. . . may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party and of course in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society. Of course there are many courageous individuals but they have no determining influence on public life. Political and intellectual bureaucrats show depression, passivity and perplexity in their actions and in their statements and even more so in theoretical reflections to explain how realistic, reasonable as well as intellectually and even morally warranted it is to base state policies on weakness and cowardice. And decline in courage is ironically emphasized by occasional explosions of anger and inflexibility on the part of the same bureaucrats when dealing with weak governments and weak countries, not supported by anyone, or with currents which cannot offer any resistance. But they get tongue-tied and paralyzed when they deal with powerful governments and threatening forces, with aggressors and international terrorists.
Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?
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KMB's comments:
In the words of Sen. Phil Gramm (the words that got him dismissed from the McCain campaign), "We're sort of a nation of whiners."
An Experiment in Fantasy Fiction
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Years ago I played through a Warhammer Fantasy RPG campaign with some
friends. My character was a Dwarf Troll-Slayer by the name of Godric
Grefyfriar. This...
11 years ago
Thanks for the post. And thanks for linking to Bull Street (that takes courage, my friend).
ReplyDeleteSolzhenitsyn was one of those rare intellectuals who had the courage to say what he saw out loud, the elephant in the room, regardless of his own perception or "legacy".
Where are those guys today? Its almost as if any kind of prior commitment in terms of character, virtue, and faith is considered a disqualification. One must be purely "pragmatic" and simply want to help people with so-called ideological intrusions. Although the system begins to show signs of cracking up because no one ever defines how the "pragmatic" decisions are actually made. What is the criterion? Is it moral or amoral? Is it scientific? If so, how can science be used to make humane decisions? Pragmatism sounds so attractive until we examine it and realize that it simply means courage-less political expedience.