1
00:00:03,080 --> 00:00:05,920
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff

2
00:00:05,960 --> 00:00:15,080
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey wasn't the stuff to blow your mind?

3
00:00:15,120 --> 00:00:18,200
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lam and my name is Christian Sager.

4
00:00:18,480 --> 00:00:20,480
Speaker 1: So a question that I think a lot of us

5
00:00:20,480 --> 00:00:25,000
Speaker 1: are asking ourselves right now is who are heroes? Or

6
00:00:25,040 --> 00:00:28,479
Speaker 1: maybe that's something that every generation asks him so, but

7
00:00:28,480 --> 00:00:30,920
Speaker 1: but especially it just it feels like right now like

8
00:00:31,120 --> 00:00:33,920
Speaker 1: people are wondering like, could I be a hero? Who

9
00:00:33,960 --> 00:00:37,919
Speaker 1: are my heroes? Uh? What? What is a hero? Like?

10
00:00:37,960 --> 00:00:40,600
Speaker 1: What do we even mean when we say that? Right? Yeah,

11
00:00:40,680 --> 00:00:43,279
Speaker 1: or don't be a hero? We often yeah, that can

12
00:00:43,320 --> 00:00:46,800
Speaker 1: here that that phrase thoughts about every time I'm trying

13
00:00:46,840 --> 00:00:49,559
Speaker 1: to stop a bank robbery, somebody tells me, don't be

14
00:00:49,600 --> 00:00:52,239
Speaker 1: a hero. Well, this is a It's interesting. This is

15
00:00:52,280 --> 00:00:54,640
Speaker 1: something we'll get into because it kind of boils down

16
00:00:54,640 --> 00:00:57,400
Speaker 1: the nature of the hero. The hero is an individual

17
00:00:57,440 --> 00:01:03,520
Speaker 1: who stands outside of expectation and traditions, social norms, and

18
00:01:03,720 --> 00:01:06,600
Speaker 1: we love the hero. But when you start trying to

19
00:01:06,600 --> 00:01:10,240
Speaker 1: to boil down exactly what a hero is, even if

20
00:01:10,280 --> 00:01:14,040
Speaker 1: you just if you set aside say literary traditions, mythic heroes, etcetera,

21
00:01:14,040 --> 00:01:17,240
Speaker 1: and you just try and say in daily life. What

22
00:01:17,440 --> 00:01:19,600
Speaker 1: is a hero and what what is heroism? And what

23
00:01:19,680 --> 00:01:24,560
Speaker 1: makes a person heroic? It gets tricky. Yeah, It's almost

24
00:01:24,680 --> 00:01:28,399
Speaker 1: like the qualities that would make up a hero are

25
00:01:28,440 --> 00:01:31,520
Speaker 1: also qualities that we may I guess depending on your culture,

26
00:01:31,880 --> 00:01:35,400
Speaker 1: but we may associate with somebody that's kind of a jerk. Yeah,

27
00:01:35,440 --> 00:01:40,280
Speaker 1: I mean, it's entirely time dependent. It's entirely culture dependent.

28
00:01:41,040 --> 00:01:44,400
Speaker 1: You know, one one culture's heroes and other cultures, um,

29
00:01:44,440 --> 00:01:48,320
Speaker 1: you know terrorist one time. And and by time as well.

30
00:01:48,320 --> 00:01:50,440
Speaker 1: I mean, some heroes stand the test of time and

31
00:01:50,840 --> 00:01:55,600
Speaker 1: last for centuries even millennia. Other times, the heroes here,

32
00:01:55,800 --> 00:01:59,600
Speaker 1: uh heroic nature in their heroic reputation doesn't even like

33
00:01:59,680 --> 00:02:03,280
Speaker 1: last beyond their own lifetime. Yeah. So when we were

34
00:02:03,320 --> 00:02:05,800
Speaker 1: researching for this episode, I found this quote in one

35
00:02:05,840 --> 00:02:09,720
Speaker 1: of the papers from Lord Tennyson's poem The Charge of

36
00:02:09,760 --> 00:02:13,520
Speaker 1: the Light Brigade, which everybody knows this quote, but maybe

37
00:02:13,720 --> 00:02:16,880
Speaker 1: not that that's where it came from. There's is not

38
00:02:16,919 --> 00:02:19,640
Speaker 1: to reason why theirs is, but to do and die,

39
00:02:20,160 --> 00:02:23,960
Speaker 1: which encapsulates the heroic duty of the soldier, and it

40
00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:28,400
Speaker 1: also suggests that the motivation for heroic action doesn't really

41
00:02:28,480 --> 00:02:32,560
Speaker 1: come from reason or rationality, right, and so that's part

42
00:02:32,639 --> 00:02:35,560
Speaker 1: of what we're going to examine here today is really

43
00:02:35,560 --> 00:02:38,000
Speaker 1: looking at We're gonna break down and look at, you know,

44
00:02:38,160 --> 00:02:41,880
Speaker 1: what heroes have meant through myth which is something that

45
00:02:41,960 --> 00:02:44,119
Speaker 1: Robert and I have covered on the show before. There'll

46
00:02:44,160 --> 00:02:47,720
Speaker 1: be a little overlap with our previous episodes on mythology

47
00:02:47,760 --> 00:02:50,960
Speaker 1: but also culture. And then there's this fantastic paper that

48
00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:55,000
Speaker 1: we read by Franco Blow and Zimbardo Uh that really

49
00:02:55,240 --> 00:02:58,440
Speaker 1: breaks down the modern definition of what a hero is

50
00:02:58,480 --> 00:03:01,440
Speaker 1: and then empirically studies with a group of people to

51
00:03:01,480 --> 00:03:04,600
Speaker 1: try to get their interpretation, and it turns out that

52
00:03:04,720 --> 00:03:08,480
Speaker 1: the um what they thought a hero was wasn't what

53
00:03:08,639 --> 00:03:12,160
Speaker 1: their study group. Yeah, it's a fascinating paper and we'll

54
00:03:12,200 --> 00:03:15,560
Speaker 1: definitely get into it. Uh. Just to to throw this

55
00:03:15,600 --> 00:03:17,880
Speaker 1: out though at the beginning, if you're looking for just

56
00:03:18,400 --> 00:03:21,359
Speaker 1: quick and easy definitions of heroism, you often see it

57
00:03:21,440 --> 00:03:24,880
Speaker 1: summed up as anyone who acts in a pro social

58
00:03:24,919 --> 00:03:28,640
Speaker 1: manner despite personal risk. So keep that in mind as

59
00:03:28,680 --> 00:03:32,200
Speaker 1: we start rolling through the you know, the mythic, the legendary,

60
00:03:32,520 --> 00:03:36,760
Speaker 1: um storytelling, human psychology, all the different avenues that one

61
00:03:36,840 --> 00:03:40,280
Speaker 1: might explore um the hero. So as we're doing the

62
00:03:40,360 --> 00:03:44,480
Speaker 1: research on this, I found myself thinking back to an

63
00:03:44,480 --> 00:03:48,320
Speaker 1: old girlfriend of mine. This is strange, but but she

64
00:03:48,720 --> 00:03:51,760
Speaker 1: had she acted like a hero one day, and when

65
00:03:51,840 --> 00:03:55,040
Speaker 1: when I was thinking about the definition of it, I thought,

66
00:03:55,200 --> 00:03:57,040
Speaker 1: the only person I think in my day to day

67
00:03:57,080 --> 00:04:00,320
Speaker 1: life that I've encountered that's been heroic is this woman

68
00:04:00,320 --> 00:04:03,040
Speaker 1: that I used to date. Um This one time we

69
00:04:03,040 --> 00:04:07,280
Speaker 1: were on a bus and there was a guy sexually

70
00:04:07,320 --> 00:04:11,160
Speaker 1: harassing a woman across from us. He was just really

71
00:04:11,200 --> 00:04:15,000
Speaker 1: like leering and kind of like purposely sitting next to

72
00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:17,440
Speaker 1: her and like rubbing up against her, and the the

73
00:04:17,480 --> 00:04:20,920
Speaker 1: woman who was being harassed was traumatized. She was very upset,

74
00:04:20,960 --> 00:04:23,279
Speaker 1: but also like very meek and just didn't talk and

75
00:04:23,360 --> 00:04:25,840
Speaker 1: was just kind of curling up. And my girlfriend at

76
00:04:25,839 --> 00:04:30,320
Speaker 1: the time got up physically went over, uh, confronted the guy,

77
00:04:30,960 --> 00:04:33,160
Speaker 1: and then when he stood up, sat down in the

78
00:04:33,200 --> 00:04:36,719
Speaker 1: seat and made sure that he didn't continue it. And

79
00:04:36,760 --> 00:04:39,960
Speaker 1: she didn't like cause an altercation or anything, but she

80
00:04:40,120 --> 00:04:42,200
Speaker 1: just made sure that she that the other woman was

81
00:04:42,240 --> 00:04:45,640
Speaker 1: safe and felt like, you know, like she was I

82
00:04:45,680 --> 00:04:48,960
Speaker 1: guess protected, and that could have gone any number of

83
00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:52,080
Speaker 1: bad ways, right and at the time, and and to

84
00:04:52,200 --> 00:04:54,920
Speaker 1: this day. I mean it's been probably twenty years since

85
00:04:54,920 --> 00:04:59,120
Speaker 1: this incident. I h I think to myself, why didn't

86
00:04:59,120 --> 00:05:02,960
Speaker 1: I do that? I could have done that and I didn't. Um.

87
00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:06,520
Speaker 1: And there are situations now, especially like you know, we've

88
00:05:06,520 --> 00:05:08,240
Speaker 1: talked about on the show before about how there's a

89
00:05:08,320 --> 00:05:11,160
Speaker 1: rise in bullying right now, where I think to myself, like,

90
00:05:11,240 --> 00:05:13,000
Speaker 1: I need I need to be the person who does

91
00:05:13,040 --> 00:05:16,159
Speaker 1: that if something like that happens again in in my

92
00:05:16,520 --> 00:05:20,560
Speaker 1: you know, uh, immediate circle, you know, in my presence

93
00:05:20,560 --> 00:05:23,800
Speaker 1: in public or whatever. Uh. And I hope that I can.

94
00:05:24,080 --> 00:05:26,040
Speaker 1: But I was just I that was one of the

95
00:05:26,080 --> 00:05:28,200
Speaker 1: few moments I was just it was remarkable to me

96
00:05:28,240 --> 00:05:29,919
Speaker 1: because you know, that guy could have like, I don't know,

97
00:05:29,960 --> 00:05:31,680
Speaker 1: you could have been crazy. He could have like gone

98
00:05:31,720 --> 00:05:34,400
Speaker 1: off and like punched my ex girlfriend in the head

99
00:05:34,480 --> 00:05:39,200
Speaker 1: or something like that or whatever. Um. But it worked

100
00:05:39,200 --> 00:05:41,279
Speaker 1: out in the end, and it it sort of falls

101
00:05:41,320 --> 00:05:43,359
Speaker 1: along that description that you gave. You know, she was

102
00:05:43,400 --> 00:05:46,720
Speaker 1: pro social, uh, and she did it despite any person

103
00:05:46,800 --> 00:05:48,919
Speaker 1: or risk that she might have faced herself. Yeah. And

104
00:05:49,040 --> 00:05:51,560
Speaker 1: in a hero acts, that's one of the key things now,

105
00:05:52,200 --> 00:05:54,680
Speaker 1: the nature of that act, the level of the risk,

106
00:05:54,800 --> 00:05:58,640
Speaker 1: then the nature of the risk may vary, but at

107
00:05:58,720 --> 00:06:03,120
Speaker 1: hero acts, hero actually does the thing that they're thinking about, Uh,

108
00:06:03,160 --> 00:06:05,920
Speaker 1: you know, and isn't just looking back and saying, hey,

109
00:06:05,960 --> 00:06:08,760
Speaker 1: that event that occurred two hours ago, if I'd done this,

110
00:06:08,880 --> 00:06:10,520
Speaker 1: that or the other, maybe I could have I could

111
00:06:10,520 --> 00:06:13,320
Speaker 1: have helped. Yeah, exactly, And so I think that's maybe

112
00:06:13,360 --> 00:06:14,919
Speaker 1: maybe this is just me, but I think that's what

113
00:06:14,960 --> 00:06:18,000
Speaker 1: a lot of us are coming back to now, is

114
00:06:18,240 --> 00:06:20,839
Speaker 1: that the rise in bullying, thinking about that and then

115
00:06:20,880 --> 00:06:25,320
Speaker 1: thinking would I act heroic in in the case of

116
00:06:25,600 --> 00:06:28,680
Speaker 1: something like that happening in front of me. Now, that,

117
00:06:28,760 --> 00:06:33,520
Speaker 1: of course is only one minute example of heroism. Uh,

118
00:06:33,600 --> 00:06:36,200
Speaker 1: We're going to go through and and really break it down,

119
00:06:36,320 --> 00:06:38,960
Speaker 1: especially with that article by Franco Blow and Zimbardo. I

120
00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:41,080
Speaker 1: mean they break it down to was like ten or

121
00:06:41,080 --> 00:06:46,599
Speaker 1: twelve Yeah, various types of heroism. And so as you're listening,

122
00:06:46,800 --> 00:06:49,680
Speaker 1: maybe think to yourself, Okay, so does this apply to

123
00:06:49,760 --> 00:06:51,960
Speaker 1: me or do I agree with this? Is that what

124
00:06:52,240 --> 00:06:55,480
Speaker 1: my definition of a hero is? Yeah? Yeah, definitely definitely

125
00:06:55,520 --> 00:06:58,080
Speaker 1: keep all this in mind your own personal take as

126
00:06:58,080 --> 00:07:01,320
Speaker 1: we move forward. So I think the first place to

127
00:07:01,320 --> 00:07:05,560
Speaker 1: start here is to start with the mythic, especially since

128
00:07:06,040 --> 00:07:11,800
Speaker 1: these mythic ideas of of of heroism are often the

129
00:07:12,000 --> 00:07:14,800
Speaker 1: models that we kind of draw from you and maybe

130
00:07:14,800 --> 00:07:16,960
Speaker 1: not like literally, you know, if you're on the bus

131
00:07:16,960 --> 00:07:21,200
Speaker 1: and somebody's uh, you know, acting weird, you're not thinking

132
00:07:21,280 --> 00:07:23,880
Speaker 1: I am going to be Hercules, right, Hercules was the

133
00:07:23,880 --> 00:07:27,000
Speaker 1: immediate when I went to That's like the prototype, and

134
00:07:27,200 --> 00:07:29,760
Speaker 1: he'll he'll definitely come up here there. But of course

135
00:07:29,760 --> 00:07:33,560
Speaker 1: there are various forms of mythic heroes. Uh. Two distinct

136
00:07:33,680 --> 00:07:36,880
Speaker 1: forms that emerge, particularly in Eastern traditions but with the

137
00:07:36,920 --> 00:07:41,280
Speaker 1: parallels and other traditions is the conquering, dominant hero, which

138
00:07:41,360 --> 00:07:45,040
Speaker 1: you know Hercules, and then the opposite, the noble, failed hero.

139
00:07:45,440 --> 00:07:48,480
Speaker 1: So sometimes you slay the dragon and sometimes the dragon

140
00:07:48,560 --> 00:07:50,480
Speaker 1: slays you. Right, it's true in life, it's true in

141
00:07:50,600 --> 00:07:53,440
Speaker 1: myth So you can you can have a hero who

142
00:07:53,560 --> 00:07:56,800
Speaker 1: who tries to get something done and fails, but there's

143
00:07:56,800 --> 00:07:59,520
Speaker 1: still a hero. Yeah, And this is where it connects

144
00:07:59,520 --> 00:08:02,720
Speaker 1: back to episodes that Robert and I have previously done

145
00:08:02,720 --> 00:08:05,440
Speaker 1: on mythology. So if you've heard those episodes, some of

146
00:08:05,440 --> 00:08:07,160
Speaker 1: this might sound familiar to you, but we're really going

147
00:08:07,200 --> 00:08:09,880
Speaker 1: to focus in on the hero aspect here. So as

148
00:08:09,880 --> 00:08:14,280
Speaker 1: a reminder. You know, mythology informs culture, and the arctypical

149
00:08:14,320 --> 00:08:17,480
Speaker 1: hero is this character that serves a purpose in that

150
00:08:17,520 --> 00:08:20,160
Speaker 1: it's a it's a it's a symbol. There I are

151
00:08:20,360 --> 00:08:23,960
Speaker 1: ideal person, right um. But it's also worth noting these

152
00:08:23,960 --> 00:08:26,920
Speaker 1: were the traits that we've associated with heroes, I'd say

153
00:08:27,040 --> 00:08:30,440
Speaker 1: up until maybe the last twenty or thirty years, maybe

154
00:08:30,520 --> 00:08:33,920
Speaker 1: maybe even sooner, I don't know. Uh. Their mail first

155
00:08:33,920 --> 00:08:39,480
Speaker 1: of all, almost always male courage leadership, they have noble sentiments,

156
00:08:39,679 --> 00:08:46,160
Speaker 1: they are willing to do self sacrifice, they're brave and strong. Usually, uh,

157
00:08:46,679 --> 00:08:50,880
Speaker 1: heroes are divine or of some kind of royal ancestry,

158
00:08:51,160 --> 00:08:56,560
Speaker 1: and they had great physical prowess. Think uh, Luke Skywalker, right, Like,

159
00:08:56,640 --> 00:08:59,600
Speaker 1: Luke Skywalker seems like he's just some schmuck kid from

160
00:08:59,600 --> 00:09:02,040
Speaker 1: a fall arm. But it turns out that he's got

161
00:09:02,280 --> 00:09:05,760
Speaker 1: this divine ancestry, that his father is, you know this

162
00:09:05,960 --> 00:09:09,760
Speaker 1: a great warrior, and that he's inherited his abilities and

163
00:09:09,800 --> 00:09:13,760
Speaker 1: so he's got all these amazing powers. There's your physical prowess,

164
00:09:13,880 --> 00:09:16,800
Speaker 1: right um. And that's not a coincidence. By the way,

165
00:09:16,960 --> 00:09:19,400
Speaker 1: as we'll get into George Lucas is pretty heavy in

166
00:09:19,480 --> 00:09:24,920
Speaker 1: the hero mythology camp. But these heroes always have a mission. Uh.

167
00:09:24,960 --> 00:09:26,920
Speaker 1: It's usually some kind of quest where they have to

168
00:09:26,920 --> 00:09:29,840
Speaker 1: face great danger and perform some kind of amazing feats.

169
00:09:29,840 --> 00:09:34,239
Speaker 1: They're usually warriors. Uh. And that's why, until relatively recently,

170
00:09:34,640 --> 00:09:38,480
Speaker 1: our heroes have always been our protagonists to right, yeah, now,

171
00:09:38,520 --> 00:09:40,480
Speaker 1: and now, it's worth pointing out here that when we

172
00:09:40,520 --> 00:09:43,120
Speaker 1: think about our heroes, we often think about all the

173
00:09:43,120 --> 00:09:45,920
Speaker 1: heroes acting for the greater good. But even in our

174
00:09:45,960 --> 00:09:50,160
Speaker 1: mythic traditions, you see heroes that are motivated by yeah, ideals,

175
00:09:50,200 --> 00:09:54,400
Speaker 1: by nobility, by patriotism or nationalism. But you also see

176
00:09:54,440 --> 00:09:58,160
Speaker 1: them motivated by revenge, by pride, by the spirit of

177
00:09:58,240 --> 00:10:02,520
Speaker 1: military conflict or just or violence, if you will. So so,

178
00:10:02,559 --> 00:10:05,599
Speaker 1: even in the mythic traditions, that they're not always completely

179
00:10:05,679 --> 00:10:08,200
Speaker 1: pure in their intentions intentions, right, yeah, I think it

180
00:10:08,240 --> 00:10:11,920
Speaker 1: depends on the cultural context that they're within. Right that, Like,

181
00:10:12,360 --> 00:10:15,280
Speaker 1: maybe revenge is something that's valued in a culture at

182
00:10:15,280 --> 00:10:19,560
Speaker 1: a particular historical moment um. But the thing to remember

183
00:10:19,600 --> 00:10:23,760
Speaker 1: about these hero myths is that they're universal. It's really easy,

184
00:10:23,920 --> 00:10:26,520
Speaker 1: right now, like to let's say, like watch a bunch

185
00:10:26,520 --> 00:10:28,560
Speaker 1: of trailers for movies that are coming out next year,

186
00:10:28,559 --> 00:10:31,920
Speaker 1: and you see, I don't know, Spider Man or Transformers

187
00:10:31,920 --> 00:10:34,480
Speaker 1: are Fast and the Furious Aid and you go, oh,

188
00:10:34,520 --> 00:10:38,839
Speaker 1: these all look silly, These like bubblegum candy Rapper. Uh,

189
00:10:38,840 --> 00:10:41,160
Speaker 1: I candy movies. That's I don't know where candy Rapper

190
00:10:41,200 --> 00:10:45,840
Speaker 1: came from. Uh, But uh, they're all like following this

191
00:10:45,960 --> 00:10:48,880
Speaker 1: tradition of the heroic myth, right right, and if and

192
00:10:48,920 --> 00:10:51,560
Speaker 1: if you watch enough of them, especially a lot of

193
00:10:51,600 --> 00:10:54,200
Speaker 1: the superhero movies that come out, they follow the exact

194
00:10:54,240 --> 00:10:56,720
Speaker 1: same pattern. It's the exact same character with a slightly

195
00:10:56,720 --> 00:11:02,559
Speaker 1: different costume, different powers, maybe a slightly different world, but

196
00:11:02,960 --> 00:11:06,280
Speaker 1: it's basically the same story because it's a universal thing.

197
00:11:06,400 --> 00:11:10,640
Speaker 1: It's it's a human trait, this idea of the hero uh.

198
00:11:10,679 --> 00:11:14,719
Speaker 1: And the values of the heroes almost always prize individuality,

199
00:11:14,760 --> 00:11:18,440
Speaker 1: which is pretty interesting. Uh. And there's some theories that

200
00:11:18,520 --> 00:11:22,959
Speaker 1: the hero myth may have actually provided us, meaning human beings,

201
00:11:23,720 --> 00:11:27,599
Speaker 1: with a behavioral model that leads to cohesion and stability

202
00:11:28,120 --> 00:11:31,880
Speaker 1: in our societies, especially when we're undergoing conflict and change.

203
00:11:32,000 --> 00:11:35,240
Speaker 1: So it's interesting, like when you're when you're in a

204
00:11:35,320 --> 00:11:37,040
Speaker 1: period of time where it feels like there's a lot

205
00:11:37,080 --> 00:11:40,560
Speaker 1: of change happening. You know, look to your pop culture,

206
00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:44,360
Speaker 1: like how are the heroes being represented are they Are

207
00:11:44,400 --> 00:11:46,960
Speaker 1: they modeling some kind of behavior that's supposed to make,

208
00:11:47,160 --> 00:11:49,080
Speaker 1: I don't know, comfort us as we get through it,

209
00:11:49,120 --> 00:11:53,000
Speaker 1: you know. Um, which leads us to our two big

210
00:11:53,040 --> 00:11:56,600
Speaker 1: scholars of myth. Do you wanna talk about them now? Yeah? Yeah,

211
00:11:56,640 --> 00:11:59,880
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and and hit our Campbell and you. Okay,

212
00:11:59,880 --> 00:12:02,160
Speaker 1: so we've we've talked about these guys in the show before,

213
00:12:02,160 --> 00:12:03,880
Speaker 1: and we're not going to dive too deep into him

214
00:12:03,920 --> 00:12:06,360
Speaker 1: today because we've got a lot to talk about with heroes.

215
00:12:07,000 --> 00:12:10,160
Speaker 1: But there are two major scholars that are often cited.

216
00:12:10,200 --> 00:12:14,320
Speaker 1: In fact, the Encyclopedia entry on heroism includes both these guys.

217
00:12:15,160 --> 00:12:18,080
Speaker 1: Joseph Campbell, who is known as the author of The

218
00:12:18,080 --> 00:12:20,079
Speaker 1: Hero with a Thousand Faces. This is a book that

219
00:12:20,120 --> 00:12:24,640
Speaker 1: came out in ninete. It is infamously influenced George Lucas

220
00:12:24,640 --> 00:12:29,440
Speaker 1: and I would say probably half or more of Hollywood screenwriters. Um.

221
00:12:29,600 --> 00:12:31,719
Speaker 1: Campbell's big claim to boil it down was that he

222
00:12:31,800 --> 00:12:36,080
Speaker 1: pinpointed the common characteristics of hero myths from across the world,

223
00:12:36,160 --> 00:12:39,040
Speaker 1: and he had this formula. I'm not gonna go through

224
00:12:39,040 --> 00:12:41,440
Speaker 1: the whole thing today. You can look it up online,

225
00:12:42,240 --> 00:12:45,160
Speaker 1: but it has seventeen stages and he it basically breaks

226
00:12:45,160 --> 00:12:48,080
Speaker 1: down like this um. The hero leaves his normal life

227
00:12:48,120 --> 00:12:50,560
Speaker 1: behind in order to undertake a quest that leads to

228
00:12:50,600 --> 00:12:54,319
Speaker 1: a problem. The hero faces a series of challenges from

229
00:12:54,320 --> 00:12:58,680
Speaker 1: which lessons are learned, uh, and then they usually receive aid.

230
00:12:58,760 --> 00:13:00,680
Speaker 1: It can be from a human help or a non

231
00:13:00,760 --> 00:13:04,120
Speaker 1: human helper. So there's like there's already a room in

232
00:13:04,160 --> 00:13:08,920
Speaker 1: there for fantastical elements. And then finally the hero finds

233
00:13:08,960 --> 00:13:11,760
Speaker 1: the solution to this problem and they return to society

234
00:13:11,800 --> 00:13:13,480
Speaker 1: with it. I think this is important to keep in

235
00:13:13,520 --> 00:13:16,800
Speaker 1: mind for later discussions because this, this narrative arc is

236
00:13:16,880 --> 00:13:21,000
Speaker 1: essentially heroes. Normal hero steps out and does something, heroic

237
00:13:21,160 --> 00:13:24,920
Speaker 1: hero steps back into normal life. Yeah, definitely. And so

238
00:13:25,040 --> 00:13:28,719
Speaker 1: you can this formula. You can say, you can look

239
00:13:28,760 --> 00:13:30,720
Speaker 1: at it one of two ways. One is that like

240
00:13:30,800 --> 00:13:34,800
Speaker 1: our storytelling traditions have always used this formula, which is

241
00:13:34,920 --> 00:13:38,240
Speaker 1: Campbell's argument, or you can look at it as Campbell

242
00:13:38,360 --> 00:13:42,480
Speaker 1: influenced an entire generation of storytellers, and therefore our pop

243
00:13:42,559 --> 00:13:46,960
Speaker 1: culture for the last fifty some odd years has incorporated

244
00:13:47,080 --> 00:13:50,439
Speaker 1: versions of this formula throughout it, Right, I think about

245
00:13:50,520 --> 00:13:53,080
Speaker 1: Community a lot when Campbell comes up. Now, do you

246
00:13:53,120 --> 00:13:56,760
Speaker 1: do you know about this? Like, oh yeah, yeah Harmon,

247
00:13:56,960 --> 00:14:00,440
Speaker 1: you said this a bit, yeah, Dan Harmon has this fast, anating,

248
00:14:01,160 --> 00:14:04,280
Speaker 1: uh like method of breaking down his narrative. And there's

249
00:14:04,320 --> 00:14:07,080
Speaker 1: some really great articles out there online that examine it.

250
00:14:07,080 --> 00:14:10,800
Speaker 1: It's not exactly what Campbell does, basically the same thing.

251
00:14:10,920 --> 00:14:14,520
Speaker 1: Like every episode of Community boils down to this, and

252
00:14:14,559 --> 00:14:18,520
Speaker 1: that's a thirty minute sitcom. But then so does Star Wars,

253
00:14:18,840 --> 00:14:21,920
Speaker 1: or so does the entire Star Wars trilogy. Right, like

254
00:14:22,320 --> 00:14:24,880
Speaker 1: you can. This is like an old professor of mine

255
00:14:24,960 --> 00:14:28,000
Speaker 1: used to call it the make it fits model, Like

256
00:14:28,080 --> 00:14:30,160
Speaker 1: it's the kind of academia where you take the model

257
00:14:30,200 --> 00:14:31,800
Speaker 1: and you just lay it on top of something. You go,

258
00:14:32,120 --> 00:14:36,640
Speaker 1: it fits, therefore it's confirmed. Right. But there's some examples.

259
00:14:36,720 --> 00:14:38,840
Speaker 1: I think some of the more interesting examples of pop

260
00:14:38,840 --> 00:14:42,720
Speaker 1: culture are when we deviate from that formula. Yeah, I mean,

261
00:14:42,920 --> 00:14:44,720
Speaker 1: you know there's gonna be a certain amount of confirmation

262
00:14:44,760 --> 00:14:47,640
Speaker 1: bias and looking at that when you lay the certainly

263
00:14:47,640 --> 00:14:51,760
Speaker 1: one for us. But but it's it's interesting to point

264
00:14:51,760 --> 00:14:53,680
Speaker 1: it out here because it's the it's kind of like

265
00:14:53,760 --> 00:14:57,280
Speaker 1: our relationship with the mythic We look to that as

266
00:14:57,520 --> 00:14:59,280
Speaker 1: the model. We look to that, and we try and

267
00:14:59,320 --> 00:15:01,360
Speaker 1: see reflection of our own life or what our own

268
00:15:01,360 --> 00:15:04,560
Speaker 1: life could be in the character, but also in the

269
00:15:04,600 --> 00:15:06,600
Speaker 1: story and the way that it is story shaped in

270
00:15:06,600 --> 00:15:10,080
Speaker 1: a way that life is almost never story ship exactly right.

271
00:15:10,120 --> 00:15:13,640
Speaker 1: Our life never fits this formula. I mean, I can't

272
00:15:13,880 --> 00:15:16,600
Speaker 1: think of a way to look back on the events

273
00:15:16,600 --> 00:15:19,000
Speaker 1: of my life for the last thirty nine years and

274
00:15:19,200 --> 00:15:23,720
Speaker 1: lay down Campbell's formula over any period of time where

275
00:15:23,720 --> 00:15:26,920
Speaker 1: it lines up with this perfectly. And yet he argues,

276
00:15:27,040 --> 00:15:29,000
Speaker 1: and Young also argues that this is kind of a

277
00:15:29,080 --> 00:15:34,000
Speaker 1: universal human thing. Now Young's thing. Young was a psychoanalyst

278
00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:37,960
Speaker 1: whose main theory was that archetypes reappear in the collective

279
00:15:38,000 --> 00:15:41,320
Speaker 1: unconscious and that this is something that all human societies share.

280
00:15:41,360 --> 00:15:43,240
Speaker 1: If you go back to our Mythology episode, we dive

281
00:15:43,280 --> 00:15:47,360
Speaker 1: pretty deep into this. Young saw this as this kind

282
00:15:47,360 --> 00:15:50,760
Speaker 1: of like ancient universal mind that was common to all humans,

283
00:15:50,800 --> 00:15:54,520
Speaker 1: like like an ancestral memory. And this explained to him

284
00:15:54,680 --> 00:15:58,200
Speaker 1: why we had all these same archetypes across different cultures

285
00:15:58,200 --> 00:16:00,960
Speaker 1: that had never even met before. And the hero was

286
00:16:01,000 --> 00:16:02,920
Speaker 1: one of the most prominent ones for him if you

287
00:16:02,960 --> 00:16:05,160
Speaker 1: go and you look at his how all of his

288
00:16:05,240 --> 00:16:07,600
Speaker 1: archetypes breakdown. Hero is a pretty big one in there.

289
00:16:08,160 --> 00:16:10,040
Speaker 1: But Robert, you have a pretty big question that I

290
00:16:10,080 --> 00:16:16,240
Speaker 1: think is worth revisiting throughout this episode, which is mythic heroes,

291
00:16:17,360 --> 00:16:19,840
Speaker 1: any kind of heroes in the modern sense, do they

292
00:16:19,840 --> 00:16:23,040
Speaker 1: fit this? Yeah? I think that's a That's the question

293
00:16:23,120 --> 00:16:25,120
Speaker 1: I've been trying to ask myself about a number of

294
00:16:25,160 --> 00:16:28,440
Speaker 1: these are they you know, we we can look at

295
00:16:28,280 --> 00:16:31,840
Speaker 1: at hercules, we can look at some of these other models,

296
00:16:32,160 --> 00:16:34,560
Speaker 1: and do they line up with what we think of

297
00:16:34,720 --> 00:16:37,200
Speaker 1: is a is a hero today? Yeah? I mean, like

298
00:16:37,360 --> 00:16:39,400
Speaker 1: I think of and we'll get to this later, but

299
00:16:39,440 --> 00:16:44,720
Speaker 1: I think of like my current heroes, and they don't

300
00:16:45,080 --> 00:16:47,800
Speaker 1: they don't really line up with that archetype. Well, let's

301
00:16:47,840 --> 00:16:49,800
Speaker 1: let's talk about that. Let's go ahead and talk about

302
00:16:49,960 --> 00:16:52,800
Speaker 1: like personal heroes. And everybody I'm sure has their own

303
00:16:52,880 --> 00:16:54,720
Speaker 1: list and they can you know, you can share them

304
00:16:54,760 --> 00:16:57,520
Speaker 1: with it with us if you want. Yeah, But I

305
00:16:57,600 --> 00:16:59,640
Speaker 1: was trying to think, who are the individuals that I

306
00:17:00,480 --> 00:17:03,480
Speaker 1: easily go to as heroes, not individuals who like if

307
00:17:03,480 --> 00:17:06,520
Speaker 1: I had to say, who are the greatest heroes are

308
00:17:06,600 --> 00:17:10,040
Speaker 1: modern times, who's the who's the greatest hero in the

309
00:17:10,160 --> 00:17:12,720
Speaker 1: you know, the the history of this country or whatever,

310
00:17:13,400 --> 00:17:18,560
Speaker 1: but just personal heroes like I would think, okay, Hunter S. Thompson, Um,

311
00:17:18,600 --> 00:17:24,280
Speaker 1: I would say Scott Simon, the NPR reporter, and I

312
00:17:24,320 --> 00:17:27,439
Speaker 1: would probably go Stephen King or maybe Brian McNaughton. And

313
00:17:27,680 --> 00:17:32,280
Speaker 1: each of these individuals like stands for something a little different, uh,

314
00:17:32,359 --> 00:17:34,960
Speaker 1: you know, you know, in my own attempt to figure

315
00:17:34,960 --> 00:17:37,800
Speaker 1: out like what I am and who I am? Um,

316
00:17:37,800 --> 00:17:40,000
Speaker 1: Like Hunter S. Thompson is a figure that like showed

317
00:17:40,040 --> 00:17:42,440
Speaker 1: me that, oh you can you can find this. Uh,

318
00:17:42,960 --> 00:17:44,560
Speaker 1: you can you can sort of make your own path

319
00:17:44,600 --> 00:17:47,600
Speaker 1: in the world and uh, and you can use writing

320
00:17:47,920 --> 00:17:51,800
Speaker 1: and and you can you can still have this free spirit. Uh.

321
00:17:51,920 --> 00:17:55,160
Speaker 1: Stephen King, of course is the the the the ultimate

322
00:17:55,400 --> 00:17:59,600
Speaker 1: uh mythological modern writer figure for anyone who ever picks

323
00:17:59,640 --> 00:18:02,840
Speaker 1: up a in and uh. And Scott Simon is a

324
00:18:02,840 --> 00:18:05,399
Speaker 1: guy who more recently was kind of became kind of

325
00:18:05,400 --> 00:18:07,320
Speaker 1: a hero to me when I was going through when

326
00:18:07,320 --> 00:18:10,000
Speaker 1: my wife and I were going through adoption process, and

327
00:18:10,040 --> 00:18:12,000
Speaker 1: I saw, oh, here's a because here's a you know,

328
00:18:12,040 --> 00:18:15,280
Speaker 1: he's a very rational guy and he's he's engaged in

329
00:18:15,320 --> 00:18:19,360
Speaker 1: the same life journey that I'm about to go down. Yeah,

330
00:18:19,359 --> 00:18:22,840
Speaker 1: he provided a model for you to sort of normalize

331
00:18:22,840 --> 00:18:26,479
Speaker 1: the process that that was probably scary. Yeah, and you know,

332
00:18:26,600 --> 00:18:28,560
Speaker 1: and and certainly he's he's a guy that I wouldn't

333
00:18:28,600 --> 00:18:33,440
Speaker 1: have put on the personal hero list prior to that experience. Yeah. Yeah,

334
00:18:33,480 --> 00:18:36,920
Speaker 1: it's well, we share Stephen King on this. Yeah, it's

335
00:18:36,920 --> 00:18:39,760
Speaker 1: hard not to not to share that one. Well, you know,

336
00:18:40,119 --> 00:18:42,600
Speaker 1: and it's it's weird. I I think a lot about this,

337
00:18:42,720 --> 00:18:46,000
Speaker 1: especially you know, you and I both right outside of

338
00:18:46,040 --> 00:18:48,239
Speaker 1: doing the podcast as well, we right fiction, we're right

339
00:18:48,280 --> 00:18:51,840
Speaker 1: horror fiction. But um, I think my argument for people

340
00:18:51,880 --> 00:18:55,200
Speaker 1: like Stephen King and and other people like I've mentioned,

341
00:18:55,400 --> 00:18:57,400
Speaker 1: you and I both talked about Grant Morrison on the show,

342
00:18:57,680 --> 00:18:59,760
Speaker 1: I think I think of him as a hero on

343
00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:02,920
Speaker 1: the guy I think of is Ian Mackay from Fugazi.

344
00:19:03,200 --> 00:19:06,399
Speaker 1: Really these people, and I know this sounds strange, but

345
00:19:06,440 --> 00:19:11,800
Speaker 1: they they modeled and influenced my life. And I don't

346
00:19:11,840 --> 00:19:14,800
Speaker 1: think that's what we mean by heroism, especially when we

347
00:19:14,840 --> 00:19:17,359
Speaker 1: go back to these definitions and and and when we

348
00:19:17,400 --> 00:19:21,360
Speaker 1: talk further about the academic definitions of it. But yeah,

349
00:19:21,400 --> 00:19:23,480
Speaker 1: because any of these lists. If I have to say,

350
00:19:23,720 --> 00:19:26,240
Speaker 1: what did Hunt Thompson do that was heroic? What did

351
00:19:26,240 --> 00:19:29,560
Speaker 1: Stephen King do that was heroic? I mean there and

352
00:19:29,560 --> 00:19:31,760
Speaker 1: there's their particular cases. With all these individuals who can

353
00:19:31,840 --> 00:19:34,840
Speaker 1: make you could make a case for for for heroism.

354
00:19:35,040 --> 00:19:36,600
Speaker 1: But I'm not sure it's the kind of any of

355
00:19:36,640 --> 00:19:40,800
Speaker 1: them that would make the list of examples of everyday heroism,

356
00:19:40,840 --> 00:19:43,919
Speaker 1: you know, unless there's something that I'm forgetting one of

357
00:19:43,920 --> 00:19:46,280
Speaker 1: their timeline. Well, I wrote an article about Stephen King

358
00:19:46,280 --> 00:19:49,560
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, um, sort of celebrating him

359
00:19:49,640 --> 00:19:52,200
Speaker 1: as my hero. And the thing that I hit upon

360
00:19:52,520 --> 00:19:55,960
Speaker 1: that there's some academic literature on is that he has

361
00:19:56,000 --> 00:19:58,960
Speaker 1: had an influence on people learning to read at an

362
00:19:59,040 --> 00:20:01,399
Speaker 1: early age. And that was definitely the case for me.

363
00:20:01,440 --> 00:20:04,320
Speaker 1: I mean I started reading his novels when I was

364
00:20:04,359 --> 00:20:07,920
Speaker 1: five years old, and a lot of people would say

365
00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:13,280
Speaker 1: that's way too young, but I think that is way yeah.

366
00:20:13,359 --> 00:20:15,000
Speaker 1: And I saw the shining for the first time when

367
00:20:15,000 --> 00:20:18,679
Speaker 1: I was five years old too. Um. But it I

368
00:20:18,800 --> 00:20:23,480
Speaker 1: have to say, like Stephen King always like helped, I

369
00:20:23,480 --> 00:20:26,639
Speaker 1: don't know, teach me the moral complexities of the world.

370
00:20:26,680 --> 00:20:28,280
Speaker 1: As I was growing up in a way that like,

371
00:20:28,359 --> 00:20:32,000
Speaker 1: frankly I didn't get from my parents. Um, and that's

372
00:20:32,040 --> 00:20:34,200
Speaker 1: for better or for worse, right, Like, yeah, I also

373
00:20:34,240 --> 00:20:36,080
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit screwed up because I saw an

374
00:20:36,080 --> 00:20:38,840
Speaker 1: elevator filled with blood when I was five years old,

375
00:20:38,880 --> 00:20:42,600
Speaker 1: you know. Um. But it's also weird to reconcile this,

376
00:20:42,800 --> 00:20:46,640
Speaker 1: especially this hero idea, because let's be honest, the man

377
00:20:46,680 --> 00:20:49,240
Speaker 1: that Stephen King was in the eighties when I was

378
00:20:49,280 --> 00:20:52,159
Speaker 1: growing up and reading his stuff wasn't anything close to

379
00:20:52,200 --> 00:20:55,560
Speaker 1: a hero. He was an addict who was abusive, He

380
00:20:55,600 --> 00:20:58,919
Speaker 1: took risks. I think I've told this story on this

381
00:20:58,960 --> 00:21:03,040
Speaker 1: show before. Reportedly, the cinematographer on the set of Maximum

382
00:21:03,080 --> 00:21:06,240
Speaker 1: Overdrive lost vision and his one of his eyes. There

383
00:21:06,400 --> 00:21:10,560
Speaker 1: was apparently an accident. Maximum Motor Drive, of course, is

384
00:21:10,600 --> 00:21:12,760
Speaker 1: based on a short story and it is about machines

385
00:21:12,760 --> 00:21:14,960
Speaker 1: come into life and running amuck. One of the remote

386
00:21:14,960 --> 00:21:19,800
Speaker 1: control lawnmowers allegedly went out of control. Yeah and uh,

387
00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:23,480
Speaker 1: and there was like wood splinter situation and this resulted

388
00:21:23,520 --> 00:21:27,520
Speaker 1: in a big lawsuit. Uh. The Italian cinematographer whose name

389
00:21:27,560 --> 00:21:29,960
Speaker 1: eludes me. Yeah, they ended up settling out of court.

390
00:21:30,400 --> 00:21:32,400
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's a big stink. So it's like there's

391
00:21:32,440 --> 00:21:34,800
Speaker 1: some cognitive dissonance there where it's like, well, this guy

392
00:21:34,880 --> 00:21:36,720
Speaker 1: was a hero to me. You know, I learned so

393
00:21:36,800 --> 00:21:39,240
Speaker 1: much from his books growing up, and I and I

394
00:21:39,320 --> 00:21:41,439
Speaker 1: want to write. I want to have the same effect

395
00:21:41,440 --> 00:21:43,960
Speaker 1: with my writing as he did on me. But then

396
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:46,240
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, he also cost a guy in his eye,

397
00:21:46,800 --> 00:21:50,480
Speaker 1: you know. Or maybe allegedly there by the way, there's

398
00:21:50,560 --> 00:21:54,320
Speaker 1: apparently a script out there on the Blacklist about the

399
00:21:54,440 --> 00:21:57,840
Speaker 1: making of Maximum overdri that right. Oh, I would die

400
00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:02,320
Speaker 1: to see that. Um. What's even weirder is I can

401
00:22:02,400 --> 00:22:05,320
Speaker 1: think of people who actually meet the hero's status, but

402
00:22:05,359 --> 00:22:07,560
Speaker 1: they're not the people who meet my list. Like the

403
00:22:07,600 --> 00:22:10,160
Speaker 1: first person I think of when I think, well, who's

404
00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:15,399
Speaker 1: the hero, John Lewis, our congressman. I think of him

405
00:22:15,440 --> 00:22:18,560
Speaker 1: as a hero civil rights icon. Yeah, and he absolutely

406
00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:22,639
Speaker 1: did the pro social stuff and put his personal, uh

407
00:22:22,880 --> 00:22:26,000
Speaker 1: life in danger at risk. He took he took a

408
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:28,400
Speaker 1: lot of risks, but he's not who I immediately think

409
00:22:28,400 --> 00:22:31,680
Speaker 1: of because he didn't influence my life. That's probably because

410
00:22:31,720 --> 00:22:34,679
Speaker 1: I'm a privileged white guy, you know. Um, so I

411
00:22:34,680 --> 00:22:37,800
Speaker 1: turned to Stephen King instead. Maybe maybe for other people,

412
00:22:38,320 --> 00:22:41,000
Speaker 1: maybe it's like family members in their lives who I

413
00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:44,280
Speaker 1: don't know, um, served in the military or where firefighters

414
00:22:44,359 --> 00:22:46,960
Speaker 1: or something like that. Um. But that I guess that

415
00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:49,480
Speaker 1: tells you a little bit about us, that like our

416
00:22:49,520 --> 00:22:52,280
Speaker 1: heroes are writers. Yeah, and when we pick and choose

417
00:22:52,280 --> 00:22:55,040
Speaker 1: why we like them. You know, we can all think

418
00:22:55,040 --> 00:22:58,160
Speaker 1: of any any number of personal heroes that had severe problems,

419
00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:00,760
Speaker 1: problems that we don't actually want to reflect in our lives.

420
00:23:01,800 --> 00:23:04,080
Speaker 1: But I don't know, sometimes the fault to make them

421
00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:06,800
Speaker 1: attractive in a way like it's they're they're human. These

422
00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:09,480
Speaker 1: are human individuals who, yeah, there was all this other

423
00:23:09,520 --> 00:23:12,040
Speaker 1: stuff that did not work in their life, but some

424
00:23:12,080 --> 00:23:15,679
Speaker 1: of these things did and maybe I can pattern my

425
00:23:15,760 --> 00:23:20,320
Speaker 1: successes after their successes. So what about the cultural hero,

426
00:23:20,520 --> 00:23:23,160
Speaker 1: which is a little different from the mythic hero, right,

427
00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:26,960
Speaker 1: and that it's it's uh, I guess, like glued to

428
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:30,760
Speaker 1: a specific time and place, Yeah, and often sort of

429
00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:34,760
Speaker 1: used to summarize, uh, certain points in the timeline of

430
00:23:34,760 --> 00:23:37,600
Speaker 1: a culture. Uh. So some of the examples that come

431
00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:40,720
Speaker 1: to mind, you have you have the Savior, an example

432
00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:43,159
Speaker 1: in the Chinese myth that has come up before in

433
00:23:43,160 --> 00:23:46,679
Speaker 1: our episode on Great Floods. You the Great who was

434
00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:49,760
Speaker 1: able to solve the Great Flood and Shinea by figuring

435
00:23:49,760 --> 00:23:53,760
Speaker 1: out how to do you know, proper um canal systems

436
00:23:53,840 --> 00:23:57,240
Speaker 1: and water management. You have culture bears. These are the

437
00:23:57,240 --> 00:24:00,160
Speaker 1: you know, the the individuals who who bring some sort

438
00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:03,960
Speaker 1: of God Pilford knowledge to the people. And in Chinese

439
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:06,520
Speaker 1: tradition you have the fire drill or a sue gin.

440
00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:10,520
Speaker 1: So it's fire. Yeah, I mean that's the Promethean thing,

441
00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:14,080
Speaker 1: you know. Uh. Then of course there's the warrior. Achilles

442
00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:16,840
Speaker 1: is a great example of this, and then there's the founder,

443
00:24:17,200 --> 00:24:20,760
Speaker 1: and a reasonable example here would be Romulus and Remus.

444
00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:23,960
Speaker 1: You know, their mythological figures that really kick it off.

445
00:24:24,400 --> 00:24:27,840
Speaker 1: Either either they're the first people or they're the you know,

446
00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:32,600
Speaker 1: the first of a of a new culture, a new race, etcetera.

447
00:24:32,800 --> 00:24:36,880
Speaker 1: Have you ever been to Rome, Georgia? Um, yes, I'm

448
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:38,720
Speaker 1: not remembering any of it, but I'm pretty sure i've

449
00:24:38,760 --> 00:24:40,800
Speaker 1: been through it. So Rome's I don't know what, like

450
00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:44,919
Speaker 1: maybe thirty or forty minutes north of Atlanta where we're at. Uh.

451
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:48,840
Speaker 1: It has a big statue of it's Romulus and Remus

452
00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:52,600
Speaker 1: right weened off of have been to Rome in the

453
00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:55,440
Speaker 1: town of Rome, Georgia, there's this giant statue of them,

454
00:24:55,440 --> 00:24:57,400
Speaker 1: and you know it's it's a it's a weird thing

455
00:24:57,440 --> 00:24:58,840
Speaker 1: because you see that and you're kind of like, well,

456
00:24:58,840 --> 00:25:02,600
Speaker 1: that's that's kind of gross, a weird thing. Infants nursing

457
00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:04,760
Speaker 1: from a wolf. Yeah, but I think it's supposed to

458
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:07,399
Speaker 1: represent what you're just talking about, this the idea of

459
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:10,760
Speaker 1: founding civilization. But but at the same time, George, this

460
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:15,880
Speaker 1: weird kind of like beast reality thing going on. Yeah. Um, yeah,

461
00:25:15,920 --> 00:25:20,480
Speaker 1: it's strange, and I think it's important to work out

462
00:25:20,520 --> 00:25:24,080
Speaker 1: here too. And this is definitely like if anybody who's

463
00:25:24,119 --> 00:25:25,719
Speaker 1: listened to the show or any other shows that I've

464
00:25:25,760 --> 00:25:27,840
Speaker 1: been on before, there's an area of study I'm really

465
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:33,159
Speaker 1: interested in. Our heroes have impact on culture through the

466
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:36,240
Speaker 1: creation of stories, whether it's literature, movies or comic books

467
00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:40,560
Speaker 1: or whatever you're consuming, right, and we repeat popular legends

468
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:44,120
Speaker 1: from centuries ago while creating new ones that basically adhere

469
00:25:44,160 --> 00:25:47,200
Speaker 1: to the same model. Like when you brought up Hercules

470
00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:49,119
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the episode, the first thing that

471
00:25:49,160 --> 00:25:51,840
Speaker 1: popped in my mind was that like awful Hercules movie

472
00:25:51,840 --> 00:25:53,680
Speaker 1: with the rock that came out like two years ago,

473
00:25:54,359 --> 00:25:56,720
Speaker 1: and I was like, man, We're just gonna keep going

474
00:25:56,760 --> 00:25:58,680
Speaker 1: back to that well over and over again, you know,

475
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:02,600
Speaker 1: and it makes sense. Uh, And if Hercules doesn't work

476
00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:04,600
Speaker 1: out and that I P is a little bit dirty

477
00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 1: for a while, then we'll create something new, or we'll

478
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:12,640
Speaker 1: do Spider Man or Batman or whatever. And today's cultural

479
00:26:12,680 --> 00:26:17,320
Speaker 1: heroes they might represent some slightly different values, right than

480
00:26:17,359 --> 00:26:21,960
Speaker 1: the ones that we already attributed to uh, previous mythic heroes.

481
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:26,560
Speaker 1: Like there's this interior journey of self discovery and growth

482
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:30,359
Speaker 1: that we see now in heroes. And sometimes they're unwilling actors, right,

483
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:33,280
Speaker 1: they're not performing these deeds of heroism of their own volition.

484
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:36,320
Speaker 1: Sometimes their rebels, right, we're what we're like a week

485
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:40,360
Speaker 1: out from Rogue One coming out, and uh, that clearly

486
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:42,840
Speaker 1: is a movie that's all about rebellion. There's already been

487
00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:47,560
Speaker 1: uh what like some commentary from I believe the Trump

488
00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:50,719
Speaker 1: campaign saying that they think that the movie had rewrites.

489
00:26:51,359 --> 00:26:53,960
Speaker 1: That was heard about that they've come out as anti

490
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 1: Star Wars, and I don't think that the campaign itself has.

491
00:26:57,119 --> 00:27:00,959
Speaker 1: But there's something going on on Twitter with a hashtag

492
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:04,600
Speaker 1: this is how I sound old. There's a hashtag and

493
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 1: these kids no, um that you know, our colleague Collie

494
00:27:07,840 --> 00:27:10,200
Speaker 1: Fry would know exactly what this is. But apparently there's

495
00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:14,240
Speaker 1: been some accusation that Rogue One was rewritten as a

496
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 1: criticism of a Trump presidency. And uh, most people are saying, well,

497
00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:25,040
Speaker 1: all the Star Wars movies are essentially about rebellion. Uh so, well,

498
00:27:25,119 --> 00:27:29,440
Speaker 1: and just art is going to criticize the the status quo.

499
00:27:29,760 --> 00:27:33,479
Speaker 1: Art is going to criticize whatever the system is in place.

500
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:35,720
Speaker 1: And that's the way it's always been. It's not gonna

501
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:38,120
Speaker 1: not gonna stop. If you try and stop it, you're

502
00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:40,840
Speaker 1: just going to create a new model to for for

503
00:27:40,920 --> 00:27:43,440
Speaker 1: that everyone's gonna criticize. Well, yeah, exactly, and that's kind

504
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:46,040
Speaker 1: of what's been going on probably since people first started

505
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:49,560
Speaker 1: telling stories. Right, that's all right, that's storytelling. Um. And

506
00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:52,040
Speaker 1: then the other aspect of this as well that's different

507
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:54,880
Speaker 1: is that our heroes cannot be female. They're not always male.

508
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:57,159
Speaker 1: Case in point, Rogue one again is coming out in

509
00:27:57,200 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: the stars female. The last Star Wars movie had a

510
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:03,960
Speaker 1: female star. There's pushback against that because it's like, uh,

511
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:06,800
Speaker 1: it's it's shifting this cultural identity of what we come

512
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:09,679
Speaker 1: to expect from heroism. And then again, it's not to

513
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:12,959
Speaker 1: say that there are not female heroes in older traditions,

514
00:28:13,320 --> 00:28:16,520
Speaker 1: not at they have been predominantly male. And in our

515
00:28:16,560 --> 00:28:20,760
Speaker 1: cinematic traditions, you have seen predominantly male heroes. Yeah, so

516
00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:22,480
Speaker 1: real quick, I just want to touch on this thing

517
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:24,680
Speaker 1: that I've mentioned on the show before. It's a it's

518
00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:28,840
Speaker 1: a theory about heroic myth that I find really intriguing, uh,

519
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:31,240
Speaker 1: and it's related to work I've done in the past.

520
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:35,159
Speaker 1: It's called the Captain America complex, or the other term

521
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:37,000
Speaker 1: for it is the American Mono myth, and it was

522
00:28:37,040 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 1: written up by two academics named Robert Jewett and John

523
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:43,680
Speaker 1: Shelton Lawrence, and basically their idea was that Captain America,

524
00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:47,200
Speaker 1: the character which we now I think no popularized Chris

525
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:49,800
Speaker 1: Evans playing him in the movies, but he's from comic

526
00:28:49,800 --> 00:28:54,480
Speaker 1: books going back seventy almost eighty years. Um. He defines

527
00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:58,160
Speaker 1: this new version of a hero that we've fallen in

528
00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:01,960
Speaker 1: love with, which is an anti democratic fantasy, as they

529
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:06,640
Speaker 1: describe it, where a superpowered every man save society by

530
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 1: stepping outside of institutions to violently punish enemies. And if

531
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:15,320
Speaker 1: you think about it like a lot of our uh,

532
00:29:15,760 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 1: most popular heroes from the last couple of years in

533
00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 1: TV or film or novels or whatever kind of line

534
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:23,520
Speaker 1: up with that, right, Like they may be a cop,

535
00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 1: but they have to go outside of the system to

536
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 1: do the right thing or something like that. So there's

537
00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:31,480
Speaker 1: a that and that always and that tends to do

538
00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 1: work for them, whereas generally the actual situation is we

539
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:38,480
Speaker 1: have systems for reason because you're not perfect, but they

540
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:42,120
Speaker 1: more or less work absolutely and and and yet at

541
00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:47,120
Speaker 1: the same time, there's this constant cultural push against those institutions. Uh.

542
00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 1: In fact, I mean it permeates our media and our

543
00:29:50,200 --> 00:29:53,560
Speaker 1: political language. Look at the look at the presidential election

544
00:29:53,720 --> 00:29:57,160
Speaker 1: from the last year. I mean the language that really

545
00:29:57,200 --> 00:30:01,080
Speaker 1: resonated both for people like Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump

546
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:04,800
Speaker 1: was very much in the Captain America complex of that,

547
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:08,280
Speaker 1: you know, they have to step outside of the institutions

548
00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 1: in order to reform it um. And so Captain America

549
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:15,280
Speaker 1: is also I mean, he's essentially a time travel right,

550
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:17,280
Speaker 1: I mean, he's Flosen from a different age, so he

551
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:20,600
Speaker 1: is he is stepping outside of his own time exactly. Yeah,

552
00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 1: And that's that's always the argument within the text is

553
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:25,880
Speaker 1: that like, well, because he has the values of the

554
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:29,760
Speaker 1: greatest generation, he's able to see what we cannot, uh,

555
00:30:29,960 --> 00:30:32,960
Speaker 1: that we're like betraying, you know, what is essentially good

556
00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:35,960
Speaker 1: and so uh think about like the Winter Soldier movie

557
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:38,480
Speaker 1: with him right, like he immediately breaks away from the

558
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 1: government in order to do the right thing and uncovers

559
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:45,160
Speaker 1: this grand conspiracy that's going on, you know. Um, So

560
00:30:45,200 --> 00:30:47,640
Speaker 1: it's interesting. I think there's something to this, and there's

561
00:30:47,680 --> 00:30:49,960
Speaker 1: not a lot in the literature other than what these

562
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 1: guys have done on this in terms of heroism. But

563
00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:57,360
Speaker 1: but as we're going through talking about what is a

564
00:30:57,480 --> 00:31:01,680
Speaker 1: hero today, I think let's keep that in too, you know. Uh,

565
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 1: these symbols especially, I'm really interested to see what happens

566
00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:09,160
Speaker 1: with the Captain America hero symbol over the next couple

567
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:12,560
Speaker 1: of years, Like what does how does he change? How

568
00:31:12,600 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 1: does he represent what's going on with us as a

569
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:19,920
Speaker 1: people as as a symbol. I'm really curious too about

570
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 1: Like I'm often more interested in villains than heroes. I

571
00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:27,240
Speaker 1: think villains can do the same thing as what we're

572
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 1: talking about here, sort of defining values. So I'm curious

573
00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:32,040
Speaker 1: to see what happens with that. Well, how many how

574
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:35,520
Speaker 1: many evil comic book characters have we had, say, service

575
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 1: president the United States? I know, likely your Red Skull,

576
00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:42,600
Speaker 1: both prime examples, both, especially Red Skull. It's hard for

577
00:31:42,640 --> 00:31:45,000
Speaker 1: me to imagine how he got elected. I think he

578
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:47,680
Speaker 1: was in disguise at the time or something like that.

579
00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 1: But um, from the work that I've done on Captain America,

580
00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:52,960
Speaker 1: here's a here's a funny anecdote from the seventies, this

581
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:56,080
Speaker 1: great run on Captain America by a guy named Steve Engelhardt,

582
00:31:56,480 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 1: and uh, there's this massive conspiracy going on within the government.

583
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:04,240
Speaker 1: Mint this is pre Watergate, mind you. Okay, Nixon is

584
00:32:04,280 --> 00:32:06,239
Speaker 1: the president at the time that these comic books are

585
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:10,240
Speaker 1: coming out, and Captain America chases the lead all the

586
00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 1: way to the top, and he ends up at the

587
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:14,200
Speaker 1: Oval Office and it's revealed that the President of the

588
00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:16,840
Speaker 1: United States of America is the one who's in charge

589
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:20,760
Speaker 1: of this fascist, uh secret society that's trying to take

590
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:23,840
Speaker 1: control of the world. And you don't see Nixon's face

591
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:26,280
Speaker 1: in the comic book, but he pulls a gun out

592
00:32:26,280 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 1: of the desk in the Oval Office and blows his

593
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 1: brains out. That's in the nineteen seventies before I was

594
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:36,040
Speaker 1: born Captain America comic books and it's pretty heavy stuff,

595
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:39,400
Speaker 1: you know. Um, But yeah, you're right, how many? How

596
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:42,760
Speaker 1: many villains become the president? I mean I didn't really

597
00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:44,480
Speaker 1: watch a lot of twenty four, but wasn't a lot

598
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:47,000
Speaker 1: of twenty four about that? Like is the president a

599
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:49,120
Speaker 1: good guy? Is he not? Can we save him? Should

600
00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:51,960
Speaker 1: we save him? Stuff like that. Yeah. I never watched

601
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:54,440
Speaker 1: twenty four either, but I know Homeland got into similar territory,

602
00:32:54,520 --> 00:32:57,280
Speaker 1: right there was like the vice president with evil or something. Yeah,

603
00:32:57,320 --> 00:33:00,080
Speaker 1: maybe that's what it was in twenty four as well. Okay,

604
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 1: I mean basically, when we're talking about myths and heroes,

605
00:33:02,680 --> 00:33:06,680
Speaker 1: the the evil ruler, the evil king is also an

606
00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:10,440
Speaker 1: idea that is as old as as time. Yeah. Absolutely.

607
00:33:10,840 --> 00:33:12,320
Speaker 1: On that note, we're gonna take a quick break and

608
00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:14,320
Speaker 1: when we come back, we're going to get into acts

609
00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:18,280
Speaker 1: of heroism. Heroism like the kind of heroism you see

610
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:21,560
Speaker 1: on the subway, the kind of heroism that you might

611
00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:32,360
Speaker 1: feel yourself drawn to on a daily basis. So there's

612
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:35,720
Speaker 1: one really great paper that Robert and I looked to

613
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:37,960
Speaker 1: for a lot of what we're going to talk about next.

614
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:42,920
Speaker 1: It's by Zeno E. Franco, Kathy Blow, and Philip G's

615
00:33:42,960 --> 00:33:48,280
Speaker 1: Embardo and it's called heroism, a conceptual analysis in differentiation

616
00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:51,880
Speaker 1: between heroic action and altruism came out inn and was

617
00:33:51,920 --> 00:33:57,920
Speaker 1: published in General Psychology. And it's basically an empirical study

618
00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 1: of what we mean when we say here row uh.

619
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:05,239
Speaker 1: And they find some interesting paradoxes within this taxonomy. They

620
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 1: basically locate like subtypes of heroes. And then they, like

621
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:13,040
Speaker 1: I mentioned at the top, sit down and survey an

622
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:15,440
Speaker 1: audience about what they think about this taxonomy, and they

623
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:19,440
Speaker 1: find some paradox is in it. Uh. And it's it's fascinating. Yeah,

624
00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:21,319
Speaker 1: it's a great read. We'll try and include a link

625
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 1: to it on the landing page for this episode is

626
00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:25,560
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind dot com. But just just

627
00:34:25,680 --> 00:34:27,719
Speaker 1: begin to break it down a little bit. They presented

628
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:31,960
Speaker 1: the following guidelines for for heroics. So, first of all,

629
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:35,600
Speaker 1: the concept of heroism is a way to unify several

630
00:34:35,640 --> 00:34:38,799
Speaker 1: types of courageous or brave actions that have largely been

631
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:43,719
Speaker 1: treated independently in the literature to date. Okay, yeah, and

632
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:47,520
Speaker 1: this is seen as you know, heroism is seen by

633
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:50,399
Speaker 1: many as that's the apex of human behavior, right, Like,

634
00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:53,200
Speaker 1: we think of it as something that's reserved only for

635
00:34:53,239 --> 00:34:56,200
Speaker 1: an elect few people who have like special skills or

636
00:34:56,239 --> 00:35:00,960
Speaker 1: something like that, and yet anybody could technically be a hero. Yeah,

637
00:35:01,080 --> 00:35:03,680
Speaker 1: you did. Come back to the comic book example, or

638
00:35:03,719 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 1: just sort of the fictional example. How many movies, how

639
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:09,880
Speaker 1: many comic books? Uh, feature a story in which a

640
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:14,000
Speaker 1: single character saves the world? Yeah? Absolutely? How many times

641
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:18,359
Speaker 1: does that happened in the history of the human race? Uh,

642
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 1: we just don't know, Robert, because they're so humble about it. Yeah, well,

643
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:26,480
Speaker 1: but you see what I mean if there's never I'm

644
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:30,040
Speaker 1: not saying they're not threats that big, but life is

645
00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:33,440
Speaker 1: not so simple that it works that way. Okay. So

646
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:36,759
Speaker 1: other things that they that that does Embardo and his

647
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:39,920
Speaker 1: crew pull out in this study. They say that the

648
00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:44,440
Speaker 1: simple presence of risk accompanying pro social behavior is not

649
00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:47,040
Speaker 1: enough to define heroism. So just because you did something

650
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:50,600
Speaker 1: to help people and there was a risk involved, that

651
00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean you're a hero. Yeah, Okay, that's important

652
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:57,040
Speaker 1: to keep in mind as we transition into thinking about

653
00:35:57,040 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 1: the differences between altruism and heroes. Right. Also, they say

654
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:05,279
Speaker 1: heroism is viewed as distinct from other pro social activities

655
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:09,640
Speaker 1: such as compassion and altruism, and that this may represent

656
00:36:09,719 --> 00:36:12,759
Speaker 1: an entirely different behavior, you know, onto itself. Because yeah,

657
00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:16,360
Speaker 1: just being compassionate about somebody, I mean that's great, that's important.

658
00:36:16,719 --> 00:36:19,200
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean your hero doing something pro social. Like

659
00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:22,720
Speaker 1: so you make an anonymous donation to a really good charity,

660
00:36:22,880 --> 00:36:27,040
Speaker 1: your nonprofit, that's great, But were you a hero? Uh No.

661
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:29,279
Speaker 1: It makes me think of like the rhetoric from a

662
00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 1: couple of years ago when we started calling certain politicians

663
00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:36,120
Speaker 1: compassionate conservatives, and now like I wonder, like if there's

664
00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 1: a point where we'll like label politics is heroic, Like

665
00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:45,960
Speaker 1: you're heroic liberal something like that. Yeah, I mean compassion heroism. Yeah,

666
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:48,879
Speaker 1: it's kind of two separate whatever it works to sell it. Yeah, Yeah,

667
00:36:48,880 --> 00:36:53,440
Speaker 1: that's that's all. The the the the the positive descriptive

668
00:36:53,480 --> 00:36:56,480
Speaker 1: terms are always going to be co opted, right. Another

669
00:36:56,719 --> 00:37:00,480
Speaker 1: statement the Simbardo and company make, while heroism is primarily

670
00:37:00,560 --> 00:37:03,560
Speaker 1: a positive and pro social act, a simplistic view of

671
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:07,040
Speaker 1: this behavior, this is important and sometimes negative aspects of

672
00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:10,000
Speaker 1: the phenomenon. Yeah, so this is this should be noted

673
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:13,520
Speaker 1: like what we mentioned earlier. Uh, one person's hero could

674
00:37:13,520 --> 00:37:17,240
Speaker 1: be another person's villain, right, So take suicide bombers for example.

675
00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:20,000
Speaker 1: And like I said earlier, this is this is really

676
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:23,080
Speaker 1: what interests me more is what defines our villains. I

677
00:37:23,120 --> 00:37:26,480
Speaker 1: think that it really gets to the bottom of what

678
00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:29,759
Speaker 1: our culture values when we we can pinpoint, you know,

679
00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:33,040
Speaker 1: like look next year at all the you know, Fast

680
00:37:33,040 --> 00:37:35,880
Speaker 1: and the Furious that all these like big budget crazy

681
00:37:36,000 --> 00:37:38,920
Speaker 1: movies that I mentioned earlier, Like who are the villains

682
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:41,640
Speaker 1: in those? What do they represent? Does that does that

683
00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 1: stand in for what we all actually believe? Yeah? Indeed,

684
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:47,400
Speaker 1: now in this um, in this paper, they drive home

685
00:37:47,440 --> 00:37:51,120
Speaker 1: the idea that the heroism demands noble purpose, which of

686
00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:55,239
Speaker 1: course is subjective, it's time sensitive, and that the hero

687
00:37:55,480 --> 00:37:59,160
Speaker 1: must transcend fear so they're not fearless. Uh. You know,

688
00:37:59,239 --> 00:38:02,800
Speaker 1: certainly have these examples of mythic heroes and they're they're fearless,

689
00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:06,359
Speaker 1: man without fear, etcetera. But that the idea here's they're

690
00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:09,640
Speaker 1: driven by such noble purpose as to push through the

691
00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:13,080
Speaker 1: force field of fear that what otherwise hold them back? Yeah,

692
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:16,120
Speaker 1: there's a point in the paper they they say, you know,

693
00:38:16,440 --> 00:38:19,960
Speaker 1: this is contrary to the myth Most people are capable

694
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:23,600
Speaker 1: of heroism regardless of whether they're fearless or not under

695
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:27,560
Speaker 1: the right conditions. In Zimbardo and his his cohorts actually

696
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:30,759
Speaker 1: referred to this as the banality of heroism, which I

697
00:38:30,800 --> 00:38:33,759
Speaker 1: really like because it's a it's a purposeful antonym of

698
00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:36,680
Speaker 1: Hannah Arrant's finality of evil, that phrase that she came

699
00:38:36,719 --> 00:38:39,360
Speaker 1: up with when she was examining Nazi war criminals on

700
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:43,479
Speaker 1: trial in Jerusalem. And it's just interesting to think about

701
00:38:43,600 --> 00:38:47,839
Speaker 1: that that we think of it being an extraordinary thing,

702
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:50,320
Speaker 1: but maybe it's not. Maybe it's just something we're all

703
00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 1: we've all got. It makes me think, So Superman most

704
00:38:53,200 --> 00:38:56,480
Speaker 1: pretty much indestructible, right, sure? Is it? Is he a

705
00:38:56,480 --> 00:38:59,040
Speaker 1: hero if he's indestructible and he saves somebody from a

706
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:01,640
Speaker 1: burning building, Like they're not like you were going to

707
00:39:01,719 --> 00:39:04,200
Speaker 1: burn up Superman, you were gonna You're you're gonna mess

708
00:39:04,280 --> 00:39:06,839
Speaker 1: up your costume. Maybe that definitely plays with the risk

709
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:09,759
Speaker 1: assessment part there. Yeah, it would be interesting to take

710
00:39:09,800 --> 00:39:13,719
Speaker 1: their formula and apply it to various like heroes of

711
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 1: pop culture and see how they line up. All Right,

712
00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 1: so we have the hero go pushing through that force

713
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:24,080
Speaker 1: field of fear. So hero has to break psychological barriers

714
00:39:24,160 --> 00:39:27,600
Speaker 1: to carry out their acts, such as the bystander effect.

715
00:39:27,880 --> 00:39:30,440
Speaker 1: By what and this is the effect that uh that

716
00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:32,920
Speaker 1: we've covered on the show before in the past. This

717
00:39:32,960 --> 00:39:35,520
Speaker 1: is where everyone just stands there watching the horror or

718
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:39,680
Speaker 1: the misfortune happen. Um. Think of like car crash on

719
00:39:39,719 --> 00:39:42,799
Speaker 1: the highway and everybody just slows down and drives and

720
00:39:42,840 --> 00:39:45,480
Speaker 1: watches it. Yeah, or something. You say, You're on a

721
00:39:45,520 --> 00:39:48,839
Speaker 1: train and somebody is acting out, somebody's acting a little

722
00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:52,200
Speaker 1: bit threatening, and everyone's kind of frozen because who's gonna act?

723
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 1: What's the social contract here? There's a great bit I

724
00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:57,319
Speaker 1: always come back to from the TV show Louis where

725
00:39:57,480 --> 00:40:00,160
Speaker 1: I believe he's walking with walking with his daughter her

726
00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:02,920
Speaker 1: or a younger person. I think maybe it's his daughter.

727
00:40:03,000 --> 00:40:06,680
Speaker 1: And there is a that there's like a homeless person

728
00:40:06,920 --> 00:40:09,680
Speaker 1: with you know, begging for for for money, for food,

729
00:40:09,719 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 1: for anything. Uh, there by the subway entrance and the

730
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:16,400
Speaker 1: other the person as Louie, who is that what should

731
00:40:16,800 --> 00:40:18,840
Speaker 1: do they need our help? Should we do something? And

732
00:40:19,160 --> 00:40:21,640
Speaker 1: he's like, oh, yeah, yeah, he really needs our help.

733
00:40:21,719 --> 00:40:24,799
Speaker 1: He needs to help more than more than anybody on earth. Uh.

734
00:40:25,080 --> 00:40:27,440
Speaker 1: But we just we just ignore him, that's what we do.

735
00:40:28,600 --> 00:40:31,960
Speaker 1: So and then we also have normalcy bias uh and

736
00:40:32,080 --> 00:40:37,560
Speaker 1: also psychogenic death. So this is these two uh situations.

737
00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:41,200
Speaker 1: These sort of summarize this temptation to freeze up or

738
00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:44,560
Speaker 1: just continue doing what you're doing even though everything is

739
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 1: going wrong. Um. For instance, Uh, the plane is crashing,

740
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:52,040
Speaker 1: but instead of trying to you know, jump to action

741
00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:54,960
Speaker 1: or do something, you just you know, press play on

742
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:57,680
Speaker 1: your iPad again. Uh. And there examp plenty of examples

743
00:40:57,719 --> 00:41:00,320
Speaker 1: of this kind of thing happens in In fact, I

744
00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:03,120
Speaker 1: imagine a number of listeners can think too traumatic or

745
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:06,040
Speaker 1: semi traumatic times in your life where like there's nothing

746
00:41:06,120 --> 00:41:08,320
Speaker 1: to do, you don't have the how do you react?

747
00:41:08,480 --> 00:41:11,400
Speaker 1: You just keep going with the normal path because you

748
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:14,399
Speaker 1: have no you have no training for the abnormal path.

749
00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:17,400
Speaker 1: You have no training for for any kind of emergency response.

750
00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:19,239
Speaker 1: I think back to that moment I brought up at

751
00:41:19,239 --> 00:41:21,560
Speaker 1: the top of the episode. You know, Uh, this guy

752
00:41:21,760 --> 00:41:24,080
Speaker 1: was harassing a woman in front of me. I was

753
00:41:24,200 --> 00:41:26,759
Speaker 1: watching it, but my brain was like disconnected from the

754
00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:28,560
Speaker 1: reality in front of me, and I was like, what

755
00:41:28,640 --> 00:41:31,680
Speaker 1: am I supposed to do here? And you know, uh,

756
00:41:31,880 --> 00:41:34,320
Speaker 1: the my girlfriend at the time clearly didn't have that

757
00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:36,560
Speaker 1: same thing and she acted. Yeah. And now, of course

758
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:39,600
Speaker 1: this gets into a key area like who would act

759
00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:43,400
Speaker 1: clearly a like a police officer or someone with training

760
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:45,560
Speaker 1: of the police officer might act. And that gets into

761
00:41:45,600 --> 00:41:48,200
Speaker 1: this idea that it's also been argued that here heroism

762
00:41:48,280 --> 00:41:51,680
Speaker 1: requires knowledge and preparation. And indeed there are plenty of

763
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:54,480
Speaker 1: cases where you can say, well, the the hero can

764
00:41:54,600 --> 00:41:58,040
Speaker 1: only act efficiently if they know what to do specialized

765
00:41:58,040 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 1: task at hand, using CPR, swimming into dangerous waters to

766
00:42:01,680 --> 00:42:04,399
Speaker 1: save someone, etcetera. Though of course we can also think

767
00:42:04,440 --> 00:42:07,120
Speaker 1: of heroic scenarios in which the hero jumps in and

768
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:09,279
Speaker 1: does something that they're not trained to do, you know,

769
00:42:09,360 --> 00:42:12,279
Speaker 1: like a non firefighter jumping into a flaming building and

770
00:42:12,360 --> 00:42:16,399
Speaker 1: carrying babe or something. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. So when

771
00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:20,279
Speaker 1: you look at the discipline, traditionally, psychology has actually avoided

772
00:42:20,360 --> 00:42:24,040
Speaker 1: the term heroism. They like to use terms like civil

773
00:42:24,200 --> 00:42:27,120
Speaker 1: courage or extreme altruism, which I like that sounds like

774
00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:31,880
Speaker 1: a like a like a caffeine drink or something extreme altruism.

775
00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:37,400
Speaker 1: It's a psilocybin read bowl kind of exactly. Um, But

776
00:42:37,520 --> 00:42:39,680
Speaker 1: the authors of this paper that we're talking about. They

777
00:42:39,800 --> 00:42:43,600
Speaker 1: divided it up into three modes of heroism that they

778
00:42:43,680 --> 00:42:47,080
Speaker 1: make sure involves a level of peril or sacrifice that

779
00:42:47,120 --> 00:42:49,880
Speaker 1: goes beyond what we think of as pro social behaviors.

780
00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:52,719
Speaker 1: And and uh, they also think that, you know, this

781
00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:56,359
Speaker 1: requires a willingness to enter a fraud situation despite clear

782
00:42:56,440 --> 00:43:00,200
Speaker 1: barriers to entry an obvious paths to exit. And the

783
00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:03,400
Speaker 1: final thing is that they think that heroism has got

784
00:43:03,520 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 1: to transcend considerable fear in order to act decisively. Yeah,

785
00:43:08,440 --> 00:43:11,160
Speaker 1: the fear has to be in place otherwise again comes

786
00:43:11,200 --> 00:43:13,239
Speaker 1: to Superman, it's not afraid of that fire. Is that

787
00:43:13,920 --> 00:43:16,000
Speaker 1: this is like, you know, so many people I've always

788
00:43:16,040 --> 00:43:17,439
Speaker 1: kind of felt like this too, But so many people

789
00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:19,800
Speaker 1: always say, like I just don't really care for Superman.

790
00:43:19,840 --> 00:43:21,640
Speaker 1: I mean, he's got like all those powers. It's just

791
00:43:21,800 --> 00:43:25,840
Speaker 1: boring Batman I can relate to that. You know, Batman

792
00:43:25,960 --> 00:43:31,080
Speaker 1: can die, yeah, Man, Batman can be shot. To the

793
00:43:31,200 --> 00:43:33,680
Speaker 1: heart of the whole thing is that, like super Man

794
00:43:34,000 --> 00:43:40,000
Speaker 1: is just intrinsically not heroic, I guess unless like the Kryptonite. Yeah,

795
00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:42,640
Speaker 1: the kryptonite create like that makes him human and that

796
00:43:42,800 --> 00:43:46,560
Speaker 1: makes him that presents risk, right, right, So Okay, let's

797
00:43:46,560 --> 00:43:49,040
Speaker 1: look at these three that they break down, and it's

798
00:43:49,040 --> 00:43:52,719
Speaker 1: important to remember that these three came before they did

799
00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:57,319
Speaker 1: that survey. So first, we have martial or military heroism,

800
00:43:57,440 --> 00:44:02,040
Speaker 1: so physical risk duty bound heroes, and this is usually

801
00:44:02,080 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 1: within the within a war context military context, though there

802
00:44:05,320 --> 00:44:08,480
Speaker 1: is bleed over into certain areas shuch as police, firefighters,

803
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:12,719
Speaker 1: coast guard, etcetera physical risk you're doing your duty by

804
00:44:12,760 --> 00:44:15,000
Speaker 1: acting heroically. And Robert and I were talking about this

805
00:44:15,080 --> 00:44:17,880
Speaker 1: before we came into the studio, but just before we did,

806
00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:21,240
Speaker 1: I found this two thousand nine study by Bloomberg Hessan

807
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:27,560
Speaker 1: Revieve on specifically martial heroism, and they showed empirical evidence.

808
00:44:28,120 --> 00:44:29,480
Speaker 1: I don't know how I feel about this, but the

809
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:31,480
Speaker 1: way that they measured it was by looking at the

810
00:44:31,520 --> 00:44:34,279
Speaker 1: amount of Congressional Medals of Honor and silver Stars that

811
00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:36,640
Speaker 1: have been awarded in the last thirty five years, and

812
00:44:36,680 --> 00:44:39,880
Speaker 1: apparently it's been less and less over time. And so

813
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:42,040
Speaker 1: they said, what's going on with that? Why do we

814
00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:45,400
Speaker 1: have less heroes? Because that's like I guess, our measurement

815
00:44:45,520 --> 00:44:50,040
Speaker 1: system for for heroic at least martial heroic acts. Uh.

816
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:53,240
Speaker 1: And they determined that this is actually a decline because

817
00:44:53,280 --> 00:44:57,600
Speaker 1: of technological change, because we have technology now that makes

818
00:44:57,680 --> 00:45:02,920
Speaker 1: combat less labor intensive or makes it easier to fight fires. Right, uh,

819
00:45:03,440 --> 00:45:09,440
Speaker 1: and so therefore there's less risk and subsequently less reward,

820
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:12,640
Speaker 1: which is kind of strange, but we're thinking about when

821
00:45:12,680 --> 00:45:15,879
Speaker 1: you consider this type of heroism. So yeah, on one hand,

822
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:19,400
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about drones of course, yeah, and distancing like

823
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:22,040
Speaker 1: there's what personal risk is there? Right? Is the person

824
00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:26,040
Speaker 1: operating a drone in a control room in Washington, d C?

825
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:29,719
Speaker 1: A hero? Right? And then the other way of looking

826
00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:32,239
Speaker 1: at it, So in military context, I can't help but

827
00:45:32,360 --> 00:45:34,320
Speaker 1: think of or even just any kind of like strategic

828
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:37,640
Speaker 1: situation with risk. I end up thinking about say level

829
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:41,120
Speaker 1: of of X calm or X continent. Yeah, and and

830
00:45:41,200 --> 00:45:42,640
Speaker 1: so if you if you get your you get your

831
00:45:42,680 --> 00:45:44,440
Speaker 1: power ups in place, you get to the right weapons,

832
00:45:44,480 --> 00:45:47,319
Speaker 1: the right armor, the right strategy, and the enemies are

833
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:49,759
Speaker 1: not too difficult. You can kind of pull it off

834
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:53,640
Speaker 1: like clockwork in some cases. And so you're not having

835
00:45:53,680 --> 00:45:59,400
Speaker 1: these risky, ultimately empowering situations where like a character barely

836
00:45:59,440 --> 00:46:02,359
Speaker 1: survived and like fall through a burning floor and still

837
00:46:02,400 --> 00:46:05,800
Speaker 1: managed to shoot the alien. I suppose that's where what

838
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:09,240
Speaker 1: we refer to as intelligence in like you know, foreign

839
00:46:09,320 --> 00:46:13,759
Speaker 1: diplomacy and also combat comes into play, right, Like, if

840
00:46:13,800 --> 00:46:15,759
Speaker 1: you have enough intelligence ahead of time, then you can

841
00:46:15,840 --> 00:46:18,760
Speaker 1: prepare adequately. I don't know if that makes these people

842
00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:22,120
Speaker 1: less of heroes or not, but then they may not

843
00:46:22,280 --> 00:46:24,800
Speaker 1: necessarily be rewarded. Well, if you're the same way that

844
00:46:24,880 --> 00:46:27,279
Speaker 1: we used to do, you really don't want heroic Like,

845
00:46:28,120 --> 00:46:31,200
Speaker 1: if the system is is perfected, there should be no like,

846
00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:34,799
Speaker 1: for instance, we're recording podcasts in here, there's no um

847
00:46:35,520 --> 00:46:40,280
Speaker 1: expectation of of heroics because there shouldn't be. Nothing should

848
00:46:40,320 --> 00:46:42,239
Speaker 1: catch on fire all of a sudden. Let's hope not,

849
00:46:43,640 --> 00:46:45,000
Speaker 1: and it should, you know, But it's gonna be the

850
00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:47,880
Speaker 1: same with a you know, a really a refined um,

851
00:46:48,160 --> 00:46:51,960
Speaker 1: you know, emergency response plan. Yeah yeah, true. Yeah. So

852
00:46:52,360 --> 00:46:54,640
Speaker 1: that's interesting that we have so many systems in place

853
00:46:54,719 --> 00:46:57,880
Speaker 1: to to make sure we don't have to be heroes.

854
00:46:58,280 --> 00:47:00,920
Speaker 1: Right alright, The next one is so full heroism. This

855
00:47:01,040 --> 00:47:05,000
Speaker 1: is physical risk but non duty bound heroism. The classical

856
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:08,120
Speaker 1: example here is just the civilian bystander who performs an

857
00:47:08,120 --> 00:47:10,759
Speaker 1: emergency rescue. Right. Yeah. The idea of like somebody, I

858
00:47:10,760 --> 00:47:13,040
Speaker 1: don't know, there's a car So the car crash example, again,

859
00:47:13,320 --> 00:47:16,200
Speaker 1: you pull over, you immediately run over. Maybe the engines

860
00:47:16,239 --> 00:47:17,759
Speaker 1: on fire. You don't know if it's gonna blow up

861
00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 1: or something. You get the adrenaline, you're able to pull

862
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:23,560
Speaker 1: the door open and carry the person away. Right, it's average,

863
00:47:23,560 --> 00:47:27,400
Speaker 1: The average Joe or Jane saves the life and steps

864
00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:30,600
Speaker 1: back into normal. Yeah. And then there's social heroism. This

865
00:47:30,680 --> 00:47:33,480
Speaker 1: is the third category they presented the start of the paper.

866
00:47:33,640 --> 00:47:36,359
Speaker 1: Then this one's interesting because in the short term it's

867
00:47:36,400 --> 00:47:40,600
Speaker 1: often non physical risk, non duty bound heroism. But the

868
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:43,239
Speaker 1: authors point out that while the physical risk in the

869
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:46,759
Speaker 1: previous scenarios are generally short term, uh, and the hero

870
00:47:47,160 --> 00:47:50,160
Speaker 1: returns to a safe life almost immediately afterwards. So the

871
00:47:50,239 --> 00:47:52,839
Speaker 1: social hero was likely to face risk in the long term,

872
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:57,320
Speaker 1: even prolonged insidious risk in the long term. While the

873
00:47:57,560 --> 00:48:01,560
Speaker 1: previous forms of heroism usually not controversial, the social hero

874
00:48:01,719 --> 00:48:04,399
Speaker 1: often is. So the idea here is a social hero

875
00:48:04,560 --> 00:48:06,799
Speaker 1: may stand up for something that's important, and they may

876
00:48:06,960 --> 00:48:10,880
Speaker 1: never live a normal life again. Yeah, and but because

877
00:48:10,960 --> 00:48:13,960
Speaker 1: it's over a long period of time, we don't often

878
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:19,319
Speaker 1: comprehended as such. Instead of facing like physical peril, they're

879
00:48:19,360 --> 00:48:24,120
Speaker 1: associated with things like taking financial risks and having consequences economically,

880
00:48:24,280 --> 00:48:28,480
Speaker 1: or losing their social status or having long term health problems,

881
00:48:28,560 --> 00:48:33,160
Speaker 1: or even social ostracism. Right, But we don't traditionally think

882
00:48:33,200 --> 00:48:35,319
Speaker 1: of those as heroic. And this is where it gets

883
00:48:35,360 --> 00:48:37,799
Speaker 1: interesting with this study. Well, you know, it also makes

884
00:48:37,800 --> 00:48:41,399
Speaker 1: me think Superman again. Superman stands for one thing, right,

885
00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:45,799
Speaker 1: and he's been around around long enough that you can

886
00:48:45,800 --> 00:48:47,360
Speaker 1: speak to this better than than me. I don't know

887
00:48:47,400 --> 00:48:49,480
Speaker 1: if he's ever been an outright villain, but there have

888
00:48:49,560 --> 00:48:54,920
Speaker 1: been cases where Superman takes on villainous tones. Oh, it's

889
00:48:54,960 --> 00:48:58,680
Speaker 1: good old red Kryptonite every time in the new Supergirl

890
00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:01,640
Speaker 1: TV show that yes too, Yeah, it's always the red Kryptonite.

891
00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:03,640
Speaker 1: It does something that makes them weird and they go

892
00:49:03,800 --> 00:49:06,320
Speaker 1: evil and yeah, and then they have to face the

893
00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:10,000
Speaker 1: consequences afterwards because people think of them as being a monster. Okay,

894
00:49:10,160 --> 00:49:14,120
Speaker 1: or um, what was the classic The Dark Knight? Right? Yeah?

895
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:17,080
Speaker 1: Is Superman kind of villainous in that is he takes

896
00:49:17,120 --> 00:49:19,520
Speaker 1: on like Reagan as qualities, right, Yeah, it's supposed to be.

897
00:49:20,040 --> 00:49:22,520
Speaker 1: The Dark Knight is a complicated comic to talk about

898
00:49:22,560 --> 00:49:25,680
Speaker 1: in these terms, especially, but yeah, the idea is that

899
00:49:25,760 --> 00:49:28,800
Speaker 1: he's sort of like a government stooge, and like Batman

900
00:49:28,960 --> 00:49:31,879
Speaker 1: is more like I guess you describe him today as

901
00:49:31,960 --> 00:49:35,279
Speaker 1: like a libertarian hero maybe, yeah, Okay, So in any

902
00:49:35,320 --> 00:49:39,040
Speaker 1: of these cases someone stands up, if they're heroic socially,

903
00:49:40,000 --> 00:49:41,440
Speaker 1: they're going to be the villain for the people who

904
00:49:41,480 --> 00:49:46,120
Speaker 1: have different social values and different political values, and the

905
00:49:46,360 --> 00:49:49,719
Speaker 1: the the trends may turn, the tide may turn, and

906
00:49:49,800 --> 00:49:52,480
Speaker 1: they might be cast as a villain by whatever the

907
00:49:52,680 --> 00:49:56,439
Speaker 1: predominant narrative is in the future. Yeah, yeah, absolutely true.

908
00:49:56,480 --> 00:49:58,720
Speaker 1: That gets back to what I was saying about villains earlier,

909
00:49:58,840 --> 00:50:01,480
Speaker 1: that like how to how does it demonstrate the limits

910
00:50:01,520 --> 00:50:06,160
Speaker 1: of what we conceive as being uh, culturally acceptable? And

911
00:50:06,280 --> 00:50:08,280
Speaker 1: so it's interesting when you go back to this paper,

912
00:50:08,760 --> 00:50:12,200
Speaker 1: their definition of hero then boils down to this, Uh,

913
00:50:12,280 --> 00:50:14,880
Speaker 1: it's somebody who is in service to others that are

914
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:19,400
Speaker 1: in need, people who are possibly defending a social standard.

915
00:50:19,800 --> 00:50:24,200
Speaker 1: They engage voluntarily, they have recognition of what the possible

916
00:50:24,360 --> 00:50:28,200
Speaker 1: risks are to themselves. They are willing to accept the

917
00:50:28,280 --> 00:50:32,920
Speaker 1: anticipated sacrifice that goes along with their actions, and they

918
00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:36,320
Speaker 1: don't think about any external gain at the time of

919
00:50:36,400 --> 00:50:38,799
Speaker 1: the act. It's not like trying to think of an

920
00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:42,280
Speaker 1: example here, like somebody like John McCain or John Kerry

921
00:50:42,360 --> 00:50:45,200
Speaker 1: who were like in combat and then came back and

922
00:50:45,280 --> 00:50:50,440
Speaker 1: were able to um use the risks that they saw

923
00:50:50,840 --> 00:50:55,759
Speaker 1: in combat to become great political figures. Right, It's not

924
00:50:55,880 --> 00:50:57,960
Speaker 1: like they were thinking about I don't know, I don't

925
00:50:58,000 --> 00:51:00,839
Speaker 1: know those two guys, but hopefully they aren't thinking about

926
00:51:00,960 --> 00:51:03,360
Speaker 1: that while they're in the act, right right, Yeah, So

927
00:51:03,480 --> 00:51:07,600
Speaker 1: it's it's one thing too, of course, to capitalize. Capitalized

928
00:51:07,640 --> 00:51:09,680
Speaker 1: might even I don't think might be an unfair terms.

929
00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:13,279
Speaker 1: It's one thing. I mean, an heroic act may have

930
00:51:13,560 --> 00:51:17,640
Speaker 1: a profound impact on the hero's life, either sort of

931
00:51:17,719 --> 00:51:20,440
Speaker 1: altering their course, or there also been cases where it

932
00:51:20,480 --> 00:51:24,160
Speaker 1: has a negative effect. I think that the paper we're

933
00:51:24,160 --> 00:51:27,640
Speaker 1: looking at here referred to some anecdotal evidence that showed

934
00:51:27,680 --> 00:51:32,439
Speaker 1: like an increased suicide rate among individuals who acted heroically. Say,

935
00:51:32,880 --> 00:51:35,640
Speaker 1: you know, in the classic someone falls on the subway tracks?

936
00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:38,480
Speaker 1: Uh situation. Yeah, we'll think about how much we've talked

937
00:51:38,480 --> 00:51:44,480
Speaker 1: about PTSD on this show before in relation to military service. Yeah,

938
00:51:44,640 --> 00:51:49,200
Speaker 1: but certainly a case where someone stops and thinks somebody

939
00:51:49,280 --> 00:51:52,319
Speaker 1: fell on some train tracks. Is there anybody watching? Should

940
00:51:52,360 --> 00:51:55,680
Speaker 1: I jump on and save them. Um, that could be

941
00:51:55,760 --> 00:51:57,680
Speaker 1: good for me. I better do it. Like, that's that's

942
00:51:57,760 --> 00:52:02,200
Speaker 1: not a hero. So right, they they took these three

943
00:52:02,480 --> 00:52:05,919
Speaker 1: categories that we mentioned, and then they busted out into

944
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:11,000
Speaker 1: twelve classifications. Uh, and let's let's remember to remind ourselves here.

945
00:52:11,560 --> 00:52:15,040
Speaker 1: One hero is a social construction. Okay, So what they

946
00:52:15,120 --> 00:52:17,360
Speaker 1: come up with here, they're not They're just saying, this

947
00:52:17,560 --> 00:52:20,279
Speaker 1: is what we think the current social construction is. It

948
00:52:20,400 --> 00:52:24,000
Speaker 1: may not actually reflect the merits of somebody's actions. And

949
00:52:24,080 --> 00:52:26,160
Speaker 1: then one of the paradox is that they point to

950
00:52:27,400 --> 00:52:29,920
Speaker 1: is that it's considered to be a pro social behavior,

951
00:52:29,960 --> 00:52:32,680
Speaker 1: as we've mentioned earlier. But to be so, it has

952
00:52:32,760 --> 00:52:35,320
Speaker 1: to be witnessed. Right, are you a hero? It's like

953
00:52:35,400 --> 00:52:39,320
Speaker 1: the thing like can anybody hear a tree, uh, falls

954
00:52:39,360 --> 00:52:41,640
Speaker 1: in the forest if there's nobody there or whatever? You know, Like,

955
00:52:42,000 --> 00:52:45,120
Speaker 1: is somebody a hero if there's nobody there to witness it? Um?

956
00:52:45,440 --> 00:52:47,719
Speaker 1: What about the heroes who don't have an audience but

957
00:52:47,800 --> 00:52:52,480
Speaker 1: are heroic in private somehow? So okay, let's go through

958
00:52:52,520 --> 00:52:55,200
Speaker 1: this list. You wanna bounce back and forth, Let's just

959
00:52:55,280 --> 00:52:57,359
Speaker 1: go back and forth. So the first two we're gonna

960
00:52:57,440 --> 00:53:02,080
Speaker 1: hit are the definite physical peril examples, the first one

961
00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:05,879
Speaker 1: being military or other duty bound physical risk heroes. Yeah.

962
00:53:05,920 --> 00:53:07,960
Speaker 1: And then we've got the civil heroes. These are the

963
00:53:08,040 --> 00:53:11,799
Speaker 1: non duty bound physical risk heroes. Uh. And then all

964
00:53:11,840 --> 00:53:14,600
Speaker 1: of the ones after this they line up under that

965
00:53:14,719 --> 00:53:18,400
Speaker 1: social heroes and category. Uh. So they're they're facing social

966
00:53:18,480 --> 00:53:21,160
Speaker 1: sacrifices rather than physical peril. That's right. So we have

967
00:53:21,280 --> 00:53:28,320
Speaker 1: religious figures, political religious figures, martyrs, political or military leaders.

968
00:53:29,360 --> 00:53:33,480
Speaker 1: This one's interesting. Adventurers, explorers, and discoverers. Yeah. And then

969
00:53:33,640 --> 00:53:38,319
Speaker 1: after that they have scientific discovery heroes Okay, and then

970
00:53:38,520 --> 00:53:42,760
Speaker 1: good samaritans, somebody who you know helps out complete stranger

971
00:53:43,280 --> 00:53:47,239
Speaker 1: for no gang yeah. Uh, odds beater which is a

972
00:53:47,320 --> 00:53:52,520
Speaker 1: strange phrase, or just like the underdog basically. And then

973
00:53:52,560 --> 00:53:55,440
Speaker 1: we have bureaucracy heroes. So this is so someone who

974
00:53:55,600 --> 00:53:59,040
Speaker 1: serves as an agent of change within a bureaucratic system. Yeah.

975
00:53:59,200 --> 00:54:02,759
Speaker 1: And then finally we've got whistleblowers, which I think it's

976
00:54:02,760 --> 00:54:06,520
Speaker 1: pretty interesting because of how many biopics we've seen lately

977
00:54:06,560 --> 00:54:10,440
Speaker 1: about whistleblowers and they're celebrated as heroes in these films.

978
00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:12,080
Speaker 1: And I'm sure as we go through it went through

979
00:54:12,080 --> 00:54:16,440
Speaker 1: that lift you know, everybody can think of multiple examples

980
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:19,640
Speaker 1: from either history. Are certainly current events that line up

981
00:54:19,680 --> 00:54:21,120
Speaker 1: with some of these, and you can probably think of

982
00:54:21,200 --> 00:54:23,840
Speaker 1: examples that you can say, oh, well, so and so

983
00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:27,319
Speaker 1: it's technically technically they were an underdog, but I don't

984
00:54:27,320 --> 00:54:29,359
Speaker 1: see them as a hero at all. But then we're

985
00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:33,120
Speaker 1: getting into the the the subjective nature of the thing.

986
00:54:33,239 --> 00:54:36,279
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, totally. I mean, think of um, oh, this

987
00:54:36,400 --> 00:54:40,319
Speaker 1: is a perfect example. Edwards Snowdon is Edward Snowden a hero,

988
00:54:40,600 --> 00:54:43,759
Speaker 1: He's a whistleblower. Yeah, but some people hate him. Some

989
00:54:43,920 --> 00:54:46,800
Speaker 1: people think he's uh he should be tried, uh and

990
00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:50,680
Speaker 1: like executed. Right. Yeah, well, Donald Trump is another polarizing

991
00:54:50,760 --> 00:54:54,000
Speaker 1: figure who he was an underdog, you defy the odds

992
00:54:54,440 --> 00:54:57,720
Speaker 1: and uh and won the election. Therefore, you know, plenty

993
00:54:57,719 --> 00:55:00,040
Speaker 1: of people see him as a heroic figure. Others e

994
00:55:00,160 --> 00:55:02,759
Speaker 1: m as a villainous figure. So let's take a quick break,

995
00:55:02,840 --> 00:55:05,520
Speaker 1: and when we come back, we're gonna look at the

996
00:55:05,680 --> 00:55:10,200
Speaker 1: findings that this team had when they observed what people

997
00:55:10,239 --> 00:55:12,840
Speaker 1: actually thought about these twelve categories they came up with,

998
00:55:13,000 --> 00:55:20,680
Speaker 1: and whether or not they're heroes or not. So by

999
00:55:20,760 --> 00:55:23,759
Speaker 1: and large, psycho psychologists tend to look at heroism in

1000
00:55:23,880 --> 00:55:27,320
Speaker 1: terms of other psychological situations. We've touched on this already,

1001
00:55:27,360 --> 00:55:32,040
Speaker 1: civil courage, courageous resistance, extreme am altruism, and of course

1002
00:55:32,239 --> 00:55:35,680
Speaker 1: moral courage. Yeah. Yeah, So the question here really is

1003
00:55:35,800 --> 00:55:39,600
Speaker 1: how does heroism align with altruism? Are there the same thing?

1004
00:55:40,320 --> 00:55:43,239
Speaker 1: So far it seems like they're not right. Yeah, that

1005
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:45,759
Speaker 1: seems to be the consensus. So altruism is of course

1006
00:55:46,080 --> 00:55:48,680
Speaker 1: this is a topic unto itself grounded in the concern

1007
00:55:48,880 --> 00:55:52,600
Speaker 1: or welfare of others. But is there is there such

1008
00:55:52,640 --> 00:55:56,040
Speaker 1: a thing as a truly altruistic act? That's I think

1009
00:55:56,080 --> 00:55:58,239
Speaker 1: there's an old episode of this podcast that that even

1010
00:55:58,280 --> 00:56:01,440
Speaker 1: tackled that, because can there's a strong argument that you

1011
00:56:01,480 --> 00:56:04,080
Speaker 1: can say, well, it's always about yourself. It's always about

1012
00:56:04,239 --> 00:56:06,960
Speaker 1: what people are going to think about you for saying

1013
00:56:07,000 --> 00:56:08,880
Speaker 1: you think of it as as simple as donating to

1014
00:56:09,040 --> 00:56:12,719
Speaker 1: a nonprofit. Did you push that share button on Facebook

1015
00:56:13,000 --> 00:56:15,319
Speaker 1: to share the fact that you donated or to let

1016
00:56:15,440 --> 00:56:18,560
Speaker 1: people know that you donate it? Yeah, exactly. And even

1017
00:56:18,600 --> 00:56:21,160
Speaker 1: if nobody is told about it, are you still doing

1018
00:56:21,239 --> 00:56:24,759
Speaker 1: it just for that own personal boost of like, oh

1019
00:56:24,920 --> 00:56:27,080
Speaker 1: I did something good, I feel better about myself now,

1020
00:56:27,800 --> 00:56:29,840
Speaker 1: And and are you nitpicking too much to say that

1021
00:56:29,960 --> 00:56:33,000
Speaker 1: that is a negative thing. This gets to the heart

1022
00:56:33,200 --> 00:56:37,440
Speaker 1: of the whole safety pin or no safety pin argument

1023
00:56:37,520 --> 00:56:39,480
Speaker 1: over the last month or so here in the States,

1024
00:56:39,960 --> 00:56:43,080
Speaker 1: which is like, are you doing that for other people

1025
00:56:43,200 --> 00:56:45,040
Speaker 1: or are you doing it for yourself? And even if

1026
00:56:45,080 --> 00:56:47,960
Speaker 1: you are doing it for other people, should you be Yeah? Yeah,

1027
00:56:48,040 --> 00:56:51,520
Speaker 1: So it gets it, and yeah you can you can

1028
00:56:51,600 --> 00:56:53,400
Speaker 1: kind of nitpick it to death until you're like, all right,

1029
00:56:53,400 --> 00:56:56,280
Speaker 1: I guess I'm not gonna do anything good because there's

1030
00:56:56,320 --> 00:56:59,480
Speaker 1: it's impossible for me to do a purely good thing. So,

1031
00:56:59,600 --> 00:57:02,319
Speaker 1: but what can definitely agree on here is that heroism

1032
00:57:02,520 --> 00:57:06,000
Speaker 1: is very often altruistic. Though some of the examples that

1033
00:57:06,040 --> 00:57:08,360
Speaker 1: we just touched on, you know, and that that twelve

1034
00:57:08,480 --> 00:57:11,760
Speaker 1: point list, Uh, some of those examples buck the trend.

1035
00:57:12,040 --> 00:57:16,200
Speaker 1: You know, is an explore truly altruistic? Was Christopher Columbus altruistic?

1036
00:57:16,680 --> 00:57:18,280
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think there is a very strong

1037
00:57:18,400 --> 00:57:21,160
Speaker 1: argument to say that he was not. But you can

1038
00:57:21,200 --> 00:57:24,160
Speaker 1: think of other explorers who were. So how do how

1039
00:57:24,240 --> 00:57:28,880
Speaker 1: do they break down the difference? Then these Franco Blowan Zimbardo. Okay,

1040
00:57:28,960 --> 00:57:31,720
Speaker 1: So the authors here argue that the key differences between

1041
00:57:31,800 --> 00:57:36,760
Speaker 1: mere altruism and i'ltry heroics. It all boils down to risk, velocity,

1042
00:57:36,840 --> 00:57:40,480
Speaker 1: and barriers to entry. So risk, this is pretty obvious.

1043
00:57:40,560 --> 00:57:45,520
Speaker 1: There is a real immediate or lasting risk to acting, death, injury,

1044
00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:50,480
Speaker 1: the ire of opposing factions, government crackdown, imprisonment, et cetera.

1045
00:57:50,800 --> 00:57:53,120
Speaker 1: And they point out to they say, the level of

1046
00:57:53,360 --> 00:57:59,160
Speaker 1: risk that's incurred in altruism is typically lower than even

1047
00:57:59,240 --> 00:58:04,480
Speaker 1: the minimum risk threshold we think of to achieve heroic status. Right. Yeah, Again,

1048
00:58:04,720 --> 00:58:09,360
Speaker 1: donating to a good cause the altruistic, but nobody even

1049
00:58:09,400 --> 00:58:12,200
Speaker 1: needs to know about it. Yeah, all right, next velocity,

1050
00:58:12,720 --> 00:58:16,080
Speaker 1: So there is typically a very small window of opportunity

1051
00:58:16,200 --> 00:58:19,240
Speaker 1: for the hero to act. Uh, the building is burning now,

1052
00:58:19,440 --> 00:58:22,520
Speaker 1: the swimmer is drowning. Now. It's not the the ideal

1053
00:58:22,600 --> 00:58:25,440
Speaker 1: time to to speak out within the strict confines of

1054
00:58:25,480 --> 00:58:27,880
Speaker 1: a governing system, but it's the ideal time from the

1055
00:58:27,960 --> 00:58:30,600
Speaker 1: human perspective. Ye. And this definitely lines up with what

1056
00:58:30,720 --> 00:58:34,160
Speaker 1: they described as military and civil heroism, right, because you

1057
00:58:34,240 --> 00:58:37,040
Speaker 1: have to act in the moment, whereas the social heroism

1058
00:58:37,600 --> 00:58:41,000
Speaker 1: is longitudinal, it occurs over time. Right. But even in

1059
00:58:41,040 --> 00:58:43,800
Speaker 1: the social situation, you know, it's it's just you look

1060
00:58:43,880 --> 00:58:47,280
Speaker 1: at the say certain uh, you know civil rights heroes

1061
00:58:47,320 --> 00:58:50,320
Speaker 1: for instance, there are many forms of protest for example

1062
00:58:50,840 --> 00:58:56,200
Speaker 1: that uh that either you know, skirt the limits of

1063
00:58:56,400 --> 00:59:01,200
Speaker 1: legal protest or certainly just are more problematic. Model like

1064
00:59:01,320 --> 00:59:04,320
Speaker 1: certainly you know a sit in Um he's an even

1065
00:59:04,440 --> 00:59:07,360
Speaker 1: Rosa Parks you know, like it's not like she filed

1066
00:59:07,440 --> 00:59:12,440
Speaker 1: paperwork about the situation. She acted and she gets go

1067
00:59:12,520 --> 00:59:16,160
Speaker 1: in a way that that was problematic and risky. That's true, yeah,

1068
00:59:16,160 --> 00:59:20,000
Speaker 1: because but ultimately more potent and powerful. Yeah. To uh,

1069
00:59:20,480 --> 00:59:22,680
Speaker 1: another way to to to think about this, I like

1070
00:59:22,800 --> 00:59:27,360
Speaker 1: to think of The Big Lebowski. The stranger in The

1071
00:59:27,360 --> 00:59:31,520
Speaker 1: Big Lebowski would be sam Elious Sam Elliott. That's right,

1072
00:59:31,720 --> 00:59:35,080
Speaker 1: he said beef, it's what's for dinner. No, that's that's uh,

1073
00:59:35,560 --> 00:59:41,280
Speaker 1: you're you're breaking into Brimley. It's a James a Dummian joke. Anyways, sorry,

1074
00:59:41,640 --> 00:59:44,280
Speaker 1: um so, so the quote is uh, I only mention

1075
00:59:44,360 --> 00:59:47,360
Speaker 1: it because sometimes there's a man. I won't say a hero,

1076
00:59:47,600 --> 00:59:51,080
Speaker 1: cause what's a hero. But sometimes there's a man and

1077
00:59:51,160 --> 00:59:54,720
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the dude here. Sometimes there's a man. Well,

1078
00:59:55,200 --> 00:59:57,920
Speaker 1: he's the man for his time and place. He fits

1079
00:59:58,040 --> 01:00:01,480
Speaker 1: right in there. Yeah, is the dude a hero? I

1080
01:00:01,520 --> 01:00:03,520
Speaker 1: think that's one of the big questions about the big lebalty.

1081
01:00:03,800 --> 01:00:06,120
Speaker 1: It's the big question of our generation. I think if

1082
01:00:06,160 --> 01:00:08,520
Speaker 1: we can answer that one, we can solve everything. Sometimes

1083
01:00:08,600 --> 01:00:10,880
Speaker 1: being a hero is just being in the right the

1084
01:00:11,000 --> 01:00:14,440
Speaker 1: right place at the right time and then doing something.

1085
01:00:14,600 --> 01:00:17,760
Speaker 1: Yeah that's true. Yeah, all right. And then the third

1086
01:00:17,840 --> 01:00:21,480
Speaker 1: one barriers to entry. And for this let's consider once

1087
01:00:21,520 --> 01:00:24,400
Speaker 1: more that the bystand or effect. And remember that acts

1088
01:00:24,440 --> 01:00:28,760
Speaker 1: of altruism in public scenarios tend to follow several seconds

1089
01:00:28,880 --> 01:00:33,080
Speaker 1: or or minutes of frenzied indecision. You may go back

1090
01:00:33,120 --> 01:00:34,720
Speaker 1: and forth on it, but ultimately you have to act.

1091
01:00:34,800 --> 01:00:36,880
Speaker 1: You have to be able to enable and willing to

1092
01:00:37,040 --> 01:00:41,320
Speaker 1: break through social norms, and in some cases that means

1093
01:00:41,440 --> 01:00:43,880
Speaker 1: you have to be a deviant. Yeah. And so this

1094
01:00:44,000 --> 01:00:46,720
Speaker 1: is where things get interesting with this study. So when

1095
01:00:46,760 --> 01:00:49,520
Speaker 1: they applied their taxonomy to the survey that we mentioned,

1096
01:00:49,920 --> 01:00:53,800
Speaker 1: they found that civilian fire rescue was deemed as the

1097
01:00:53,960 --> 01:00:58,240
Speaker 1: most purely heroic act, while a soldier laying down his

1098
01:00:58,440 --> 01:01:01,800
Speaker 1: life for others to escape is actually rated as slightly less.

1099
01:01:02,240 --> 01:01:06,280
Speaker 1: And they saw this as suggesting that um perception ascribes

1100
01:01:06,520 --> 01:01:10,479
Speaker 1: more heroic value to actions that are taken when there's

1101
01:01:10,520 --> 01:01:14,560
Speaker 1: no specific duty that exists. Right, so if a civilian

1102
01:01:14,640 --> 01:01:18,360
Speaker 1: runs into a burning building, that's somehow more heroic to

1103
01:01:18,520 --> 01:01:21,520
Speaker 1: us than if a firefighter does, even though they're both

1104
01:01:22,000 --> 01:01:24,000
Speaker 1: they both have the same risks. Although I guess you

1105
01:01:24,000 --> 01:01:27,200
Speaker 1: could say that a firefighter has training, true, and that's

1106
01:01:27,240 --> 01:01:30,400
Speaker 1: weird that we would. We would then devalue the important

1107
01:01:30,400 --> 01:01:33,920
Speaker 1: the importance of training and being a hero because ultimately,

1108
01:01:34,000 --> 01:01:36,360
Speaker 1: like that dude just ran into the flaming building, he

1109
01:01:36,440 --> 01:01:38,040
Speaker 1: could have died too, because he didn't know what he

1110
01:01:38,120 --> 01:01:41,760
Speaker 1: was doing. Absolutely yeah. Uh. They also found the social

1111
01:01:41,880 --> 01:01:47,320
Speaker 1: heroism activities were seen as less heroic and more as altruism.

1112
01:01:47,800 --> 01:01:51,520
Speaker 1: Only four of their forms of social heroism were actually

1113
01:01:51,560 --> 01:01:54,280
Speaker 1: seen as heroic by the people who took this survey,

1114
01:01:54,680 --> 01:01:58,760
Speaker 1: and those were the good Samaritans, the politico religious figures,

1115
01:01:59,400 --> 01:02:05,320
Speaker 1: individual is fighting against an unjust bureaucracy, and whistleblowers. Uh.

1116
01:02:05,400 --> 01:02:08,680
Speaker 1: And this led to them reconfiguring it. So they broke

1117
01:02:08,840 --> 01:02:14,840
Speaker 1: social heroism into two different categories, those who defy systems

1118
01:02:15,440 --> 01:02:19,040
Speaker 1: and those who defy reality. And so that gets back

1119
01:02:19,080 --> 01:02:22,800
Speaker 1: to the explorer um the Christopher Columbus thing. So an

1120
01:02:22,840 --> 01:02:26,440
Speaker 1: explorer that's making a discovery. It seems great. They're defying reality,

1121
01:02:26,560 --> 01:02:32,640
Speaker 1: they're not defying systems. Um, Whereas physical risk heroes are

1122
01:02:32,760 --> 01:02:36,040
Speaker 1: viewed as more prototypically heroic. I guess it comes down

1123
01:02:36,080 --> 01:02:39,400
Speaker 1: there's just there's less ambiguity of uh, you know that

1124
01:02:39,880 --> 01:02:43,200
Speaker 1: saving someone from burning fire, Like there's no like, what's

1125
01:02:43,240 --> 01:02:46,720
Speaker 1: the fire's point of view? Right now, it's pretty clear

1126
01:02:46,760 --> 01:02:48,840
Speaker 1: what's going on, the fire is consuming? How do you

1127
01:02:49,160 --> 01:02:52,560
Speaker 1: fire feel about that? Yeah? But you know, I love

1128
01:02:52,640 --> 01:02:55,160
Speaker 1: this idea of the deviant hero. And that's that's from

1129
01:02:55,720 --> 01:02:59,480
Speaker 1: the Franco Blao and Zimbardo study. You know, they point

1130
01:02:59,520 --> 01:03:01,960
Speaker 1: out they hear ois m is ultimately kind of crazy.

1131
01:03:02,080 --> 01:03:05,800
Speaker 1: You have to deviate from social norms, from social expectations,

1132
01:03:06,160 --> 01:03:09,840
Speaker 1: individual expectations. You gotta breakthrough, not just one, not just

1133
01:03:09,920 --> 01:03:12,920
Speaker 1: the force field of fear, but like multiple force fields

1134
01:03:13,200 --> 01:03:16,000
Speaker 1: you gotta you ultimately kind of have to be a little,

1135
01:03:16,640 --> 01:03:19,160
Speaker 1: a little superhuman to do that. You have to be

1136
01:03:19,200 --> 01:03:22,080
Speaker 1: a special kind of crazy. You have to be a deviant.

1137
01:03:22,640 --> 01:03:25,840
Speaker 1: This makes me feel slightly less bad about not being

1138
01:03:25,920 --> 01:03:28,000
Speaker 1: the person to stand up on that bus all those

1139
01:03:28,080 --> 01:03:30,680
Speaker 1: years ago and defend that young woman. But at the

1140
01:03:30,760 --> 01:03:34,360
Speaker 1: same time, it's still and this is something before we

1141
01:03:34,480 --> 01:03:36,120
Speaker 1: even came up with this as a topic, I've been

1142
01:03:36,200 --> 01:03:39,400
Speaker 1: questioning lately in myself is what do I have what

1143
01:03:39,560 --> 01:03:42,640
Speaker 1: it takes to to do something heroic if it comes

1144
01:03:42,720 --> 01:03:45,280
Speaker 1: to it, you know, can I break through those force fields?

1145
01:03:45,360 --> 01:03:48,200
Speaker 1: Maybe we're all asking that question. Yeah, I mean, you know,

1146
01:03:48,240 --> 01:03:50,760
Speaker 1: I couldn't help. But think of all these different superheroes. Again,

1147
01:03:50,880 --> 01:03:54,960
Speaker 1: to bring up superheroes is that they're all ultimately deviants, right,

1148
01:03:55,040 --> 01:03:58,680
Speaker 1: I mean, they're all they're all costumed individual and not

1149
01:03:58,840 --> 01:04:01,680
Speaker 1: you know, not every superhero has a costume, but a

1150
01:04:01,800 --> 01:04:05,160
Speaker 1: lot of them are costumed individuals. There. They have screwed

1151
01:04:05,240 --> 01:04:09,160
Speaker 1: up backstories, they have pain, they have disfigurements, they have

1152
01:04:09,680 --> 01:04:13,920
Speaker 1: you know, mutant genes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's interesting. Um.

1153
01:04:14,520 --> 01:04:17,560
Speaker 1: On my other podcast, Super Context, we just did an

1154
01:04:17,600 --> 01:04:19,920
Speaker 1: episode about Luke Cage and I don't know if you've

1155
01:04:19,920 --> 01:04:22,720
Speaker 1: watched that TV show. I watched about half of it

1156
01:04:22,920 --> 01:04:25,400
Speaker 1: and it's it's yeah, so that's about the same as me. Uh,

1157
01:04:25,480 --> 01:04:27,800
Speaker 1: And it's it's a really interesting example when you think

1158
01:04:27,800 --> 01:04:31,600
Speaker 1: about heroism, especially in relation to African American culture today,

1159
01:04:32,120 --> 01:04:34,680
Speaker 1: and they really had some themes in that TV show

1160
01:04:34,720 --> 01:04:38,520
Speaker 1: where they were they were attempting to show um both

1161
01:04:38,600 --> 01:04:40,960
Speaker 1: the culture on sort of like a street level, but

1162
01:04:41,120 --> 01:04:45,000
Speaker 1: also Luke Cage as a hero that really represented things

1163
01:04:45,080 --> 01:04:49,000
Speaker 1: that were seen as like traditionally non heroic, like, for instance,

1164
01:04:49,120 --> 01:04:52,640
Speaker 1: wearing a hoodie, you know, like they purposely had scenes

1165
01:04:52,680 --> 01:04:54,560
Speaker 1: where he was wearing a hoodie while he was getting

1166
01:04:54,640 --> 01:04:58,720
Speaker 1: shot to show a contrast to the example of young

1167
01:04:58,880 --> 01:05:02,440
Speaker 1: black men getting shot at for wearing hoodies. Yeah, it's

1168
01:05:02,480 --> 01:05:04,360
Speaker 1: a From what I've seen of the show so far,

1169
01:05:04,440 --> 01:05:08,160
Speaker 1: it's very good and the music is phenomenal. Yeah, the

1170
01:05:08,240 --> 01:05:10,160
Speaker 1: music is great. The guy who wrote it was a

1171
01:05:10,280 --> 01:05:13,480
Speaker 1: music journalist and so he just really really brought in

1172
01:05:13,600 --> 01:05:15,520
Speaker 1: all of his old contacts to make the music right

1173
01:05:15,560 --> 01:05:18,200
Speaker 1: on that show. I believe it's Adrian Young is the

1174
01:05:18,760 --> 01:05:20,800
Speaker 1: one of the producers, and then one of the guys

1175
01:05:20,840 --> 01:05:24,520
Speaker 1: from Trip called Quest Cool. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, So definitely

1176
01:05:24,760 --> 01:05:26,280
Speaker 1: definitely check that out and if you don't have time

1177
01:05:26,320 --> 01:05:28,840
Speaker 1: to watch it, just listen to uh so. You know

1178
01:05:28,880 --> 01:05:31,720
Speaker 1: we're gonna bring this bringing this back around to fictional

1179
01:05:31,920 --> 01:05:36,160
Speaker 1: heroes like Luke Cage, like Superman and Batman. Uh. I

1180
01:05:36,240 --> 01:05:38,240
Speaker 1: think it's it's nice to bring it back to these

1181
01:05:38,280 --> 01:05:41,120
Speaker 1: mythical and fictional heroes, because there's that inevitable interplay that

1182
01:05:41,200 --> 01:05:44,600
Speaker 1: we discussed at the top. These models inform us how

1183
01:05:44,760 --> 01:05:47,400
Speaker 1: to act, how to be heroes. They show us what

1184
01:05:47,920 --> 01:05:51,520
Speaker 1: we can be if we just break through the fear

1185
01:05:51,600 --> 01:05:55,360
Speaker 1: and break through those psychological norms. Yeah, I wanna, I

1186
01:05:55,400 --> 01:05:58,200
Speaker 1: wanna close this section off with just a quick quote

1187
01:05:58,320 --> 01:06:01,760
Speaker 1: from that Franco Blau and Embardo paper that we've been

1188
01:06:01,800 --> 01:06:05,640
Speaker 1: talking about. Quote. The construct of heroic imagination is central

1189
01:06:05,680 --> 01:06:09,000
Speaker 1: to our view of heroism. Although it remains largely theoretical

1190
01:06:09,120 --> 01:06:12,360
Speaker 1: and has not been adequately characterized to date, our initial

1191
01:06:12,400 --> 01:06:15,280
Speaker 1: work in this area suggests that the heroic imagination functions

1192
01:06:15,280 --> 01:06:18,680
Speaker 1: in three distinct ways. How heroes are imagined in classic

1193
01:06:18,760 --> 01:06:21,640
Speaker 1: writing and by the general public a mental state of

1194
01:06:21,680 --> 01:06:25,320
Speaker 1: anticipation and readiness for any person to act heroically when

1195
01:06:25,400 --> 01:06:29,880
Speaker 1: opportunities arise, calling for heroic actions as a contrast with

1196
01:06:30,040 --> 01:06:34,160
Speaker 1: the hostile imagination or the psychology of enmity, which instills

1197
01:06:34,320 --> 01:06:37,760
Speaker 1: fear and hatred of enemies, and, at least in some individuals,

1198
01:06:37,840 --> 01:06:41,560
Speaker 1: the ability to envision and communicate a new way of

1199
01:06:41,760 --> 01:06:45,960
Speaker 1: ordering a social system or an entire society. So I

1200
01:06:46,080 --> 01:06:48,400
Speaker 1: think this is a good place for us to close out.

1201
01:06:48,600 --> 01:06:50,920
Speaker 1: We've asked a lot of questions. I don't think that

1202
01:06:51,000 --> 01:06:53,920
Speaker 1: this is something that psychology is a discipline, is really

1203
01:06:54,040 --> 01:06:58,200
Speaker 1: nailed down. Yet myth is constantly changing, so it hasn't yet.

1204
01:06:58,280 --> 01:07:02,600
Speaker 1: But I'm curious what you the audience think. Are these

1205
01:07:02,840 --> 01:07:05,920
Speaker 1: examples that we provided, especially from this paper, by these

1206
01:07:06,040 --> 01:07:09,560
Speaker 1: these three academics, are these heroes? You know? Where where

1207
01:07:09,560 --> 01:07:11,320
Speaker 1: do you think this falls? Are you more on the

1208
01:07:11,400 --> 01:07:13,760
Speaker 1: side of it's the people who take physical risk or

1209
01:07:13,800 --> 01:07:16,240
Speaker 1: do you think social heroes fall into and who are

1210
01:07:16,320 --> 01:07:20,439
Speaker 1: your heroes? And more importantly, do you think you could

1211
01:07:20,480 --> 01:07:22,480
Speaker 1: be a hero if it came down to it? So

1212
01:07:22,720 --> 01:07:25,600
Speaker 1: let us know. Uh, there's lots of ways to contact us.

1213
01:07:25,720 --> 01:07:28,240
Speaker 1: You could reach out to us on social media. Were

1214
01:07:28,320 --> 01:07:33,360
Speaker 1: on Facebook, Tumbler, Twitter, and Instagram. Uh. You can visit

1215
01:07:33,440 --> 01:07:36,000
Speaker 1: us at stuff tobleow your mind dot com to find

1216
01:07:36,400 --> 01:07:39,360
Speaker 1: links to all those social media platforms. What else is

1217
01:07:39,400 --> 01:07:42,280
Speaker 1: over there, Robert Oh at the website. Oh well, we

1218
01:07:42,400 --> 01:07:44,720
Speaker 1: have all the podcasts, all the blogs, all the videos.

1219
01:07:45,320 --> 01:07:47,360
Speaker 1: We have links out to all those various social media

1220
01:07:47,360 --> 01:07:50,440
Speaker 1: accounts as well. Uh. Oh, and hey, before we we

1221
01:07:50,640 --> 01:07:52,520
Speaker 1: close it out here. I also want to point out

1222
01:07:52,800 --> 01:07:56,360
Speaker 1: that Dr Philip Zimbardo, one of the authors on the study, UH,

1223
01:07:56,440 --> 01:08:00,040
Speaker 1: he actually has a five oh one nonprofit organization and

1224
01:08:00,120 --> 01:08:03,600
Speaker 1: called the Heroic Imagination Project or HIP UH and it

1225
01:08:03,720 --> 01:08:07,200
Speaker 1: teaches people how to take effective action and challenging situations. Yeah.

1226
01:08:07,280 --> 01:08:08,880
Speaker 1: So this is a thing that we're trying to do

1227
01:08:08,960 --> 01:08:12,720
Speaker 1: occasionally on the show. You know, uh, find a charitable

1228
01:08:12,840 --> 01:08:16,160
Speaker 1: organization that relates to the topic at hand, and this

1229
01:08:16,240 --> 01:08:18,120
Speaker 1: seems like a really cool one. I was looking at it,

1230
01:08:18,160 --> 01:08:21,280
Speaker 1: and it's funny. I was looking for groups and the

1231
01:08:21,400 --> 01:08:23,600
Speaker 1: first one that came up, I saw Zimbardo's name and

1232
01:08:23,640 --> 01:08:25,960
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. We gotta

1233
01:08:25,960 --> 01:08:29,120
Speaker 1: we gotta mention Zimbardo. Yeah, since we got so much

1234
01:08:29,160 --> 01:08:31,599
Speaker 1: out of his study, and yeah, check that out. Will

1235
01:08:31,640 --> 01:08:33,800
Speaker 1: include a link for it on the landing page of

1236
01:08:33,880 --> 01:08:36,160
Speaker 1: this episode, or just do a search for the Heroic

1237
01:08:36,200 --> 01:08:39,400
Speaker 1: Imagination Project. And the last way that you could reach

1238
01:08:39,479 --> 01:08:41,040
Speaker 1: out to us if you really want to tell us

1239
01:08:41,160 --> 01:08:44,320
Speaker 1: all your thoughts on heroes is the old fashioned email

1240
01:08:44,479 --> 01:08:46,640
Speaker 1: at blow the mind at how stuff works dot com.

1241
01:08:56,160 --> 01:08:58,599
Speaker 1: Well more on this than thousands of other topics, because

1242
01:08:58,600 --> 01:09:10,840
Speaker 1: it how Stuff works dot com, other Liter Liter and

1243
01:09:11,200 --> 01:09:18,960
Speaker 1: the different memory start postrophic part