The secret every hero has, deeper than alter-egos, more inscrutable than the source of their powers, is that the world does not define them, and so they are free to define the world.

This is why heroes like Batman and Spider-man are so compelling. Batman has no powers; though he enjoys virtually limitless resources, what he does is shape Gotham City through his will and his efforts. Spider-man is among the most reluctant of heroes; he thinks it his responsibility to fight crime, but he struggles with that responsibility. Both heroes were shaped by the world around them; but neither one dresses up and abuses thugs because someone has told them to do so. Rather, they have chosen their parts.

But when one shapes the world through one's choices, one necessarily is at odds with the world. Batman and Spider-man are heroes, indeed, but they are also vigilantes. They are almost as likely to have altercations with the police as with the rogues gallery. To employ a different metaphor a la Pirsig--one I have employed before!--"Nothing disturbs a bishop quite so much as a saint in the parish." Despite my words about rejecting the world's definitions of meaning and happiness, the world wants to define you, and grows quite upset when it finds the tables turned.

Why should this be? Recall the aforementioned "everyman" who, for whatever reason, determined that a "life of meaning" meant a "life of religious authority." Despite what amounts to a bitter envy of his leaders, this man zealously adheres to every doctrine and dogma he can grasp. I deliberately employ "zealously" here in its most pejorative sense; like any good zealot, our everyman is so committed that the very gravity of his devotion warps moral space, distorting the objects of his zeal. He expects--nay, demands!--commensurate devotion from others, where he can; his children, certainly, but also anyone whose ear the inverse-square of his piety might capture in orbit. In this sense he becomes a part of the world, by which I mean the "status quo" from which he has drawn his definition of meaning, not merely accepting that definition but foisting it upon others as well.

It must be allowed that, in taking their own meaning, heroes impact others. Heroes find themselves not just the source of their own meaning, but, like our unfortunate everyman, a source of meaning for others as well. Is this, then, the point at which our distinction breaks down? Is every hero just the latest villain? Is meaning inescapably drawn from without?

Perish the thought! For in a sense, our pious everyman wants to be a hero. His every action emulates heroism and indeed, for some he is heroic. He craves this recognition; he needs to be needed. Contrast the hero, who is undoubtedly needed--but whose motives contrast sharply. The hero defines himself, and encourages others to do the same. Some of those individuals will choose a different path. Some will choose to be defined by the hero...

But there! Who made that choice? Is it not entirely heroic to define meaning for oneself? And if you choose to adopt the meaning somone else has provided, what of it? The difference may be wholly invisible from an empirical perspective, but it is an important difference all the same.

For the unfortunate everyman, meaning is imposed. Desperately struggling to live a life of imposed meaning, one drags others into that abyss by imposing meaning upon them. The world sets insurmountable barriers and impossibly high bars, and as a general rule people enforce these limitations on one another, on their progeny, and on themselves. The hero is not so defined, but seeks to change the landscape of the world; others, equally heroic, are free to follow or to cut their own path. This is why the world is at odds with them. The world seeks to preserve itself and its paths.

And in the end, the slaves and the heroes often walk the same path. The difference is less in the path you are taking, than your reasons for choosing the path at all. Which should not be taken as some pithy relativism, but rather a formulation of existentialism. Heroes and everymen often do the same things for entirely different reasons. The everyman wants to be important. The hero is.

So how can you tell the difference? Because Kierkegaard notwithstanding, I think you often can. But I'm going to have to think on it a bit.