I personally do, he actually risked his life to release information about the government spying on people. And there are for sure more advanced ways now. Even your phone is listening.
I personally do, he actually risked his life to release information about the government spying on people. And there are for sure more advanced ways now. Even your phone is listening.
I wouldn’t imagine that OP meant the question as Snowden being permanently labeled a hero for all of his life actions, nor should anyone ever be labeled as such. We are judging a specific action he took many years ago and also in a context of people generally labeling his action as good or bad since then. We are also not talking about comic book characters that are consistently one way or another through all of their actions. We can agree that a convicted felon can be heroic and a puppy loving doctor can do villainous shit as well depending on circumstance, opportunity and personal moral beliefs.
But for this specific action of exposing a terrible truth and essentially losing his way of life and being forced to live as a refugee, I don’t think we should get into the pendatry of what a hero in theory is or if his action led to any actual change. Being suppressed by forces with way more weight than you doesn’t eliminate whatever label your actions deserve.
Sure, it sounds like he has your approval, and the approval of people in the privacy movement, who would use the term Hero. I accept that.
As for what the word ‘hero’ means to you, and whether I value those same things, then the answer is yes:
…I just don’t use the word ‘hero’ to describe this, which is what OP asked.
The word has become a simplified symbol to me, and if anything, feels less powerful than acknowledging the real sacrifice he made in the name of his principles.
Without acknowledging that nuance, ‘Hero’ apparently puts him in the same category as housefire-puppy-rescuers, and what he did was much more deliberate. He wasn’t emotionally impulsive; he was fully cognisant of the risk he was taking and made the decision to do it anyway.
‘Hero’ is a word other people give you, in reverence. He may be a hero of the privacy movement, sure. But the audience at large that he was speaking for does not consider him a hero (and I don’t use the term myself), thus for both I say no. I’m not from the US, so I’m not one of the people he sacrificed for; so I answered with his audience’s response (or lack thereof) in mind.
‘Do you think there are people who consider Snowden a hero’ is not the question I was answering, because the answer to that would always be yes, of any public figure.