Who are your heroes?

[Zzzptm]

Well, the idea of granting hero status to an entire profession is difficult for me to agree with. In general, yes, I think that people who do public service are devoting a part of their life to the service of others. But, at the same time, there were cases of entire police departments in the US south during segregation that devoted their lives to the service of *white* others and followed orders to club down blacks when they protested.

I spent 16 years as a teacher. I can tell stories about real sacrifice and about teachers that were in the profession for all the wrong reasons...

[Charger]

I do agree on what you are saying about the past...but that is just that the past. It does not and should not take anything away from the braveness of the men and women in uniform now risking their lives for all of us.

This is a tricky subject though all in all...because it is clear that different people see different things as being "heroic"...so there isn't really a right or a wrong thing to choose here. Everyone has the right to choose their own heroes or idols or what ever we want to call them.

What did you teach by the way ZZZ? (I know not the topic but I'm curious)

[Sabbabbath]

It is obvious that some of us have very different ideas about the intentions behind people's devotion to public service. I would like to add that intention is one thing, practice and effects are often quite a different thing, AND intentions may well change over time. Zzz made a good point about racist policemen; additionally, it is quite clear that many people start doing their service with good intentions, but then change their intentions over time; and of course, people can have the best intentions (e.g. really believe they are doing good), but in fact cause very bad things. I fully agree with Zzz that the idea of attributing hero status to a whole profession is questionable.

Police Officers, Firefighters and soldiers - all traditionally 'male' professions. How about nurses? At least in developing countries, war situations or cases of natural disasters, nurses often risk their lives as well, and unlike soldiers they really help people in MOST and not just in some cases; even better, they rarely kill or injure anybody. And I don't know about other countries, but in Germany, nurses are very badly paid and have a pretty low social status. And how about the uncounted women who save others' lifes be organising the food and preparing the meals even in the midst of some of the biggest disasters?

Of course, if this were to become a more serious discussion, we would have to look at statistics, historical records and other evidence in order to double-check whose image of the respective profession is closer to reality. Just CLAIMING that soldiers are generally good or generally bad or sometimes very good and sometimes very bad will hardly convince anyone. E.g. are soldiers mainly there for defense or for attack? Or: sexual violence, against fellow soldiers, civilians and/or enemy soldiers, is disturbingly common in many armies of the world. Even armies on UNO peace missions are often involved in human trafficking and other horrors. These are just a few lines of thought that make me very sceptical of the military profession. I personally don't have the time, nor enough interest, in digging deeper in this here, just wanted to mention that we would need to if we really wanted to evaluate the claimes that have been made.

As for "anarchy", I am sure we don't even mean the same thing by it. The strongest anarchist movements (among them the CNT in Spain and the Makhno movement in Ukraine) were extremely well-organised, and their utopia of society had zero to do with what many people seem to associate with anarchy. Charger, if your idea is that a world without soldiers would nessecarily a world of chaos, I strongly disagree, but again I admit I don't have a huge interest in getting deeper into that discussion here. Just wanted to point out that the first thing we would have to do clarify and sort out would be the meanings of the very terms we use.

As Billy would say: P&L,
Linda

[Charger]

Well I find it truly heroic if someone is willing to risk his/her life for next to nothing to save and serve others.

If you don't that's fine by me but honestly I wouldn't like to live in a world where majority would think like that.

[Sabbabbath]

Well I find it truly heroic if someone is willing to risk his/her life for next to nothing to save and serve others.

If you don't that's fine by me but honestly I wouldn't like to live in a world where majority would think like that.

Are you referring to me? Where did I doubt that that kind of thing is truly heroic? 

I think our disagreement lies elsewhere: I just happen to believe that's not what most soldiers in the world are actually doing. And even if it were a valid description of what MOST of them are doing, my consideration of the horrible things that many other soldiers are doing (and the fact that those things are not just happening accidentally) would stop me from attributing hero status to the whole profession.

By the way, how does Schwarzenegger satisfy that criterion of heroism? I guess there are more?

[Charger]

I think our disagreement lies elsewhere: I just happen to believe that's not what most soldiers in the world are actually doing. And even if it were a valid description of what MOST of them are doing, my consideration of the horrible things that many other soldiers are doing (and the fact that those things are not just happening accidentally) would stop me from attributing hero status to the whole profession.

By the way, how does Schwarzenegger satisfy that criterion of heroism? I guess there are more?

Well Arnie has been doing a whole heap of charity work for After School programs, firefighter charieties etc,  spreading the word for cleaner energy, inspired thousands of people to start exercising and taking care of themselves and so on and so on... But ofcourse that is not the same as what police officers and such are doing...ofcourse not. But that is where in this thread though the rather small difference between and idol and a personal hero comes to play.

War is a thing that most of us (luckily) will never understand and the things that go on in battle are things that we cannot even imagine. But anyone, and I mean ANYONE who is brave enough to get enlisted and go fighting for the freedom of others gets a stamp of approval from me. Also one must remember that soldiers do what they are told, so if there is something to question about some motivations of war or certain orders, that question should not be directed at the solder in the field risking his/her life.

Are there bad apples in the bunch who just like killing? I am sure there are but is such a insignificant number that it most certainly does not take away from the heroism of others.


But now it is time to put a stop to this again...the thread has been derailed again and that is not right. Different people have different heroes and different people have different ideas of what heroism means, lets just leave it at that.
Billy will otherwise ban my ass for polluting yet another one of his threads....

[Zzzptm]

What did you teach by the way ZZZ? (I know not the topic but I'm curious)

I taught students.



OK, seriously, I taught maths for my first 3 years, English for the next two years, and History/Economics/Government for the last 11. Now I'm in IT, but I'm still a damned hero for teaching for 16 years. And let me tell you just how heroic I was!

I'll say this - heroes don't sing their own praises.

[Charger]

What did you teach by the way ZZZ? (I know not the topic but I'm curious)

I taught students.

Oh
My
God
 

That cracked me up.

OK, seriously, I taught maths for my first 3 years, English for the next two years, and History/Economics/Government for the last 11. Now I'm in IT, but I'm still a damned hero for teaching for 16 years. And let me tell you just how heroic I was!

I'll say this - heroes don't sing their own praises.

Very cool...I don't think I could ever be a teacher....I don't like kids...and I'm not smart enough!
 

[Zzzptm]

Being a teacher has more to do with patience and figuring out why it is a kid just cussed you out. Is it because the kid's an actual troublemaker or is it because the kid is venting a problem that needs counseling more than it needs enforcement?

Police have to do a lot of that, but they also have to see even worse trouble than I've ever seen.

[Zzzptm]

Thinking some more about this... I had students that went off to the army and then service in Afghanistan or Iraq.

We had one student who became a lieutenant in the Army, spoke to a student assembly as a distinguished former student, then was killed in action six months later.

Another went to Afghanistan, lived on a base, went through nothing but daily routine, then was out jogging one day with his platoon when an IED went off and injured his legs very badly. He came home and had to take a small jar full of pills every day.

Others came back with their bodies in one piece, but their minds messed up from substance abuse because there was damn all else to do on the base except to screw around and get high.

Calling them all heroes seems to be a way to absolve ourselves of the responsibility we have as a nation to continue to serve the needs of people who agreed to put their lives at risk to serve the ends of the national policy. Grieving parents? Here's a flag, a check, and we'll call your son a hero. Job done. Permanent disability? Here's your appointment at the VA hospital, don't screw up your paperwork, and we'll call you a hero. Job done. Substance abuse issues? You're a bunch of heroes, dammit, act like heroes! Quit being drunks! Job done.

Same for police, firefighters, teachers, nurses, and other selfless people (in general)... you're all heroes. Why do you need more money? Does Superman ask for money? No! Because he is a hero! Thank you for being heroes, all of you. No raises, but you're heroes. Job done.

We don't call the paramilitary contractors that provide base security or other functions that, for legal purposes, we don't want our soldiers to be involved in heroes. These are guys who are risking their lives, sure, but they're also paid massive six-figure salaries for their work. Given a choice between risking your life for being called a hero or risking your life for $250K per year, tax free, which would you choose? True, many of those guys getting the six figures only get the job because they complete a tour of duty as a regular soldier, but that's the goal, isn't it? Not a parade or a chance to get cheap seats at a football game. The money.

If I was getting paid as a teacher what I'm getting paid now as an IT professional, I'd still be teaching and I wouldn't give a rat's ass about whether or not I was considered a hero. A well-paid professional, that's my choice!

Bankers, lobbyists, crooked politicians, brokers, entertainment managers - not one of these guys cares to be a hero, but they'll be damned if we try to assess them properly for the benefits they enjoy because of government-provided heroes. If our taxes went up a dollar every time we said or used the word "hero" to provide direct salary increases for said heroes, then those guys would cook up a new, untaxable word to use in place of "hero".

Calling them "heroes" also seems to absolve our collective consciences about what those people really and truly do. Most of those jobs are actually dreary routines, from doing paperwork to standing and watching for hours on end. When there *is* action, is the action truly heroic, or did the action result because one of these supposed heroes screwed up and triggered the situation?

I'll speak for teachers, since I was one for 16 years... there are way too many times a teacher has picked a fight with a student in order to draw the foul and get the kid sent to in-school suspension. I've done it, and I'm not proud of it. It's a crappy, bureaucratic, douchebag move, and I've been that crappy, bureaucratic douchebag as I wrote kids up for a minor infraction when I maybe didn't have the dirt on them for a major infraction. Maybe what was needed was smaller classes, but I couldn't control that. Maybe the kid really needed to be in a special-needs class or to have counseling, but I didn't have time for that, either. I had 32 other freshmen in this Geography class, and I was going to cover Brazil today, come hell or high water!

In many cases, the rules we had didn't make sense. My response to such was to bend the rule or ignore it outright. The same was being done to me as our conference periods were encroached upon and our lunch time got crushed to about 24 minutes per day. Well, if I only have 24 minutes for lunch, maybe it just slips my mind to count someone tardy if they come back from a burger stand and bring me some fries to munch on during the next class. Is that bribery? Venality? Corruption? Yes. No question in my mind about that. Was I just one bad apple? Hell no, I was one of the *good* apples!

One teacher had a set rate for accepting baked goods in lieu of homework. He gave a lot of homework, kids fell behind, and he got lots of cookies and cupcakes. Probably also a string of heart attacks, but that's maybe why he left the profession. Sex with students is far too common, and I've got more than one close colleague in jail for statutory rape. Even more common than sex is inappropriate touching. You've got to make your will as iron to resist that stuff. There are teachers that drink on the job or smoke pot in their cars during off-periods or who self-medicate and somehow stay sober enough to hold down a job.

Myself, I think I was a great guy 50% of the time and an asshole 10% of the time. The other 40%, I was just a guy doing boring stuff that had to be done. If one of my students was to question the asshole percentage, I'd be willing to adjust it up to 20%, but I'd need specific incidents mentioned.

So maybe I'm just half a hero. The other half isn't worth a mention, but thank goodness it's also not worth a shocking headline in the local paper.

[Billy Underdog]

My brain is finally medicated enough that i can gather my thoughts and come back to revisit this.

If there ever was a valid reason for going to war, then i would agree that soldiers should be considered heroes due to the points made here. There haven't really been a valid reason for going to war since WWII, though.

About Norwegian cops, Charg, yeah, Amnesty International have several times criticized Norway for it's overuse of custody as an extra punishment, pre verdict. There's no reason for sitting 8 hours in an isolation cell waiting for a prosecutor to sign a simple 100 $ fine. No lawyer is THAT busy... Talking from own experience, and not only once.

I've never had much problems with the cops where i'm living at now, i've only been in for a conversation some 14-15 years ago, the excuse was that i had to agree that my user paraphernalia was sent to destruction (i had recently been busted somwhere else, and the cops turned my parents house upside down while i was sitting on isolation there). Lame excuse, they don't need my permission for that, it was to get an unauthorized interrogation. 3 and a half years ago the same guy came running after me on the streets IN HIS SPARE TIME because "he thought he recognised me"... You're not just doing your job then, you really love being in power.
I've got absolutely no problems being busted by a good cop doing his job, i accept that as "part of the deal". Sadly they're very few and far apart.

[Billy Underdog]

If there ever was a valid reason for going to war, then i would agree that soldiers should be considered heroes due to the points made here. There haven't really been a valid reason for going to war since WWII, though.

My grandfather never told much about the war, just this one story, and i think it's a damned cool one.
Just as radios were forbidden, some German soldiers and the local chief of police (which by then all cooperated with the Nazis) came up to the farm i grew up on. My great grandfather held them occupied by the door while my grandfather jumped out of a window at the second floor on the other side of the house with the radio, ran up the field, hid it in a haystack (or rather a Hesje (shown here: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesje) and came strolling back down whistling as if he'd just been working up there. Smooth.

I know they both also served in the army and was involved in battles the few months we were actually at war before being occupied, where my grandfather caught a bullet in the knee, and later in the resistance picking up airdrops and running around exchanging intel with neighbouring valleys by hiding letters in trees.

[Typhon]

^^^^^^
Here's to your ancestors who did their part, Billy.   

[Billy Underdog]

^^^

As opposed to me, you mean? Just kidding...

I never met my great grandfather, but my grandfather himself, how they both have influenced my father and stories like these have helped shape my point of views in many ways, amongst others the futility of war.

But, yeah. Not drinking today, though, so i'll just raise my hand instead. 

[Zzzptm]

There are also fictional heroes... Groucho Marx' character in A Day at the Races is one of mine, particularly for what he does at the end. To win the day, he has to keep the horse race from starting until the horse Harpo is riding shows up. He absolutely does not give up - he's last seen rushing up to the track with a lasso, which he doesn't have to use because Harpo shows up. But had he not been there, Groucho was prepared to keep trying, moving from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.

That's who I am in my career, quite often. Try something, it doesn't work, so I try something else. And what I try starts to spiral out wider and wider until I get something that works.