On the Peculiar Intentions and Utility of Heroic Narratives
The world is remarkably clever, yet deeply cruel. Individuals whom the mainstream completely ignored or pointed fingers at and pushed out during their lifetimes are placed upon historical altars after they die—as if nothing had ever happened—and praised as "great crusaders." This was true for Machiavelli, Socrates, and Vincent van Gogh alike.
The people involved were merely struggling desperately to breathe and live as themselves within a suffocating reality. Why, then, does posterity insist on overlaying their lives with a grandiose narrative of "struggle"? There is a definitive "utility" for the living in forcedly crowning the dead with a wreath that means absolutely nothing to them.
The Cheapest Textbook to Maintain the System
For a society to sustain itself and develop, it must teach its members moral values such as "Dedicate yourself to the community," "Stand against injustice," and "Defend your convictions." However, if these are explained through dry legal codes or abstract theories, no one takes them to heart.
At this juncture, the most effective visual aid is the "narrative of a crusader."
The drama of a human being who withstood hardship and defied the mainstream to protect their beliefs moves the public’s heart more powerfully than any sermon. In other words, to maintain their own social systems and values, posterity compresses and processes the narrative of an individual who simply lived their own life, turning it into the "most effective moral textbook."
The Guilt and Absolution of the Living
The history of humanity is also a history of persecuting geniuses who were ahead of their time. The contemporary mainstream beheaded them, exiled them, or left them to wither away through complete indifference.
Posterity’s belated worship of them as crusaders is closer to a religious ritual performed to wash away a collective sense of guilt. It is done to gain a sense of relief, as if to say, "Though we failed to recognize him and made him miserable during his time, our sins are as good as absolved now that we treat him as a hero."
At the same time, it grants a peculiar absolution to the living. The moment we elevate someone to a "born-to-be-great crusader" existing on a completely different dimension from us, we can justify our own compliance with immediate absurdities, thinking, "That person could endure the pressure of the mainstream because he was a hero, but an ordinary person like me has no choice but to conform." The birth of a hero becomes the ultimate smoke screen to conceal the cowardice of ordinary people.
The "Necessary Flame" Driving an Era
Lastly, history always requires fuel to propel itself forward. To smash current contradictions and transition into the next era, a symbol is needed to unite the masses.
Later politicians and thinkers summon figures from the past to rally public aspiration. Just as Machiavelli’s ruthless sense of reality is reinterpreted in modern times as that of a "crusader of realism transcending eras," posterity dresses past figures in whatever clothes are needed, reinventing them as crusaders to solve the contemporary problems they face.
Concluding the Essay
Ultimately, the narrative of a "crusader" is never for the sake of the individual; it is thoroughly a mirror and a tool for ourselves, the posterity left behind.
Therefore, let us not be fooled by the grandiose heroism bestowed by history and view the lives of countless geniuses as stuffed museum artifacts. The reason they are revered as crusaders is not because they were intrinsically grand, but simply because they are highly useful to posterity.
What truly matters is the raw, unadulterated stubbornness of a human being hidden behind that flashy narrative—the resolve that said, "No matter what the mainstream says, I will live as myself." Whether posterity calls me a crusader or a misfit, the act of quietly pushing forward with the convictions inside me is what counts. The expiration date on the nametags the world hands out is short, but the fact that one fully lived their own life is already a complete history in and of itself.
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