What can be the punishment for cowardice. The problem of cowardice: a brief history of the issue
I once heard from a prince and a very important commander that one cannot condemn a soldier to death for cowardice; this opinion was expressed by him at the table, after he was told about the trial of Monsieur de Vervain, who was sentenced to death for the surrender of Boulogne.
Indeed, I find it quite right to draw a clear distinction between actions that spring from our weakness and those that are born of malice. By doing the latter, we consciously rebel against the dictates of our mind, imprinted in us by nature itself, while, by doing the former, we would have reason, I think, to refer to the same nature that created us so weak and imperfect; that is why so many people think that we can only be held responsible for what we have done against our conscience. On this, to a certain extent, both the opinion of those who condemn the death penalty for heretics and unbelievers, and the rule according to which a lawyer and a judge cannot be held accountable for blunders made through ignorance in the exercise of their office, are based.
As for cowardice, as you know, the most common way to punish it is general contempt and reproach. It is believed that such a punishment was first introduced by the legislator Charonds and that before him anyone who fled from the battlefield was punished by Greek laws by death; he ordered instead that such fugitives be put up for three days in a woman's dress in the city square, hoping that this could serve them in favor and that dishonor will restore their courage. Suffundere malis hominis sanguinem quameffundere. Roman laws, at least in ancient times, also punished those who fled the battlefield with the death penalty. So, Ammian Marcellinus tells that ten soldiers who turned their backs on the enemy during the attack of the Romans on the Parthian army were deprived of their military rank by the emperor Julian and then put to death in accordance with the ancient law. However, another time for the same offense he punished the guilty only by those that he placed them among the prisoners in the wagon train. Although the Roman people severely punished the soldiers who fled after the battle of Cannae, as well as those who during the same war were with Gnaeus Fulvius at his defeat, nevertheless, in this case, the matter did not reach the punishment of death.
There is, however, reason to fear that disgrace not only throws the despair of those who are punished in this way, and not only brings them to the utmost indifference, but sometimes turns them into enemies.
In the time of our fathers, Monsieur de Franges, once deputy commander-in-chief of the troops of Marshal Châtillon, appointed by Marshal de Chabannes to the post of governor of Fuentarabia in place of Monsieur du Lude and surrendering this city to a Spaniard, was sentenced to deprivation of the title of nobility, and both they and his offspring were declared commoners, classified as a taxable estate and deprived of the right to bear arms. This severe sentence was carried out on them at Lyons. Subsequently, all the nobles who were in the city of Giza when the Count of Nassau entered there were subjected to the same punishment; Since then, some others have also suffered the same.
Cowardice is a human weakness that arises at a crucial moment. A coward is afraid of difficulties, independent decision-making, sometimes even hopes for help from a brave person. Cowardice betrays a person: his eyes are rounded with fear, from the responsibility that falls on his shoulders, the mind turns off. Such behavior is formed on the subconscious and it is very difficult to control it, especially if the coward has already shown himself.
There are many examples in the literature about courage, but also a lot about cowardice. By endowing the characters with such a quality, the author wanted to show how ugly and shameful it is to be a coward, and, most importantly, useless for society.
The protagonist of the poem "Eugene Onegin" possesses cowardice of character. He agreed to a duel, although he could have refused, but then society ceased to respect him, and their opinion was important to him, as a secular person. Only an opinion, not the position of everyone. Onegin's cowardice lies in the fact that he did not want to admit his weakness, he wanted to be ideal for everyone, which ended sadly for him.
Cowardice is also reflected in the novel of centuries and generations "War and Peace". A striking example is the behavior of Zherkov, who was ordered to inform his colleagues about the retreat from the left front. He was afraid to cross the combat territory, he was afraid that he might die. He was sent there twice, and both times he did not fulfill the order of the general. The consequences of his cowardice were terrible: many companies did not know what to do and rushed into the loose, thereby being overtaken by the enemy. Because of the cowardice of one person, hundreds, and even thousands, suffered. In this example, cowardice played an important role, it took the lives of innocent soldiers.
Thus, cowardice in any of its manifestations does not bring good, and sometimes is fatal. A cowardly person is insecure, selfish, unable to overcome his fear, even if the price of his act is another human life. There is not a single case when cowardice helped a person in life. Maybe the instinct of self-preservation works, but you should never forget about the consequences.
Letting on self-confidence, courage, can only be a shell, and inside a little coward, afraid of his own shadow, not to mention vital deeds. It is better not to have a relationship with such people, because a coward will give himself away and abandon you at the most inopportune moment when help is really needed.
About punishment for cowardice
I once heard from a prince and a very important commander that one should not condemn a soldier to death for cowardice; this opinion was expressed by him at the table, after he was told about the trial of Monsieur de Vervain, who was sentenced to death for the surrender of Boulogne.
Indeed, I find it quite right to draw a clear distinction between actions that spring from our weakness and those that are born of malice. By doing the latter, we consciously rebel against the dictates of our reason, imprinted in us by nature itself, while, by doing the former, we would have reason, I think, to refer to the same nature that created us so weak and imperfect; that is why so many people believe that we can only be held responsible for what we have done against our conscience. On this, to a certain extent, is based both the opinion of those who condemn the death penalty for heretics and unbelievers, and the rule according to which a lawyer and a judge cannot be held accountable for blunders committed through ignorance in the exercise of their office.
As for cowardice, as is known, the most common way to punish it is universal contempt and reproach. It is believed that such a punishment was first introduced by the legislator Charonds and that before him everyone who fled from the battlefield was punished by Greek laws with death; he instead ordered such fugitives to be displayed for three days in a woman's dress in the city square, hoping that this could serve them well and that dishonor would restore their courage. Suffundere malis hominis sanguinem quam effundere. Roman laws, at least in ancient times, also punished those who fled the battlefield with the death penalty. Thus, Ammianus Marcellinus tells that ten soldiers who turned their backs on the enemy during the attack of the Romans on the Parthian army were deprived of their military rank by the emperor Julian and then put to death in accordance with the ancient law. However, on another occasion, for the same offense, he punished the perpetrators only by placing them among the prisoners in the wagon train. Although the Roman people severely punished the soldiers who fled after the battle of Cannae, as well as those who during the same war were with Gnaeus Fulvius at his defeat, nevertheless, in this case it did not come to the punishment of death.
There is, however, reason to fear that shame not only plunges into despair those who are punished in this way, and not only brings them to complete indifference, but sometimes turns them into enemies.
In the time of our fathers, Monsieur de Franges, once deputy commander-in-chief in the troops of Marshal Châtillon, appointed by Marshal de Chabannes to the post of governor of Fuentarabia instead of Monsieur du Lude and surrendering this city to a Spaniard, was sentenced to deprivation of the title of nobility, and both he himself and his posterity were declared commoners, ranked as a taxable estate and deprived of the right to bear arms. This severe sentence was carried out on them at Lyons. Subsequently, all the nobles who were in the city of Giza when the Count of Nassau entered there were subjected to the same punishment; Since then, some others have also suffered the same.
Be that as it may, whenever we observe such gross and obvious ignorance or cowardice that exceeds any measure, we are entitled to conclude that there is enough evidence of criminal intent and ill will, and punish them as such.
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Final essay on literature 2018. Theme of the final essay on literature. "Courage and cowardice".
FIPI comment: This direction is based on a comparison of opposite manifestations of the human "I": readiness for decisive actions and the desire to hide from danger, to evade the resolution of complex, sometimes extreme life situations. On the pages of many literary works both heroes capable of bold actions and characters demonstrating weakness of spirit and lack of will are presented.
1. Courage and cowardice as abstract concepts and properties of a person (in a broad sense). Within the framework of this section, you can reflect on the following topics: Courage and cowardice as personality traits, like two sides of the same coin. Courage/cowardice as personality traits conditioned by reflexes. True and false courage/cowardice. Courage as a manifestation of excessive self-confidence. Courage and risk taking. Courage/cowardice and self-confidence. Relationship between cowardice and selfishness. The difference between rational fear and cowardice. The connection between courage and philanthropy, philanthropy, etc.
2. Courage/cowardice in minds, souls, characters. Within this section, you can reflect on the concepts: willpower, fortitude, the ability to say no, the courage to stand up for your ideals, the courage necessary to defend what you believe in. And you can also talk about cowardice, as the inability to defend one's ideals and principles. Courage or cowardice in making decisions. Courage and cowardice when accepting something new. Courage and cowardice when trying to get out of the comfort zone. Courage to admit the truth or admit your mistakes. The influence of courage and cowardice on the formation of personality. Contrasting two types of people.
3. Courage/cowardice in life. Pettiness, inability to show courage in a particular life situation.
4. Courage / cowardice in war and in extreme conditions. War exposes the most basic human fears. In war, a person is able to show previously unknown traits of character. Sometimes a person surprises himself by showing heroism and hitherto unseen fortitude. And sometimes even good people, contrary to his expectations, shows cowardice. Within the framework of this section, the concept of heroism, heroism, as well as desertion, betrayal, etc. are associated with courage / cowardice.
5. Courage and cowardice in love.
COURAGE- a positive moral and volitional personality trait, manifested as determination, fearlessness, courage when performing actions associated with risk and danger. Courage allows a person to overcome the fear of something unknown, complex, new by willpower and achieve success in achieving the goal. It is not for nothing that this quality is highly revered among the people: “God owns the brave”, “The courage of the city takes”. It is also honored as the ability to tell the truth (“Dare to have your own judgment”). Courage allows you to face the truth and objectively evaluate your capabilities, not be afraid of the dark, loneliness, water, heights and other difficulties and obstacles. Courage provides a person with a sense of dignity, a sense of responsibility, security, and reliability of life.
Synonyms: courage, determination, courage, heroism, enterprise, arrogance, self-confidence, energy; presence, uplifting of spirit; spirit, courage, desire (to tell the truth), audacity, boldness; fearlessness, fearlessness, fearlessness, fearlessness; fearlessness, decisiveness, daring, heroism, courage, riskiness, desperation, audacity, innovation, daring, audacity, audacity, daring, trouble, valor, novelty, courage, masculinity.
cowardice - one of the expressions of cowardice; a negative, moral quality that characterizes the behavior of a person who is unable to perform actions that meet moral requirements (or, conversely, refrain from immoral actions), due to the inability to overcome fear of natural or social forces. T. can be a manifestation of prudent self-love, when it is based on fears of incurring adverse consequences, someone's anger, fear of losing existing benefits or social position. It can also be subconscious, a manifestation of spontaneous fear of unknown phenomena, unknown and uncontrolled social and natural laws. In both cases, T. is not just an individual property of the psyche of this or that person, but a social phenomenon. It is associated either with egoism, which has taken root in the psychology of people over the centuries-old history of private property, or with the impotence and depressed position of a person, generated by a state of alienation (even fear of natural phenomena develops into T. only under certain conditions of social life and the corresponding upbringing of a person). Communist morality condemns T., because it leads to immoral acts: to dishonesty, opportunism, unscrupulousness, deprives a person of the ability to be a fighter for a just cause, entails connivance with evil and injustice. Communist education of the individual and the masses, enlisting people to take an active part in the construction of the society of the future, man’s awareness of his place in the world, his purpose and possibilities, and the subordination of natural and social laws to him contribute to the gradual eradication of tyranny from the life of individuals and society as a whole.
Synonyms: timidity, timidity, cowardice, suspiciousness, indecision, hesitation, fear; fearfulness, fear, shyness, cowardice, timidity, fearfulness, capitulation, cowardice, cowardice.
Quotes for the final essay 2018 in the direction "Courage and cowardice".
Be brave for the truth
Who dared, he ate (and sat on a horse)
Courage is the beginning of victory. (Plutarch)
Courage, bordering on recklessness, contains more madness than resilience. (M. Cervantes)
When you are afraid - act boldly, and you will avoid the worst troubles. (G. Sachs)
To be utterly devoid of courage, one must be utterly devoid of desire. (Helvetius K.)
It is easier to find such people who voluntarily go to death than those who patiently endure pain. (J. Caesar)
Who is courageous, he is brave. (Cicero)
Courage should not be confused with arrogance and rudeness: there is nothing more dissimilar both in its source and in its result. (J.J. Rousseau)
Excessive courage is the same vice as excessive timidity. (B. Johnson)
Courage based on prudence is not called recklessness, and the exploits of the reckless should rather be attributed to mere luck than to his courage. (M. Cervantes)
In battle, those are most exposed to danger who are most obsessed with fear; courage is like a wall. (Sallust)
Courage replaces the fortress walls. (Sallust)
To be courageous means to consider everything terrible to be far away and everything that inspires courage to be near. (Aristotle)
Heroism is an artificial concept, because courage is relative. (F. Bacon)
Some show courage without having it, but there is no person who would demonstrate wit if he were not witty by nature. (J. Halifax)
True courage rarely comes without stupidity. (F. Bacon)
Ignorance makes people bold, and reflection makes them indecisive. (Thucydides)
Knowing in advance what you want to do gives you courage and ease. (D. Diderot)
Courage is not in vain considered the highest virtue - after all, courage is the key to other positive qualities. (W. Churchill)
Courage is resistance to fear, not its absence. (M. Twain)
Happy is he who boldly takes under his protection what he loves. (Ovid)
Creativity takes courage. (A. Matisse)
It takes a lot of courage to bring bad news to people. (R. Branson)
The success of science is a matter of time and courage of the mind. (Voltaire)
It takes a lot of courage to use your own mind. (E. Burke)
Fear can make a daredevil timid, but it gives courage to an indecisive one. (O. Balzac)
Man fears only that which he does not know; knowledge conquers all fear. (V. G. Belinsky)
A coward is more dangerous than any other person, he should be feared more than anything. (L. Berne)
There is nothing worse than fear itself. (F. Bacon)
Cowardice can never be moral. (M. Gandhi)
A coward sends threats only when he is sure of safety. (I. Goethe)
You can never live happily when you are trembling with fear all the time. (P. Holbach)
Cowardice is very harmful because it keeps the will from useful actions. (R. Descartes)
We consider a coward who allows his friend to be insulted in his presence. (D. Diderot)
Cowardice in its prime turns into cruelty. (G. Ibsen)
Who fearfully cares about how not to lose life will never rejoice in it. (I. Kant)
The difference between the brave and the coward is that the former, conscious of the danger, does not feel fear, while the latter feels fear, unaware of the danger. (V. O. Klyuchevsky)
Cowardice is knowing what to do and not doing it. (Confucius)
Fear makes the smart stupid and the strong weak. (F. Cooper)
A fearful dog barks more than bites. (Curtius)
When fleeing, more soldiers always die than in battle. (S. Lagerlöf)
Fear is a bad teacher. (Pliny the Younger)
Fear arises as a result of impotence of the spirit. (B. Spinoza)
Frightened - half defeated. (A.V. Suvorov)
Cowards speak most of all about courage, and scoundrels speak about nobility. (A.N. Tolstoy)
Cowardice is inertia that prevents us from asserting our freedom and independence in relations with others. (I. Fichte)
Cowards die many times before death, the brave die only once. (W. Shakespeare)
To be afraid of love is to be afraid of life, and to be afraid of life is to be two-thirds dead. (Bertrand Russell)
Love doesn't mix well with fear. (N. Machiavelli)
You can't love someone you're afraid of, or someone who's afraid of you. (Cicero)
Courage is like love: it needs to feed on hope. (N. Bonaparte)
Perfect love casts out fear, because there is torment in fear; He who fears is not perfect in love. (Apostle John)
Despite the fact that the problem of cowardice worried even Socrates, in our culture, where it is customary to put an equal sign between a coward and a traitor, this phenomenon is considered unworthy of attention. However, the American researcher and author of Cowardice: Short story» Chris Walsh is sure that today this concept is more vague than ever, which is why it is so easy to manipulate the actions of people who are not able to distinguish cowardice from a wise decision not to use force. To understand this issue, we have translated Walsh's essay "Don't Be Too Brave," which was published last year in AEON magazine.
The hard fate of cowards
As you know, being a “Sikal” has always been a shame: cowards were either beaten or shot. However, this unattractive human quality has a very important social function.
Because of one coward a battle can be lost, because of one battle a war can be lost, because of one war a country can be lost.
This old, like the war itself, truth was voiced by rear admiral and deputy English party Conservatives Tufton Beamish speaking in the House of Commons in 1930.
Indeed, caring only for his own safety, a coward can be more dangerous to his country than a brave enemy. Even if a coward does nothing, he can sow panic with his appearance alone: the coward is pale and fussy, he cannot sit still, but he has nowhere to run, the coward chatters his teeth in fear - and this is the only thing he can do.
It's no surprise that soldiers on the battlefield are less concerned about being heroes than about being cowardly. But why is cowardice considered one of the most contemptible vices (and not only among soldiers)? While heroes achieve fame, cowards are often doomed to what is worse than dishonor - oblivion. The classic description of underpants can be found in Dante's guide to the underworld. In the very threshold of hell, a bunch of faceless souls crowd, about which Virgil does not even want to talk: cowards are indifferent onlookers at the feast of life, those who did not know "neither the glory nor the shame of earthly affairs", the world does not need to know about such. However, talking about cowardice and cowardice can help us evaluate people's actions and learn how to manage our behavior in those moments when we experience fear. After all, it is this feeling that underlies cowardice. As Beamish said:
Fear is a completely natural feeling. It is common to all people. The person who overcomes fear is a hero, but the person who managed to defeat fear becomes a coward and gets everything he deserves.
However, not everything is as simple as it seems. Some fears are simply impossible to overcome. Aristotle said that only the Celts are not afraid of earthquakes and floods, and you might think they went crazy. A coward, he said, "is a man who has crossed the line in his fear: he is afraid of the wrong things, in the wrong order, and so on, down the list ...".
Indeed, we usually call a coward a man whose fear is out of proportion to the danger he faces; when a person cannot overcome fear and, as a result, becomes unable to do anything, including fulfilling his duty.
In this vein, we are most interested in the attitude of society towards such behavior. If, as Beamish tells us, a coward deserves everything he gets, you still want to know what exactly he gets? At the end of his speech, Rear Admiral proposes the death penalty for cowards and deserters. His logic is, of course, clear: if a coward can cost a country its existence, the country must be prepared to deprive a coward of its existence. In this Beamish was certainly not original. The practice of killing cowards has a long and rich history. The Romans sometimes executed cowards through the Fustuary, a dramatic ritual that began when the tribune touched the condemned man with a rod, after which the legionnaires stoned him to death with sticks and stones. The following generations continued this tradition, modifying it. In the 20th century, execution was the preferred method. The British and French shot hundreds of soldiers for cowardice and desertion during the First World War; Germans and Russians - tens of thousands in World War II.
But the human race was not always limited to physical violence. Humiliation is a much more common punishment for cowardice, as Montaigne noted in his On the Punishment of Cowardice (1580). Quoting Tertullian's remark that it is better to have a person's blood rush to his cheeks than to be shed by him, Montaigne explained these words this way: perhaps dishonor will restore courage to a coward who has been left alive. The methods of humiliation were more sophisticated than the execution options: from dressing a coward as a woman and covering him with shameful tattoos to shaving his head and dragging posters with the inscription "coward".
If we analyze all these options for reprisal, one can find one unifying detail: it does not matter if the coward dies or lives, his punishment should be public if it corresponds to his crime. In an attempt to run and hide, the coward threatens the group, setting the worst example and spreading fear like an infection. As a German proverb says, "One coward makes ten." The spectacle of the coward being caught and convicted serves as a kind of inoculation for those who witness the action, complete with a poignant reminder of the price that anyone who gives in will pay.
There are no panties in nature
Evolutionary psychologists don't talk much about cowardice, perhaps because cowardice seems like an all-too-obvious evolutionary imperative that has survived to this day. However, there is a widespread belief that natural selection may favor selfless cooperation and even altruistic behavior. Many animals are self-sacrificing, risking their own lives and thereby expanding other people's chances of life and reproduction. So, seeing a crouching fox, the rabbit begins to tap its paw, raises its tail and gives a white fluffy signal to its comrades, despite the fact that it attracts attention. Rabbits that tap their paws to rhythm increase their species' chances of survival. Thanks to this, more rabbits are born, capable of selfless deeds.
But the rabbits do not attack those who do not give signals to the tribe. While intraspecific aggression is very common, none of the animal kingdom, except, of course, humans, punish their fellows for lack of self-sacrifice. A recent evolutionary anthropology study by Keith Jensen and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute in Germany (published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in 2012) suggests that even one of our closest relatives, the chimpanzee, does not kind of punishments; therefore, it is an exclusively human practice.
Punishment for cowardice can occur even without the use of an organized military or centralized political system, according to a 2001 study published by Sarah Matthew and Robert Boyd in PNAS. These anthropologists, like their predecessors at UCLA, studied Turkana - people from an East African tribe with a primitive political system, egalitarian pastoralists who sometimes attack other groups to steal cattle. If a Turkana person refuses to go on a raid without good reason, or flees when danger strikes, they can be subjected to punishment that ranges from "unofficial verbal sanctions" to severe corporal punishment. The fact is that the participation in the process of punishment of third parties (and not just relatives, neighbors or people who are threatened with extinction as a result of the actions of a coward) allows members of the tribe to practice mass cooperation, and when it comes to war, all other things being equal, early punishment of cowardice prevents such relapses and increases the chances of the side to win. So the Turkana avoid the fate of the losers, described by the same Beamish: "if a coward can destroy the country, and the country does not want to condemn the coward, then the country itself can be condemned."
Source: bigpicture.
A century of unbearable military tension
Curious, however, is the fact that we have become less willing to condemn or punish cowardice over the years. In modern times, Beamish's arguments have been defeated. The English Parliament abolished the death penalty for cowardice and desertion in April 1930. Other countries have done the same. Under US military regulations, desertion in wartime should be punishable by death, but since 1865 only one soldier, Eddie Slovik, was executed for such an offense in 1945. Field courts trying cases of cowardly defection are becoming increasingly rare, and many of the European soldiers executed for cowardice and desertion in the World Wars have been pardoned posthumously.
According to Chris Walsh, there are many reasons for this shift in attitudes towards cowardice. First of all, what Labor MP Ernest Turtle, who has long championed the abolition of the death penalty for war crimes, called "the almost indescribable strain of modern warfare." Of course, any war - it is always a tension, and military historian Martin van Creveld, for example, doubts that the situation has become particularly worse in modern times, or that the horror of an artillery barrage can be more traumatic than receiving the scalp of one's relative. However, there is reason to believe that the scale of modern wars, in which the parties have the ability to inflict significant damage on each other at a distance, has created more tension than it was before. If the Celts were not afraid of earthquakes, the bombings of Tokyo, Dresden or London might have scared them off.
When shellshock was first diagnosed in 1915, the condition was thought to be the result of powerful explosives never before seen by the world. The logic was simple: new weapons should lead to new diseases. And new terms were needed to explain the strange symptoms - tremor, dizziness, disorientation, paralysis, which were once considered signs of female hysteria. As Elaine Showalter noted in her book, Women's diseases(1985), the word "shell shock" sounded much more masculine.
Source: flickr.com
Even when doctors came to the conclusion that the so-called projectile shock had a purely mental basis, the term settled down and became the first in a series of similar ones (“military neurosis”, “military fatigue”, “combat exhaustion”, “post-traumatic stress disorder”, “combat mental trauma”). These definitions gave a new official name to a type of people who were previously, in Turtle's words, "unworthy of sympathy and understanding." It's not that soldiers with this diagnosis were actually cowards, but that misbehavior that would previously have been perceived as a negative character trait or damaged gender identity has now come to be seen as a sign of illness. Monolithic ideas of masculinity were thus challenged. Moral condemnation has given way to medical consideration.
The progress of medicine in this matter depends on the development of medicine itself. With new neurological tests able to detect evidence of brain damage that may have gone unnoticed for decades and certainly centuries, researchers have revived the original projectile shock hypothesis. - that it had a physiological cause. Today we know that some physiological factors, such as the functioning of the amygdala and the formation of cortisol, can determine the predisposition of people to a certain reaction to fear (the ability or inability to cope with this feeling). It turned out that "cowardly" behavior (quotes suddenly become necessary) - not always a matter of character or masculinity, often it is a matter of genes, environment, injury. Given this shift, it is not surprising that, according to the Google Ngram information system, the corpus of texts using the words “coward” and “cowardice” has decreased by half compared to the rest. English words published during the 20th century.
Blurred concept - the dream of manipulators of all stripes
However, even now, when cowardice has become less common in the language, contempt for it has not disappeared. The age of therapeutic interpretation has not been able to undo the millennial condemnation. The shadow of this condemnation even falls on conditions that give us an alternative way of understanding trauma-related refusals from soldier's duties; soldiers are ashamed to ask for psychological help, because it can be perceived as cowardice. In addition, we constantly hear the word "coward" being used as a derogatory label for terrorists, pedophiles, and other violent criminals. This non-reflective, crude and incorrect use of the term shows that such insults still have power over people and that this concept is becoming more and more vague and vague.
Pedophiles can be considered cowardly for failing to resist their addictions and their dire consequences, while terrorists can be accused of being cowardly and cowardly in their beliefs. ( in their world, excessive fear is seen as cowardly in the eyes of their god, or in the light of their cause). But when we throw the word "coward" in the direction of such villains - it is a common way for us to express contempt for those who take advantage of the vulnerable and helpless. On the one hand, such judgment can help us feel good, on the other hand, it can distract us from our own cowardice and deprive us of an ethical tool that can be useful. - and not only for soldiers or people.
We are all visited by fear, - Beamish said as he stood before the House of Commons. - He tortures me this moment but I'll be a coward if I sit down and don't say how I feel.
It is difficult to say whether Beamish was right when he said these words. One thing is clear: the impossibility of ignoring fear in certain situations is what we have learned, among other things, about man in the face of the horrors of modern warfare.
However, I respect Beamish for not sitting down, and I appreciate how he used the shame of cowardice to use it in his difficult political struggle. Although he considered a hero to be a hero, I respect Beamish also for not congratulating himself for his heroism. He sets an example to follow the next time you yourself dare to say the things you believe in, even if it scares you. Convincing yourself to be a hero may not be as much of a help to you as it is to a soldier. The concept itself - too broad, and the word has become too empty and meaningless (the same can be said about "courage"). But telling ourselves that it would be cowardly not to stand up and speak our mind can actually move us.
The label associated with cowardice hurt those who were labeled the most to make them pay for alleged crimes. Less obvious, but more common, is the damage done to people who, fearing the shame of cowardice, committed reckless and often violent acts. Thinking about this should temper our zeal in the indiscriminate use of the label "coward", especially when someone refuses to use violence.
