{"product_id":"2940148187417","title":"Thoughts on Heroism","description":"This is no age for heroes. Circumstance and ethos incline us to be suspicious of heroes. For some, there is something cloying and grating about heroism; it has, for them, too much of a martial air to make them comfortable. For others, it appears to be a trait inappropriate and out of tune with modernity. Heroes are, for them, ridiculously apart from the spirit of the age. Irving Howe has observed that \"the characteristic figure of twentieth-century urban life... may [be]... the same thing [as] the characteristic 'anti-hero' of twentieth-century literature.\" To confirm Howe's point, one has but to point to the anonymity of urban life which makes it so difficult to win the glory that was classically an object of heroism. Like so much of our contemporary inflated language, the terms hero and heroism are used so casually and thoughtlessly that it is difficult to know what is meant when we use them. I recently asked a college class to name some contemporary heroes and to explain why they regarded them as such. This was not a scientific poll, of course, but I thought it interesting when I found they could not name any individuals, but merely suggested types of heroic acts such as rushing into a burning building to rescue a child. That the question is difficult to address may be a reflection of a contemporary belief that heroes are no longer relevant to our culture, that they, like coopers and smiths, belong to another time and another place.","brand":"The World \u0026 I Online","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47108796088560,"sku":"2940148187417","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940148187417_p0.jpg?v=1763698349","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940148187417","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}