The Great Heroic American Cowboy myth

This comes from a book titled "American Myth American Reality" that I picked up for 15 cents at some store 40 years ago. Great thoughts. One of them:


Henry Kissinger was asked by an Italian interviewer how "he explained the incredible movie star status he enjoyed .


Kissinger replied that it came from "the fact" that he had always "acted alone." "Americans like that immensely," he said.

Americans like the cowboy who leads the wagon train by riding ahead alone on his horse, the cowboy who rides all alone into the town . .. with his horse and nothing else. Maybe even without a pistol.
... this cowboy doesn't have to be courageous. All he needs is to be alone, to show others that he rides into the town and does everything by himself...

The image of the cowboy riding alone is in American heroic mythology. It comes to their minds easily, in many variations; it grows from thousand of tellings and retellings—in stories, movies, television programs, history books, children's play... The cowboy is a heroic type.