ABSTRACT
The ancients knew that leading a meaningful life meant, first and foremost, finding virtue within oneself. Aristotle and Marcus Aurelius believed in a virtuous life of meaning and left blueprints for others to follow. The model they established of the secular saint stands in counterpoint to the modern incarnation of the “hero,” the media-created celebrity saint or public relations creation, whose humanism supports corporate interests or establishes a “bankable” cult of personality. This celebrity culture affected the legacy of Friedrich Nietzsche, of whom secular sainthood made a kind of pseudo-religious hero, a notion that would have been abhorrent to the great German philosopher. The ...
