Do you actively criticize your hero?
I find it necessary to actively challenge and criticize the ideas and people I hold in highest regard
I find that if we fail to criticize the people we most revere, we develop a blindness
I think no one or no idea is off limits
I don’t hold people in high regard, I hold their ideas, and I hold their ideas in high regard directly proportional to the degree they withstand the most honest and unbiased scrutiny I can muster
Attitudes should be consistent.
You shouldn’t possess different attitudes for different ideas. The critical attitude to vet ideas and the people who act as vessels for them should be the same no matter whether you agree with the ideas/ people or not
I find that polarization is the result of a lack of such consistency in attitude. We criticize those who we disagree with, and fail to criticize those who we wish to identify with. And we do the world a disservice
The reality is always a gray area in between.
I find that our heroes become our gods, in that we use these figures to project our ideals onto them, and fail to project our shortcomings and frailties.
The philosopher Feuerbach was correct to say: “Consciousness of God is self-consciousness, knowledge of God is self-knowledge, by his God thou knowest the man, and by the man his God; the two are identical. Whatever is God to a man, that is his heart and soul; and conversely, God is the manifested inward nature, the expressed self of a man– religion the solemn unveiling of a man’s hidden treasures, the revelation of his intimate thoughts, and the open confession of his love-secrets.”
William Dare 