Claim: The best way to understand the character of a society is to examine the character of the men and women that the society chooses as its heroes or its role models.Reason: Heroes and role models reveal a society's highest ideals.Write a response in wh

The above assertion claims that the best way to understand the character of a society - in my understanding, the attributes that people within a society have in general, revealed by words or deeds, norms - is through studying the character of the men and women that the society chooses as its heroes or its role model, reasoning that because such important people represent the society's highest ideals. In my opinion, I do disagree with the claim and do not completely agree with its reason because understanding a society requires the insights from all aspects of this society and the heroic or role models may not truly represent the society's highest ideals, respectively.

The assumption behind the claim inferred from the stated reason is that the highest ideals are good measurements for general characters of a society. This assumption is not reasonable because characters of a person or a society combine of both vices and good attributes; and as the matter of fact the vices, sometimes, is of more dominant role than high ideals in shaping a society. Thus it is necessary looking into all aspects of a society in order to have an overall understand about such society rather than one aspect alone. In order to gain insight about the good attributes of a society, one can study the heroes and role models of such society; but so as to understand the more subtle but not less characteristic characters making a society, both good and bad ones, studying the norm, history, social aspects may be necessary.

In addition, heroic and role models do not necessary reveal a society's highest ideals. Sometimes, there are few outrageous individuals who possess the characters that a society lacking of and thus these individuals are admired by its people as heroic. Or it can be that heroics are not chosen by majority of people in this society but by authority as a mean to control the mass and to impose believes on publics. A prudent example of using heroic as a political tool can be seen in North Korea when every president in Kim dynasty is automatically entitled as the greatest national heroic. Using this strategy, the government can greatly influence public spiritually.

In conclusion, character of a society is not an exception of a coin with two facets - its vices and high ideals, thus looking into only one side is surely insufficient to have a overall understand about a society. Noteworthy, heroic and role models, sometimes, may not represent of truly highest ideals of a society but the desired characters the society is craving for or simple the means of authority to manipulate the public.