By Leo Zaccari
September 1, 2026
It wasn't that long ago that our society valued heroes and heroic virtue. Young people would look up to certain individuals who possessed the qualities of virtue, perseverance, humility, and courage. Countless individuals who overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to achieve greatness have inspired the next generation to dream of attaining the same thing or setting some goals in the hopes of achieving them. Fast forward to the 2020s and so many young men are looking up to cowards, whiners, and narcissists, while young women are being taught to become sociopaths who can do no wrong. So, what are the signs that our culture is degenerating?
This article will not delve into how our culture has fallen so profoundly, that is the subject of another article entirely. This article will talk about the symptoms of a culture that is sick, because it has been under attack for quite some time. The best way to ascertain that is to look at entertainment, which includes movies, television, books, and sports. All of these things have something in common: they are all escapism.
When I was young, two of my heroes were football players: Rocky Bleier and Walter Payton. Bleier, a running back for the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers, was drafted first by the Steelers and then by The United States Army and shipped out in 1969 to serve in Vietnam. While serving in Vietnam, his squad was ambushed and he was injured by a grenade, suffering shrapnel in his foot. Doctors couldn't remove all of the shrapnel, as they would have to rip apart his entire foot in order to get all of it out. Doctors told him that he would have trouble walking, that he couldn't run, and that he would definitely never play football again. After multiple operations, he finally returned home in 1970, with the goal of returning to the team that had drafted him two years earlier.
When he first started working out, the pain was excruciating, but he never gave up. He returned home from jogging with the sock on his injured foot completely red with his blood. He came back to The Steelers and was placed on injured reserve. The following season, he made special teams. Over the next three seasons, he was waived twice. Finally, in 1974, he returned to the starting lineup alongside Franco Harris, where they were an integral part of the Pittsburgh Steelers first Super Bowl team. They went on to win three more after that, all with Bleier in the starting lineup. His perseverance and courage made him my first hero.
Walter Payton was drafted in the first round by the NFL's Chicago Bears in 1975. Despite being a first round pick and therefore a highly valued player, he was determined to prove himself by playing special teams as a kick-returner, in addition his duties as the team's starting running back. According to Payton "If you couldn't make it with the team that you were drafted with and you had to go somewhere else, that was to me, a sign of failure." Payton was only about 200lbs, was blessed with quickness, and was particularly strong. However, he was never the fastest running back, never the quickest or the most elusive, and was certainly never the biggest. He was simply the best. He was determined to outwork everyone he played against.
His workouts were legendary, often bringing in young rookies in the off-season to work out with him. Despite being several years older than them and taking far more hits than they had, he would burn them out by running up and down an insanely steep hill. His philosophy was this: if you wanted to be better on Sunday (when most professional football games are played) then you had to want to be better on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The lesson is brutally simple: if you want success, then you must put in the work. This could apply to anyone, no matter their profession.
Today, boys don't have much of a choice for role models. LeBron James, the "face" of the NBA since arguably the early 2010s. James is the all-time NBA scoring leader, he was multiple regular season MVPs and has won four NBA Championships, being named the Finals MVP all four times. Yet, even a cursory glance at his play for most of his career tells a very different story. The first thing that even the casual fan will notice is the team-hopping and the building of "superteams". He was never the type like Walter Payton, Michael Jordan, or Mario Lemieux, who endured some truly bad teams until their respective organizations built teams around them in order to give them a chance to win.
James is notorious for stat-padding, complaining to the referee after just about every play, standing around like a child who has wandered onto a busy highway while the rest of the play takes place around him, not getting back on defense while his teammates endure a four-on-five disadvantage, and most notably, he is a notorious flopper. Its mind-boggling to see a man who is 6'9 and 250lbs be lightly grazed by an opponent, yet react like he's been hit by a sniper in the upper deck. James recently took arguing a call to new ridiculous heights that had never before been achieved. While arguing a call, he actually grabbed the official by the arm and dragged him over to the spot of the foul, all while verbally berating him. He suffered no repercussions from the league, despite this being a clear technical foul. For a primer on just how bad James's behavior is, watch just about any video from YouTubers UnCommon Cents or Angry Old Hoops Fan (colloquially known as AOH).
Boys and young men under the age of twenty five seem to think that LeBron James can do no wrong. He is not just their role model, not just their hero, but they obsess over him like they are in love. This is not an issue of sexuality, this is an issue of obsession. To them, James is an idol to be worshipped. They proclaim with almost religious fervor that he is their "king". They react with irrational outbursts if James is criticized in any way, seeing even the most minor comment or critique as an attack on their icon that must be swiftly dealt with. They trivialize or ignore the multiple breakdowns that James has suffered in the NBA Finals. They argue that the only reason that he lost must be because his opponents were just too great. These people are not basketball fans, they are part of a cult.
Young women haven't had it any easier. A child's character and personality is shaped to a great extent by what they see in media; movies, tv, and other forms of entertainment, including sports. What they've been seeing for a quite a while now are the unattainable Disney princess archetype and awful role models in the form of Marvel "heroes". These so-called heroes include Wanda Maximoff, a mutant with reality-warping powers who is the central "protagonist" in the Marvel series "WandaVision". When the man that she loves dies, she does what any reasonable hero would do and takes an entire town hostage. This includes completely controlling these people so that they have absolutely no agency whatsoever.
The show makes it clear that the people who are being controlled by her are suffering a great deal and cannot even go to the bathroom. This includes small children. Towards the end of the series, the town's people are conscious, however, they are still being controlled by her. One of them even begs her to "let them die". She lets the people go in the end and another character, who is supposed to be a hero as well, tells Maximoff, "they'll never know what you did for them," as if she did something great by releasing the people that she was torturing. Maximoff suffers no real repercussions and escapes without facing justice for what she'd done.
In the latest Spider-Man film, the antagonist is Marvel character Jean Grey, of the mutant super-team, The X-Men. She uses her powers in much the same way that Wanda Maximoff had used her powers, she mind-controlled multiple people in the film, including making an elderly man step in front of a moving vehicle and throwing someone off the roof of a building. Later in the film, Jean Grey is portrayed as a sympathetic figure who is only trying to find her sister, who was imprisoned in a government facility. The fact that she is looking for her imprisoned sister is supposed to excuse the fact that she controlled people and attempted to murder them. These are the kind of people who are portrayed as "heroic"?
The inexcusable actions of people being held up as "heroes" is indicative of a profoundly sick society. A society that is no longer healthy will not only make excuses for such inexcusable behavior, but will actually hold it up as being "heroic". Years ago, we looked up to people for setting an example with sacrifice, courage, and persevering no matter what the odds. Rocky Bleier was awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, while Lebron James crowns himself the "king".
These days, the examples being set are teaching young people that they are "great" no matter what they do, that they should be applauded, even if they don't exhibit any virtues whatsoever, and that they are entitled to adulation merely for existing. Its time we brought back heroes and in order to that, we must bring back the virtues that made people heroic in the first place. If we don't, then society will continue this slide into mediocrity and self-obsessed narcissism. We owe it to future generations.
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Beaver County Times July, 1973
NFL Throwback "Walter Payton:"Sweetness"Career Highlights/NFL Legends" youtube Accessed August 23, 2026
UnCommon Cents "What Do People Think of Lebron James 73" youtube accessed August 28, 2026
Angry Old Hoops Fan "The Physics of a Flop" youtube Accessed August 30, 2026
NBA rules - 12A.V-d official.nba.com Accessed August 28, 2026
Leo Zaccari has spent the last 20 years teaching History, Literature, and Writing to middle school, high school, and college students. He currently teaches History at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Edison, New Jersey, where he has been since 2023. He served as Music Editor at horrorchannel.com for 6 years and has published two novels and a short story. He lives in New Jersey, but one day hopes to be free.