Progressives Need Better Stories

Progressives Need Better Stories

From Heretic Hereafter Podcast by Katharine Strange

April 8, 2026 · 4 min · Season 3 · Episode 14

About this episode

The episode discusses the complexities of modern hero worship and the problematic behaviors of cultural icons.

How do you feel about these “secular saints” candles? Are they a funny joke? A cringe Millennial trend? The desperate grasping of a culture that has lost its way? I’ll admit, I’ve owned a few of these (Harriet Tubman, RBG.) My husband received a Jeff Bezos one as a gag gift that I keep threatening to smash. This is one of the problems with living heroes—they keep revealing problematic behavior. It’s why every Tesla bumper in Seattle now looks like this: Maybe this is why Roman Catholics require at least 5 years pass before canonization can begin, time for all the skeletons to emerge from a potential saint’s closet. And yet, the recent revelations about labor organizer Cesar Chavez have shown that it can take a long time (33 years in this case) for the dark truth about a “hero” to come out. For years we’ve been having a conversation about how to deal with heroes who have done monstrous things. Is it still okay to listen to Michael Jackson? Watch Roman Polanski movies? Ought we still have statues of great American statesmen who also enslaved African Americans or slaughtered Indigenous Peoples? Heretic Hereafter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my…

People in this episode

Host: Katharine Strange

Topics covered

  • secular saints
  • cultural heroes
  • problematic figures
  • canonization
  • historical context
  • morality in art
  • hero worship

Keywords

  • secular saints
  • cultural heroes
  • problematic behavior
  • canonization
  • morality
  • historical figures
  • hero worship

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