The clip I saw on VH1 yesterday of Dee Snider saying (while washing his expensive car) that he can no longer conjure up the kind of self-righteous anger that inspired "We're Not Gonna Take It" springs to mind...
I think it's most certainly a role, because if it was a class it would be so gigantic as to be useless. Much of contemporary conservative discourse centers around various hero stories--see, for instance, David Brooks' recent column on Bush v. Tolstoy (!). It's not exactly absent from the left, either. I think most people use hero stories to make their day-to-day lives more bearable.
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I think it's most certainly a role, because if it was a class it would be so gigantic as to be useless. Much of contemporary conservative discourse centers around various hero stories--see, for instance, David Brooks' recent column on Bush v. Tolstoy (!). It's not exactly absent from the left, either. I think most people use hero stories to make their day-to-day lives more bearable.