Thursday, March 21, 2013

Studying heroes

What's the stuff heroes are made of? An article in Zeit online discusses a recent German research project aimed at finding out what makes a hero tick.

The answer is complicated, so suffice it to say that "right" or "wrong", or "character" don't seem to count as much as we might want to believe.

To us, the article primarily served as a reminder of an earlier observation we had made about today's Germany.

"Hero" is used very sparingly around here. It has become an almost obsolete word after the feverish bouts of nationalism that ended in complete disaster in the last century. 

Germans are generally happy to leave the "heroes" to the US narrative and to Hollywood.

As to our personal view, we like unlikely heroes like Greek philosopher Socrates.

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