Heroism: An Absolute Necessity?

This is going to be a bit lengthy, so read if you have time to spare. 

There has been this harrowing question that’s been plaguing my mind for quite a bit now that I’ve been wanting to get off my chest. By surface definition, heroism is an act of great bravery. By my understanding, it’s an act that is innately selfless and sacrificial for the aimed benefit of another, often an act that strays from the norm that you would expect a person to do in such situations where acts of heroism may be considered. On paper, it sounds like the necessity of heroism is absolute. But off paper, is that really the case?

Before I get into the meat of it, I want to explain personally why this question has suddenly been on my mind. I went on vacation to New York several months ago for my step-sister’s birthday. I live in the kind of family that bars me from doing anything else that doesn’t conform to their sense of value. They are my step family, so the way I was raised by my real family when I was younger often stepped out of their narrowed values. Because of this, I would very often get in deep trouble for doing something that in their view was wrong (though, I don’t mean to paint them ill-intentioned). This has led me to naturally question my actions throughout my life. Until that day in New York, where a biker fell out of their bike mid-traffic. Countless people were walking by in the business of that afternoon while the person on the street did not get up, in ongoing traffic. My step-family and I were distanced away from the situation across the street. We saw what was happening, but I couldn’t swallow the fact that my step-family was going to walk away just like the rest of the people. I couldn’t stand it, and with my twin sister, we ‘disobeyed’ our step-family and separated from them to help the person to their feet and get them and their bike out of the moving road. I don’t want to go further into what had happened that day (the biker is okay), but my twin sister and I quickly got into an argument with our step-family when we were back at our hotel room, who angrily called us selfish, inconsiderate, and other names of the sort. The vacation was spoiled, my twin-sister equally upset, and me: confused. I was confused then, because I didn't understand how a selfless act of helping someone in need could be selfish to others. 

Eventually, I was able to rationalize with the selfish quality of the act. There’s a popular quote a lot of common people who are against heroic acts use, as obvious as it is: “Don’t be a hero.” I’d see it in movies, documentaries, news interviews, etc. I never understood that saying, because I was under the belief that heroism was necessary, an obligation of humanity to combat disunity and societal despondency. I had thought that it was generally agreed that turning your left cheek or embracing ignorance to the struggles of people like yourself under the reasoning of self-priority is at its core, selfish in a negative light. I loathed how people can so easily turn away from the most obvious of struggles because it doesn’t directly affect them. There are a lot of people in this world who live in that mindset. However, I don’t believe that the mindset is black and white. In cases like my step-family, they were adamant about how they didn’t want any unnecessary things happening to me, and as a result, did not want me getting involved in things that did not concern me. Can that still be called a selfish mindset?

Considering the existence of that mindset, I’m able to rationalize why my step-family was so upset at me. Instead of painting it as a heroic act, I can just as naturally describe what I did as an unnecessary act of involving my family in a messy, potentially risky situation. It would be selfish, as I did the act without thinking about the potentially complicated or harmful ripple effects. 

In my case in New York, I don’t think this perfectly applies, as there wouldn’t be any harmful ripple effects with the exception of inconveniencing my family by delaying their evening with something that did not involve us. It didn’t matter to me if we delayed our evening if it meant helping someone clearly in danger and not receiving the help they needed. It didn’t even cross my mind the effects it would have on me, because I already live on a separate mindset from immediate self-priority. Looking back, there wasn’t a huge risk on me anyway. 

So, I have a better example, food for thought. Imagine you were driving on a road back home from work. It's getting dark in the evening, and you don’t want to miss dinner. You have a wife (or husband), and kids back home, one of which is waiting for you to get home for help on homework. Point is, you have a fruitful life going on. On your way, you notice that a car had driven off the side of the road and had been immensely impacted by hitting a tree. The back of the car is consumed by consequential flames, and the front seat is still occupied by the driver of the car. In this scenario, it’s not too late to save them. However, the car could combust at any given moment. You have two choices: hurry to take the driver out of the car, or remove yourself from the radius of the danger and call for help. Those who carry the virtue of heroism without the consideration of the ripple might choose the first option. However, the time it would take to attempt that option carries a very large risk as in getting caught in the combustion of the vehicle, therefore getting you, and the driver killed. Or, both you and the driver may escape the radius of the danger. If you choose the latter, you would not be in the radius of the potential fire. Your family back home would not lose a spouse or a parent. The driver would be the sole casualty. This analogy can also be simplified to a similar, more commonly known one: the Trolley Problem. 

If the driver had either many people important to them in their lives, or if they didn’t, would that be a qualifying factor in which response is necessary? What is more at stake?

Dwell on this scenario for a moment. The heroic response is by nature selfless and admirable. You are, in an attempt, stopping the negative ripple effects if the driver were to become a casualty. Equally so, it can also be derived that the response of self-prioritization is as much selfless, but for a different equation: the ripple effect of your own casualty. Nothing is ever black and white, only on all sides gray. 

This can also be pondered regarding speaking out and trying to act on certain major events occurring around the world, such as the mass genocide of innocent families in Gaza as one of many examples, the countless war crimes being committed time and time again, you can think in the rest. We are living in a cycle of violence based on dispute in belief. In this degree of cases, I don’t believe that speaking out or attempting to do something in response to the violence occurring to innocent people is an entirely heroic act, as it should be a given, but it does, in my understanding of heroism, stray away from the norm of society despite the risks of yourself in the process. There are fewer people in society than should be, acting in response to what is occurring, but the reason as to why that is a reality is because of that idea of “self-prioritization,” where people choose to remove themselves from the elephant in the world to protect their own lives and the lives of the people important to them. 

So, the standing question is: Is Heroism Absolutely Necessary Or Is It Not?

Such a question has me conflicted because if such a topic is so gray, what would be the right decision when a person must face it? In such cases, it would quickly become a black-and-white scenario in decision. My first thought is that if something can be done, even if not entirely sound, it becomes a moral responsibility rather than a weighing choice. I think this because a weighing choice would imply that someone’s life might be more important or disposable than another's, even if the rationale might be morally justifiable in one face of the square. If there are more lives considered that may be affected by whichever choice, would that change the tide of what is truly ‘right’?

I would really like to know your thoughts on this!!

(PS: This is my first blog and I’m running on barely any sleep, so I’m sorry if this is messy or confusing! This isn’t even the half of what I want to talk about, but I didn’t want it running too long. Thanks for reading if you made it to the end. Hope everyone is doing well!! <3) (^^)/