What Do We Tell Children About Courage?
Of all the ways my education (public schooling + too much TV) fell short, perhaps the most suggestive was that nobody had anything remotely helpful to tell me about courage. Or even just anything to say at all. What exactly is courage? What is it good for? How does one develop it? The implied response was, “Who cares?”
To be fair, these questions are not so easily answered. Courage can be conceptually elusive. In Plato’s Laches, two generals debate the subject, only to be shown by Socrates that neither of them really knows what it is, and their conversation ends inconclusively. So if my educators merely failed to understand and teach what is difficult, I could grant them some grace. The difference is that the ancient Athenians were at least interested in it, and my educators were not—at all.
Likely they were uninterested because, on some level, centuries of Progress had rendered courage mostly unnecessary. Far more important was teaching the young ones to spell, punctuate, crunch numbers; we were to memorize factoids, know our rights, be nice to others, obey traffic laws, vote in elections, and practice safe sex while searching for our soulmate; the guiding principle was to do whatever would help us get and keep good jobs, so that we could live comfortably and die fat after watching many decades of Must See TV.
The further implication was that there was nothing to be courageous for—no worthy causes needing our help, no real purpose in life beyond self-actualization through consumption. We were living at The End of History, as one author called it.
To the extent that courage was presented, the heroic exemplars were mostly activists and reformers of recent centuries: Gandhi, Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King, etc. Similarly, those who were bold in defiance of their parents and of traditional morality were to be admired.
Little was mentioned of soldiery, other than the metaphorical soldiery of the reformers and rebels. A literal soldier didn’t much count; he was part of a giant historical and inevitable machine that would do just as well without him. Those who fought in WWII were like extras in a movie who showed up when the director required and discharged their scripted duties, not actual people with agency and fear and something at stake. Besides, we were assured that violence never solves anything, so men of arms weren’t worth studying.
Far outranking the demands of courage were the demands of safety, which we heard much about, and which is directly violated by courageous deeds. A consumer society needs men who comply with the dictates of safety officers more than it needs men who perform brave deeds. After all, brave deeds could get you hurt. What good was your courage then, huh?!
Better Late Than Never
As for those questions left ignored by my educators—What exactly is courage? What is it good for? How does one develop it?—now is as good a time as ever to address them, especially as trouble gathers all around and promises to come looking for us. Courage might not be so irrelevant as my educators assumed. It is late—but not too late to learn what they should have imparted to us long ago.
First things first, we need something like a definition. Aristotle says courage is the ability to take noble action in the face of danger, even death, and do so for good reason. The courageous man “will face [dangers] as he ought and as reason directs, for the sake of the noble.” Virtues, according to Aristotle, are found in the golden mean between an excess and deficiency; in the case of courage, the virtue is a golden mean between rashness and cowardice.
That point is worth emphasizing: courage is not the same as fearlessness. He is not courageous who runs into a burning house for the sake of daredevilry; instead, he’s courageous if he runs into that burning house in order to save a child. Fire is frightening, and our hero is no madman to think otherwise, but the good to be achieved in saving the child demands that overcome his fear and act. This is perhaps the most important part of courage for Aristotle—that it has its reasons.
G.K. Chesterton wrote a memorable passage reflecting on the mystery this interplay of fear, action, and reason at the heart of courage. He calls courage a paradox, “almost a contradiction in terms”:
It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. ‘He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,’ is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers … He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it…
So, yes, courage defies the cult of safetyism—because the point of life is not, and never has been, safety.
And this brings us to the second question: What is courage good for? A ship is safe in harbor, as the maxim goes, but that’s not what ships are for. Neither are we made for staying in harbor. CS Lewis takes this point further: “Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.” That is what makes an education that downplays courage all the more unforgivable: because without it you cannot actually experience reality. You cannot live a real life, but only the semblance of a life that the safety officers and corporate tycoons have designed for you.
As for the third question, the practical part, wiser societies than ours knew that strategic habits could help. Like:
Pray—
Courage is one of the most regular themes of the Bible. Again and again, we hear calls to it and see instances in which men and women of faith proceed boldly.
Deuteronomy 31:6—“Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”
Proverbs 28:1—“The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion.”
Acts 4:31—“And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.”
Because every good thing comes from the Creator, it follows that we should pray to Him for courage and be assured that He will deliver. He wants us to be brave!
Moreover, there is courage to be derived simply by putting things in proper perspective. If you love the Lord and understand your ultimate and eternal destiny, the villains and petty tyrants of this world become less impressive and imposing. They may do their worst, but their worst just isn’t so bad.
Study heroic examples—
We atomized moderns often think of courage as a purely individual phenomenon. But courage is a deeply social virtue. The courageous man usually has loved ones who depend on him, friends who have his back, and a tradition that cultivates and honors courage.
Being so social, courage has a contagious quality. When people see it in action, they are often better able to find it in themselves. Risking one’s life for a cause, facing peril, speaking truth to power, slaying dragons (literal or metaphoric)—these become more feasible and more attractive once we’ve seen others show the way.
This means that we can be that example for others. But where do we find examples?
History is a great place, and literature too, of the ancient and medieval and neo-heroic sort. There we’ll find examples in abundance—and more compelling ones than political activists, with all due respect to Gandhi and Co. We should learn to admire Roland, Leonidas, Hector, Richard Coeur de Lion, Aragorn, El Cid, and others, and love them for their greatness. If we internalize those stories of people who loved courage and heroism more than they loved safety and non-judgmentalism, their values might just become ours.
The key is to remove any sense of inevitability that a backwards glance can impose on the story. Just because things did turn out that way doesn’t mean they had to turn out that way. Determinism needs to be dispelled. We need to be there with the hero at the moment of crisis, to understand what was at stake, to consider the choices before him.
Listen to the heroic stories on audiobook—
When possible we should get to know our heroes the right way: through something like the oral tradition. Heroic peoples were always telling stories, songs of great adventures, which glorified great virtues and fired the heart. To our detriment, we have outsourced this moral instruction and entertainment to the screen, and the screen has inherently cynical features, not suitable for conveying virtues like heroism, especially not now. Though occasional movies and series will glorify heroism, the larger spirit of the televisual medium will not conduce to courage. (I aim to write more about this later, but for now just consider The Green Knight, a perfect example of what the medium does.)
The epic oral tradition must be revived. Obviously we don’t have many old school bards anymore. In their absence, the best place to find the effect might be high-quality audiobooks. Surely this is not a perfect medium, but it allows the great stories to be experienced more beautifully. And hopefully this will lead more people to want to develop bardic skills themselves.
Develop the right fears—
Aristotle, as we know, teaches that courage is not the same as fearlessness. He adds that it is good and right to fear disgrace, for example, that it does not make a man cowardly to do so, and that the man who does not fear disgrace is not brave but shameless.
Going further, a man’s fear of disgrace can be a powerful spur to great deeds. This isn’t exactly the same as courage, but it can be a helpful component. However afraid we might be to take action, our fear of disgrace tells us that there are also consequences to inaction. To falter in that moment because we were afraid means that others, whose good opinions we care for, will know that were faltered in the face of fear. Worse still, we ourselves will know.
What I’m suggesting is that we spend quality time cultivating the right fears. We should remind ourselves that there worse things than danger, worse things than death even. Something terrible happening to us (death) is not as awful as bringing something terrible upon ourselves (disgrace). Those who meditate on this regularly will be better prepared for the moment of decision.
Other fears can be similarly fruitful: fear of harm being done to our loved ones, fear of disappointing the Lord, fear of missing precious opportunities that may never come again. Action can and should follow from good fears.
Make good friends—
In addition to increasing our courage by simply having our back, friends can also provide an invaluable service by making fun of us if we do something cowardly.
We frequently talk of “peer pressure” leading people to do bad things, like when an impressionable middle-schooler tries cigarettes because some of the cool kids encouraged it. Very well, peer pressure can indeed lead to questionable things. But peer pressure can also compel people to do good things. The pursuit of virtue is not a solitary one; the key is in making the right friends, the right people to apply pressure.
Lift weights—
Though we ought not go too far in attributing moral qualities (like courage) to physical explanations (like muscle mass or hormones), nevertheless it is undeniable that prowess gives a man confidence and helps him to take action in the face of danger. This is not to say that every man with a 3-plate squat will be courageous and every scrawny man cowardly. But the same man, having cultivated his prowess, will be more assured of himself and readier. Moreover, lifting heavy weights will help generate testosterone, which might as well be called the boldness hormone.
Expose yourself to danger and discomfort—
We ought not presume we will be able to muster courage in the big moments of life if we don’t also practice mustering courage in the less momentous times. In other words, we must do what we can to make courage a habit. Placing ourselves in regular danger or discomfort will help.
This can mean any number of things—talking to strangers (especially attractive women), fasting, public speaking, etc. The gurus who prescribe cold showers might get a little obnoxious, but cold showers might also help some people toughen up.
My favorite way of exposing myself to danger and discomfort is to put on the boxing gloves and engage in some friendly sparing with a friend. Boxing teaches you how to function while standing in front of someone trying to punch you in the face, and teaches you that you must recover if you are hit, and recover quickly. There is no replacement for these lessons. The boxer’s senses are heightened; he encounters a higher state of reality—which sounds much like Lewis’ point.
Parting Thoughts
At the heart of courage is desire and love. Literally, it’s in the word itself, the root of which comes from the Latin word cor, meaning “heart.” Before anything else, a man has to want to be courageous and have someone or something to be courageous for—God, family, honor, a cause, etc. This desire and love will lead to a sense of urgency and an understanding of what’s at stake in the difference between courage and cowardice. “Life shrinks or expands,” Anais Nin wrote, “in proportion to one’s courage.”
What’s at stake for a man, then, is nothing short of his own life, whether it is to be a real and worthy life or a fake approximation.