The vanishing hero

This book points to a sad fact. Heroism as a worthy goal and commitment in life has pretty much vanished from almost all public discourse and from much of human consciousness in Western societies. One major reason for this vanishing, as the book repeatedly shows, are the neo-liberal views that underlie and influence much contemporary life. These views ignore the existence of evil and hence the need to fight evil for justice to prevail. This leads to the conclusion that, since there is no evil, who needs heroes! Some chapters of the book describe attitudes which ignore the existence of evil and disregard the need to encourage heroes who will struggle against evil. Other chapters describe the vanishing of heroism in the arts. However, the book also presents a worthy challenge–the challenge of creating a better world where human grandeur is cherished. To attain such a goal, the nihilism, mediocrity, bad faith, and banality that prevail in many Western societies and often accord with politically correct approaches should be rejected. This challenge is inspired by quite a few heroes, many of them unsung heroes. A few of these heroic worthy struggles and heroic deeds are described in this book.