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Originally Posted by Halx
Despite my view that life is all about perspective, my perspective is that Henry Ford was a false hero.
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Eh... I could go either way on that idea. He mass produced cars, made them easier for people to obtain. So, in that sense, he did something really important, even heroic. But, as this points out, his personal beliefs blew harder than a hurricane forming in the mid-Atlantic. In that respect he coudn't possibly be considered a
hero. A pioneer maybe, but not a hero.
But you have to keep in mind too that nobody's perfect. We all have our own strange hangups and issues, Ford's was apparently bigotry. While I couldn't possibly condone his beliefs or actions, I don't believe I'm in any position to condemn him either. He was a man, like any other. We screw up. Apparently he screwed up in the moral department.
As for the whole hero thing, I personally never held him to the standard of being a hero. To me he has always been a pioneer, fulfilling a function that somebody else would have had he not. I never expected him to be perfect, and while I'm surprised at the extent of this, I know I'm only surprised because everything I've ever been told about him has been focused on his work, not him as a person.