I disagree. Heroes, imo, are unnecessary. One can use other ways to teach what one considers good and bad. I don't want to pin my children's hopes on one human. I talk with them about a profession (teaching, nursing, medicine, farming, garbage collection, water quality engineer, software engineer, park ranger) and I talk to them about how that profession contributes to society. How might a person in such a profession be adding to the well being of people? How might their mistakes affect people?
What I consider healthy to society is living a rational life, at a job that does more good than harm. Doing the best you can, and being happy. I don't need to single out "heroes" to teach my children that. Of course it is always instructive to show my children the "heroes" other societies choose, and which our own society chooses, and then to illustrate the negatives and positives of those people. They are not heroes to us. Even my children are able to discern that people choose many repulsive heroes, repulsive to us, anyway. |
