Episode 78: What Makes a Hero?

Send us Fan MailThe annual commemoration of the “heroes of 9/11” got Joe thinking about the concept of heroism.  What does it take to be a hero?  Why do we anoint certain qualities as heroic?  And what better person to answer these questions than Mark, with his PhD in mythology?  Mark and Joe trace the origin of the idea of the hero in ancient literature, its modification by Christianity, the development of modern American notions of heroism, and how, at the end of the day, heroes are at heart an argument about the world.