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With the increased sociological interest in popular culture, many studies have
examined the hero types lauded by the media from situation comedies to
movies, books, and magazines. Few studies, however,have examined who, if
anybody, actual individuals identify as personal heroes. To the extent that the
hero identification of individuals has been examined at all, it has generally
been the hero identification of children and adolescents that has been studied.
The study of heroes is important because heroes are one indicator of who we
are and what we stand for That is partly what motivates the recent attention
to the media's identification of heroes. Yet while the media representa very
visible aspect of culture, who individuals privately cite as their heroes is,
although less visible, just as much a part of who we are as a culture.
Accordingly, this paper reports on findings from two telephone surveys
conducted in Philadelphia that, among other questions pertaining to the
meaning of life, asked adults over 18 whether they had any heroes and if so
who those heroes were. The tendency to identify with heroes was found to be
related to transcendentalconcerns with the meaning of life and to religiosity.
Overall, the patten of findings discloses an unstudied dimension of cultural
disenchantment.
KEY WORDS: personal heroes; religion; transcendental metanarratives; moral meaning; identity.
INTRODUCTION
Do people today have personal heroes-figures with whom they identify as personifications of their values and ideals? If so, who are these he'Department of Psychology, Sociology, and Anthropology, Drexel University, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania 19104.
209
0884-8971/96/0600-0209$09.50/0 e 1996 Plenum Publishing Corporation
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roes, and what do they tell us about the values and ideals of the individuals
who identify with them? While considerable scholarly attention has been
paid to the macrocultural heroes promoted by the media, there has been
little research on whom, if anybody, individuals identify as heroes at the
microcultural level.
In the absence of data, conventional wisdom has been divided on the
extent and nature of personal hero identification in contemporary society.2
Some commentators (Becker, 1973; Fishwick, 1983) assume a universal
need for heroes. Others (Glicksberg, 1968; Schlesinger, 1968) lament modernity's putative loss not just of heroes but of the whole larger sense of
heroic calling often associated with hero identification. Still others (e.g.,
Boorstin, 1968; Lowenthal, 1943) believe personal hero identification has
largely devolved into empty "celebrity worship."
Which of these views is correct, if any? The research presented in this
paper represents an initial exploratory attempt to find out. Specifically, two
phone surveys were conducted in 1993, one in April and one in October.
Each survey (n = 277 and n = 350) asked a random sample of Philadelphia
residents whether they have heroes and, if so, who their heroes are. On
the basis of the data collected, this paper will examine (1) how prevalent
personal hero identification is; (2) the types of heroes identified by those
who have them; (3) who is more or less likely to have personal heroes;
and (4) what light the nature and extent of hero identification sheds on
contemporary values and ideals at the micro, individual level of analysis.
It turns out that personal hero identification is bound up with broader phenomena relating to religion and transcendental metanarratives. Thus, as
will be seen, each of the four aspects of hero identification that will be
examined bear on these broader phenomena as well.
Heroes have been studied more by scholars in communications, folklore, and American studies than by sociologists, perhaps because until,
fairly recently, sociologists have neglected the study of popular culture. It
ought to be noted at the outset, therefore, that hero identification need
not imply either hero worship or a "big-man"theory of history (Schlesinger,
1958; Schwartz, 1985), although Carlyle (1895) and Hook (1943), with
whom the notion of heroes is often associated, were committed to both.
One may have personal heroes without worshiping them. In such capacity,
heroes are like moral beacons. They function in much the same way as,
according to Eliade (1959), sacred space and sacred time function for homo
religiosus. For homo religiosus, sacred time and sacred space center the
2According to the New American Dictionary, the word hero is now gender neutral and can
refer to women as well as men. Hakanen (1989a), moreover, confirms that female respondents in particular hear the word "hero" as gender neutral. Thus, throughout this paper, the
single word hero is used to designate both male and female heroic figures.
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profane world around them. Similarly, heroes function to center the world
of moral space. They signal to what one is called or committed.
The word hero comes from the Greek heros, meaning "God-person,"
the person charged with the charisma of the holy and sacred, the very
ground of being (Hakanen, 1989b). It is from their connection with what
Tillich (1952) refers to as the ground and core of our being that heroes
derive their charismatic power to inspire (Weber, 1947). Thus, heroes are
not simply role models but charismatic role models (Fishwick, 1983). As
such, a person's heroes are better conceptualized not as idols of worship,
but as an idealized reference group. One seeks to stand with one's heroes
rather than to be one's heroes in actuality, and heroes thus are one mechanism we use to tell ourselves what it is we stand for. For those who have
them, then, heroes are an important inner marker of identity. They are a
part of the landscape of the soul.3
Considerable scholarly attention has been paid to the identity and nature of the heroes presented to us by the media (e.g., Bell, 1983; Hubbard,
1983; Miller, 1986; Rollin, 1983). While there have been some studies that
ask actual individuals who their heroes are, the individuals questioned are
usually children and adolescents (e.g., Balswick, 1982; Hakanen, 1989a).
Only a few previous scholarly studies have examined hero identification
among adults. One (Gardiner and Jones, 1983) examined hero identification among prominent figures in education and government. This study
found that such public figures often cite other public figures-both living
and dead-as personal heroes, public figures such as Anton Chekov, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, Winston Churchhill, and John Kennedy
(whose Profiles in Courage likely identified his own heroes). For those who
had them, the heroes identified symbolized such values as humility, integrity, dedication, vision, and courage. Presumably, by identifying with such
heroes, public figures seek to embody the same virtues themselves-or at
least appear to others as seeking to embody them. Do ordinary adults not
in public life have personal heroes? That question never seems to have
been asked directly, and, accordingly, we do not have an answer.4
3People with personal heroes frequently have multiple heroes, forming what Keen (1994: 233)
in describing his own heroes refers to as a "pantheon." Each personal hero may be thought
of as a charismatic role model. Where multiple heroes cohere for a person, as they seem to
for Keen and Beiting (1994), they may form an idealized reference group.
4In the only scholarly attempt to answer this question, Patterson and Kim (1991) asked a
large random sample of adults whether they thought there are any living heroes in America,
and found that only 30% of the population said yes. Unfortunately, we cannot determine
from this question, worded as it is, whether the other 70% of respondents identify with historical figures no longer alive, whether they identify with non-American heroes, or whether
they just have no personal heroes at all.
Since 1947 the Gallup organization has annually asked about the man or woman "living
today" whom respondents most admire. The cumulative results since then were analyzed by
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Smith (1986), who, as in this paper, was attempting to gain insight into Americans' ideals.
Contrary to the expectations of Boorstin (1968) and Lowenthal (1943), Smith found that few
people named entertainers or sports personalities as figures of greatest admiration. Nor, interestingly, did business executives or entrepreneurs figure prominently. Instead, domestic
political leaders were by far the prominent category (accounting for 45% of mentions), especially incumbent presidents (19% of mentions) and ex-presidents (8% of mentions). While
in 1986 personal acquaintances and religious figures were still minor categories, accounting
for less than 10% of total mentions each, Smith noticed that, over time, mentions in these
categories were on the rise and anticipated further increase in the future.
Although the people we admire certainly also tell us about our values and ideals, admired
people are not the same as heroes. We can admire someone without that person being a
personal hero to us. For a person to be our hero, we ordinarily have to identify with that
person more than we necessarily do with people we just admire. Heroes, therefore, are a
smaller subset of those we admire. How much smaller? It is difficult to say, but some initial
indication is provided by those answering, "Don't know." Throughout the years the Gallup
question has been asked, an average of 35% of respondents have been unable to name anyone
they admire most. In contrast, Patterson and Kim found that 70% could not name any heroes
currently living in America.
It seems likely that a person can admire many people without identifying heroically with
any. It seems likely as well that when we look at the smaller subset of admired people that
constitute our personal heroes, the distribution of responses across categories will be very
different. The sort of analysis that Smith conducted on those we admire still remains to be
done for those we consider our personal heroes.
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Personal Heroes
taking through hero identification. It is likely, therefore, that had an opinion poll been conducted in the past, we would not find hero identifiction
any more widespread than now, when many more can respond to a heroic
call.
If we cannot, using static data, evaluate theses that are diachronic, we
can, however, transform what were diachronic hypotheses into synchronic
ones. By examining the prevalence of hero identification today, we can certainly evaluate whether at least a felt need for heroes is universal. By examining who people cite as personal heroes, we can determine whether
the media's glorification of celebrities-about which Boorstin and Lowenthal complain-also manifests itself at the level of individuals. Similarly, by
examining people's personal heroes, we can determine (following Taylor)
whether it is ordinary life or transcendental purposes that people more
tend to value today. We can determine, in other words, whether people
tend to cite ordinary people as heroes more than they do transcendental
figures associated with encompassing metanarratives.
Taylor's hypothesis about the loss of transcendental horizons can be
framed even further synchronically. Cooley (1964), who was evidently fascinated by hero identification, wrote along similar lines himself from a more
synchronic perspective (see Schwartz, 1985). "Hero-worship is a kind of
religion," wrote Cooley (1964:314), 'And religion . . .is a kind of hero-worship." Cooley, thus, connects hero-identification with religion and other
transcendental metanarratives. For Cooley, hero-identification was precisely
a way for the individual to mark self-transcendent aspirations associated
with moral idealism. Cooley's hypothesis, therefore, may stand in as a synchronic proxy for Taylor's. If Cooley is correct, then we should expect a
relationship between hero-identification on the one hand and religiosity
and other indicators of an orientation toward transcendental meaning on
the other. This and the previously cited synchronic hypotheses are what
this paper will explore.
METHODOLOGY
This project employed a questionnaire, which was administerd through
the university's survey research center. The center utilized random digit
dialing within each of Philadelphia's phone exchanges to secure a random
sample of city residents. To randomize responses further, the questionnaire
was not necessarily administered to the person who answered the phone
but to the household member over 18 who was to have the next birthday.
For both the spring and fall surveys, calls were made between 6:00 and
9:00 PM over four evenings.
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Table I. Demographics: Combined Survey Data vs. 1990 Philadelphia Censusa
Ageb
Survey (%)
Census (%)
Educationb
(Years)
Survey (%)
Census (%)
15.5
33.7
19.5
15.8
15.5
N = 589
0-11
12
13-15
16
16 +
Household
Incomec
<$10k
$10k-$20k
$20k-30k
$30k-$50k
$50k +
Race
Survey (%)
White
Black
Other
57.1
33.1
98
N = 582
Gender
Survey (%)
Female
Male
61.3
38.7
N = 581
15.0
23.0
17.6
12.5
11.9
20.0
17.9
26.6
18.5
14.5
8.7
13.8
N = 586
18-24
25-34
35-44
44-54
55-64
65 +
34.1
33.1
18.2
9.1
5.5
Census
Survey (%)
15.6
21.3
19.1
24.3
19.7
N = 503
(%)
23.5
19.8
17.3
24.6
14.8
Religiond
Survey (%)
Catholic
Protestant
Jewish
Other
Agnostic
Atheist
35.2
38.7
6.3
10.1
2.5
7.2
N = 57
How
Religiousd
Very
Somewhat
Not Very
Census (%)
53.4
39.9
6.7
Census (%)
53.5
46.5
Survey (%)
27.3
50.7
22.0
N = 551
aSource: U.S. Census Summary Tape File (STF3A-Long Form): Demographic Totals for
Philadelphia County.
bThe base was Philadelphia residents aged 18 and over.
cHigher income categories for survey and census were collapsed to establish comparative
equivalence.
dVariables not reported by U.S. Census.
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Pablo Picasso, Maya Angelou, and Norman Mailer. Heroes not fitting any
of the first five types were classified as "other."
Some of the survey questions pertaining to the meaning of life were
of a philosophical nature that can tax respondents' comprehension more
than questions about concrete behavior. Accordingly, the philosophical
questions in this study were asked in a way that would increasingly sensitize
respondents to philosophical matters. One question, for example, asked respondents how often they thought about the "ultimate meaning of human
existence." Before being asked this question, respondents were read the
following statement:
People sometimes wonder about the meaning of life. Often we think about the
meaning of our own individual life. But we could also wonder whether human
existence in general has any ultimate meaning. How often do you think about the
meaning of your own life and then about the ultimate meaning of human existence
in general?
Respondents were then asked how often they thought about the meaning of their own lives and only then about the meaning of human existence
in general. It turned out as expected that while most people thought a lot
about the meaning of their own lives (making this question a poor discriminator), considerably fewer thought about the meaning of human existence
in general (making that question as it turned out a good discriminator).
These were the first philosophical questions asked in the spring. In the fall,
people were asked first how important the question of life's meaning was
to them. In both surveys, the more difficult questions about the meaning of
life were placed later, once people had been oriented to the topic.
The quantitative survey data presented here are actually a component
of a larger, much more qualitative study of what people think about the
meaning of life. When in the course of in-depth interviews, few subjects
reported having heroes, it prompted a question about the representativeness of the interviewees. That is what led to the survey research
reported on in this paper. From the in-depth interviews, it also became
apparent that many people interpret what a hero is in ways that vary from
the theoretical understanding suggested in the literature. That variance and
its implications will be discussed below.
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sponses such as "I'm my own hero" were removed, it turned out, again
consistently, that only 40% of the respondents had heroes.
As previously mentioned, in-depth interviews reveal that people often
take personal heroes to be something different from what they are presumed to be in the theoretical literature. In the literature, personal heroes
are generally considered to be charismatic role models or an idealized reference group, signifying moral purpose or commitment. On this construal,
one's heroes indicate what one stands for.
Many people do interpret their personal heroes this way. When asked
what the difference is between a hero and a role model, one white female
interviewee, whose heroes included her mother and Dorothy Day, replied
that "a hero is a role model par excellance." Similarly, an African-American
man, whose heroes included Angela Davis, Malcolm X, and Matt Turner,
explained that heroes are people who inspire him to struggle against injustice and by whose example, he, himself, attempts to live. It is the putative
loss of such inspirational heroes and the moral horizons they establish that
the theoretical literature laments.
Three other interviewees, who were just as morally and politically committed, did not have heroes because they interpreted that word as signifying
impossible figures who are morally perfect in all respects. While these interviewees denied having heroes, all three said they have or have had "mentors," some of whom are not personal acquaintances. By asking only for
heroes, the survey likely undercounts such people who, if they reject the
word "hero," nevertheless rely on charismatic mentors in a conceptually
close way.
If such people are undercounted by the survey, many others are overcounted-overcounted if what we are really after is people with personal
heroes by whose moral example they attempt to live. Asked whether they
have heroes, some respondents mention not personal heroes but cultural
heroes-heroes of the group-such as Harry Truman. From in-depth interviews, it is clear that such people do not view heroes like Harry Truman
as exemplars around which their own lives are modeled. They mean, rather,
that such heroes have done something praiseworthy for the group to which
they belong. Such heroes are conceptualized in the literature as cultural
rather than personal heroes (see, for example, Wecter, 1963).
According to the literature, people do not actually want to be their
heroes but, rather, to stand with or emulate their heroes. Moral emulation,
at any rate, is the heroic function in which the literature is interested. Some
people, however, do actually want to be their heroes. In an in-depth interview, one white woman, whose hero was Princess Diana, insisted that she
actually wanted to be Princess Diana-because the interviewee wanted to
live Princess Diana's life.
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with heroes-although only marginally. As we will see, race, age, and gender are all statistically unrelated to hero identification. Since education turns out to be positively related to
hero identification, the overrepresentation of more educated respondents may inflate the
percentage with heroes. Education was also positively-rather than negatively-related to
religiosity, but this relationship was not statistically significant. Thus, the underrepresentation
of the less educated would seem, again, not to underrepresent the very religious, who tend
more to have heroes. If anything, the data probably overrepresent them.
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Table II. Hero Types
Hero Types
Local
Political
Celebrities
Religious
Arts
Other
Total
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
47.2
28.8
15.6
14.0
6.4
5.2
100
118
72
39
35
16
13
250
39.5
26.0
14.0
10.7
4.9
4.9
100
144
95
51
39
18
18
365
aPercentages do not sum to 100% because some respondents name multiple heroes.
cate that even if Lowenthal and Boorstin are correct that our media have
replaced "true" heroes with celebrities, that does not directly manifest itself
at the level of the individual actor. In terms of mentions (column 3), celebrities account for only 14% of all heroes named. Similarly, if we take
individuals as our unit of analysis (column 1), less than 16% of respondents
with heroes cite celebrities. Finally, when we include those who have no
heroes at all, only a little over 6% of respondents identify idols of consumption as heroes.
Not even comparatively do the data support the Boorstin-Lowenthal
hypothesis. Idols of consumption or celebrities are not among the most
frequently cited hero types. Instead, celebrities rank third in frequency after
local and political heroes. Among those with heroes, the number of respondents who mention local heroes (47%) is about three times greater
than the number of respondents who mention celebrities (16%). Similarly,
the number of respondents who mention political heroes (29%) is almost
two times greater. Likewise, in terms of mentions, the percentage associated with celebrities (14%) lags far behind the percentages associated with
local heroes (40%) and political heroes (26%). Celebrities, in fact, do not
rank that much higher than religious heroes (11%).
Boorstin and Lowenthal are undoubtedly correct that radio, television,
and popular magazines pay undue attention to mere celebrities, crowding
out the celebration of true heroism. The media's crowding out of heroes
by celebrities may well leave people with a dearth of heroic exemplars with
whom to identify. That may explain partly why only a minority of respondents say they have heroes.
On the other hand, the low frequency of celebrities identified as heroes
suggests that the public has not succumbed totally to the media bias. When
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we speak of whom our society identifies as heroes, therefore, we must distinguish between more or less visible aspects of culture, a distinction that
tends to coincide with the distinction between the macro and the micro.
On the one hand, the media have the power to exert a strong macrosocial
effect so that the heroes they laud will be very visible culturally. Far less
visible will be the heroes adopted by individuals, microsocially. Yet the less
visible heroes that emerge from the microsocial level are equally reflective
of who we are as a society. When the values of the micro- and macrolevels
diverge, as they evidently do in the case of heroes, it is important for analysts not to mistake the more noticeable macrolevel values as the values
of the culture tout court. Instead, alongside the more visible macrolevel
culture, there may in addition be a shadow culture at the microlevel that
goes undetected.
If at the individual level the data do not support the hypothesis derived
from Boorstin and Lowenthal's macrosocial thesis, it is because the data
overwhelmingly support the rival hypothesis derived from Taylor, who
claims that modernity tends to affirm ordinary life over any kind of transcendental calling. Taylor's thesis suggests the hypothesis that individuals'
heroes will tend to be ordinary people from everyday life rather than transcendental figures.
The data uphold this expectation. Local heroes-personal acquaintances from ordinary life-were by far the most frequent category of hero
mentioned. In fact, there were as many mentions of local heroes (40%) as
there were of the next two most frequently mentioned categories combined:
political heroes (26%) and celebrities (14%). The same pattern obtains
when the unit of analysis is respondents. Almost half of the respondents
with heroes (47%) mentioned personal acquaintances as among their heroes. Again, this is more than the combined number of respondents who
named either political heroes (29%) or celebrities (14%). Thus, to the extent that local heroes represent the values of ordinary life, it does appear
to be ordinary life that is affirmed by contemporary hero choice.
The contemporary affirmation of ordinary life is further indicated by
what is absent from the data: much mention of historical figures. Instead,
the data display a striking ahistoricity in hero choice. Of the 162 different
heroes mentioned, only 10 lived prior to the 20th century: Jesus, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Bach, the virgin Mary, Columbus, Saint Paul, Saint
Francis Xavier, and Socrates.6
might be argued that more historical heroes would have been elicited had the survey question been worded differently, had it asked explicitly for heroes "living or dead." That may
be. On the other hand, if hero identification with a dead historical figure were truly salient
for a respondent, the question even as currently worded should have elicited it. The ahistorical nature of the heroes cited in this study coincides with Greenstein's (1964) finding of a
61t
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In both analyses presented in Table III, the first and last responses to
this question were removed to create an ordinal scale of felt assurance
about the ultimate meaning of human existence. The 12% (n = 73) of
respondents who made either the first or last response express not so much
a level of certainity about the meaning of life as a repudiation of the very
framework assumed by the question. In terms of hero identification, they
represented a distinct group.
If we leave this group aside for a moment, then it appears that the
clearer the picture one has about the meaning of life, the more likely one
is to have personal heroes. Of those who think human existence meaningful
without knowing what the meaning is (27%; n = 161), only a little over
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Table III. Who is Most Likely to Have Heroes? Stepwise Multiple Regression
Analysis
A. Combined Spring and Fall Data
Independent
Variable
Certainty about
meaning of lifea
Education
Religiosity
Gender
Age
Income
Race
Final
Cummula- Cummulative R
tive R2
Change
inR2
Significance
.142
.192
.037
.037
.009
.158
.136
.056
-.088
-.124
.034
.242
.274
NA
NA
NA
NA
.058
.075
NA
NA
NA
NA
.022
.016
NA
NA
NA
NA
.002
.012
.284
.090
.124
.507
Change
in
Significance
B. Spring Data
Independent
Variable
Certainty about
meaning of life
Reflection about
meaning of lifeb
Religiosity
Education
Gender
Age
Income
Race
Final
Cummula- Cummulative R
tive R2
.214
.236
.056
.056
.002
.197
.307
.094
.038
.005
.122
.110
.092
.005
.008
.046
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
.096
.120
.183
.946
.904
.517
30% have heroes. Of those who say they have some sense of the purpose
of human existence (41%; n = 242), 42% have heroes. Finally, of the 20%
(n = 117) who say they know what the purpose of life is-persumably, a
minority who live according to some articulated metanarrative, almost 56%
have heroes.
Returning now to those who either deny that human existence has
meaning or have some other attitude about human existence, almost 43%
have heroes, approximately the same percentage as those who have some
sense of life's meaning. Evidently, people in the anomalous category adhere
to a totally different orientation that attracts them to hero identification
more than those who are low on the more typical orienting dimension but
less than those who are high.
The statistically significant relationships between hero identification
and the two meaning variables (Table III) support Cooley's contention that
hero identification is an expression of transcendental ideals. Those more
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CONCLUSION
Traditionally, heroes are the protagonists of myths-that is, metaphorical or figurative accounts that are addressed to the ultimate questions: Who are we? Where did we come from? Why are we here?
Addressed to ultimate questions as they are, myths relate to a sacred plane
of existence, a plane that transcends profane, everyday life. In the sacred
plane, heroes personify transcendent ideals and transcendent visions of
the good.
It often has been argued that ours is a largely demythologized, profane
culture, where people generally do not orient their lives meaningfully
around mythic paradigms or transcendental metanarratives. The data presented here lend support to that view. According to the data, few people
seem to think intensely about the meaning of human existence in general,
and, accordingly, few seem to conform confidently to any kind of articulated, grand metanarrative.
Taylor argues that it is everyday life that is valorized now, not some
higher plane of transcendent purpose. Ours, he says, is instead a bourgeois
culture, where the good is found in the ordinary acts of work, home, and
leisure. Without a transcendent plane in which we are required to orient
ourselves, we may feel little cultural need for personal heroes. As the
mythic dwelling place of heroes is culturally marginal, perhaps its heroic
residents are marginal as well.
Again, the data seem to support this view. Most people do not have
personal heroes, and among those who do, most frequently cited are the
local heroes of ordinary life. It is likely no accident, furthermore, that people with personal heroes tend to be both religious and attuned to grand
metanarratives. If in its most vibrant form, heroes relate to ultimate concerns, then it will be those who are consciously directed to such concerns
who will be most likely to have heroes. Heroes and heroic callings have so
far received little mention in the literature on desacralization. Yet like rituals, prayer, and attendence at religious services, they are important dimensions of the sacredly engaged life. Hopefully, this paper will stimulate
further attention to this topic.
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228
Porpora
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the following people for their helpful comments
on previous drafts of this paper: Orly Benjamin, Hugo Freund, Ernest
Hakanen, William Rosenberg, William Sullivan, and Alan Wolfe. I would
also like to express my appreciation to the anonymous referees who helped
make this a better paper.
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