THE MYTH OF THE HERO BEETWEN PAST AND FUTURE
- Have you ever seen a Hero without a tragic destiny?
-
by
Alfredo Anania
(passages)
…
Discourse about the heroes of Western thought, still so deeply
influenced by classic culture, usually turns toward the Greek
models: above all Hercules; and less towards Theseus
and Perseus. Consciously or unconsciously, Ulysses
is always ever-present. Each heroic personage symbolizes some
archetype aspects of the individual being and, furthermore, a
phase of human progress, together with the development of customs,
laws, rituals and principles, which at the time characterized
it. The social value of the "book of the Heroes" is immediately
evident when the mythical narration represents a paradigmatic
and exemplary model. It establishes the rules and affirms the
main principles; indicates the individual and collective risks
resulting from the violation of tradition; and signals the well-known
pains, the sacrifices and the expiations connected to transgression.
At the same time, the myth of the Hero represents a stimulus for
the research, the struggle, the conquest, the experimentation,
the fatigue, the courage, the sacrifice and the hybris.
If the social value of the myth of the hero is evident, more hidden
and inexhaustibly appear its "economic value" (clearly here it
is referring to a psychic economy). The archetype of the Hero,
for its symbolic "valence", lends itself to a dynamic and powerful
movement of identifications. When the heroic aspects are not found
in the personality of the individual or when a community lacks
heroic figures, the archetype, existing in the collective unconscious,
acts as something which restores the psyche internally and allows
the heroic spirit to remain alive. It is in this way able to revive
itself when the period of new-incubation has ceased …
…
The French psychoanalyst introduces Hercules, who seems
to be stripped of that function "warlike strength-vigour" which
had animated the myth of the hero, and, so, he could appear in
a new appearance if he didn't remind us of the Buddha myth
and the Indian mythology from which the prominence of the inner
research, the interruption of the superficial action are given
off in favour of a self-knowledge which is more and more intense.
But would these interpretations and connections be possible without
Nietzsche? …
…
Can we say that Nietzsche's work is finished? …
…
"Who are we really?" this is the grand question that Nietzsche
asks himself and human beings. But immediately he poses yet another
question: "Where is the self-swindle?". And, at the end,
the enigma-challenge for human beings: "How does one become
what one is?". Nietzsche frightens us because he is
shattering and for his mysterious, brief and very personal way
of reasoning to propose himself you can give several interpretations.
"How does one become what one is?"…