A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself. "
(Joseph Campbell )

 

Hero or Celebrity?

Have we replaced true heroes with celebrities? Do we believe that celebrities in sports and entertainment are heroes? Have we stopped looking for real heroes? Consider this: "We can fabricate fame, we can at will (though usually at considerable expense) make a man or a woman well known; but we can cannot hake him or her great. In a now almost forgotten sense, all heros are self made… The hero was distinguished by his achievement; the celebrity by his image or trademark. The hero created himself; the celebrity is created by the media. The hero was a big man; the celebrity is a big name… In this life of illusion and quasi-illusion, the person with solid virtues who can be admired for something more substantial than his well-knownness, often proves to be the unsung hero; the teacher, the nurse, the mother, the honest cop, the hard worker at lonely, underpaid, unglamorous jobs… Their virtues are not the product of our effort to fill our void." Daniel J. Boorstin, "The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America", Simon & Schuster, 1989 Is Daniel Boorstin right? Decide if you agree or disagree with Boorstin and write a response that supports your opinion with three solid examples.