In the early years of Hollywood, there was a standard: movies filled with wholesome families, and people of good character who would step up in difficult times and become a hero—someone audiences could root for and wanted to emulate.
We loved to celebrate our heroes—soldiers, astronauts, Olympic champions. We’d even throw them parades.
We looked up to religious leaders, scientists, doctors, artists, builders, and civil rights leaders. And we honored mom and dad, teachers, firefighters, and police—common people who sometimes changed the course of history.
What about today, who are propped up as heroes? Hollywood gangsters? Drug-addicted pop stars? Radical internet influencers? Opportunist politicians? Surely we can do better than that.
In this episode we we search for the hero with our panel: education freedom activist and producer Sam Sorbo, of “Hercules” fame; journalist and media executive Ted Lipien, a witness to the Polish resistance against communism; and speaker and author Xi Van Fleet, a survivor of Mao’s Cultural Revolution.
We discuss the qualities of true heroism and how to cultivate them in a hazy moral landscape.
