How to Be Heroic

What makes a person a hero? In our culture we regard heroic deeds as those which involve courage and self-sacrifice for a worthy goal, such as rescuing another person or even an animal. It usually requires modesty. He or she did not intend to gain any reward, nor any other kind of glory. “I couldn’t just stand by – I had to do it.” The only motive we will sanction in a hero is pure impulse – a sense of common humanity. Either that, or simply performing one’s set role – “I was only doing my job.”

If we go to the Bible for examples, there are at least two in the Old Testament which immediately come to mind:

First, we have David, a young shepherd boy who sets himself against Goliath, a mighty champion of the enemy army, the Philistines. David has two weapons which turn out to make all the difference. One is experience – for, despite his youth, he has already had to protect and defend his flock against all kinds of ferocious natural enemies, such as bears and lions.

David’s other weapon is his superb self-confidence. This he derives from feeling that God is on the side of the Israelites, whose army he now represents. So the boastful, and obviously powerful, Goliath inspires no fear in him. It hardly matters that Goliath is fully equipped with armor and weaponry. David has only the missiles he finds in a creek – the same sort of symbolic projectiles people still use today when they are standing up against overwhelming force – a few round pebbles. And it takes only one of these – skillfully thrown with that other ancient weapon, a sling – to do the job.

Then there was Samson who, when captured and blinded by those same Philistines, used his enormous strength to bring down upon himself and them their entire Temple, crowded with 3,000 people.

The tradition of killing in massive numbers with the bonus of capturing extensive territory has, historically, honored great conquerors like Alexander and Napoleon.

But more recent heroes have tended to be those who have actually benefited mankind, especially in the field of medicine. An outstanding example was Louis Pasteur, whose name is still applied to the simple process of removing harmful bacteria from fresh milk.

Unfortunately, those who have made such great contributions to humanity have not always been honored in their own time as heroes. We must take note of the very sad story of Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865) – a Hungarian physician – and “Childbed Fever”, which was a common and often fatal disease in maternity hospitals.

Semmelweis noticed that doctors in those hospitals often came directly to their patients after having performed autopsies. Over extensive observation, he was able to demonstrate that those patients had a much lower fatality rate if the doctors treating them washed their hands first. The existence of germs which caused infections was at that time hardly understood. Semmelweis became so exasperated by the failure of all his colleagues to heed his findings that his erratic behavior led to his own confinement in an insane asylum – where he died after only two weeks, apparently from being beaten by his guards.

If you want to know my own heroes, here are two: First, there was Richard Halliburton, who wrote about his own exciting adventures in a series of books with titles like The Royal Road to Romance, New Worlds to Conquer, and Seven League Books. More recently, I would nominate Tom Lehrer, a popular satirical performer of enormous talent, whom I particularly admire for his decision – at the top of his fame – to quit performing and go back to his other career as a college teacher of math.

And have I myself ever done anything that could be called heroic? The one event that comes to mind occurred long ago when, as part of my California teacher training, I had to learn how to use a film projector, and was sent to demonstrate my skill to a class of student nurses. The film turned out to be a very graphic depiction of a Caesarian Birth Delivery. I had never seen anything like this before – and promptly fainted. 

The students gathered around to help revive me. But once conscious, I felt I had a duty to perform. Resisting all offers of further assistance, I resumed my projectionist role, taking peeks at the screen but managing not to faint again. I hope this will earn your esteem in some category of heroism.