culture hero

plural culture heroes · alternative culture-hero

1. idiomaticA mythical character or real person who is renowned as the exemplar of the values or achievements of a society, group, or time period.

   A precisely similar notion was found by Avila among the Indians of Huarochiri, whose divine culture-hero imposed, by a curse or a blessing, their character and habits on the beasts.

   1886, Andrew Lang, chapter 6, in Myth, Ritual, and Religion

   2 more examples

   [T]he U.S. has long been the Land of Efficiency. . . . Here mass production was born, the assembly line for good or ill became the modern cornucopia, and Henry Ford once reigned as the leading culture hero.

   1970 March 23, “Business: America the Inefficient”, in Time

   [T]hese were mostly Russian intellectuals, hard-core Stalinists, and democratic socialists . . . whose book-lined apartments were filled with leftist tracts and records by the Red Army Chorus and the black American Communist culture hero Paul Robeson.

   2006 October 1, Edward Kosner, “First Chapter: It’s News to Me”, in New York Times, retrieved 04 Jun 2013