Thread: Mom and dad were heroes

Mom and dad were heroes

I was born in 1934 during the Great Depression. Dad drove a city bus in Amarillo Texas. My family moved to a very small town in Oklahoma before my first birthday; I had four siblings at the time we moved from Texas to Oklahoma to manage a small café and hotel that was then being managed by my uncle who wished to return to farming.

During the next 15 years my family managed that café and hotel. The building and the business was owned by an absentee landlord, Mr. Ruttzel. The operation was a 24/7 job that took the total energies of all members of the family as each of us became old enough to work.

This operation allowed my parents to raise a large family in reasonably comfortable conditions throughout the depression and war years of World War II.

What is the meaning of ‘hero’? I have taken one definition from the dictionary and have modified it to represent my comprehension of this concept of ‘heroic’. Heroic is a concept meaning a “determined effort [directed to achieve good or deter evil] in the face of difficulty”. In this definition I define ‘good’ as being that which promotes human life and ‘evil’ as that which promotes human death.

I think that there are degrees of heroic action. Some heroes are greater than others depending upon the circumstances of their action. To be a hero often requires courage and often causes personal hardship.

On a scale of one to ten I would classify the following people as heroes in most people’s judgment:
Mother Theresa (10)
Police and firemen entering the burning buildings in 9/11 attack (8 to 10)
My mom and dad (7)
Men and women fighting in Iraq: our side (5 to 10) their side (?)
Youngster really trying to make good grades in school (7)

The psychologist Alfred Adler said: “The supreme law [of life] is this: the sense of worth of the self shall not be allowed to be diminished.”

Heroic actions are our means for maintaining our self esteem. Without heroic action we cannot maintain our own self-esteem. Self-esteem is self-respect. We judge our self as to the degree of worthiness for respect. We rely partially upon the judgment of others but that respect from others is filtered by our own judgments to how heroic our actions are.

It appears that we must feel self-esteem or we suffer mental illness of one degree or another. I gain self-esteem by reading lots of stuff, writing about that stuff, and posting that stuff on this forum, i.e. I am a self-actualizing self-learner (6).

What do you do for self-esteem?

What do you call a formal dance for ducks?

A fowl ball.

Coberst,

This could be an extremely philosophical topic. Webster's defines self-esteem as : a confidence and satisfaction in oneself. With this definition, self-esteem could be derived in almost any imaginable way. A serial killer may gain self-esteem the more he kills.

Hero, on the other hand, defined by Webster's as : a: mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability b: an illustrious warrior c: a man admired for his achievements and noble qualities d: one that shows great courage.

If we eliminate a. and b., as they are quite specific, we are left with admiration for achievements, and courage. This being the definition, I must re-adjust your rankings a tad...

Mother Theresa - 10. Not sure how much courage was involved,
but admiration alone would put her at a 10.
Police/Firemen - 9. If they ran into those buildings, they showed more courage then most people in this country.
Mom/Dad - 0 to 5. Little courage is required to have children, there is seldom admiration, and achivements normally do not involve anything that hasn't been done before. But parents that actually raise their children have to get a 5 in my book.
Iraq Fighters - 1 to 3. There is no courage involved when you invade a country that has no advanced technology. The Americian People in general, give no recognition, and thus no admiration, and the goal has not been achieved. Don't get me wrong, it takes big balls to drive a Hummer down the street over there, but it does not fit the definition.
Kid's in school - 0 to 3. There is no courage involved in going to school... it is required by law. NOT going to school would take some guts. There is some admiration for a kid that does well.

I also disagree with Alfred Adler. The statement 'sense of worth of the self shall not be allowed to be diminish' was used along the context that society should prohibit free thinking. He was stating that if one person felt inferior to another, it would cause mental disorders.

"Adler emphasized the importance of social equality in order to prevent various forms of psychopathology and espoused the development of social interest and democratic family structures as the ideal ethos for raising children. In chapter 3 of Impact of Science on Society, Bertrand Russell said that the behavior of people in futuristic scientific dictatorships is best described by Adler's theories. His most famous concept is the inferiority complex which speaks to the problem of self-esteem and its negative compensations (e.g. sometimes producing a paradoxical superiority striving)." (Cut from Wiki).