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Introduction: The Problem of Courage
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Chapter
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the return of courage Courage is an essential political virtue and should be of serious interest to anyone interested in politics. Indeed, if only because the courage of its citizenry is crucial to the survival of any nation, courage is arguably the virtue that nations celebrate more than any other, including justice. Consider the lyrics of the national anthems even of liberal democracies, whose peaceable inclinations, from a historical perspective, are remarkable.1 Bravery is the one virtue extolled by the American anthem; the Stars and Stripes wave over the home of “the brave” rather than of the just. Similarly, citizens singing the Canadian anthem repeatedly profess that they “stand on guard” for their country. Courage may thus reasonably claim a certain primacy over justice because, however important the latter is to citizenship, citizenship depends upon a nation’s existence, which in turn depends upon the willingness of citizens to risk their lives for it. The reason, however, that courage is so highly ranked among civic virtues is not merely that it is useful. For nations do not conceive of their soldiers as mere tools of war, as materiel to be expended when national emergencies arise, just like bombs and bullets. Rather, nations are keenly aware that the courageous individual often pays a high price for his courage. They treat courage less as useful than as laudable—indeed, as worthy of the highest civic honors. The highest honor bestowed by the American government is the Congressional Medal of Honor, which is awarded to someone “who distinguishes himself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of The Problem of Courage introduction duty.”2 Perhaps courage is more celebrated than justice because it signifies even greater devotion to one’s fellow citizens: whereas justice means respecting and contributing to the common good—that is, a good in which the just individual also shares—courage often means the willingness to endanger one’s own good and even one’s own life for the sake of others. To honor courage, moreover, is not merely to go through the motion of an old practice that has no place in our modern world. Examples of outstanding courage still stir modern hearts and souls. We are naturally moved upon learning such stories as that of First Lieutenant John Robert Fox, a posthumous recipient of the Medal of Honor who during World War II ordered artillery strikes on his own position as it was being overrun by the German army.3 The popular imagination seems no less moved today than it was in the past by depictions of noble deeds in battle. Films that memorialize soldiers’ heroic actions, such as Saving Private Ryan, continue to hold us powerfully in their grip. And these sentiments are not confined to the darkness of the theater; they have powerful public manifestations . Consider, for example, the advantage that war heroes have in politics. Voters view their heroism in war as evidence of their good character; having risked their lives for their country, they seem to have demonstrated that they are more concerned with the nation’s good than with their own personal advancement and enrichment. Such evidence indicates that, notwithstanding liberalism’s inculcation of the peaceable virtues, the admiration for courage persists in the liberal era. But until recently this may not have been so apparent, if only because peaceful liberal democracies rarely call for wide-scale displays of heroic courage and therefore rarely witness its full power. This all changed on September 11, 2001. Little could remind us more vividly of the uniquely important place of courage in the panoply of virtues than the events that occurred during and in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on America on that day. In the wake of the bravery demonstrated by firefighters, police officers, emergency workers, and others, admiration for courage reemerged with full force. Americans felt in their bones the awe-inspiring character of courage—of the willingness to put oneself in harm’s way, to risk one’s life for the sake of others. Although we have always known that such risk is intrinsic to the tasks of soldiers, firefighters, and police officers, the scale and proximity of the day’s disasters made us exquisitely aware of the full implications of the risks they face, and we reacted by openly and fervently honoring the courage we witnessed. If Americans showed that admiration for courage still runs...