Misplaced heroism

June 21st, 2023

Being heroic brings us a (false) feeling of achieving something worthwhile. Something that will prolong our name and memory of us toward infinity. That is rather pathetic and arrogant and painfully narcissistic — and completely wrong. Our heroism and all our projects pertaining to it, which are supposed to bring everlasting peace and equality and the final destruction of evil paradoxically only bring more disorder into the world.

Our heroic projects create looped conflicts of interest and pin everybody against each other — my god against your god, my country against your country, my race against your race, my immortality project against your immortality project. And the reason for the evil created by humans is not our animalistic nature or the kind of upbringing we have (or don't have) but only our deep and insatiable need for gaining self-esteem and, by extension, a heroic self-image as seen in a crooked mirror.

Our desire for the best is usually the cause of the worse — because we don't stop lavishing the best just on ourselves and our self-development and self-fulfillment. What would be the fun of that? No, we want to extend it to other groups or tribes or hordes. Hell — we want to clean up the world, make it perfect. We want to keep it safe for our political preferences, purify it from enemies of our god or leader (oftentimes the same thing), establish the perfect utopia of worldly and carnal happiness, and eliminate tears and sadness from human nature. And it doesn't matter that others tried and failed before us — we who are in this or that particular group will make it happen! The ultimate truth is on our side!

Only by evil deeds can we make other points of view and other ideas and those who hold them accept our way and the only way, or at least (or worst) disappear them from view and from participating in the world. That is the root cause — our desire for immortality — either for us, or by our heroic actions, for our group or tribe.