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

A society is simply a group of males and females who gather around each other concerning the same values and interests. The most common issues that define a society are goals and objectives. No doubt, these common points constitute a relatively clear image of that society. Heroes and role models are purified reflection of ideals and views of a particular society. People tend to make their idols, icons, and heroes; then, make efforts to resemble their icons.

People put themselves in legends, ballads, poems, and stories. While Ferdowsi, one of the greatest Iranian poets, wrote about war, courage, sacrifice, and benevolence about 800 years ago; Hafez, another poet who lived 100 years after Ferdowsi, wrote about peace, spiritual love, and ignoring material life. Tracing back through Iran's history, one may highlight the characteristics of Iranian society which were completely correspondent to the poems of those periods. Worriers who were concomitant with Ferdowsi where depicted as heroic personages in his works; while, surrendered tired people in Hafez's era provided the background of His poems.

People need to concentrate on a focus point which best addresses their values and goals. Thus, for instance, American ballads which were sang by frontier settlers contained characters that were enormously huge, ate tones of foods, cross valleys and ranges by few steps, and made huge constructions. These characters not only reflect the basic features of American pioneer society, but also encourage them to follow such role models in order to conquer the unknown land of America. Hence, diligent, industrious, earnest, and hopeful settlers simply concentrate their efforts on domesticating the harsh land through inspiring each other by such ballads.

On the whole, I personally believe that heroes and role models mirror the main goals, wishes, and ideals of a society as well as its principle characteristics. An accurate study of these icons and models may illustrate major features of a society and sheds light on its dark corners.