The Fall of Heroes…

August 18, 2008 by Aspen Eggimann · 4 Comments 

…And How to Raise Them Again

“In an age that would level everything and reverence nothing, I light my candles at the shrines of great men.” -Will Durant

I was once sitting in a room of about thirty youth. They gave their names one-by-one and told us who their hero was, as a way of introduction. As the moments passed my faith in our future began to fade.

Who were the heroes named? The Hulk, because he is green, Homer Simpson, Dwight from The Office, Superwoman, no truly great person was named. No figure with moral character and genius. The great men were entirely gone.

How Our Heroes Fall

New Social Icons
In an age of mass media and cheap entertainment, we are bombarded by stories, facts, faces, ideas and advertisements, and this bombardment has created casualties that are sometimes unseen but no less real. And those dying are not the weak but the strong. Those dying are the heroes.

Our society kills heroes. Those past and present are buried in a landslide of information and social icons without morals or genius. Most people know more about Britney Spears and her custody dispute than they do about our Founding Fathers. (Case in point, Google “Britney Spears” and you will find 45.5 million hits, compared to the 15.5 millions hits for “George Washington.”)

How can the actions and stories of the great shine through to our lives when all our thoughts are taken up with the latest actors scandal? How can we possibly remind ourselves of the actions of great men and women when what we see from our public figures is mediocrity at best and degeneracy at worst?

Buried History
In the past the stories of history were repeated in vivid epics about the lives of great warriors, artists, statesman and saints.

Now history is taught through the lives of the masses, and not the actions of the great. Dates and facts are piled on a student with no enlivenment from stories of brave souls and great minds. We recognize no heroes in history because our democratic dogma of leveling all men has made the giants nothing but common men.

People as a whole have an aversion to great men. For whatever reason we like to make lesser what is actually greater. We are ashamed of the mediocrity of ourselves and so try to tear down the greatness of other. Even names of the past, which are separated from us by time, are “humanized.” So often you hear of the Founding Fathers stories starting out with a list of all their faults and ending with a statement indicting how normal they were.

How does this happen? How can we stand in complete awe of the wonders of nature and the advancement of technology and yet look straight past the wonder of all the ages, a man or women who has changed the world?

Society Without Heroes

What happens to a society without heroes? What happens to people without a heroes’ light by which to see?

We cannot rise to that which we know nothing about. Without the stories and a belief in heroes we have limited ourselves to a lower state of behavior. Simply by denying or not knowing about a higher standard set forth by heroes. The effects are such that we have no leadership for the decision in our lives; there is no standard by which to judge others or ourselves. Worse, we settle with the standard of popular culture, no matter how far fallen or how second rate.

3 Ways to Resurrect Gods

1. Tell the stories
Stories are the lifeblood of individuals and civilizations at large. Stories have held together the past and the present for all of time and molded the aspirations of men. From the Bible to the storytellers of Native American tribes, civilizations have used stories to lift their people.

As Durant said in A Shameless Worship of Heroes,

“I see men standing on the edge of knowledge, and holding the light a little farther ahead; men carving marble into forms ennobling men; men molding peoples into better instruments of greatness; men making a language of music and music out of language; men dreaming of finer lives, and living them. Here is a process of creation more vivid than in any myth, a godliness more real than in any creed.

“To contemplate such men, to insinuate ourselves through study into some modest discipleship to them, to watch them at their work and warm ourselves at the fire that consumes them — this is to recapture some of the thrill that youth gave us when we thought, at the altar or in the confessional, that we were touching or hearing God.”

2. Expose Yourself to Greatness
Do not be afraid of greatness! Embrace it, learn it, and do not be uncomfortable by it. Delve into the great classics that allow you to rub shoulders with character and passion. Doing so may sharpen your sense of mediocrity and weakness within yourself, it will also start a fire, the same fire that warms those great men and women and drives them on.

Exposing yourself to greatness and genius is where life is made, where the godliness of man shown. Who knows but in that exposure to genius we may catch fire from its sparks.

3. Be the Hero
There is, in fact, only one sure way that heroes will continue on through our history and in the lives of our children — by becoming heroes ourselves and leaving a legacy of greatness.

There will always be a need for new heroes. Light the candle and hold it at the edge of knowledge, at the edge of the known, and lead out for the others. Hold the torch a little further along the road of history and others will take it up when you are gone.

Move the Cause of Liberty by (1) subscribing to the Sentinel, a free weekly newsletter boldly illuminating the principles of freedom in a darkening nation, and (2) pledging your Life, Liberty, and Sacred Honor to the Cause by signing the Declaration of Dependence.

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Copyright © 2008 by The Cause of Liberty. All rights reserved.

Filed under: Culture, Education, Heroism, History, Human Nature, Leadership
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Embrace Your Weaknesses

February 28, 2008 by Stephen Palmer · Leave a Comment 

We waste so much time and energy lamenting our flaws and weaknesses. If only I was taller, we think. If only I could sing better. If only I was a faster reader. If only I was a more persuasive public speaker. If only I didn’t have to wear glasses. If only I could run faster and jump higher. If only…

If only we could realize that our weaknesses are hidden pearls, possible goldmines of opportunity and success. Then we could fully submit to God, accept — rather than resist — our current state, embrace our weaknesses, and unleash our potential. Our weaknesses, far from being annoying obstacles, can be precious keys that open the doors to our success, wealth, and happiness.

Valley ForgeIt was precisely the weakness of the American army during the Revolutionary War that led Washington to be creative, to innovate and beat the British the only way that they could have been beaten. Thomas Jefferson was shy and considered himself a poor public speaker. Is it any wonder, then, that he found his voice through writing, and produced one of the most powerful political documents in all of history? Louis L’Amour began as a second-rate writer, and his numerous rejection slips propelled him to travel the world and work various jobs to gain the experience and insight that led his treasured tales of adventure.

Jacques Lusseyran, a leader in the French Resistance to the Nazis, also found his greatest strength because of a weakness.

At the age of eight, Jacques lost his sight in an accident at school. The result? “I began to look more closely,” wrote Jacques in the classic And There Was Light, “not at things but at a world closer to myself, looking from an inner place to one further within, instead of clinging to the movement of sight toward the world outside.”

Jacques developed an inner sensitivity, a deep intuition about people and events that was unparalleled amongst his peers. When the Nazis invaded France, Jacques rose as a natural leader in the resistance movement, organizing six hundred youth to distribute pamphlets and flyers exposing Nazi atrocities.

Without his “weakness” of being blind, Jacques would not have developed the internal fortitude and piercing discernment that his duties necessitated. “Sight is a miraculous instrument offering us all the riches of physical life,” Jacques wrote. “But we get nothing in this world without paying for it, and in return for all the benefits that sight brings we are forced to give up others whose existence we don’t even suspect.”

Intrinsic to the universe is a divine scheme of compensation: our greatest strengths coexist with our most glaring weaknesses. However, this cannot be discovered if our energy is spent primarily on animosity towards our weaknesses. Trying to overcome weaknesses with animosity is like fighting fire with fire.

The fires of weaknesses can only be extinguished by the water of acceptance. We must accept and embrace our weaknesses, and therefore open ourselves to the possibilities within our weaknesses, if we wish to overcome and profit from them.

The things that we resist with animosity grow and are magnified; the things that we love and accept are transformed in and through love. The more you resist your weaknesses by disliking them, the further you stray from the wonders that could be yours, and from fulfilling the critical mission that you were born for.

What are the things that you dislike most about yourself? Pay special attention to these, for these things are the seeds of your greatness.

Move the Cause of Liberty by (1) subscribing to the Sentinel, a free weekly newsletter boldly illuminating the principles of freedom in a darkening nation, and (2) pledging your Life, Liberty, and Sacred Honor to the Cause by signing the Declaration of Dependence.

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Filed under: Heroism, Human Nature, Leadership, Personal Mission
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