A2 RIHLA #11

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a. What makes someone a hero is often not clarified; however, many heroic characteristic are associated with a kind heart and a strong will. A person with a kind heart has personality that includes empathy, kindness, forgiveness, and sometimes loyalty. Kind hearts, however, is not moral nor justice. The reason it cannot be moral and justice is because both are a code you have to follow, so it's not somethng that you really keep to your heart and mind. For example, knights are required to follow the code of chivalry; however, the number of truly chivalrious knights remains questionable. A strong will is also another generalized trait for heroism. If a person does not have trait that requires willpower, such as bravery and determination, he/she cannot be defined as a hero no matter how empathetic a person is. For example, if a person is not brave, he/she will most like be a bystander and not a heroic upstander. A kind heart or a strong heart alone cannot define a hero. A kind person without will can only be a bystander, and a brave but unkind person is a villian. In other words, a kind hear and a strong will defined a hero that we celebrate.

b. Not all people can agree on who should be a hero, that is because everyone's perspective of heroism is different. Like I mentioned above, heroes does not follow moral and justice set by other people, because everyone's view of right and wrong are different, they see the hero from different perspectives. For example, many people see Christopher Columbus as an explorer who discovered the New World, but many people also see him as the genocidal murderer that is responsible for the genocide and delivery of European diseases, which led to the death of millions of Native Americans, and while many others see Lief Ericson as the first person to discover the Americas and not Christopher Columbus.

2. It is not easy telling good people apart from bad people during their lifetime. While a person may be deemed good or bad people during their lifetime, evidence will often surface long after their life contradicting people's beliefs about those people. For example, Joan of Arc was convicted of heresy and was sentenced to death; however, her crimes are annulled and she is declared a saint after her death. I think the reason why opinions about her are changed is because, after her death, she was retrialed under different jurisdictions, probably because in the previous trial, all members are biased towards the conviction of Joan of Arc. When the bias is gone, she was retrialed, although executed, fairly and she was cleared of her crime. She was later declared a saint and is celebrated.

3. It is not really fair to revise our views on historical figues based on evidence that surface. The reason for that is while those facts make them a villian and they cannot be ignored, they still are important to history. A holiday can be celebrated not only as a celebration of good deeds but also as a reminder of tragedy. For example, the purpose of Memorial day is to remind ourself the men and women who died in war.

4. I don't think people should be held accountable for things they couldn't know about because there is no way for them to make the right choice at that time. No one can possibly make the right choice if it is not known, and the inability to obtain truthful knowledge should not be held against people. Such people cannot be considered evil, but rather ignorant. The notion of justice is really set by people and varied very differently in everyone's minds, so depending on their knowledge and experience, it is possible for someone to think they're doing the right deed when really they're not. It is very difficult to change someone's notion of justice because it is virtually impossible to change a notion of justice unless someone or something convinced you otherwise. For example, what if I told you a thief stole food to feed his family who are oppressed by a corrupt police force, will you report him to the police? After the decision was made, what if I told you the "family" he supposedly stole to fed are his accomplices? If you choose to release him, then technically, you are not an associate, but rather, a person lacking the initial knowledge about the thief. The example shows (If it went as intended) that simply lacking knowledge cannot justify someone as evil because they lack the necessary knowledge to make the right choice.

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