Concept Between the Saint and the Hero - Thesis Example

Philosophical Thought 22 July Final Paper for Philosophical Thought In the discussion of the studied module for this course, there lies the concept between the saint and the hero, two kinds of archetypes that represent the best qualities of the human spirit from different spectrums. The saint is the archetype that focuses on the spiritual well-being of an individual in light of the divine and the universe, while the hero portrays the qualities found best in human endeavors and efforts. In my opinion, I believe that the value of human existence is best found in balancing the saint and hero qualities, putting them in harmony with each other. While explaining my position, discussion will be made with regard to the themes from the different topics, and what their pros and cons are. The saint could be taken as the path for the more spiritual approach towards life and existence. The saint is beholden by the moral and ethical laws by God, or what is divine and ideal, taking steps and journeys in doing and sharing their beliefs for the betterment of others in a world that has been in constant bouts of chaos and other evils. For the saint, God’s existence may be a necessary condition for securing a meaningful life, but it is generally thought that one must additionally relate to God in some relevant way in the epistemological and axiological dimensions (Seachris, “Meaning of Life: The Analytic Perspective”). Saints can be characterized with many traits that are in relation to the central quality of godliness, such as being humble, kind, generous, compassionate, and selflessness. The hero archetype could be taken as a different approach to an individual’s value of existence and life. The first impression of a hero is an individual who is strong and fearless regardless of the odds. The hero archetype usually is the individual who adheres to the rightness of freedom, doing what is noble and just according to their personal beliefs. The hero typology has been portrayed in various ways, either through mythology or romanticism. Typically, the hero is characterized by traits of being free-spirited, courageous, strong-hearted, and a lover of life. Both could be viewed as distinct, but they complement each other very well, both of them having a distinct path for an individual’s walk in existence. This could be seen even in the earliest and twilight days in the age of antiquity. Greek mythology portrays a lot of notable heroes in their stories and legends. The most notable would be that of Hercules, or Heracles in other writings. Hercules may have been portrayed as a son of Zeus, the king among all the other Greek deities, but he is still a demi-god because he was born from a mortal woman. As legend tells, Hercules had to undergo the Twelve Labors meant for him as an act of redemption of murdering his wife and daughter due to his insanity. While doing all this out of personal reasons, Hercules did assist many of his fellow men, and even deities through his journeys and trials. For the Greeks, Hercules was considered a hero figure because he showed indomitable will and power to persevere in his tasks. The Greek mythological-poetic drama usually portrayed heroes as individuals overwhelmed by their feelings of doing what they see fit. On the other hand, the philosophy of Stoicism had a more different opinion with regard to how one would live. The Stoic philosophy follows a more ascetic role in life. The Stoics believe that once we come to know what we and the world around us are really like, and especially the nature of value, we will be utterly transformed (Baltzly, “Stoicism”). The Stoics have always strived for temperance and the discipline of self-control from one’s emotions or passions in whatever they commit themselves to. Temperance leads to a mind and soul that has achieved tranquility or harmony with nature, which is the ultimate goal of the Stoics. This appealed well to what the Romans regarded as heroes among their citizenship, such as soldiers, leaders, and even an emperor because it shows a quiet yet dignified form of heroism that is also wise and unfettered regardless of circumstances, and is primarily concerned with the welfare of others. Eventually, with the advent and arrival of Christianity and Islam to civilization, the focus began to change from the hero to that of the archetype of the saint. This could be seen from the examples of Saint Paul of Tarsus and the Prophet Mohammed. Both of these men were regarded as holy men from their respective faiths and have been viewed as respected moral figures. It was because of men of this kind that the shift on how individuals can find a meaningful life was no longer about personal improvement alone and the helping of others, but instead to better fulfill a closer connection with God and His divine will with the same perseverance as the hero archetype has. Saint Paul, for example, was originally a Jewish Roman citizen and was in charge of the persecution of the earliest Christian church. He had authority and power to arrest, and even make important decisions around Jerusalem. However, when he encountered Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, and was later healed by Ananias by God’s prompting, Paul then began to preach about Jesus Christ’s teachings and his resurrection from death. He started first in Jerusalem then went further to the other provinces of Roman controlled Asia Minor, then to Greece, and finally Rome. Throughout his missionary journey, Paul faced merciless beatings by angry mobs, braved through storms, and was even bitten by a poisonous snake, but still managed to survive all of those challenges without having his faith in God and missionary goals to be swayed. The Prophet Mohammed started his childhood from a prominent family, but did not really have a prosperous life. After his father died, he lived among the desert nomads and learned their ways. Then he joined his uncle to become a merchant. As he travelled from different cities, he learned about the other different faiths, such as Judaism and early Christianity. It was after a vision by the Archangel Gabriel that Mohammed received the revelation that there is only one God and His name is Allah, and that his word must be spread throughout the land. Through trials and battles, Mohammad spread the teachings of Islam throughout the Arab world which would even go beyond the Mediterranean Sea as history goes. Eventually, the fall of the Roman Empire gave rise to the Medieval Christian civilization. This also led to the conversion of Roman culture with the Christian culture, thus downplaying the archetype of the hero in place of that of the saint. This was done for various reasons. For one, it allowed the Christian culture to be able to easily convert many groups of people since most of the populations in Europe were under Roman rule; thus, the integration of their cultures. Also, the Roman culture was contrary to many things taught by the Christian faith, such as free-spiritedness, personal pride, and individualism, which was equated to their image of a hero. Regardless, the archetype of the hero still carried on. During the Medieval period, it was the archetype of the saint that was primary. Saint Francis of Assisi, for example, was so focused in getting closer to God that he renounced a life of wealth and comfort. He spent his time in the wilderness, communing with animals and meditated on a cavern to listen to God speak. Despite his quest to be closer to God, Saint Francis also helped the poor and the homeless, gave comfort and hope to the downtrodden. With these acts, Saint Francis became one of the well-regarded Christian saints in history. With the arrival of the Renaissance period however, there came the yearning to understand again the lost culture of the Romans that seemed lost for centuries during the Medieval Period. Dante Alighieri, in his master work the Divine Comedy or Commedia, explored human understanding in a more sentimental sense than sensible.  The Commedia is concerned with the ultimate, eternal destiny of human life, with the transcendence, rather than the fulfillment of human understanding (Wetherbee, “Dante Alighieri”). It was because of such works that Romantic sentimentalism was given birth to. The entry of the Age of Enlightenment finally brought a close to the Medieval culture that was prevalent for centuries in Europe. With that, scientific, political and cultural revolution was putting much of Europe in an upheaval of change. The point of view of the philosophical was no longer about the divine being, but about man being the center of attention. Due to the influence of the Renaissance bringing about interest to the ancient days, and the Enlightenment bringing new progress, there creates a cultural mutation in which the old and new cultures mix, leading to something new. For example, in the artworks of Michelangelo, which explored the old forms of art that seemed lost when the Romans fell, but was able to make art pieces that are bases from their culture without being restricted by the religious rules and culture of what was saintly medieval. As much as it was art, it was also science as well since it followed precision and exacting processes to make it come out as beautiful, yet accurate. Of course, the idea of God cannot be totally thrown off the picture. The problem is that the medieval culture put God in a nearly tyrannical and irrational light that much of the Enlightenment Age sought to put down the idea of God. Soren Kierkegaard, on the other hand believed that God was not merely the Almighty God that was distant from human affairs. For Kierkegaard Christian faith is not a matter of regurgitating church dogma. It is a matter of individual subjective passion, which cannot be mediated by the clergy or by human artefacts. Faith is the most important task to be achieved by a human being, because only on the basis of faith does an individual have a chance to become a true self. This self is the life-work which God judges for eternity (MacDonald, “Soren Kierkegaard”). With the advent of the Enlightenment Age, scientific discoveries and claims were being made in rapid pace. Most of the time, these discoveries tend to debunk traditional and religious beliefs about the humanity’s existence and way of life, as well as the traditional order of things. By the 19th century, western civilization was in what was called the Age of Suspicion since much of how the way things were looked upon the cultural and political sense were held with misgiving by that period’s most vocal thinkers. These men were Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Charles Darwin, Friedrich Nietzsche and Fyodor Dostoeyovsky. Karl Marx sought the emancipation and liberation of the oppressed working classes of people from being exploited and always in constant poverty. Marx believed a society that has no class system and a place where resources and commodities are equally distributed. Thus he created the political and economic system of Socialism. Sigmund Freud was a Viennese psychologist who believed that whatever is irrational and instinctive within the human psyche is not something that should be suppressed, but entirely expressed. Freud claims that rational thinking and intellect are merely tools used to suppress what man really is by averting himself from his natural tendencies. Friedrich Nietzche was a controversial and intriguing German philosopher who was both famous and infamous for his declaration that “God is dead, because men killed God”. While not really pertaining to God directly, Nietzsche held that human culture and civilization has been complacent with what is the mentality of the slave-herd mentality which he condemns the Christian religion for being the root cause of it all. He believed that only an individual with a strong will and who has the creative vitality of life can be those who can take charge of their own life and others, to which he called them the “superman”. Charles Darwin was a British biologist who thought of the theory of evolutionary process of life. While on a trip to the Galapagos Islands, Darwin made observations and studies with the local wildlife and came to the conclusion that all life evolved from the most basic organic forms to become life as they are now. His theory that humans are actually descendants of apes was a bold challenge to the belief that all life was created by God out of nothing. Fyodor Dostoeyovsky was a Russian novelist who explored the human condition of existence in which life seemed very bleak and meaningless throughout his novels. He pointed that despite all the terrible situations and morbidity of life, reason and the intellect is not the way for an individual to live. It is his desire to be free and to live free that is most paramount to an individual. This sort of philosophical development gave rise to the Existential view of humanity, in which how can an individual find truth and meaning in a world that seems so soulless and meaningless. This ugly reality of life was seen and experienced by humanity during World War II’s Holocaust of the Jewish people. Thousands of innocent lives snuffed out with utter cruelty and malice in a few years. Among those who viewed and even experienced these horrors were Existential thinkers Martin Buber, Emmanuel Levinas and Viktor Frankl, all of whom were Jews themselves. Each of these men held that freedom goes in hand with responsibility and suffering. Every individual has to make a choice in what they do with their own personal actions, and most certainly must be accountable for whatever they have done. One can act freely with result of good or harm to others, and either way each individual is responsible for whatever he or she does, whether one becomes a saint, a hero, or a monster. By the turn of the 21st Century, there has been more of a pressing attention with regards to civil rights and cultural solidarity movements. Issues of racial discrimination and poverty were rampant. It was at this time that secular saint entered the stage and was given attention on the importance of both spirit and action. Simone Weil, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr had certain things in common. They were men and women of faith, had their own church ministry, and they were also social activists. Each of them had an advocacy. Simone Weil was for worker’s rights, Martin Luther King Jr was against racial discrimination and Mother Teresa was for the better welfare for the poor. They both share in common the notion of justice in Greek Philosophy, which is the basic democratic right of individuals to have life of good welfare and fair treatment under the laws. In light of all these different schools of thought, I believe that a meaningful life is a life of balance, like that of Aristotle’s Golden Mean. Never do things too much or too less. One should strive to be the best of both sides while averting the shortcomings of either, such as having the courage, strength of will and free-spirit as a hero, while being humble, noble and compassionate as a saint. Also, it is good to appreciate the emotions one can have and express, at the same time having the rational self control to do things wisely. Lastly, to enjoy freedom one’s individual freedom while respecting the life and liberty of others. Works Cited Baltzly, Dirk. “Stoicism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 4 October 2010 Web. 20 July 2011. MacDonald, William. “Soren Kierkegaard.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 8 May 2009. Web. 19 July 2011. Seachris, Joshua. “Meaning of Life: The Analytic Perspective.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 29 June 2011. Web. 21 July 2011. Wetherbee, Winthrop. “Dante Alighieri.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 18 December 2009. Web. 22 July 2011. Read More