Makes me think of Paul Bunyan, Davy Crockett, Superman, Captain Kirk as well as actors like John Wayne and Ronald Regan. Our heroes are always not only larger than life, but are also portrayed as always being right. Other cultures usually have a hero or two like that, but most of them seem to give equal time and respect to mortal life size people doing what that culture thinks are good things. For example, in most countries that have Kings or Queens and a Royal family, the people may put them up on pedestals; but the citizens also know that these are people just like them. Exceptionalism in Kings and Queens is allowed to go a little ways, but through most of history, royals tend to remain aware that they are just people. France showed that too much exceptionalism is not going to end well back in 1789.

The peculiar American brand of larger than life heroes means that those of us who form our character through entertainment also structure our practical day-to-day ethics and behavior on the popular and exaggerated models of, for example, Generals Patton and MacArthur rather than the quieter Generals Eisenhower and Bradley.

Hollywood and Madison Avenue are where the myths were being used to form the American character throughout the Boomer generation. Today's popular entertainment heroes of 2021 are still shaped by movies and advertising, but now those movies and advertising campaigns are no longer controlled by just a few studios in Hollywood and a few ad agencies in New York.

I don't watch enough TV and movies to know who the current exceptional American heroes are.

I'm sure some of you can identify current cultural heroes in the huge landscape of the entertainment industry. How many of them are now exceptional because they are also human and perhaps a bit humble? Or are most of our heroes still the same -- doing heroic things and never wrong?

Who are the heroes that you can identify as models for your own behavior, your own approach to your life path?.