A World Without Heroes: The Modern Tragedy

George Roche, President of Hillsdale College, wrote this book 20 years ago, and it is even more relevant today. It is a wide-ranging, engaging, eye-opening book, the kind you want to start re-reading immediately after you finish it. Roche begins with a discussion of heroism - what it is, and where it seems to come from. He then explores why heroism cannot be fit into the culturally dominant, linked philosophies of naturalism, determinism, scientism and logical positivism which together he refers to as "materialism". Materialism is the "anti-heroic" philosophy, which states that the natural world is all there is, that everything in it is determined by natural laws and can be explained using scientific method. Roche then traces its roots from the late middle ages to its intellectual flood tide in the 19th century with Darwin, Marx and Freud, and its cultural flood tide in the 20th (now 21st). Materialism today dominates our institutions of education, entertainment and journalism, even after new scientific discoveries, notably Einstein's, destroyed the framework on which it is based. (Roche doesn't dwell on Nazism and communism, but does show how they sprouted from materialism.) Roche ends on a bright note. The good news, he says, is what DIDN'T happen. Materialism says that man must of necessity, and inevitably would give up his belief in God, but he has not. Faith, Roche says, is integral to a whole and integrated "heroic" understanding of what man is. Roche pleads for a better-informed, more humble understanding of what science is, and can do, and a wiser philosophy of man that understands him as a created being capable of free thought, free action, and....heroism! This is an important and challenging book that deserves wide reading by those who care deeply about our culture and the state of man today. It is rich in the history of science and philosophy, and for those who love the ongoing verbal battle of ideas, this book will make you more knowledgeable than you were. It might even change a few minds about where we are, how we got here, and how we go forward.

This book is an underrated classic. You'll understand why postmodernism has led to a cynical view of heroes and why that's not a good thing. As Mr. Roche points out, a country and it's citizenry need heroes to inspire and bring out the best in us. As Roche writes: "Greater love hath no man... Risking or laying down one's life to save another is heroism laid bare. It is a purely sefless and beneficent act. There is no more striking example of our unique human contact with an Eternal Good." We are living in an age of anti-heroism and it's why our culture has been eroding before our eyes. This book may be 20 years old, but its message is vital, now more than ever. Give it a read.