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Article: No REVERENCE, No HEROES.
- Article from:
- The American Enterprise
- Article date:
- September 1, 2000
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2000 The American Enterprise, a national magazine of politics, business and culture (TEAmag.com). This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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THE HEROIC VISION OF LIFE AND THE RELIGIOUS VISION ARE RELATED IN WAYS NOT IMMEDIATELY APPARENT TO THE MODERN SECULAR IMAGINATION.
The heroic Czech dissident and statesman Vaclav Havel argues that our ancestors, despite their inferior scientific knowledge of the universe, "knew something more essential about it than we do, something that escapes us." What they knew, for all the disagreement over details from one culture to another, was "the same basic message: People should revere God as a phenomenon that transcends them." And as a corollary, they believed "they should revere one another." In that space for reverence the hero resides.
The heroes of old ...