Courage vs. Cowardice

[Imadrongo]

What is the difference? A matter of perspective?

Courage is running towards, cowardice is running away from. Both happen simultaneously, so one's action must be judged by what he running towards and away from.

Running away from a crumbling, unbearable life towards death would be cowardice. Running towards death from a fruitful and accomplished life would be courage.

Running away from society as preempting failure would be cowardice.
Running towards solitude as a higher pursuit would be courage.

As Nietzsche said, it makes all the difference whether one does something out of a hunger or an overabundance. He himself earned a respectable position in society before going to solitude to pursue philosophy, he didn't become a philosopher out of laziness or inability to be a philologist.

Someone was trying to pass off the quest for rationality as courage here last week, but that simply isn't the case. It can stem from either courage or cowardice, and in the case of the geniuses at this forum it appears to be largely from cowardice.

The geniuses at this forum have disdain for women, science, academics, etc. This is what distinguishes them from accomplished people who might become ascetics as well -- whether one says "no" to everything or "yes" so strongly to a few things that there is no room left for the others ("by doing we forgo").

The difference between courage and cowardice appears to be whether one is seeking refuge or leaving behind refuge. Are we seeking refuge through our rationalizations and philosophy (hungry), or have we already found it and now venture beyond (overabundance)?

[Cory Duchesne]

It requires courage not to surrender oneself to the ingenious or compassionate counsels of despair that would induce a man to eliminate himself from the ranks of the living; but it does not follow from this that every huckster who is fattened and nourished in self-confidence has more courage than the man who yielded to despair.

-Kierkegaard

[Imadrongo]

I think it would take more courage to commit suicide than to simply drop out of life -- have no worries or responsibilities, no goals or desires, etc.

Perhaps it would take even more cowardice to, from this position, then rationalize your superiority over all those who participate in life.

[truth_justice]

What is the difference? A matter of perspective?

If you take a third-person view, as I think you are, but may be I am wrong, you will have have a problem understanding the meaning behind these words.

So to answer your question, no, it is not a matter of perspective. A courages person can run alway too. In some instances it might be the right thing to do - and require courage to do it. The act itself isn't a solid indicator. You have to look "in the person", so to speak, to be sure. As your interpretation of X's action, depends on your knowledge of X's character.

I have already defined courage using an analogy here: viewtopic.php?f=10&t=3704


Side note:

I think it is important to understand that actions do not correspond one-to-one to beliefs when viewed from a third-person perspective. In other words, the same action can have many different interpretations and therefore beliefs about it. Hence not one-to-one.

On the other hand, from the point of view of the person doing the action (in their mind), the relation is one-to-one, if the action was caused by a belief. In other words, the person doing the action likely knows why (the reason) they are doing it. Hence in this case, the relation is one-to-one. But an outsider will have guess that reason, as they can't really "see it".

[Cory Duchesne]

I think it would take more courage to commit suicide than to simply drop out of life -- have no worries or responsibilities, no goals or desires, etc.

You've merely set up a straw man.

Having no emotional worries is reasonable, but the only person on this forum who appears to eschew responsibility & conscience is you. Personally, I realize that my life is an act of responsibility, one of which I have the inclination to perfect as much as possible.

[daybrown]

Epictetus: You didnt make your own body, the divine did. You are therefore not the owner, only steward, and have a responsibility to take good care of it. Just because there is no use for it now, does not mean the divine mite not have a use for it later.

Just because I cant imagine such a use does not mean that one cannot appear. However, if you choose to do away with yourself, that's your business, not mine. I dont own your body either, nor should I care whether you have courage or cowardice.

[Ryan Rudolph]

Neil,

Someone was trying to pass off the quest for rationality as courage here last week, but that simply isn't the case. It can stem from either courage or cowardice, and in the case of the geniuses at this forum it appears to be largely from cowardice.

A sage is too weak for the world as far as labor is concerned. He is too sensitive, it is not a matter of cowardice, it is simply that he is too aware of the plight of labor, and he’s acutely aware of the slavish patterns involved with labor.

You, see. For most men, a high paying job is their highest priority because it enables them to sustain their excessive lifestyles, and all their attachments. However the enlightened have no attachments, and are very sensitive to the plight of labor. Moreover, they are content living in very modest living conditions in what the upper middle class would probably call poverty. However, as long as a sage has enough to eat, a warm shelter, and the other basic necessities, those sorts of thoughts never arise in his mind. He is content with very little.

The problem is that most of these academics, scientists, and women are motivated by very petty emotional states. They’re slaves to their thinking, the empirical discoveries they come up are motivated by their need to have respect, pride, financial success, self-esteem and maintain their middle-class conventional lifestyle with the hopes of someday becoming rich. In essence, some of their discoveries are useful, but how they got there is not the behavior of a sage. They are running on a fire that is completely extinguished in him.

What you fail to realize is that a sage ceases to be human, as humans are typically defined. He is basically a mutation. However, the mutation is not well adapted to the present civilization. He is about 500 years ahead of his time.

[maestro]

He is about 500 years ahead of his time.

How did you estimate 500 years. Means that Buddha was 3k years ahead of his time.

[Ryan Rudolph]

Maestro,

How did you estimate 500 years. Means that Buddha was 3k years ahead of his time.

its just an estimate, it could be wrong. I simply tried to predict how long it will be before technology makes most forms of hellish human labor redundant.

[Imadrongo]

A sage is too weak for the world as far as labor is concerned. He is too sensitive, it is not a matter of cowardice, it is simply that he is too aware of the plight of labor, and he’s acutely aware of the slavish patterns involved with labor.

I agree that he is too weak as far as worldly values are concerned. That is the whole reason he creates otherworldly values. It is an escape, cowardly or courageous?

[Ryan Rudolph]

Neil,

I agree that he is too weak as far as worldly values are concerned. That is the whole reason he creates otherworldly values. It is an escape, cowardly or courageous?

Escape implies choice, but there is no choice for the sage, he is what he is, and worldly people are what they are. It is neither cowardly nor courageous in that sense, he merely lives in a manner that doesn’t create constant psychological conflict for him.

He values living in a manner where he isn’t totally miserable. Worldly people are able to delude themselves with hopes, fantasies, pleasures, dreams, lottery tickets and all the rest of it, but when a wise person is stuck in misery, he has no tolerance for it because he is incapable of creating illusions to cope, he is forced to deal with the misery head-on, and yes, he escapes suffering by not participating in that sort of life.

There is no other way for him, his mind is totally clear, totally sensitive, and aware of what is.

However, there maybe ways a person can earn money, and not be miserable, but it is difficult in the present civilization, with the speed and pace of the present economy. Employees have set brutal working expectations to meet their excessive values.

I actually suspect that as technology progresses, people will do more for themselves, and much of ones labor will simply take care of ones immediate survival. For instance: I rarely call any sort of customer service rep because much of what I need can be done by myself online, and I hope things continue to move in that direction.

[daybrown]

Aristotle:"Most men are such slaves to passion, they'd do better in the hands of a more rational master." The South tried to use this to justify slavery, but forgot to limit the masters to just the rational.

Most men have used their assets in the attempt to have greater access to vaginal cavities. But in those few cultures which were run by women, wider access was made available to all their men, and more was not for sale at any price, so the struggle for wealth, and the inegalitarian conditions that struggle leads to, does not exist.

The modern world is changing because of Internet porn, and there are even artificial vaginal cavities for sale. so that the geek can stay home, contented with little more than the sage, but still have his sexual drive gratified at a fairly trivial, and ever lower price.

i dont think soap operas, romance novels, or even Internet sexual flirtation & dildos works as well for women who need more than just genital stimulation.

I've been to gatherings at Short Mountain TN, and see that the fairies live a simple monastic existence with a very high value placed on meditation, spiritual enlightenment, and artistic expression- which ranges from Shaker simplicity to psychedelic Hindu. In this setting, their passions for each other dont impede their acquisition of greater wisdom.

They paid a terrible price during the HIV years, born witness by the graveyard, and they became a hospice for the gay community. Nothing like the thorough familiarity with death to teach you how to live.

[Ataraxia]

Epictetus: You didnt make your own body, the divine did. You are therefore not the owner, only steward, and have a responsibility to take good care of it. Just because there is no use for it now, does not mean the divine mite not have a use for it later.
Just because I cant imagine such a use does not mean that one cannot appear. However, if you choose to do away with yourself, that's your business, not mine. I dont own your body either, nor should I care whether you have courage or cowardice.

I quite like Epictetus,and the Stoic philosophy in general.It's not unlike the QSR philosophy,generally speaking,as far as I can tell.

Their conclusions seem fairly sound to me,but the reasoning to get there often is quite strange.This would be one of those instances.

[skipair]

To me courage means using my best judgment (from my clearest reasoning) to discover the right thing to do at this very moment, and then following through and doing that right thing, no matter what. Later I may find my judgment of "the right thing" was off, in which case, my options for future judgments will be richer. Cowardice is when I do anything other than this.

We could try to use our best judgment about whether others are courageous or cowardly, but it's probably better to focus on being courageous ourselves.

[daybrown]

Thucydides said that revolutions change the meaning of words. Especially those like 'courage'. Whereas it formerly meant to stand toe to toe to cut an enemy down and look him in the eye while doing it, now it almost always means to go against the group think of the power structure.

You no longer risk getting killed, just ruined. Of course, after you've been ruined, you kill yourself for them, and they dont have to look you in the eye while you die. So then it takes another kind of courage to go on despite what they do to you.

Cowardice too is changing. There no longer is a battle line to run from. The soldiers dying now do it while driving with no clue as to when the next IED or shoulder fired missile will kill them, or back in camp, perhaps asleep, when the next incoming mortar round takes them out. In either case, whatever courage or cowardice a soldier has does not matter.

No, again, cowardice comes of fear of the power structure, that can slander your reputation, plant child porn in your computer, which is actually no more than digital images of naked video game avatars. You dont need a child any more to make child porn. Now, its just a thot crime. And from this, cowardice dont matter, you cant run; you cant hide.