Beyond Characters?

This chapter addresses a number of ways that traditional public characters have evolved to correspond with the way that moderns picture blame and causality. It looks at the decline of heroes and villains in this supposed post-heroic era. It turns to the ways that the essentialism of character work is challenged, through various attitudes that range from medicalization and skepticism through cynicism and irony. It discusses the ridicule of flat characters, the dispersal of blame in a risk society, and the invention of new terms for circumstantial victims like trauma, patients, and abnormal. It argues that these new characterizations do not escape the essential triad of villain, victim, and hero. Public characters may have changed in some ways, but they are not obsolete. And, despite modern skepticism about the traditional language of characters, heroes thrive in today’s new nationalism with leaders like Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban, and Donald Trump.

History · Values and Moral Education