Idols and Heroes
A different form of ideal is an idol or hero, who is held up as a moral example. Since this is an actual person or fictional character, it is too complex and multi-faceted to be considered an ideal in the abstract sense. However, when they are encountered in the form of a story, with only a few traits on display, they are a simplified archetype from which one can very easily derive stereotypes or mimicry. In Islam, for instance, the life of Muhammad is held up as "ideal", but must be interpreted for believers through the tale of his life, or sira, and his many sayings, the hadith.
Read more about this topic: Ideal (ethics)
Famous quotes containing the words idols and/or heroes:
““The idols have seen lots of poverty,
Snakes and gold and lice,
But not the truth....””
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“These, and such as these, must be our antiquities, for lack of human vestiges. The monuments of heroes and the temples of the gods which may once have stood on the banks of this river are now, at any rate, returned to dust and primitive soil. The murmur of unchronicled nations has died away along these shores, and once more Lowell and Manchester are on the trail of the Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)