RESEARCH l FUTURES STUDIES

The Future of Heroism is Collaborative

Collaborative Heroism Our research drawing upon the “heroic imagination" found that just as interactive technologies and social media have profoundly impacted the social, economic, and political spheres, among others, so too they are impacting the mythic and moral spheres—giving rise to a third form of heroism described as collaborative heroism. (Klisanin, 2013, 2014, 2015). Interactive efforts to save lives, eradicate deadly diseases, and improve the human condition represent the birth of a new mythic narrative. 

“The milieu of collaborative heroism is a situation defined by Cloud computing. While collaboration has always been part of the human experience and is inextricably linked to heroic social movements, in the years since the introduction of interactive technologies, the ability to act on behalf of others has expanded exponentially. Collaborative heroism is a form of heroism arising in, and dependent upon, the networked society. It is emerging in a time of transition and supporting the evolution of higher levels of consciousness, themselves intimately entwined with the outering of our nervous systems (McLuhan, 1964) and extension of our minds (Clark & Chalmers, 1998).

The goals and aspirations of individuals engaging in collaborative heroism include exposing, challenging, and changing untenable conditions around the world, be they social, environmental, economic, political, or otherwise. Rather than standing idly by waiting for the world to change, they are tweeting about the policies of harsh dictators, uploading and sharing videos of human rights abuses, creating accessible online education platforms, signing petitions to save lives, holding virtual rallies on behalf of the natural world, using social media to support charitable causes, creating massive computing grids to solve global challenges, and much more.” (Excerpt from “Heroism in the Networked Society,” Klisanin (2017) published in Handbook of Heroism and Heroic Leadership.

Published Research / Open Access

Klisanin, D. (2016) Collaborative Heroism: An Empirical Investigation, Heroism Science: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 1: Iss.1, Article 5.