Abstract: The logic of damage has been widely used to explain the motivation of rural protesters in China. In such an explanatory frame, rural protests are triggered by situations when interest or ethics is damaged. However, this theory can only partially explain the emergence of a protest but cannot account for its continuation after protesters’ interests have been compensated for or their ethical relationships have been restored. This paper is about a case study of the rural protest activists in western Shandong. The motive of the activists’ continued protest is generated by the protesting action itself – the hero ethic, which is apparently different from the logic of damage. This hero ethic produces three mechanisms of mutual cooperative connections, status differentiation, and friendship rebuilding to keep protest activities going. To be specific, the mechanism of mutual cooperative connections retains the activists in the protesting group and lets them earn higher reputation with their persistent effort. When ordinary followers quit the protest because of various dilemmas, the mechanism of status differentiation distinguishes the activists from the rest and propels them to protest with even more courage. When the protest activists become disappointed with their original community, the mechanism of friendship rebuilding will be developed to get meaning of their actions outside their rural community, although such a mechanism has its own limitations, for example, group disintegration due to status competition. In the last part of the paper, the author discusses the special contribution of the hero ethic to the understanding of the rural protest politics in China.

Key words: the hero ethic, protest activist, collective action, protest politics