Culture, does it influence people's notion of Heroism?
I am one of the fortunate few who had the opportunity of living two very different cultures, my native semi-conservative Lebanese, Arabic culture, and my new western, liberal united states culture.
I Could compare and contrast all types of differences including peoples dreams, life expectations, ways to attain life's goals, ways to react to different situations, but one of the most wonderful differences is peoples notions of Heroism. How the difference in our cultural, educational and religious background will affect our ideas about whom to chose as our elite. Why do people in my culture mainly idealize war heroes and religious leaders? Why do teenagers and young adults in the western society have rock and movie stars as their ultimate dream characters?
Many questions stayed unanswered as I tried to understand the innate characteristics in each culture that will eventually shape our notion of Heroism. As I remember from my early childhood, war was going on around our small house in Beirut. Life back then will never be a nice thing to remember, yet I can almost see the wall in front of me with big pictures of war heroes, religious leaders, ethical icons and different people many of which in a way started that war. Years past by and the war ended; yet you can still see the same pictures in our small house and almost in every small house in Lebanon. These are the people that we should look up to. These are the ones who we should follow, and try to imitate. These were our heroes.
And once upon a morning I ended up in the United States. Life is never the same here, dreams are never the same and sure people are never the same. Pictures on the walls are different now. There is no place here for an ethical fanatic or a social reformat to lead people. Young boys and girls will never try to idealize a war hero; they know nothing about wars. They will never immor...