glorification
I'm thinking that our time has a severe lack of heroes.
The last time any one person was singled out as any sort of hero, it was that girl who was captured a while back...
And that was beaten down.
The only sort of person that the media has encouraged looking up to as of late are politicians. It's a sort of worship that reminds me of Stalin. Or 1984's Big Brother, whichever you may be more familiar with.
Speaking of Stalin...
I was thinking about Vassili Zaitsev and Henry Norwest the other day, which is what really started the thought about heroes once again.
It's something I think about every so often. I think the last time I ranted about it properly though was when Ray Holmes died in June.
Of course, Zaitsev lived to become a national hero of Russia, propelling them towards victory.
Whereas Henry Norwest died unnoticed by most except military historians.
Of course, not that modern Canadians would uphold a French-Cree sniper, even one whose abilities aided in our capture of Vimy Ridge... as a national hero.
A shame, really. We've become so polarized that we've begun to view extreme political philosophies as the only reasonable choices.
But I confess to a certain degree of centrism.
The lack of heroes seems to me, on one hand, a shift towards some sort of communal society. That's a good thing.
The focus of attention elsewheres and the lack of human ability to find drive without a precedent of success leads me to believe that by communal society... I mean a surrender of power by the many to the few with ambition. In essence, a fascist state.
That, obviously, is a bad thing.
These thoughts depress me just about as much as thoughts earlier during the day have... but at least they don't really concern my own life.
What do I know? I'd like to be wrong sometime. Honestly, I would.
I wouldn't have to watch planes collide with buildings and thousands of people dying, or read about the thousands starved to death because of ill-planned invasions and bombed out roads if I was wrong at least a few times.
That would be nice.
In other news: Meet the white-supremacist pop-star twins! Appealing to pedophiles and impressionable young white kids everywhere!