Responses to Chris Hardie's Blog "Hero Woship"

In Chris Hardie’s blog on “Hero Worship” he makes the argument that there are certain platforms - like supporting our troops and public service safety workers – that are upheld in society as good, righteous, and necessary causes. He goes on to imply that these platforms have become worshipped platforms and therefore no one speaks against them, especially in terms of reducing funding for either military or civil servicemen. Hardie goes on to say that the spending of tax payers’ dollars is largely driven by fear and wonders whether we can question how far we let fear direct our spending : “ Can we ask ourselves what we might spend money on if we weren't driven by fear - fear of not being re-elected, fear of being accountable to our mistakes, fear of that which we cannot control or that which is not familiar.” His argument implies that the decisions our politicians make are largely driven by getting re-elected, and that getting re-elected means capitalizing on certain platforms that are popular – or worshipped – by mainstream society. The deeper implication is that capitalizing on a platform, such as public service safety workers, means that one must convince society that there is not just a need, but a desperate need for public safety workers because society is in danger, society is not safe. In other words, Hardie is calling out policy makers for creating a sense of fear in society, a fear that will motivate them not only to allow them to spend our tax dollars as they choose, cutting funding to public parks and education in favor of public safety costs (that may not be necessary) but also to be re-elected. They are the individuals who create the fear in the first place, then promise to assuage the fear and protect the people.
Another way of interpreting Hardie’s series of questions, though, is that he is pointing a critical finger not at politicians, but at us, the people electing politicians. What does it say about American culture that we are so susceptible to fear? What does it say about us that an appeal to our pathos – our emotional response to a message– overwhelms any appeal to our desire for logos – an accurate representation of the actual situation? Could it be that in fact our “pathos” reaction is taking over or could it be that we interpret our emotional reactions as logical reactions? When it comes to policy makers, we are often led to believe that they are “in the know” and that we should trust them. That’s why we elected them, right? But by regarding them as the “informed” we could be directly abdicating our responsibility to be informed ourselves. This would imply that we elect certain politicians out of fear, then we are actually making an uniformed decision. If politicians do indeed create a sense of fear in order to appear to be heroes, our fault in the matter is that we are not well informed. If we were well informed, appeals to our pathos would not be as influential.
The whole question about the way we spend our tax dollars on public policy individuals seems to be one of what is necessary? The question itself should appeal to our logos, but politicians seem all too ready to appeal to our pathos, and we are all too ready to let them. Hardie’s blog raises the question of how much our worship of public safety workers is actually motivated by fear? This is an uncomfortable question because we do need our public safety workers, and our tax dollars should go toward their salaries and facility needs. But more than that, the question is an uncomfortable one because it forces us to question how informed we’ve made ourselves and the extent to which we are abdicating responsibility for how our tax dollars are spent with fear as our excuse.

Is Rudy the man?

This article on grin.com called “Is Rudy Giuliani really a glamorous Hero?” is stating that former Ney York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is responsible of the many positive changes that occurred in his term but he’s also responsible to many negatives that occurred as well. As a politician he was scrutinized for his bad policies but also glorified for his good policies. As reader of this article would you consider him a hero? Consider that his years before 9/11 was heavily scrutinized but he was in charge crime level going down dramatically and his known for his participation in commanding the NYPD and NYFD toward the 9/11 tragedy. Does his action after 9/11 overshadow his action prior to it?

http://www.grin.com/e-book/9902/is-rudy-giuliani-really-a-glamorous-hero

Ali, Amy, Corey Aaron

Anti Hero

We have been talking about heroes, how people become heroes and the qualities they exhibit. What about anti-heroes. The blog introduces a new dimension to the discussion on heroes and heroism.In as much as we have heroes, anti-heroes abound.

This blog is about a guy who sees himself as an anti-hero with so much hate for the world but wants to save it. Does that really make him an anti-hero?. Does he have enough justification if he decides to be an anti-hero?


Anti Hero « Heart of the Renegade


Kraft,Bradan,Prince

Blog Project Week #4

This article is about T.I. and how he saved a man's life recently. Many view him as a hero for this act, along with his contributions to the music industry. Other blogs have discussed the idea of celebrities and if they can be seen as heroes for their careers. What do you think? Others don't view T.I. as a hero, however, because of his illegal actions and jail time. What do you think; can people forget T.I.'s past and see him as a hero or does his good deed outweigh his past criminal acts?





http://www.interviewmagazine.com/blogs/culture/2010-10-14/ti-suicide-hero/



John Piks, Erwei Qiu, Junyuan Wu, Libby Straub

Depressing Real life Heroism

In previous discussions, there is the idea that people in the military should not all be considered heroes, but in this article, We are sure that they were not expecting that on a gun-free base. Our point being that they put themselves in the position to be a hero, so we believe they should be considererd a hero.

Another point is the perception people have of Capt. John Gaffaney. He did an extremely heroic thing, but are you going to see kids pretending to be him? I feel like most people would consider the type of heroism Gaffaney displayed as not "flashy" which seems to be a prerequisite to being a hero in these times. So we pose the question: "What do you think society's reaction to Gaffaney be if he was in a popular movie?"

Other questions to discuss are to what extent should the other servicemen that were shot be considered heroes?
Finally, would these men still have been considered heroes if they had access to guns and just shot Hasan?


http://patterico.com/2010/10/16/depressing-real-life-heroism/

Ryan, Andrew, Julian, Marcus

Blog Project Week #2

This week's blog is an opinionated article from “Ezinearticles.com” titled “America’s Heroes” by Danette M. Scott. The article begins with a discussion on how when we were children we “mocked” our superheroes by pretending to save the day and dressed-up in costumes on Trick or Treat. Those Superheroes saved lives, helped the less fortunate, and “defended democracy”. Then, Danette brings us to the modern hero that we now mimic. He uses examples such as “Britney Spears” to make the point on how she is considered a hero, but what did she do other than have a talented voice and do drugs that led others down the path of trying to be their “hero” by imitating drug use and nudity. Some questions to ask yourself. Has the idea of a hero been changed in America? To what extent, does a celebrity deserve the right to be called a hero? Do you think that today's admiration of celebrities is reversible and that there is hope that good people will be the most prominently looked up to again?
http://ezinearticles.com/?Americas-Heroes&id=1063829

- Steph, Wes, Olivia, Tien

Blog Project Week #1

This week's blog post is taken from the "New York Times: The Opinion Pages" titled "'Hero Worshiped'" written by Chris Suellentrop. It suggests that the word "hero" is overused today, and not everyone deserves the title. Some people believe the firefighters and police officers who responded to the 9/11 attacks were not heroes at all, and that they were just doing their job. Others believe that our service men and women are not all heroes either, and only the soldiers who give their lives to save their comrades are the ones that deserve such praise. What's your opinion on the definition of the word "hero?" Is it really completely subjective, or used too liberally in today's society? Please check out this blog page and respond with your thoughts. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/03/hero-worship/

-Molly, Bianca, Lisa, Breanne