Why Should I Care About Heroes?

For the past several months, I have been discussing various figures throughout history and fiction, and saying why (or why not) those characters are heroes. I then had a really inspiring interview with my Journalism professor that prompted me to write a whole blog post on one particular topic: why heroes are important to the human psyche?

You can see it a lot in politics. One politician will tell a story in which their opponent is evil, cruel, mean, or some other variety of bad person, and paint themselves as the hero who will defeat this great enemy. It isn’t particular to any one kind of politician: both Democrats and Republicans do this all the time in the U.S., and I am positive it is apparent in every other political election in the world.

This is a very basic form of politics, just politicians throwing mud at their opponent, hoping that by painting themselves as a brighter option, people  will vote for them. Not based on what the politician actually stands for, or what they hope to accomplish, or their skill at a politician: just that they are a better option than their mud drenched villain.

The worst part? It works, and it works supremely well. The best representative of this phenomenon is the current American president, Mr. Trump, who used fear mongering, and the most vicious form of mud throwing I’ve ever seen in order to gain the presidency. You can read more about that particular election here.

So why does it work? I believe that it feeds into my earlier question- why are heroes so important to the human psyche?

In this, I don’t know the answer. This is a question for a psychology or philosophy student, not a chemistry major nerd. Maybe it is simply a facet of the human mind, where we must have heroes or people to look up to, but I sense that it is far more complicated than that simple answer. If someone does read this and has an answer, please shoot me a message at poevoro@gmail.com.

Ah, this is the last post. It’s been fun writing these, and I hope someone out there enjoyed reading them. Toodles!