.

On the issue of the flawless hero, I see no flaw. First, I do not believe that flawlessness is something that can objectively exist. It is very much a matter of what one considers flaws. For example, I think Superman looks stupid; it's a pretty insignificant flaw, but still an example. Some people might consider that fact that he ever resorts to violence–fighting fire with fire-is a flaw. Others might claim that lack of initiative in political or social matters is a flaw. Whatbeit, flaws are determined by a diverse set of morals and opinions. Now, ignoring everything I just said, a flawless hero present a paragon of society to strive towards. This is particularly useful if the hero is relatable–someone that came from origins that make many of us think "this could be me". This train of thought brings Ozymandias from Watchmen (a masterpiece of a comic) to mind; he has a self-help lesson thing claiming that anyone can be hero–it is merely a matter of determination and knowing the right steps (which he provides). This kind of hero is evolutionary–he suggests that heroes are, as they say, formed and not born. More, that they are formed not by the legendary waters of the Styx, but by tools that everyone has at their disposal. These kinds of heroes, ultimately, I think, are the kind that encourage similar behavior.

So, whose your favorite marvel hero? — Wosret

This is off-topic, but it's your thread and we know each other, so a bit of fun...

Guardians of the Galaxy... the whole group...



especially Rocket Racoon:



also...

I quite like The HULK... just smash! (Remind me of 180 Proof in the Philosophy of Religion section)



and the ultimate post-modernist anti-hero DEADPOOL!!!



counting bullets... "bad Deadpool... good Deadpool... I'm touching myself tonight!"



This craps keeps me sort of less insane than usual. ;)

Meow!

GREG

Those were great. Marvel makes some damn good movies. I liked pretty much all of them, even the ones that are considered terrible I think were alright, lol.

Perhaps the idea of the Superhero is based on the concept of family, as in the human family. The fight to protect humanity from the evils that arise, similar to the way a father & mother protect their children from harm. I mean wasn't the Fantastic 4 the 1st family?

I mean wasn't the Fantastic 4 the 1st family? — Cavacava

I have to give credit where it's due...

... the "family concept" goes back to Fawcett Comics (Whiz Comics), purchased later by DC Comics, with the Marvel Family (1942), also known as Shazam (a bit ironic as this has nothing to do with Marvel comics). This was about 19 years before the Fantastic Four Family (1961) hit the scene.



Actually the concept of "family" is one that comes up frequently in comics, but they are usually not "blood relatives".

I have more the feeling that such "families" were there to replace one's own family, as the concepts of "the misfit" or "outcast" are even more present in comics... much more so in Marvel than DC, who was more about having a "darkside"... and Whiz, who had a very squeeky clean feel to them.

Funny thing is what has endured the most has been Marvel.

One thing about Marvel...

... the Marvel world set a lot of things in NYC and not in mythical Gotham or Metropolis.

Also, the crossovers were more logical... like if Spiderman needed a lawyer he'd contact Matt Murdock (Daredevil).

I'll stop... as you can tell I'm much more a fan of Marvel, but appreciate DC.

The two worlds creators copied and stole from one another on a regular basis. Indeed they are rivials, but at the same time the biggest fanboys out of all.

Meow!

GREG