Hero.syndrome Quotes

After serving in the United States Coast Guard in the Second World War, he began his career in radio and television ministry. In 1979, he founded the Christian Men’s Network, and not long after he diagnosed a catastrophic condition plaguing the nation. An “anti-hero syndrome” had “eliminated our heroes and left us bereft of role models as patriotic examples.” His 1982 book on the topic, Maximized Manhood, would sell more than one million copies.15

In 1979, he founded the Christian Men’s Network, and not long after he diagnosed a catastrophic condition plaguing the nation. An “anti-hero syndrome” had “eliminated our heroes and left us bereft of role models as patriotic examples.

This syndrome was evident in television dramas that had created and destroyed images of manhood, “with dangerous results.” A generation traumatized by foolish male authority figures like Archie Bunker had stamped on their minds an image of manhood that invited “resentment, derision, anarchy, and mockery.” These children then rejected authority figures in their own lives, and the effects extended to the nation as a whole. In recent decades, “a philosophical and emotional sickness” had been allowed to fester in the life of the nation, all because the idea of America “as a ‘virtuous’ nation, a benefactor to the entire world, a savior from enslaving dictatorships,” had been undercut by a malignant media.18 For Cole, the cure for the anti-hero syndrome could be found in Christian broadcasting. Christian media could offer godly heroes for popular consumption. “Sick and tired of the world system creating the ungodly as heroes, making the bad good, and the good bad,” Cole created and chaired a Committee for International Good Will with the purpose of making “the godly of the land our heroes.