American ideas of an ideal hero and ideas of masculinity

American Idea of a hero

A hero (or, in women, a heroin) is a real or fictional character from the history, the mythology or human arts, which made ??high-valet sung his gesture. The latter, sweetened by the golden legend of hagiographers, are passed in the legend popular. Across cultures, a hero is a demigod, a figure legendary, an ideal, a superman or simply a courageous person, giving freely of them. The role of the hero is between the suction metaphysical, almost religious, to overcome the human condition, including a physical standpoint and from the more realistic aspiration to work for the good of the community, a point moral terms. A third role perhaps is also that of propaganda for a political or religious ideology. By extension, the term "hero" means the main character of a work of fiction, whatever the qualities he has shown. If his behavior does not correspond to an ideal (for example, it is cowardly or greedy), the hero may be described as an antihero (Proulx, pp. 74-85)

The Hero Myth

In the earliest stories, there is no distinction between leader and hero because for ancient cultures, leadership was usually a function of heroism in war. Vestiges of this identification still remain with us, especially in politics and often in business. Heroes in battle become kings, and even if their sons inherit the kingship rather than win it in battle, these new kings are expected to fight to defend their territory or to conquer new ones. It is important to understand the hero myth that underlies many of the popular conceptions of leadership, not only to recognize when the myth is being used (whether consciously or not) but also to understand where it may fall short as a guide for leadership in the 21st century. The classic popular commentary on the myth of the hero is Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces (1949/2004). Campbell called the hero myth a mono-myth (a term taken from the novelist James Joyce) because, he argued, its motifs can be found in all cultures. Many academic critics dispute this claim, preferring, instead, to emphasize the differences between cultural myths. Whatever the merits of the academic argument, Campbell's ideas have had a powerful influence in popular culture, especially in business leadership books and in movies, such as Star Wars and others, which feature the adventures of a number of heroes.

At its most basic, the mono-myth has four parts or movements: the call to adventure; the crossing of the threshold into the world of adventure, which is also a kingdom of trials; a supreme ordeal (which takes many forms); and a return to the community with a prize or a transformational gift. Each of these aspects offers insight into how leadership works and what leaders are expected to do (Mcguane, pp. 1-8) .

Masculinity

Masculinity is defined as a set of attributes associated with the role traditional the category man. Some examples of these attributes are the ...