[ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice

[Bryan Bishop]

On Saturday 08 March 2008, Stefano Vaj wrote:
> - Essentially and originally a hero is simply an individual denoted
> by a semi-divine status: in the Ancient Greece, an individual
> typically endowed by his genetic (!) peculiarity, as the hybrid
> offspring of a god and a human being, allowing and making him behave
> in a "heroic", i.e., extraordinary, way (reversing the myth, heroics
> of a given individual may make for a semi-divine status attributed
> to, and recognised in, him by the relevant community). Self-sacrifice

Then we are led to think that a hero is one who has achieved divinity?

> has thus not anything necessarily to do with the idea of "heroic",
> and more with the idea of "tragic", even though the two ideas are
> intertwined (see below).

I would like to agree, but I can't. Even godhood comes with tragedy.

> The supreme tragedy of life, I have always thought, is that it must
> end in death. Even for those who die too late, death must one day
> come.   

Which I see you understand:

> - Undeniably, however, in most cases the hero myth finishes with the
> end of at least the natural life of the individual concerned (death,

Indeed.

> ascension to heaven, departure towards the land beyond the sea,
> whatever). OTOH, traditionally, this had hardly the connotation of
> "acceptance of suffering", "self-denial", "humble renunciation to the
> world and its appeals" that it took in monotheistic cultures.

Yes, while this is far from acceptance-of-self-injury, it is still 
self-injury, no? You still injure yourself by continuing to live, yes? 
You continue to face the possibility of evolutionary failure, you have 
that taste of the infinite. But this 'injury' is only natural, and so 
we know that it is not, in fact, injury, but rather the way of life ... 
but we also know that we can change this so-called 'way', that we can 
recreate it to our liking. I do not mean to say that living-is-injury, 
but that life is tragic because you have death, and as long as you run 
from death you are still injurying yourself for death will always come. 
Ultimately is it you who willed yourself into existence? No. Therefore, 
perhaps we can argue that it is fate that is injurying you. But do we 
not, to some extent, determine our own fate? I hope somebody else can 
see the problem space that I am describing here (one that Zindell seems 
to understand, per the quote I above).

> - Even in the everyday concept of hero, heroics have more to do with
> the idea of "putting oneself fully into play", "being the living
> incarnation of a cause", or "consciously accepting the related
> risks", than with personal self-sacrifice, which is at most a
> possible, and certainly not deliberately and masochistically sought,
> outcome of such a position.

If we are to put ourselves into the realm of play, then why not do it to 
the best of our ability? 

- Bryan
________________________________________
Bryan Bishop
http://heybryan.org/