The Meaning of Heroism


Etymologists work diligently to explain the origins of words and provide definitions that are as precise and timeless as possible. The English language, however, is a living thing, constantly evolving to reflect current realities. As time passes, words are co-opted and adapted for other purposes and the original meaning can sometimes be lost in a flurry of pop cultural hype.

Take, for example, the word ‘hero’. The term has been so misapplied, cheapened, trivialized and diluted that it has lost its original lustre and inherent nobility. The delineation has been stretched to its breaking point in order to accommodate athletes, movie stars, pop stars, models, and basically anyone who appeals to the masses at a given moment in history.  This debasement has happened gradually. When I was a kid growing up in rural Nova Scotia, my heroes were cowboys. Then came Superman, Batman, The Flash and all those other DC comic characters. Still later they were baseball and hockey players. As an adult lying in a hospital bed watching TV after cancer surgery, I realized that the real face of heroism was quite different. It was the youthful face of a young man with one leg attempting to run across Canada to raise money for a cause bigger than himself.

There are now sub-categories of heroes and hyphenated heroes: sports heroes, military heroes, tragic heroes, even super-heroes. The fact is that the word needs no adjective or qualifier. Heroes have no profession and every profession has heroes. Heroes are Everyman and Everywoman. Dictionary publishers have no choice but to record the whims and fads of our fast-moving world, but at times like this it’s important to pause and reflect on the true nature of heroes and heroism.   It often takes a major catastrophe for the essence of heroism to emerge and for word to reclaim its rightful place of honour in our collective vocabulary. Sadly, that catastrophe struck Nova Scotia as a perfect storm of merging tragedies. It struck with full force and along with an aftermath of devastation, stories of heroism were left in the wake and we were reminded that genuine heroes are in our midst.

In the middle of an insentient pandemic that threatens the most vulnerable citizens of our province, a sentient but soulless being chose to attack and murder innocent people, some he knew, and some who he apparently executed with random bloodlust.

During this two-pronged assault on normalcy, front line workers and first responders stared directly at danger and didn’t back down. They continued to work under the most stressful, often intolerable, conditions imaginable for the welfare of others. Heroes come in all sizes and yet they share the same stature. They inhabit the physical frame of an exhausted, 5’2” nurse and the muscular physique of a hardened police officer. They are your neighbours and friends. They don’t wear capes. They don’t seek acclaim. They are mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers and grandparents, willing to sacrifice themselves to help family members, friends, or complete strangers.

Some happen upon danger and act spontaneously; others are paid, often very poorly, to be in harm’s way.  It doesn’t matter. Doctors and nurses face contagion all day and then go home to their families fearing that they have might have brought COVID-19 with them. Mounties rush toward the danger, knowing that it may cost them their lives.

Heidi Stevenson, Acadia Class of 1993, wasn’t only a hero because of the way she died, but because of the way she lived, inspiring people within the RCMP and without, within Canada and as far away as the Netherlands, where an impressionable little girl chose her as her role model and later, as an adult, holds her in even higher esteem. The nurses who died in the recent attacks are not only heroes because they died, but because they got up every morning and went to work. For medical workers in these times, that is an act of heroism. They go despite the reasonable fear that they might contract a potentially deadly virus.  They do it over and over, every single day.

No, heroes don’t wear capes or sports uniforms.  They wear nurses’ shoes, they have stethoscopes draped around their necks, they wear police tunics and firefighters’ hats. They are teachers and garbage truck drivers, and journalists and ministers and sales clerks and truck drivers. They have little in common except selflessness.

The good news is they are all around us, and they emerge when we need them most.

Written by Jim Prime ('69)


Go back

Contact

Office of Alumni Affairs
Wu Welcome Centre @ Alumni Hall
512 Main Street
Wolfville, NS B4P 2R6, Canada
Alumni Inquiries: 902.585.1459
Toll free in North America:
1.866.ACADIAU (1.866.222.3428)
Alumni Fax: 902.585.1069
acadia.alumni@acadiau.ca