Claim: The best way to understand the character of a society is to examine the character of the men and women that the society chooses as its heroes or its role models.Reason: Heroes and role models reveal a society's highest ideals.Write a response in wh

While it is true that heroes may possess certain traits that grabs people's attention, those traits do not necessarily reflect his character, nor is it possible that those traits are liked by every person in that society.

The biggest doubt that first comes into mind is whether the chosen model's true character is similar to what was publicly displayed. Chun-Swei-Bien was once a great Taiwanese president. He was extremely effective at enforcing laws, maintaing public image, and was overall a very qualified president. During one of his presidential elections, he was one of the two man up for the seat. To state the obvious, at least half of Taiwan's population admired his character in some way, otherwise Chun wouldn't have been elected as the president for 8 years. It is without a doubt that most people admired him. However, right before his presidency ended, many scandals of corruption of him was revealed, and people soon grew extremely disgusted at his character. His public image is so successful, that his true character was disguised for a very long time. If somehow his true character was never revealed, does this mean the Taiwanese people admire "corruptness?" Obviously, they do not. Hence, examining an idol's character does not necessarily reflect a society's true ideal, because the hero may put on a mask which is different from what was truly admired.

In addition, it is also rather obvious that ideals are subjective, and hence may very well differ drastically from person to person. What one sees and admires may be despised by someone else. For instance, Tiger Woods is a greatly admired golf player who is probably the most admired guy within any gulf club for his outstanding skills. Yet, he had some sexual affairs which led to scandals, and now many people despise him. He is surely still admired by someone, but despised by others. How does the society's ideal make sense in this way?

Hence, we cannot simply take the character of a hero to represent the ideal of a society, because the very attributes he is admired for may be different than his true character. In addition, since it is impossible to require everyone to share identical ideals, it is inevitable that heroes admired by some could be despised by others. Thus, we must not associate a society's overall ideal with what the society chooses as their heroes.