This essay is the logical continuation of “On Marginals: Heroes and Criminals” relying on it as its foundation. To better understand what this text is about, it is advisable to familiarize yourself with the first essay of this pair.

The figure of the hero can serve not only as a passive part of society’s life processes but also as an active instrument of its regulation in the hands of certain people. As already noted, it is impossible to become a hero, just as it is impossible to force anyone to follow a hero’s example. No call to heroism truly means repeating a hero’s deeds. After all, how could one, for instance, urge people to stand around on the beach en masse, waiting for the chance to save a drowning person? In that case, there would be no swimmers left. Or how could one encourage every citizen to blow themselves up along with the enemy? One can only call on people to be “ready,” while otherwise living their ordinary lives—meaning being prepared to fill the gaps, errors, and shortcomings of social institutions. However, if we witness a large number of genuine heroic acts (as opposed to those that risk becoming the new normal), it primarily indicates a collapse of the system to which people cling out of inertia, willing to sacrifice themselves for its preservation. The more genuine heroism exists in a society, the worse its institutions function and the more likely that society is approaching its end. Conversely, the less need there is for heroism in stable conditions, the more efficiently the system operates. At the same time, a surge of heroism against the backdrop of social disintegration eventually leads to its decline, as the urge to preserve the old order gradually weakens with the loss of enthusiasm and the demise of its enthusiasts.

In this context, right-wing or left-wing romantic adventurism seems to me a desperate attempt to become that very individual who will save society—if not one society, then another, chosen at one’s own discretion (be it another country or even just a hobby group). And if saving one requires sacrificing another, provoking another burst of destructive heroism, many adventurers are ready to do so. Romanticism in many aspects involves self-realization through society’s wounds—by identifying them and trying to heal them, but not by creating effective institutions, rather through aestheticizing a symbol that often takes the form of marginal figures.

Let's deepen our understanding of the hero's image by dividing it into two types, classical and sacred. A classical hero earns his name by attaining what he personally strives for (or what the gods have inspired him to do). These are typically people with questionable moral values, little empathy, and indifference to the common good. They are individualists, prepared to go to almost any lengths to reach their goal. For someone from a classical era, such heroes were an embodiment of unmet desires because they often symbolized the general notion of the most coveted achievements of their time. For example, one could call Elon Musk a modern classical hero—a sort of 21st-century Achilles—since for many he embodies all the most attractive things one can get from life. However, in a Christian, nationalist, or patriotic sense, he is not a hero. He lacks what might be called “heroism,” for he primarily acts in his own interests rather than for others (at least, he struggles to prove the contrary, whereas true heroes and their creators are far more successful in this).

Unlike the sacred hero, the classical hero does not possess an untouchable status. Although he, too, is singled out from society and marginalized by its expectations, he simultaneously resembles a public restroom in which anyone can release their desires. This is a consumer figure that enters every home and becomes part of everyone’s life. He is not the kind of marginal society seeks to neutralize but rather one it wants to keep at hand, for he is a vessel filled with the unrealized aspirations of all who gravitate toward him. Here we are talking exclusively about the symbol, not about the person who has fallen victim to it. People always feel a sense of lack and are glad to find a symbol that promises them what they desire. Yet for the symbol to function, it needs a bearer. A symbol on its own is not interesting, just as a virus has no meaning without a living organism. When I become fascinated by the symbolic figure of Elon Musk, I need there to be a real Elon who embodies that symbol and affirms my desires.

Classical and sacred heroes are cursed differently. The first receives many followers and resources but simultaneously becomes a hostage to the privileges granted by his own parasitic symbol. He is the typical “king among aborigines”, served only so he can eventually be sacrificed. A classical hero must first be “fattened up” before being destroyed so that the accumulated capital can then be used in the form of a symbol after his death. For example, the image of a writer, musician, or ruler can be employed by others to achieve their goals, shared by those who also participate in the cult of these dead bodies. It is different with a sacred hero, since he is closer to a criminal, and so is treated accordingly. As already mentioned, sacred heroes rarely possess their own symbol, a large number of admirers, or resources. If they survive their “heroization,” they receive only lower-level privileges in society. They gain greater (but not too much) social weight, that can allow themselves things that ordinary people find difficult to forgive (he’s a hero, after all, so we can excuse a bit of “abnormality”). He is treated similarly to how a criminal is treated, following the logic, “Take my money, just don’t take my life.” In the hero’s case, however, it sounds more like, “Take some of my normality, just don’t force me to do what you did.” People around a sacred hero are willing to forgive him for his eccentricity because, for them, he has become a marginal who bears this burden. It is better to allow him to be rude, cruel, and unpleasant than to follow his call to throw oneself into the fire.

A sacred hero also really can become a carrier of many people’s desires, but he can never rid himself of the fear he inspires in others. He leaves too little space for his image to be filled with others’ aspirations. Beyond his deed or series of deeds, he has nothing else to offer—he is just a normal person, which is precisely why he became a hero. If Elon Musk (he is just an example of a favorite of many) performed some heroic act, it would simply expand his list of achievements, without making him something fundamentally different. A hero is exceptional in his mediocrity, in that single act that sets him apart from other ordinary people. Beyond that, he is unremarkable. It is difficult to make him an idol or the object of adoration, as one easily can with, say, musicians. A sacred hero is more like a dangerous instrument that can cut you, one that must be handled with caution. You can use his name and image like a knife that cuts bread to satisfy hunger, but the knife does not become an end in itself. Only a few truly become fans of knives. Therefore, if a hero wants to become a popular figure, he must transform himself into a multitool that is useful to the masses, championing their desires and aspirations, taking their side in conflicts. A publicly recognized hero who supports one of the sides automatically grants it an advantage. He must allow himself to be used in exchange for social capital, which helps him compensate for his marginality and make life more bearable.

If we consider a symbol more abstractly, it can be imagined as a certain identity that I fill with myself through language, and then seek out people who use that same language, image, or symbol to glorify everything that I put in there. Сarriers of the symbol seem to reassure me that they desire the same thing I do, because they use the same language, the same symbol, so on an intuitive level, it feels like their intentions are, if not identical, then very similar to mine. A person who lives by a symbol wants to see others involved in satisfying his sense of lack, his desires. He is pleased when others adopt the symbol he has come to inhabit, when the language infused with his aspirations emerges from their mouths. When another person appears to desire what you do and confirms this desire through their existence or actions, it functions almost as if your own lack is partially fulfilled. It is always easier to endure thirst if you are not the only one who is thirsty. However, in practice, it turns out that the more people who gather under one symbol’s roof, the more diverse the desires hidden beneath, and the harder it becomes to agree on what they want and what they strive for within that collective entity. The problem becomes even clearer when we see that linguistic naïveté does not disappear even in enormous symbolic communities, where conflicts arise regularly. Each person tries, in one way or another, to make the other want his own desires, and even if we hear the cliché “we are all so different, yet we are united,” there is still an implied basic set of desires presumed to be shared by all who live under that symbol. This is where the root of discord lies, not only between different symbols or identities but also within the same collective structure.

The one who became the reason for creating a symbol becomes its hostage, insofar as the depth of the desires he carries and the number of people who decided to jump onto his back. The classical hero is always under the sword of Damocles, because each of his actions must confirm the expectations of the people who chose him as their repository. If he acts otherwise, his followers perceive it as a personal betrayal—like a mother giving the wrong birthday present, betraying the most intimate, shy desire, that burning need for a remote-control little boat. A living hero is always a risk, an uncertainty, a threat. The classical hero tends to be more appealing when he is dead in the eyes of his followers, because if “mother” is dead, she cannot give the wrong gift, and I, in turn, can always give what I want on her behalf—or force my “brothers” and “sisters” to do so. Sacred heroes rarely have their own symbols, as they perform other roles in society. A person who has prevented a catastrophe, after a brief wave of fame, inevitably returns to obscurity, whereas a successful restaurateur never does so, at least if he manages to remain a classical hero. Nevertheless, both types can be used by others to achieve their goals in society. That is what will be discussed further.

Because a hero is an unrealistic expectation the mass places on itself (though differently in each case), the hero’s symbol promises the fulfillment of a certain maxim, but that maxim is so charged with the mass’s deep-seated wants and fears that any specific person’s approach to it, feels painful both for them and for those around them. One can only enjoy a living hero at the correct orbital distance: if you retreat too far, you lose him; if you get too close, you burn. Every “excessive” step away from the accepted orbit is acutely felt, not only because of leaving one’s normal relationship with the hero but also because of the rest of the people involved in venerating him. After all, when a person steps out of the hero’s sphere of influence, they no longer use the shared language or symbol, and thus these tools can no longer serve as assets for achieving the goals of others who are part of that symbol. Leaving the symbolic field is viewed as a betrayal of everything that person was seeking in that abstraction. If they reject my identity (assuming they had it in some form), my symbol, my language, then they also reject my desire, making my lack sharp and painful, even if I still have plenty of kindred spirits. The renegade is no longer persuaded by arguments in disputes involving this hero (where the same desire is employed as an argument), nor can others either frighten him with the sacred hero or excite him with the classical one. After all, in discussions we often use phrases like “You can’t act like that if you love apples,” meaning you have to act as I do, because if you love apples, you share my desires, and so by differing from me, you also betray yourself—betraying your own internal wishes, which, I believe, are identical to mine. Or “You can’t be that way if you are an apple,” meaning you cannot expend yourself on things I find incomprehensible, because I know who you are and what you need—you yourself said you are an apple, which means you shouldn’t waste yourself or disturb the integrity of the home I live in.

Language is like a map covered with countless paths. We see them, we can read them, but we almost never know which are truly alive, which are actually traveled by people, and which are simply a surface connecting the space, a place for exhaling, for existing, but not for living. It is language as a symbol that contains the greatest vitality, unlike everyday communication, which merely ensures existence. When talking to a stranger, one never knows which word will touch them, where they hide what is most secret or not so secret, or whether they are willing to show where their treasure lies.

The renegade is frightening precisely because he no longer produces the surrogate of someone else’s desire. On the contrary, he denies the love of the “remote-control little boat,” declaring it a silly toy for silly children. The same applies to those who were never part of the collective but nonetheless had something in common with it, causing the collective to try and claim them as “their own.” This is evident in the example of national identities, which wage endless wars over both the living and the dead. A rejection of the symbol or identity is painful, for the similarity that remains outside its boundaries becomes a threat to its integrity. It calls into question its necessity and inevitability. It is like asking, “Why are you like me but do not love me? Why do you not love me in that ‘apple’ I offer you and encourage you to become?” If there are people who resemble me but are not involved in the same structures of desire (the same nationality, subculture, movement), then either the symbol is lying about its totality, or these people are traitors. It is always easier to believe the latter. Collective structures do not tolerate neutrality. All contact with them is divided into “love” or “denial of love.” This is a hyperfixation on the self, which, ironically, looks like altruism because it exists through the collective. The only way to avoid the trap of these feelings is to remain unknown to them, never revealing your existence.

Returning to the hero. As already mentioned, any relationship with a hero must be careful, gentle, yet still consumer-like. If a person gets too close to him, they inevitably get burned by his demand, which leaves no room for enjoyment. To maintain an attraction to the symbol, one needs dark glasses; otherwise, seeing one’s own naked desire becomes painful and frightening, like suddenly becoming aware of one’s internal organs moving inside. One must balance between despair and comfort. If you stare at the sun, it blinds you with an onslaught of dissatisfaction and impossible dreams. But if you keep your distance, the sun only warms without burning. Warmth and solace are the safest things a symbol and its bearer can give to soften the bitterness of the unachieved. Yet you can also use him as a tool—through others, drawing closer to what you desire. People have always done this. No wonder, when fascinated by something new and astonishing, they want to share it, secretly hoping to infect others. After all, what’s the joy of having something if you can’t share it, even if only with imaginary companions? If excessive closeness to the “sun” is dangerous for the individual, withdrawal mostly threatens because of other people’s reactions. You can only leave a symbol or identity behind when it ceases to bring satisfaction or benefit. It is impossible to force someone to stop being an “apple” or to stop loving “apples”; a person must become disillusioned on their own, though this can be influenced. Exiting the symbol’s orbit is painful for its followers. The same goes for heroes. The fewer people participate in worship, the heavier the burden on them. The weight of the demand remains, while those who support it grow fewer. A disbalance arises. It’s like having a powerful generator of electricity that fewer and fewer people use, turning it into a loss-making venture, a burden. Imagine that only two or three people consider Vadym a hero, while he himself feels isolated by the heroic act he performed. He wants something in return to compensate for his exile, but what can these few people offer him? Obviously, not much, and at a high price. What can he offer them if no one else recognizes him as a hero? He becomes a selfless tool that might be used only for internal squabbles. That is why people hold on to their heroes. They understand that hero status affects their social gains and losses. Losing someone from an identity, from a symbol, or from hero worship makes a person feel as though they are losing something significant, almost like losing a part of themselves.

The mass needs personalized individuals to remain an anonymous mass. The best among them (for the mass) are the dead. After all, they have a death point, like a period at the end of this sentence. They can no longer lay claim to the symbol they created, nor assert any authority they had in life or at the moment of death. They offer no resistance. Competing with the creator of the symbol—its father or mother—means either submitting or becoming disillusioned (for instance, when the hero does something unexpected). Both options threaten to destroy the tender desires that form the symbol. It is easier just to wait for the death of the symbol’s progenitor; then an equality emerges in which the dead hero becomes a convenient shelter for the temporarily living. Disputes about the “proper” interpretation of the symbol among its followers destroy nothing of importance; on the contrary, they only fortify the symbolic life of an adult (or not-so-adult) individual.

A hero’s death is always a significant event, for at that moment the possibility of disillusionment or awkward rivalry over “meanings” with the symbol’s direct progenitor disappears. Leaving life opens up new opportunities for the most enterprising followers, because mourning is an attempt to attract attention, to “sting” others with the hero’s death, to bring them into a collective experience, to recall the symbol now left without its creator. Trying to interpret the words, works, and actions of someone who can no longer dispute them is much easier; it’s an easy target, a child left without an adult. Mourning a hero’s death is a call to everyone who wants to use that vulnerability, to remember what may have been forgotten but still retains a trace of past desires. This happens, for example, when a once-forgotten or not-forgotten-at-all writer, singer, or political figure passes away. Those who never abandoned their living bearer of the symbol are interested in shouting as loudly as possible about his departure to draw in as many people as possible—people whose resources can be used (naturally, inviting them to do the same, since this is a two-way process that cannot exist otherwise). As for a sacred hero, this usually does not occur because he generally has little symbolic capital, or if he did have it, everything that applies to a classical hero also applies to a sacred one (only accompanied by the specific fear of the inviolable). To consolidate the power thus obtained, the politics of memory is set in motion—a politics of managing the symbol or symbols left behind by the deceased. This is an effort to consolidate power over the image in certain hands, with specific goals and interests. Often it is an institutionalized attempt to pull in as many people as possible into the commemoration those in power have constructed, inviting each disaffected individual to be satisfied. Of course, in exchange he must give the same to others. The politics of memory does not apply solely to deceased heroes but also to old significant symbols (for instance, a country, a nationality, certain events, historical figures, etc.—the same goes for new ones). But this essay will not delve into that.

I think it is fair to say that what a person feels toward a classical hero is envy. To me, envy resembles the desire to call the one you envy your double, in a sense. After all, when you envy someone, you see before you a possible (or necessary) version of yourself in the past, something that should have happened to you but did not. Envy is when you see an unfulfilled version of yourself, whether in whole, in part, or only slightly—a temporal error, where you see your past slip away, forcing you to think about your future and worry about it. A person might live as calmly as possible, but then catch sight of someone in whom they recognize the past self they never actually were. It is difficult to envy someone fundamentally different from you: for example, if you are a local-level actor, it is harder to envy Joaquin Phoenix than it is to envy a national-level actor who was very recently in your position. The goal of envy is to eliminate the painful doubling, where you either absorb this fragment torn from you but never actually you, or somehow erase the doppelgänger (for instance, by destroying what makes him desirable or literally ending his life). This situation can be a destructive, anger-fueled summons to yourself, a harsh demand, or it can be a more positive act of inspiration, embodying that “past self” symbolically so that its ghost becomes a version of you, not as a mistake to be expunged but as a design to be continued.

The average person has an ambivalent relationship with their dreams: on the one hand, they want to be as close to them as possible, yet on the other, they maintain a considerable distance once they find an image that resonates with their deepest desires. Where is the ordinary individual, and where is the object of their desire? What could be more distant than an idol, a cherished symbol, or a chosen identity? We have become so accustomed to addressing them informally, as if they were close, that we have forgotten their foreign nature, the fact that they represent everything we are not—what we lack, what we do not yet have or may never have. Identity is not something granted by birthright; it is exhausting work—striving to be what you are not in order to feel better and less alone. Desire is the only thing that makes it all seem so close, a thread connecting the things farthest from us. Identity unites us in what we are not, but not in the same way, never perfectly aligning. When we walk around a city, it might easily seem as if everything simply happens and looks as it does by itself. It is hard to notice that it requires the labor of many people to sustain what is called culture, whether sidewalks, a building’s integrity, or a more-or-less neatly kept tree. What we take as something almost “genetically” ours (though many would remove the “almost” and the quotation marks) turns out, in my view, to be that city we perceive as something alive existing by itself. As if there were not thousands and millions of people waking up every morning to make the city what we know it to be or have not yet come to know. It seems to me this is a daily routine of restoring what you consider to be yourself, a mundane search for the strength to maintain habits, to recognize yourself in a certain way, and so on. Each day, a person, like a city, tries to re-create yesterday’s self, never quite succeeding, moving a bit further instead. Identity, like any part of culture, demands constant re-creation of what many consider their own skin, something organic and inseparable from them. Breaking away from something familiar is painful not because it is like losing a hand, for example, but because it is difficult to cope with the inertia of the effort invested in certain things over the years. It is as if one had to abruptly change the course of a huge ship that is accustomed to burning tons of fuel along a well-worn path. People can grow used to almost anything and, over time, change their self-perception in nearly any way, provided the ship’s course changes gradually, letting the inertia subside. If the turn is too sudden, that inertia strikes back, manifested as longing for the past, the wish to go back. The ship is now turned, say, to the right and will never return to its old course, but because of the inertia of many years spent maintaining the “familiar,” it still lurches sideways, slowly drifting to the right. Sailing sideways is something you would wish on no one.

And now, the final paragraph. There is much more that could be added to what is written here, but I have limited myself to this, since anything else can always be imagined, and imagined in ways I never could. The phenomena I have described are not purely negative or purely positive to me; they simply exist, and I found them interesting to portray. I could condemn or sympathize with much of what is in them, for I too am inevitably caught up in all of it. I think that is difficult to hide. Over the course of this essay, we have touched on more topics than the title suggests, but there is no need to regret what has already happened. If you have ended up here, the only thing left for us is to move forward, since no other direction has been invented yet.