CC BY
8
DO1 10.23683/2500-3224-2019-1-234-236
«Мы судим героев по меркам их времени или нашего?»
Г. Клеес
"Do We Rank Heros by Standards of Their Time or Ours?"
G. Claeys
1. Hero of his own time. Is he the extraordinary personality, symbolic figure or a typical representative of his time?
We need a definition first. A "hero" can be a leading public figure, such as a politician, sports or music star. They are usually known for their extraordinary achievements, but of course it may be the success of advertising and PR which brings this status. These days online "heroes" (YouTube, e.g.) are as well known. They are more "representative" in the sense of being like the majority of people. They are often known for their "celebrity" as such - this concept too is central to any definition. But they are not really "heroes" in the traditional sense of the word. Even "super-heroes" are more heroic insofar as they exemplify some defense of the common person against crime, oppression, and so on. (Think of Batman or Superman.) Thus, they have the traditional warrior virtues as well as a sympathetic disposition and the willingness to assist the helpless and needy. A few key political leaders have achieved world-wide status in the last half century or so - Nelson Mandela, for example. I would stress this category over pop and sports stars, who to my mind do not fit the definition.
Клеес Грегори, профессор, преподаватель истории и истории политической мысли Лондонского университета (Великобритания), [email protected].
Claeys Gregory, Professor of the History of Political Thought at Royal Holloway, University of London (UK), [email protected].
ДИСКУССИЯ ГЕРОЙ СВОЕГО ВРЕМЕНИ, ГЕРОЙ ВНЕ ВРЕМЕНИ ИЛИ ГЕРОЙ НА ВСЕ ВРЕМЕНА 235
2. Hero, public leader, charismatic personality, non-hero, anti-hero. How to differ among them? Does the changeable social and cultural context matter? Is it possible to talk about some archetypal ideas in relation to hero, which are shared in different cultures and civilizations?
The starting-point here has often been Thomas Carlyle's On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History (1841). This contends for a genealogy of heroic types which commences with the semi-divine, moves to the prophetic, then to great religious reformers, and finally to more secular figures and the problem of the modern "man of letters" as legislator of intellectual life. The earliest heroes are generally priests or soldiers, or both together, and political leaders, often also soldiers. Carlyle is concerned with defining a new group, the literati, defined in part by intellectual genius, but also representing a new priesthood (akin to Coleridge's clerisy, Comte's new priesthood of the Religion of Humanity, or John Stuart Mill's intellectual elite, constructed around the theory of individuality. The theory of action used by Carlyle also invokes traditional military virtues, and to some degree the model is concentrated on a feudal chivalric ethos.
The model would need to be updated in light of the comments offered above. It is (to my mind) nonetheless extremely suggestive as to how hero-worship works in popular culture -see my comments on "vertical vicarious enhancement" in my Dystopia: A Natural History. Much more attention has been given to what Carlyle's "heroes" are and what their "heroic" qualities consist in, by comparison with the element of "hero-worship", which implies the reintroduction of deference in a social model (here see also Edmund Burke; Walter Bagehot; George Cornewall Lewis, An Essay on the Infl of Authority in Matters of Opinion, 1849).
3. Is it important to take temporal aspect into account when talking about heroism?
If yes, why? What are the most vivid differences (in the broad social and cultural sense) between the contemporary idea of hero and its premodern variant?
Pre-modern heroes relied on the media of their time, and usually the spoken word. The intervention of mass media, first the newspaper press, then radio, then TV, then the internet, alters the model. So does the advent of mass culture as such, especially in the 20th century. With some obvious exceptions (a few generals in the Second World War, like Zhukov) most military figures are not heroes in the later modern period. It is doubtful how far political leaders whose fame is built on a cult of personality (Stalin, Mao) would qualify either. Here I would distinguish between premodern, modern, and later modern to take into account the role played by mass media after c. 1900. The first truly world-historical media personality (and thus "hero") was Charlie Chaplin - simply or chiefly because he was instantly recognisable to millions.
4. Can we talk about any specifics of the formation of Russian pantheon of heroes in comparison with cultural traditions of other countries?
This is too far from my area of expertise. My impression is that literary figures dominate more in Russia than in the UK or the US. There is some convergence of heroic figures
under Bolshevism with those in the west, at least among political and intellectual figures (Marx, Lenin, e.g.).
Can a revitalizing of the discussion around the phenomenon of hero of his own time be a symptom of carving for social and political change and/or can it be an element of nostalgia? Who can you name as hero of your time?
Figures on whom a great deal of public attention is concentrated always need careful analysis. A recent TV programme in the UK has focused on who the "greatest Britons" have been (I haven't watched it). Some of this is Brexit-y nostalgia for lost greatness. There is a controversy in Britain at the moment over Winston Churchill, our main leader during World War II, but someone known for his racist and imperialist legacy now as well. This has precisely raises the question of the relativity of standards used in the assessment of such figures - do we rank or rate them by the standards of their time or ours?
My own current hero is Greta Thunberg, the Swedish environmental activist whose "school strike" has now given rise to an international mass movement of protest against inaction over the disaster we face in the coming decades.
