the.com/heroism
the split-second decision to be useful when everyone else freezes into furniture
means the quality of acting with great courage and selflessness, especially in the face of danger.
from From the Greek hērōs, the demigods and great warriors of myth — Heracles, Achilles, the larger-than-life dead who got hero-cults and altars. By the time it passed through Latin (heros) and into English in the 1500s, then sprouted the abstract suffix '-ism' a couple of centuries later, the word had quietly democratized: no longer a bloodline of half-gods but a behavior any ordinary mortal might suddenly produce. The name Hera lurks nearby, though scholars still argue whether the hero was literally 'Hera's man' or just a cousin of her name.
- bystander effect
- more witnesses means slower help, not faster
- chemistry
- adrenaline can override pain for crucial seconds
- Carnegie Medal
- awards civilians who risk death for strangers
- reluctant heroes
- most insist they just reacted, not chose
- war origin
- Greek 'heros' meant protector, not conqueror
raoul wallenberg — swedish diplomat who saved ~30,000 hungarian jews in budapest during wwii