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Tod Lindberg

The Heroic Heart: Greatness Ancient and Modern Hardcover – September 8, 2015

by Tod Lindberg (Author)

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What does it mean to be a hero? In The Heroic Heart, Tod Lindberg traces the quality of heroic greatness from its most distant origin in human prehistory to the present day. The designation of “hero” once conjured mainly the prowess of conquerors and kings slaying their enemies on the battlefield. Heroes in the modern world come in many varieties, from teachers and mentors making a lasting impression on others by giving of themselves, to firefighters no less willing than their ancient counterparts to risk life and limb. They don’t do so to assert a claim of superiority over others, however. Rather, the modern heroic heart acts to serve others and save others. The spirit of modern heroism is generosity, what Lindberg calls “the caring will,” a primal human trait that has flourished alongside the spread of freedom and equality.

Through its intimate portraits of historical and literary figures and its subtle depiction of the most difficult problems of politics, The Heroic Heart offers a startlingly original account of the passage from the ancient to the modern world and the part the heroic type has played in it. Lindberg deftly combines social criticism and moral philosophy in a work that ranks with such classics as Thomas Carlyle’s nineteenth-century On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History and Joseph Campbell’s twentieth-century The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Print length

240 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Encounter Books
Publication date

September 8, 2015
Dimensions

6.25 x 1.25 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

1594038236
ISBN-13

978-1594038235
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“The classical hero who kills and often dies for a larger cause of freedom and liberty may have become passé in the postmodern egalitarian West. But in this learned survey of ‘slaying’ and ‘saving’ heroes, from the Greeks to 9/11, Tod Lindberg reminds us why we moderns would be doomed without such brave hearts to keep evil outside the gates and remind the complacent within that there is no end to history. An absorbing paean that weaves together exacting scholarship and the personal voice, in a style that is both engaging and accessible.”

—Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow in classics and military history at The Hoover Institution, Stanford University

“I know few thinkers as simultaneously erudite and engaging as Tod Lindberg. The Heroic Heart takes us from Achilles to Afghanistan, from the fact of death to what makes some of us larger than life. How we define and choose our heroes offers a penetrating glimpse into the heart of the modern human condition.”

—Marie Slaughter, president of the New America Foundation and author of Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family

“In an age when virtue and heroism are often seen as relics of a bygone era, The Heroic Heart brings to bear a historically informed challenge, one relevant to our times. With a refreshing voice, Tod Lindberg gives enlightened heroism its due, while highlighting the purpose for strength of character in an often malevolent world awash in change. This book is a moral tonic in the face of today’s dilemmas and a reminder of the timeless value of strong, selfless character.”

—Gen. James Mattis, USMC-ret., former commander, CENTCOM

“The Heroic Heart is full of insight on the way that our heroes have changed since the time of the ancient Greeks up through the present. In the process, it raises fundamental questions about political leadership and the morality that underlies community, now and in the past.”

—Francis Fukuyama, author of The End of History and the Last Man and Political Order and Political Decay

“At the heart of geopolitics rests a mystery, the willingness of men to die for their country. Tod Lindberg’s The Heroic Heart is a superb attempt to unravel this mystery with both personal insight and command of the history of philosophy.”

—George Friedman, founder of Stratfor and author of The Next 100 Years

About the Author

Tod Lindberg is a research fellow at Stanford Universitys Hoover Institution. He is the author of the critically acclaimedThe Political Teachings of Jesus, a philosophical analysis of the view of worldly affairs presented in Jesus Sermon on the Mount and Gospel parables.

He is an acknowledged policy expert on international efforts to prevent and halt mass atrocities and genocide, and he serves as co-chair of the American Bar Associations Atrocity Prevention and Response Advisory Group. He teaches ethics in international relations at Georgetown University. Currently a contributing editor at the Weekly Standard, his 30-year career as a journalist and editor in Washington DC has earned him wide respect across party lines for his political analysis.

He and his wife Tina Lindberg live in Washington and Palo Alto, California. They have two grown daughters.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Encounter Books; First Edition (September 8, 2015)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1594038236
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1594038235
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.09 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 1.25 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,711,862 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4,663 in History of Civilization & Culture
- #8,382 in Political Philosophy (Books)
- #11,106 in Philosophy of Ethics & Morality

Customer Reviews:
8 ratings

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Tod Lindberg

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Tod Lindberg is a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is the author of the critically acclaimed The Political Teachings of Jesus, a philosophical analysis of the view of worldly affairs presented in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and Gospel parables.

He is an acknowledged policy expert on international efforts to prevent and halt mass atrocities and genocide, and he is a member of the American Bar Association’s working group on crimes against humanity. He teaches ethics in international relations at Georgetown University. Currently a contributing editor at the Weekly Standard, his 30-year career as a journalist and editor in Washington DC has earned him wide respect across party lines for his political analysis.

He and his wife Tina Lindberg live in Washington and Palo Alto, California. They have two grown daughters.

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Michael J. Kerrigan

The “modern face of heroism” consists of those willing to make a personal sacrifice for others.

Reviewed in the United States on September 2, 2015

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I first read an article by Todd Lindberg in the Weekly Standard titled: From Hero-Worship to Celebrity-Adulation, in this piece Lindberg addressed the problem of greatness in an age of equality. I already shared Lindberg’s concern that excessive egalitarianism is today leveling out heroism and that we have lost our regard for achievement and individual greatness. Worrying that no deed can be heroic and no achievement truly great, I was excited to see what Lindberg had to say in his newly published The Heroic Heart.

Todd Linberg’s Heroic Heart is a literary tour de force, grounding his study of heroes with Achilles, the ancient Greek, then the less known heroine Lucretia, through the well known Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero, all of who’s deeds are dealing with their mortality. That is a willingness to risk one’s life not as a demonstration of personal glory or seeking honor bestowed by others but of their inner greatness…. “The heroic type is willing to risk and even accept death as a consequence of action in accordance with an inner sense of greatness or exceptional virtue.”

This accomplished author tastefully genuflects at the altar of Plutarch, naturally gives proper credit to Thomas Carlyle’s six classes of heroes… “On Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History” while sprinkling in a bit of Shakespeare’s version of Coriolanus and Julius Caesar, up to and including covering Sidney Hook’s more contemporary study of The Hero in History. From these philosophical sources Lindberg nicely narrates the broadening of the qualifications for heroic greatness.

The next several chapters delve into Linberg’s different types of heroes (e.g. hero-king, hero-victim, the saving-hero, the slaying hero, the conquering-hero, anti-heroes, virtual heroes, pseudo-hero, etc.) as well as the dangerous consequences of heroic deeds on the political order. Machiavelli, Hobbes, Nietzsche, and Burke are pointedly referenced to illustrate Linberg’s explanation of the evolution of the classical hero type to the more modern heroic type.

Lindberg touches all the bases with shout outs to modern day heroes like Sully Sullenberger, Lenny Shutnick, 9-11 fire fighters and policemen, Congressional Medal of Honor recipients, today’s war fighters, etc. The author in my opinion offered a superb explanation of military literature, especially contrasting virtually all the books on Viet Nam versus the unique account of Black Hawk Down, where author Mark Bowden had no agenda but let the events and characters speak for themselves.

For me Linberg’s greatest service were his insights into people who are willing to put their lives on the line for others, in service to a purpose higher than themselves. This “modern face of heroism” consists of those willing to make a personal sacrifice for others.

It is in chapter (nine) on Sacrifice and Generosity, where Lindberg’s prose intersecting with my own current research. That is, we share the modern meaning of heroism or greatness is in service to others. I am in the process of asking respondents who their personal heroes are. My inquiries are less about life saving or life risking heroes but about those who go above and beyond the call of their duty. I am in the process of identifying those who rise above the circumstances of adversity and offer a generosity of spirit. I am interesting in telling tales of local heroes who are making a difference and whose heroism takes the form sacrifice of self and generosity toward others.

In my opinion, The Heroic Heart would otherwise merit five stars but for an unnecessary and misguided inference to Abraham Lincoln, America’s greatest hero. Why this otherwise serious study would state that Abraham Lincoln “may have been confused as to his sexual identity” taints an otherwise excellent and important book. Sadly, his editors should have deleted repeatedly referring to Congressional Medal of Honor recipients as “winners.” Notwithstanding these two shortcomings I wish to thank Todd Lindberg for helping me better understand heroism.

15 people found this helpful

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Bill

Highly thought provoking

Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2016

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Lindberg gives us a new way of looking at heroism, both historically and in fiction.

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Craig Kennedy

he is a wonderful writer to boot

Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2015

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A very thoughtful and insightful look at how the definition of a "hero" has evolved over time. Very few writers have such a broad grasp of history, philosophy and psychology as Lindberg. And, he is a wonderful writer to boot.

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Thomas J. Farrell

Not a deep book

Reviewed in the United States on November 9, 2015

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In the ancient world, war was a way of life. As a result, warriors and warrior/kings emerged as rather privileged people in their respective groups. In exchange for risking their lives to protect the ordinary people in their group from being killed or enslaved by conquering warriors and their warrior/king, the warriors and warrior/king in each group received a package of social benefits, including honor and political power.

The honor/shame culture of the ancient Mediterranean world continued for centuries in the medieval European world – and elsewhere. Perhaps Falstaff’s infamous speech denigrating honor can be seen as marking the waning of the centuries-old honor/shame culture in Western culture.

In any event, the vogue in Western culture for heroic epics gave way in time to the mock epic as exemplified by Byron’s DON JUAN. The rise of the antihero in literature followed. In terms of serious literature, we in Western culture have long been living in the Age of the Antihero (as exemplified by Leopold Bloom in James Joyce’s novel ULYSSEYS), despite the popularity of J. R. R. Tolkien’s THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy among readers in the United Kingdom – and of the movie version in the United States and elsewhere.

Of course the old heroic spirit also lives on in other Hollywood action films.

Arguably the old heroic spirit also lives on in American football – with the quarterbacks of each opposing team functioning like the warrior/king leading the warriors on each team as they square off against one another in battle. In this respect, each football game resembles the battlefield formation of the two opposing armies in the Homeric epic the ILIAD.

Those popular forms of entertainment and marketing suggest that we Americans have been recycling the old heroic spirit for years. But are we just going around in circles in our recycling of the old heroic spirit, or are we perhaps instead spiraling toward the rebirth of the hero that Erich Neumann discusses in his book THE ORIGINS AND HISTORY OF CONSCIOUSNESS (1954)?

From the standpoint of the emergence of the rebirth of the hero, the expressions of earlier stages in the life-course of the hero such as Hollywood action movies and American football appear to be regressive – as do expressions of the spirit of the antihero in literary works and movies.

Nevertheless, those various expressions can be age-appropriate for many people to work through on their life-journey, provided that they don’t get stuck in circling round and round, but manage somehow to spiral upward and onward to further personal growth and development.

However, if the rebirth of the hero sounds like an attractive and desirable psychological process to you to undergo, then you should stand forewarned about that process. Neumann, following C. G. Jung, uses the imagery of the ancient Egyptian Osiris myth to exemplify the process involved in undergoing psychological rebirth.

In plain English, the psychological process involved in rebirth is excruciating to undergo. In more abstract terminology, it typically involves near-despair. To undergo such excruciating near-despair successfully, you have to have resilient ego-strengths.

Whenever people of any age experience excruciating despair, then the archetypal pattern of the rebirth of the hero is surfacing and manifesting in their psyches. It’s like having a powerful vortex in your psyche sucking most of the life-force out of you and pulling you down. It can lead to suicide.

The American literary critic and cultural historian Walter J. Ong, S.J. (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English from Harvard University in 1955) discusses Neumann’s work in his books RHETORIC, ROMANCE, AND TECHNOLOGY: STUDIES IN THE INTERACTION OF EXPRESSION AND CULTURE (Cornell University Press, 1971) and FIGHTING FOR LIFE: CONTEST, SEXUALITY, AND CONSCIOUSNESS (Cornell University Press, 1981), the published version of Ong’s 1979 Messenger Lectures at Cornell University.
In Ong’s estimate, existentialist philosophy and existentialist literature manifest the rebirth of the human psyche in Western culture.

Nevertheless, Ong’s most relevant literary criticism appears in two other of his books: INTERFACES OF THE WORD: STUDIES IN THE EVOLUTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND CULTURE (Cornell University Press, 1977) and HOPKINS, THE SELF, AND GOD (University of Toronto Press, 1986), the published version of Ong’s 1981 Alexander Lectures at the University of Toronto.

In any event, the ILIAD involves warriors and warrior/kings such as King Agamemnon, King Achilles, and King Odysseus in the Greek alliance, and King Priam and his warrior son Hector on the Trojan side.

In Robert Fagles’ translation of the ILIAD (1990), the classicist Bernard Knox has supplied an introduction and notes to accompany Fagles’ translation.

In the introduction (pages 1-64), Knox states what he understands to be “the stern lesson of Homer’s presentation of the war: that no civilization, no matter how rich, no matter how refined, can long survive once it loses the power to meet force with equal or superior force” (page 37).

In the ILIAD, the Trojan civilization is presented as rich and refined – by the standards of the times.

Moreover, Achilles is presented as an unstoppable force – the symbolic personal equivalent of President Harry Truman’s atomic bombs.

When President Truman dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he used the superior force of the atomic bombs to defeat the Japanese in World War II – instead of possibly allowing the rich and refined American civilization to fall to Japanese forces.

Now, in the book THE HEROIC HEART: GREATNESS ANCIENT AND MODERN (2015), the conservative journalist Tod Lindberg repeatedly quotes from Fagles’ translation of the ILIAD.

However, in his discussion of the ILIAD, Lindberg gives no indication that he grasps the full import of Knox’s point that the lesson of the ILIAD is “that no civilization, no matter how rich, no matter how refined, can long survive once it loses the power to meet force with equal or superior force.”
However, in fairness, I should also say here that Lindberg does not completely miss the import of Knox’s point, as I will explain below momentarily.

Lindberg says, “Homer has achieved a near-perfect rendition of the highest heroic type of his age, a single character who brings into focus both the inner-directed greatness of that type and the moral peril such greatness poses to the legitimacy and authority of the political order” (page 54).

At first blush, Lindberg’s words about how Achilles’ greatness poses the moral peril “to the legitimacy and authority of the political order" may seem to be consistent with Knox’s words. But are their two statements consistent with one another?

Knox does not see Achilles as “a near-perfect rendition of the highest heroic type of his age,” as Lindberg does.

On the contrary, Knox sees Achilles as representing the kind of over-powering force that people in the ancient world should understandably fear.

For Knox, the ILIAD is, in effect, a cautionary tale about the kind of outside force that people in the ancient world should understandably fear.

But couldn’t Lindberg argue that this is what he means by the moral peril that Achilles as “a near-perfect rendition of the highest heroic type of his age” “poses to the legitimacy and authority of the political order”?

But Achilles represents the complete abolition of the legitimacy and authority of the already-established political order.

To the slaying victors such as Achilles go the spoils. The spoils of war include the material wealth of the conquered people and slaves – in plain English, the annihilation of the political order of the conquered people. If you’re lucky, you are enslaved. But if you’re not lucky, you are killed off – genocide is what we today call it – or “collateral damage.”

In the Hebrew Bible, David is portrayed as a genocidal slayer warrior of his own people during his outlaw years before his eventual rise to become established and recognized publicly as King David.

In the slaughter-of-the-suitors episode in the ODYSSEY, the returning King Odysseus is also portrayed as a genocidal slayer of his own people in Ithaca.

The mourning followers of the historical Jesus imagined him as returning in second coming at the end-time as the slayer warrior/king leading God’s angelic forces in destroying all kinds of unworthy people, but sparing the worthy ones.

C. G. Jung has alerted us to the fact that archetypal patterns of the genocidal slayer/hero that are memorialized in certain ancient stories are stored in our collective unconscious – as President Truman’s dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki shows.

So when American teenage boys or young men run amok and kill children and others, then we can say that they are manifesting and acting out literally the slayer hero exemplified by Achilles.

Of course we do not expect to find Jung’s terminology about the collective unconscious used explicitly in the Homeric epics. Nevertheless, it is instructive to consider Fagles’ translation of the famous passage known as the invocation of the Muse in the ILIAD:

"Rage – Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,
"murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
"hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
"great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion,
"feasts for the dogs and bird, and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.
"Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,
"Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles."

The invocation of the Goddess/Muse involves invoking the feminine dimension of the presumably male singer/poet’s psyche.

The invocation of “the will of Zeus” involves, in effect, what monotheists refer to as the will of God and so-called divine providence that somehow moves men and women toward its end.

But the famous opening words announce and advertise that the theme of the poem is rage – “the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles.”

Lindberg correctly notes that the poem involves Achilles’ rage at Agamemnon for dishonoring him publicly and Achilles’ even stronger rage at Hector and the Trojans for the death of Achilles’ Myrmidon comrade-in-arms Patroclus. But Achilles’ rage over Patroclus’ death appears to be even stronger than Achilles’ rage over Agamemnon’s dishonoring him publicly.

No doubt Achilles had a strong attachment to his sense of honor.

No doubt Achilles also had a strong attachment to Patroclus.

When we experience the loss of a strong attachment, we understandably undergo the process of mourning our loss, and the process of mourning a significant loss involves rage, as Susan Anderson points out in her self-help book THE JOURNEY FROM ABANDONMENT TO HEALING (2000).

By definition, significant losses involve abandonment feelings. However, she repeatedly indicates that the mourning process involved in mourning non-death losses (such as Achilles’ experience of being dishonored publicly by Agamemnon) is not exactly the same as the far more profound mourning process involved in mourning the death of a significant person in one’s life (such as Achilles’ mourning Patroclus’ death). But both mourning a significant non-death loss and mourning the death of a significant person in one’s life include rage.

Later in his book, Lindberg turns his attention to “the survival of the modern world itself and the egalitarian ethos that underpins it” (page 198). He says, “We [in the civilized modern world] may be done with the slaying hero [such as Achilles]. But the slaying hero may not be done with us” (page 198).

Lindberg says, “The modern world is, in short, very good at weeding out and breeding out those of a classically heroic bent [such as Achilles] who might seek to impose the old slaying ways in service to the personal sense of self [as Achilles does]” (page 198).

Then Lindberg articulates one possible problem that comes close to Knox’s point: “What if an old-school slaying hero [such as Achilles] decides to conquer the world, that is, our [modern] world – to conquer and subjugate US?” (page 199; Lindberg’s emphasis in italics, but capitalized here).

Of course this is just typical conservative fear-mongering.

Thus far, the United States is the only nation in the world that has dropped atomic bombs on another country. Therefore, to this day, all the other countries in the world should fear the United States.

In conclusion, if Lindberg had quoted Knox early on in his book, Lindberg probably would have written a somewhat different book – or perhaps no book at all.

For a well-informed discussion of Aristotle’s thought about heroic greatness, see Robert C. Bartlett and Susan D. Collins’ “Interpretive Essay” in their book ARISTOTLE’S NICOMACHEAN ETHICS (University of Chicago Press, 2011, pages 237-302).

For an instructive discussion of shifting concepts of greatness in Western culture, see Maurice B. McNamee’s book HONOR AND THE EPIC HERO: A STUDY OF THE SHIFTING CONCEPT OF MAGNANIMITY IN PHILOSOPHY AND EPIC POETRY (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960).

5 people found this helpful

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Krys W

This book left me feeling disappointed, yet intrigued

Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2015

This book left me feeling disappointed, yet intrigued. I just finished it yesterday, and I am still thinking about it. This book is pretty chatty, and the author uses some words which were not found in several dictionaries. I neither liked not disliked it ... rather, I feel as if I would have gotten a lot more by just chatting with the author. It was an interesting read, but not what I was expecting. The author is obviously well-read and has thought about the heroism topic quite a bit. It was a bit too repetitive and rambling for me.

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Gloria M. Hauser

One Star

Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2015

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I was very disappointed in this book - there was too much repetition.

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