Heroism: 5. New Heroes
Rory Stewart: The Long History of...
BBC
4.6 • 593 Ratings
🗓️ 1 September 2025
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rory Stewart explores ideas of what it means to be a hero from the ancient world to the present day. How have these ideas changed? Why do heroes matter? Who are the heroes we need today?
With the help of leading historians, psychologists, philosophers and theologians, he examines how heroism is continually questioned and re-invented in every age, and how these contrasting visions of the hero might speak to us in our own time. What does it mean for our moral life? How should we perceive and pursue human excellence?
In this episode, Rory explores ideas of the hero today.
Presenter: Rory Stewart Producer and sound design: Dan Tierney Editor: Tim Pemberton Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Your time starts now. You're about to listen to a BBC podcast. Absolutely right. So you might like to know that the BBC makes loads of other podcasts. Really? Wow. Many of them are very funny. Which I think means... A hatful of ha-hars. And energy. Even if we do say so ourselves. I agree 100% of us. Find them all on BBC sounds. Just tell us a joke. Come on, tell us a joke. Tadus! |
| 0:24.4 | I'm on Tadass! Even if we do say so ourselves. I agree 100% with us. Find them all on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:22.6 | Just tell us a joke, come on, tell us a joke, tell us a joke, come on, tell us a joke. |
| 0:25.3 | Just search comedy on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:27.5 | I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in. |
| 0:31.3 | BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:35.4 | The shattering death of the old idea of the hero in the 20th century |
| 0:39.5 | threw up new visions of heroism in superheroes, sports stars and celebrities. |
| 0:45.6 | Today, we see how these themes bleed into the new icons of our age. |
| 0:50.9 | This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy. |
| 0:56.0 | Chainsaw! From Elon Musk, dressed as the superhero Iron Man, to Donald Trump, who established himself as a reality TV celebrity and is obsessed with the chicanery of celebrity wrestling. |
| 1:09.0 | Hey, look at this! |
| 1:10.0 | Donald Trump! Donald Trump, Donald Trump, |
| 1:12.0 | Donald Trump taking down this McMahon. |
| 1:17.7 | But also how their love of spectacle is inflexed by the new world of social media, |
| 1:24.6 | post-truth and outrage. |
| 1:27.2 | We are entertained. We are spectators at the |
| 1:30.7 | theatre of greatness and its boundlessness, but also its limits. Who are the heroes we need today? |
| 1:39.9 | Young men are looking for heroes. That's great. All I'm asking is that they have 10 and not one, |
| 1:43.9 | or 100 and not one. In this final episode, I will try to understand whether heroism is now condemned |
| 1:49.4 | to ever more grotesque and cartoonish pantomime reenactments, or whether it's still possible to return |
| 1:56.8 | to the original vision of a hero, to imagine a human being who sacrifices for a noble cause, |
... |
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