We like to stress the commonness of heroes. Essences seem undemocratic. We feel oppressed by the call to greatness. We regard an interest in glory or perfection as a sign of mental unhealthiness, and have decided that high achievers, who are called overachievers, owe their surplus ambition to a defect in mothering (either too little or too much). We want to admire but think we have a right not to be intimidated. We dislike feeling inferior to an ideal. So away with ideals, with essences. The only ideals allowed are healthy ones -- those everyone may aspire to, or comfortably imagine oneself possessing.
Susan Sontag, The Volcano Lover: A Romance
achievement, ambition, democracy, egalitarianism, equality, essence, glory, greatness, heroes, ideals, inferiority, intimidation, jealousy, mediocrity, overachievers, perfection, pettiness, success