I think it is an emergent property of groups to act in ways that cause individual detriment. Sure we can say persons are "brave" or "cowardly", but I find its a "walk a mile in their shoes" issue. As we've said in conversations outside SI, we freely accept that someone who faces cancer can be "brave", but if they react differently, would we say they were "cowardly"? I certainly wouldn't say so.
"Brave" is almost always an external label, rarely self-applied. We just don't see people saying "look how brave I am". They are much more likely to call their own behavior "cowardly" in reflective self-criticism, even when circumstances would lead most people to act in the same way as the supposed self-labeled coward acted.
Since this is a political thread, and politics is a group behavior, I feel emergent properties dominate and individual dedication or conviction may be merely a by-product of group identification. Much better and useful to understand the bulk properties of humanity, root causes and processes by which such group behavior occurs than to find labels for individual people participating. I guess when someone on the thread gets up and says, "Hey, I was going to be a suicide bomber and here's why I didn't do it" we should listen. But until then, I doubt anyone has any personal understanding of the systems of belief or principles that allowed the to individual to commit the act. I can say for a fact that if we wanted to trigger nationalistic opposition in the Mid East, we couldn't have chosen a better set of group actions on our behalf to set up situations where groups of people would hate us and could fall under the influence of group-based hatred.
Regarding kamikazes - I can't imagine a more fearful situation that being bolted into a flying bomb for an uncomfortable multi-hour one-way flight, knowing that to back out or not volunteer when your peers did would shame your family honor and that of your ancestors. Is it brave to go ahead or one's only choice? Well - I'm not going to sit and label it - some people were no doubt under a damned if I do / damned if I don't set of pressures - which I consider duress. That hardly "excuses" it because I think that such behaviors are bulk properties of people. Guys tending their fields don't just wake up one day, go down to airport and strap into a bomb in a vacuum.
Was the 19 year Patty Hearst acting bravely, cowardly or was she under duress. I know a lot of people judged her harshly, but none of those people walked an inch in her shoes. I don't think the label "coward" or "brave" applies ... nor does it provide any insight into the situation she found herself in. |
