....I believe that we are living in an era in which there are no recognized heroes, even though we aren’t lacking real heroes, because the real heroes are vilified by cynics, the media, and politicians. Let me clarify.
By heroes I mean people with exceptional character and capabilities who put the well-being of others above their own well-being. Joseph Campbell described the typical “hero’s journey” as starting off with a person experiencing a call to adventure, then encountering the harsh realities of life, then having some successes but more importantly making painful mistakes that give them humility and sound principles for success. Then, in the process of pursuing their noble mission with others, they fall in love with the mission and with the others around them so much so that they put their mission and other people ahead of their own well-being. I know a number of such people.
The cynics are people who haven’t accomplished much themselves and stand on the sidelines while criticizing the heroes who are on their fields of battle. They arrogantly pontificate about how those on the field aren’t following the cynics’ untested and impractical approaches. Cynics also love to point to the mistakes the heroes make, ignoring the reality that all successful people make plenty of mistakes. In the process, they conjure up unrealistic images that heroes must be perfect rather than imperfect but great and much more successful than unsuccessful.
Too many people in the media are opinionated cynics with megaphones and too few are true journalists trying to report unfolding stories in a balanced way. They have strong preferences to be much more critical than complementary, especially of people who have different inclinations than theirs, often so much so that they will intentionally distort the facts to help create stories of evil people in positions of power. Because their audiences seem to revel in tearing down people in power, that approach also sells well which rewards them for such behavior.