While I was trying to decide what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, Michael Baden provided insight into a new and exciting career in forensic science. My parents have been role models for me all throughout my life. They taught me right from wrong and good from bad, isn't that what we look for in a hero? They were there when I was growing up and they are still there for me now. I look to them for stability in an ever changing world. .
We as a society decide who will be our heroes. Sociologist Henry L. Tischer writes, "value is a culture's general orientations toward life - it's notions of what is good and bad, what is desirable and undesirable" (Intro to Sociology 58). We have some preconceived notions about what is acceptable in our culture. To some, these people need to be a certain height, weight, or color to be considered a hero or role model. To others, they just need to have a soft lap or a shoulder to cry on. Children look to parents for guidance as well as teachers and sports figures. Parents may even look to their children for encouragement or comic relief. We each have to decide for ourselves who will be our heroes and role models. Some use the cookie-cutter version of what society thinks would be a good role model and others use their own experience to determine who will wear that hat. Everyone has a say in who will be considered their hero.
Culture plays a major role in who we as a society accept as our role models. In the textbook Introduction to Sociology by Henry L. Tischler, culture is defined as "all that human beings learn to do, to use, to produce, to know, and to believe as they grow to maturity and live out their lives in the social groups to which they belong" (58). In our culture, we expect people to look a certain way and act in a certain manner or even own particular material things. Do these things really make a hero? Historically, heroes aren't remembered for how they looked, what they wore, or what they owned.
