The Art of Manliness - Episode #34： The Stuff Heroes Are Made of With Frank Farley

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and we are finally back with another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:21.580 well it's good to be back we took a little hiatus with the podcast with gus being born

00:00:26.640 and the work on our second book the podcast got put on the back burner but we're back

00:00:31.820 and we'll be returning to our regular schedule of new manly podcasts every other week so let's

00:00:37.920 get started with this week's edition what makes a man a hero what attributes do heroes share

00:00:43.980 are heroes made or born well our guest today has been researching these questions for 20 years

00:00:50.020 his name is dr frank farley and he's a professor of psychology at the university of temple

00:00:54.700 and dr farley has focused his research on how psychology affects risk-taking motivation and

00:01:00.040 heroism well professor farley welcome to the show we appreciate your time delighted to be here okay

00:01:07.440 so professor probably you have done a lot of work in the study of heroes or heroism or what makes a

00:01:12.780 hero uh what has what inspired you to study that because it's it's kind of an interesting uh area

00:01:18.820 of study it is and i really got into it back in the 1980s um the middle to late 1980s for many reasons

00:01:28.640 one of which is that psychology this great field really wasn't doing much about heroes uh they were

00:01:35.780 studying all sorts of things but heroes wasn't a major one and if you look around at society the very

00:01:44.280 concept of hero is enormously important people often model their lives certainly some of their lives

00:01:51.380 after heroes and the world of entertainment look at hollywood couldn't survive if it couldn't put

00:01:56.780 you know heroes on the screen and so and history you know history is heavily influenced by

00:02:04.120 this idea of heroes so i started studying it and you know other reasons are that

00:02:10.940 we need more heroes you know both the great heroes you know the ones out there on the world stage the

00:02:18.860 martin luther king jr or the gandhi people famous people are out there changing the world but we also

00:02:26.480 need heroes up close and in our families and in our communities and in our lives uh where we need

00:02:33.980 people to you know take a stand on issues uh help out a neighbor uh be kind loving and generous to other

00:02:42.620 people all of that all of those are heroic qualities and we need them both you know up close and personal

00:02:51.020 in our lives in our communities in our cities in our countries our nations we also need them out there

00:02:58.140 on the world stage the people who literally change history so we need we need heroes but why is that

00:03:05.980 i mean because i think a lot of people you know very jaded or cynical people in our post-modern world

00:03:11.740 would say well we're beyond that heroes are something for a prior age a prior time uh we shouldn't be we

00:03:18.700 should be beyond this hero worship uh and you know just see people for who they are and not you know

00:03:24.380 attribute anything more to them that that's there and those are all great points uh i don't use the

00:03:30.140 term hero worship i'm not interested in worshiping heroes i don't encourage it i don't think it it's

00:03:37.100 important uh so i'm certainly not suggesting that but to me heroes are people who change the world

00:03:44.780 uh in a positive way and so you know winston churchill was a hero he stepped up to the plate

00:03:51.340 uh when you know in world war ii in england and uh was enormously influential in the outcome

00:03:59.260 of the war martin luther king jr stepped up to the plate where civil rights were were under assault

00:04:06.700 and and in in the southern united states and in another parts of the country gandhi stepped up to

00:04:13.020 the plate and put his life on the line and in fact both he and king you know were assassinated

00:04:19.660 for the heroic work they were doing so we need heroes we don't need hero worship we need heroes to inspire

00:04:28.300 us to sort of help us get direction in our lives and we also need heroes up close we need people in our

00:04:38.540 communities our families who will do it will inspire us will encourage us will um but we can learn from

00:04:49.180 and people who will do right in our lives both up close and at a distance and those what heroes are

00:04:59.180 and uh so i have no problem whatsoever with the concept of heroes by the way it has a long history

00:05:06.460 in the human race you know you can go back to mythology of of thousands of years ago and we had heroes

00:05:13.180 and we still have them and we have them for a reason basically the heroes inspire us to be the

00:05:19.500 better angels of our better selves the angels of our better selves right yes yes they have many

00:05:26.060 qualities and we could talk about that yeah let's get to that what are some of the qualities that

00:05:30.460 heroes share that you found in your study you know there's by the way there's so many approaches to

00:05:35.900 studying heroes into understanding heroes and often heroes will differ one to the next that is they

00:05:43.660 may all be doing good works uh and and inspiring activities but they may differ in all sorts of

00:05:52.220 other ways differ in their background their race their their gender their ethnicity their education level

00:05:59.020 and so on but some of the things that i think are important courage and strength i think that's one of

00:06:05.580 the defining qualities of heroes they are courageous they don't uh shrink from challenge

00:06:15.660 and they rise to the occasion when good deeds are are needed another aspect i think that's important

00:06:23.100 for heroes generosity kind compassionate generous heroes tend to be giving people they're generous and in

00:06:33.340 some cases they give their lives as in martin luther king and gandhi uh for what they were doing and you

00:06:39.980 know that's the ultimate act and uh to give up your life for a great and noble cause they tend to be uh

00:06:47.580 heroes tend to be pretty accomplished people you know they tend to be uh skilled intelligent accomplished

00:06:54.860 in some way they're good at something and uh they may be gandhi was a lawyer for example and uh churchill was

00:07:03.740 a very accomplished person and you can go on through all the lists of heroes but they tend to be

00:07:09.980 good at something honesty and integrity is another feature uh many people who we might think might

00:07:18.300 be heroes are sort of knocked off the pedestal because they're shown to be dishonest so integrity and

00:07:26.380 honesty are key features another aspect of heroes that i think is important is our feelings about them

00:07:35.500 that is do we feel affection for them or something positive or good directed from us the people

00:07:43.340 to the hero it could be if it's up close it could be our feeling toward our parents or somebody else in

00:07:49.020 our lives uh who is is doing heroic things or it could be how we feel about a national figure and a kind of

00:07:59.900 emotional or or affectional quality that we feel toward that person another feature uh something i've studied a lot

00:08:09.500 is risk taking by and large i think that we want our heroes to be willing to take risks um we don't

00:08:18.780 really want our heroes to be you know wallflowers you know people who sort of uh wimp out and

00:08:26.780 aren't willing to take on the big challenge um or even a relatively small challenge they're just

00:08:33.180 risk averse and so much of heroism requires a dose of risk taking um you know if you're going to run

00:08:41.820 into the building and save the the baby the burning building and save the baby or jump into the river and

00:08:47.740 save a life you gotta you can't it's very hard to do that if you are seriously risk averse you know

00:08:54.300 you gotta you gotta be have that risk taking quality in there somewhere if you're going to stand up to

00:09:00.140 uh a tyrant maybe in the workplace or maybe a government tyrant a leader you know uh the kind

00:09:08.780 of thing that's going on uh this spring in egypt if you're going to stand up to what you believe to

00:09:15.180 be a tyrant that's risky and so the people who i happen to believe the people who will tend to do that

00:09:22.700 tend to have this risk taking quality in a significant way and then finally i think another thing

00:09:29.020 uh aspect that we look for often in our heroes is motivation you know they're motivated people

00:09:37.180 uh they they've got drive they're determined they're motivated and you'll see that gandhi is

00:09:44.380 one of my favorite examples and despite you know being in a different culture from us and some time

00:09:51.180 ago he still resonates you know if you see the movie gandhi it's just an inspiration he was so

00:09:57.500 determined and so motivated to get the british out of india and to and to create home rule

00:10:07.420 in his own land and i mean his determination was just amazing so those are some of the qualities

00:10:16.380 a question came to me then that as you were speaking um that i was hoping maybe you might know

00:10:21.660 is whether the circumstances make the hero what i mean by that are there some individuals that you've

00:10:28.220 studied that would would have just led you know uh you know pretty normal average life mediocre life

00:10:34.540 if it weren't for some grave challenge they had to step up to um and they were able to flourish and you

00:10:40.860 know they needed that to become heroic or is it something that you know you're just born with and

00:10:46.140 it doesn't matter the circumstance and you're going to be heroic no matter what honestly brett we

00:10:52.300 don't know for sure but we do know that there's um in many psychological qualities and you know psychology

00:11:04.060 is at the center of heroism you know and the only way we can really understand heroism thoroughly is

00:11:11.260 is basically through psychology in my view but one of the things we found in the world of psychology as

00:11:18.060 is that many many psychological qualities have some genetic factor uh we don't know how much it can vary

00:11:30.460 from psychological quality to psychological quality and so on but so my take on it is something like

00:11:38.860 this i think that heroism is a mixture it's it's due to your upbringing your family your community the

00:11:47.980 influences in your life your peer group the people who've had an impact on you it's also due to who

00:11:54.460 you are and i think it's both it's the person and it's the environment and the experiences the person has

00:12:03.980 had so for example i was talking about risk taking if you are very risk averse you just don't take risks

00:12:14.460 you stick to the safe the secure the tried and the true you probably won't do the great heroic things

00:12:23.500 you may not jump into the river to save the person you make just quickly phone 911 you know yeah and so

00:12:31.660 you'll do something but it may not place you yourself at risk and um some people just really have trouble

00:12:40.780 with dealing with risk and so my guess is that the truly risk averse probably won't do some of those

00:12:48.460 those uh heroic deeds on the other hand there are the risk takers and the people who sort of thrive

00:12:55.900 on risk you know and uh the kind of more fearless people among us and they'll do that job so it's

00:13:03.980 again it's a mixture of the person and the situation of their lives how they were raised you know their

00:13:11.820 parental influence the influence of all sorts of other people uh even you know what they've been reading

00:13:18.860 you know and um and their peer group and what goes on at school all of those things can impact them

00:13:27.020 and that together with their personality who they are are they risk averse or not and the outcome will

00:13:36.300 tell the story do you think people could become more heroic if they wanted to say they looked at their

00:13:42.300 lives and said well i just i don't i want to acquire more of these attributes i know you know i have a

00:13:47.980 tendency to be like this but can they strive to be more heroic if they want i think so we're gonna

00:13:53.580 take a quick break for a word from our sponsors and now back to the show i i do think so uh i don't

00:14:00.700 know if somebody who is just totally risk averse you know can move very far in the in the risk-taking

00:14:07.740 direction but i think that many people can become more heroic and a lot of it in my opinion depends on

00:14:15.900 the institutions that really have an impact on us family community schools education the people

00:14:25.420 you surround yourself with so i think people can become somewhat more heroic one of the key

00:14:31.900 ingredients for me is what i call you know factor g generosity i mentioned some of the traits of heroes

00:14:40.140 and some of the qualities uh generosity and risk-taking are are very important ones the

00:14:45.740 generosity piece that's something you can teach you can encourage in children you know and helping

00:14:54.620 them to help others and there's nothing new about that you know the boy scouts and the girl scouts you

00:15:00.300 know they all have those kind of ideas to be to help others most great religions have that as well

00:15:07.420 you know do on to others as you would have them do on to you etc the g factor to me is a very important

00:15:14.220 one and it's also one that you can do something about you can you can raise children to be helpful

00:15:21.740 giving generous kids and that's a key factor in heroism it's not the only factor but it's an important

00:15:30.380 factor the risk-taking factor is another one that you can work on you can get you can get children to

00:15:37.980 be a little bit more risk-taking if they're kind of risk-averse you can encourage them to try a new

00:15:43.980 thing try a new experience instead of just always doing the same thing and sticking to the tried and

00:15:50.940 true try this experience or that experience you know try out that little roller coaster at the local

00:15:58.940 you know community fair move them along a little step at a time so that they begin to

00:16:06.540 be capable of facing change and facing challenge and that's the essence in my opinion the survival

00:16:16.220 skill of the 21st century is dealing with change and risk and uncertainty we are in an uncertain

00:16:25.180 century and look at what's happening in the middle east right now who knows where that will go who would

00:16:31.180 have thought that america could be invaded you know and the two largest buildings in the country brought

00:16:37.660 to the to the ground and so this is going to be a century of change and uncertainty and risk and

00:16:45.260 challenge and so i think it's very important you know to get kids who are very risk-averse to work

00:16:51.260 with them if your children are like that work with them to get them to be willing to go out a little bit

00:16:56.860 on the limb you know and pretty soon they'll get better at it and better at it and that's a survival

00:17:01.980 skill so that when some really horrendous challenges come into their lives they will be able to deal

00:17:08.060 with it okay so one of the things you mentioned in the attributes of a hero is how society feels

00:17:13.820 about them how we feel about heroes and it seems like just in even my own lifetime you know i'm 28 years

00:17:20.220 old it seems there's been an apprehension by individuals to take on the mantle of heroes

00:17:25.500 and even by society at large to look at individuals as heroes i i think it was um uh i remember i i grew

00:17:32.860 up you know admiring baseball players and football players and but there came a kind of a time when i

00:17:38.540 i stopped doing that and i noticed a lot of my other friends stopped admiring but you know and for

00:17:43.020 you know over a century in this country athletes were uh a source of heroes for a lot of kids i

00:17:50.060 remember you know charles barkley i think he's the one that said i'm not a hero i'm not supposed to be

00:17:55.100 a hero for kids i'm just an athlete uh what what do you think happened in our society in our culture

00:18:02.140 where being a hero or looking to people as heroes was has sort of been on the decline well i don't know for

00:18:10.300 sure but we still have heroes and i think that post 9 11 you know 9 11 showed us what heroism was

00:18:19.740 the police the firefighters and so on they did not have to go back into that building to save lives

00:18:25.340 they could have just walked away and you know said you can take this job and shove it but what was it

00:18:30.780 over 300 of the firefighters and police and and the emergency medical there you know and we and america

00:18:38.380 really saw what heroism was and i agree prior to that we just didn't seem to have a lot of 0.97

00:18:45.100 the the real goods you know the real heroes and along comes 9 11 and all of a sudden you know it jerks

00:18:53.100 us back to to heroism and there it is that's what it is you know look kids that's heroism and you know

00:19:03.580 this nation has been so influenced by heroes throughout our history but you know it did seem

00:19:09.100 that we're going through a period when we didn't see a lot of heroes uh you know in in government in

00:19:16.140 washington dc you know we have presidents who just didn't seem to be great heroes and so on but i think we

00:19:26.540 are getting back to a an appreciation of what heroism is and um it's interesting about sports figures by

00:19:36.140 the way uh they in in most surveys that get done of american heroes they tend not to do very well

00:19:42.780 anyway so and maybe it's sports commentators who sort of make them out to be heroes but i think

00:19:48.940 barclay probably is on to something yeah they they're not really perceived that much as heroes even by

00:19:55.740 kids now kids will you know sometimes have sports heroes sure but uh here's an interesting thing for

00:20:04.140 you parents away out pull sports figures as heroes yes in fact that was one of the first things we

00:20:13.180 discovered when we started doing heroes research in the 19th late 1980s was all of a sudden we found

00:20:19.580 when we asked people who their heroes were parents topped the list and that's it was the same

00:20:25.740 for kids you know like seven eight year olds young kids and adults that mother and father were the

00:20:34.460 most frequently cited heroes with kids you after the parents you then got a you know some other relatives

00:20:44.220 sometimes like grandmother grandfather uh and so on and you also got a lot of superheroes you know

00:20:51.260 superman yeah that sort of thing those tended to drop out you know with older kids and with older

00:20:57.980 kids high school and so on and in college you begin to get you know real world heroes martin luther king

00:21:05.660 for example but parents top it sports figures tend not to be big on the heroes list i thought a lot about

00:21:14.380 that and you know i i've sort of come to the conclusion that there's too many sports figures

00:21:20.380 how can you we have so many leagues and so many sports and so many stars you know how's a kid to

00:21:28.460 pick out one over the other you know back when michael jordan was active i mean he's he sort of so

00:21:33.900 dominated the sport for a period of time and was so elegant and graceful and had all these positive

00:21:40.060 characteristics that you know he was often seen as as a hero but by and large it's hard for anyone

00:21:48.380 anymore to stand out truly stand out and be the babe roof you know of our time and so i think that

00:21:55.340 we won't see sports figures very much in the heroes list we haven't you know recently and i don't

00:22:02.300 i think we'll probably see even less going forward but parents but by the way i think the most consistent

00:22:09.900 american hero public hero you know the person out there in the world stage is martin luther king he

00:22:15.900 occurs in survey after survey which is pretty interesting you know it's like people realized

00:22:24.300 he was doing something profound and it's the same with gandhi now we don't know gandhi the way we know

00:22:31.500 martin luther king you know we don't have streets named after gandhi but um gandhi led the way and it was a

00:22:38.940 heavy influence over martin luther king of course non-violent protest etc and uh tends to outpull just

00:22:46.620 about everybody other than parents uh he outpulls polls most presidents the presidents by the way

00:22:54.700 in the last um hundred years typically and polls that get conducted it tends to be jfk

00:23:03.580 and fdr those somehow or other tend to outpull most of most of the other presidents if you're going

00:23:11.340 back earlier than than a hundred years uh lincoln tends to be and so you've got lincoln fdr and jfk

00:23:19.580 typically the most frequently cited uh in many polls uh if where the oval office is concerned

00:23:28.620 and outside the oval office but in the world of politics and and civic life uh martin luther king

00:23:35.420 june

00:23:35.580 uh so professor farley you mentioned a little bit earlier uh some of the things that you know parents

00:23:42.220 can do to have their children uh you know have an appreciation for heroes is there anything else we

00:23:49.180 can do to you continue this trend of bringing back the hero in our society i think um education has got

00:23:57.500 to be a major area kids today 2011 in america spend more time for sure at school than they do in with

00:24:07.900 their parents each week with the one parent family almost half of american families are now headed by one

00:24:15.500 person that one person can't do it all you know i mean the old nuclear family back in the 50s mom dad

00:24:23.900 two and a half kids you know that's the nuclear family has exploded it's gone and back in those 0.99

00:24:32.140 days both parents could be involved and helping sharing the duties and helping each other and so on

00:24:37.660 that's gone at least for almost half of american families so families can't be the only institution

00:24:44.780 of change uh they're an important institution uh and the media by the way is also very important

00:24:52.140 in getting messages heroic messages heroic role models heroic ideas out there but education is the

00:25:02.460 is the biggest institution i think that we can influence in this area kids spend all these several

00:25:09.340 hours a day in school here's an interesting uh thing back in a hundred years ago uh they often talked

00:25:18.780 about heroes they often taught the life of heroes heroic behavior in the schools we tend not to do that

00:25:25.500 anymore now we talk about theories and isms you know there's capitalism there's socialism etc but

00:25:35.820 take an idea like non-violent protest and try to teach it to kids today using isms you know using

00:25:42.780 theories and all that kind of stuff and the kids you know will probably stare at you you had to show you

00:25:47.980 this blank stare when they see in the media that it seems that problems are solved through violence

00:25:55.740 through revolutions through marching in the streets through war i mean here's america we got we got two

00:26:03.580 wars going on right now basically and what's a kid to believe and so they will assume that non-violent

00:26:11.420 protest is some absurd theory you know marginal kind of idea however if you then talk about the life of two

00:26:22.700 heroes of that idea gandhi and king and talk about what they were able to accomplish through non-violent

00:26:30.460 protest the light bulbs come on and the kids can see how it works because it's embedded in the life

00:26:37.500 and times of a real hero you're not talking fancy dancy theories you know from psychology or sociology or

00:26:45.100 something you're looking at a person who did it and it worked and it changed the world forever

00:26:54.540 and so to me that's we need more discussion of heroic behavior in the schools in the classrooms

00:27:01.820 heroism up close that you can do yourself in your home and family and neighborhood as well as the

00:27:09.580 heroes out there in the world stage both of those can be taught and can inspire kids i think to be

00:27:16.860 themselves more heroic professor farley well we're coming to the end of our interview here is there any

00:27:23.340 place our listeners can go to find out more about your work well they can email me frank dot farley

00:27:32.540 at comcast dot net and i'll uh i'll respond to them okay and then they can just look up my name you

00:27:41.500 know google me see what they come up with there's a lot of stuff there all right and but if they have

00:27:48.620 specific questions and so on they can just shoot me an email and i'd be delighted well excellent well

00:27:55.740 professor farley we really appreciate your time it's been a pleasure it has for me too thanks brett

00:28:06.540 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:28:11.980 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and until next time stay

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The Art of Manliness - April 04, 2014

Episode #34： The Stuff Heroes Are Made of With Frank Farley

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