Just don't confuse bravery and heroism with aggression.
Both stories are interesting. I'm struck by the dream story because I frequently have situations where in a dream I'm struck by a thought of, "it would be really bad if X happens" followed by X happening followed by my waking up feeling anxious. I have always assumed that the anxiety preceded and shaped the narrative of the dream rather than visa versa. So I'm not sure that I would make too much of your giving in to the narrative of the anxiety.
The second story is charming, but partially because aggressive willfullness in 3 year olds isn't seen as threatening . I have not seen as many Werner Herzog movies as I would like but I have the sense that he tells many stories about the glory and danger of becoming obsessed with one's own goals.
A question about the story of ogged as a three year old. Do you appreciate the fearlessness and independence represented in the story or the defying to authority? Both seem like desirable traits but I'm curious which strikes you more strongly. My first response was to the fearlessness but reading it again I'm struck by the "your dad told you . . ." element of the story.
I didn't think I was defying authority. I like that it didn't seem at all unreasonable to me to get it myself. "Your dad said..." might have been a better rendering.
Once, on the subway, a scary-looking man was walking through the car (I was sitting down, reading). His foot brushed against mine as he was passing, and he looked down at my foot, then at me, and then stomped on my foot as hard as he could. All I did was stare back at him, feeling helpless. He eventually continued on his way, but I felt the eyes of everyone on the subway car on me for the rest of the ride, and as I got off, another passenger who was getting off as well looked at me with contempt and said, "You shoulda whooped his ass." And at the time I couldn't have agreed with him more, but in retrospect, trying to do so could have very easily gotten me killed.
Sometimes backing down from a threat is the wisest thing, though you may feel incredibly humiliated in doing so.
Having left my first comment I now very much want to re-watch Aguirre, Wrath of God.
I have not seen either Fitzcarraldo or Burden of Dreams but I have heard and read about both and would like to watch them as well.
Also, ogged, things like bravery in our society don't require kicking ass. I read a Mamet essay once in which he said the only true courage is the courage of the powerless to resist the powerful. In the manner of a MLK or Ghandi. That may be an overly puritanical definition, but it certainly takes a great deal of courage to refuse to be cowed by people with guns or dogs or billyclubs.
Joe,
That was what I was thinking about in my first line of #1.
I think there's a balance to be found between imposing one's will on the world and accepting the world as it is.
Sometimes humility and acceptence of the world as it is requires great courage.
We do not, however, call that type of courage "virility".
And a courageous act for one person is not necessarily that for another. A man may enlist in the Army because he feels that the country needs soldiers desperately and he says, "If not me, who?" But another man may enlist because he wants to prove to his father that he's not a pussy. The latter doesn't seem particularly courageous to me, though the former does.
Joe D--Absolutely. The bravest US soldiers in Iraq so far have been Joseph Darby, and, um, that Utah guy Gary talked about. And I think it may have been braver for Kerry to protest the Vietnam War than anything he did in it.
The director Peter Berg told a story on some talk show or other about how he was trying to make a film in South America and armed men stopped his car, asking for money, threatening to kidnap him and some of the actors/crew he was with. He said it was very revealing how each man reacted to having a gun pulled on him. Some put their hands up straight away, others tried to be a bit leisurely or defiant about it, one guy refusing to put them up at all until the gunman nearest him came up and pointed straight at his chest, prodding him. All the other guys were very impressed by this, though they also thought he was crazy and might get them all killed.
I often have dreams where I am engaging in fisticuffs, but my fists are very soft and do not do teh damage that fists should do.
I do not engage in fisticuffs in my normal life.
Does this mean I am brave, or not brave?
Thanks, LB--couldn't find it chez Gary. (And didn't want to open the old comment thread where it came up because the Javascript would have eliminated the window this was posted in, for those who are absolutely fascinated by the details of my thought processes. Maybe I should update my own blog.)
Does this mean I am brave, or not brave?
It means your dreamself is made of whatever the opposite of oobleck is.
So, it is made of oobleck, with a mustache.
The moustache principle is kind of limiting, sometimes.
I think it is only your mind that is limiting, SB.
It is as though my dream fists are themselves moustachioed, for my fists, in real time -- they are fists of brick, if brick were to have skin on it.
It is neither the moustache principle, nor SB's mind that is limited, but rather ourselves for thinking so.
Moustaches that are rigid but deliquesce under pressure? I don't know what to say, except that I wouldn't want to kiss someone so moustached.
I daydream about derring-do more than is at all reasonable for anyone who's led an entirely non-violent life and has a desk job. Don't most people? There's always the thought that if you were in a situation where physical bravery were important, you simply don't know how you'd react.
"When you leave Oobleck in the sun, the color evaporates, it turns hard like cement on the top and like jelly on the bottom. When heated this also happens and it is sticky."
I didn't get the link. Nevertheless, this is not the kind of dreaming we were originally talking about.
This is crazy. Hemmingway code heros end up the same way that Papa did: miserable, drunk, and dead. No one sane ever takes a real fight that they know they are going to lose. After that, it's a damage/risk control issue. Physical bravery (or moral bravery) may be a good way to become a martyr, but it's not a particularly good way to live a good life.
ac, I could have sworn I'd told the Berg story here, but I think I've just told it a bunch of times in real life. It's a good one.
But Tim, some people really do take "death before dishonor" seriously.
Physical bravery (or moral bravery) may be a good way to become a martyr, but it's not a particularly good way to live a good life.
Strongly depends on the situation, doesn't it? To pick a couple of non-controversial examples (at least around these parts) already mentioned in this thread, what about Darby and Pratt? I'd say that Darby, whether still in protective custody or not, is closer to leading a good life than someone with who had the same knowledge of abuses and didn't go public.
I think the calculation is pretty simple. If enduring such and such a humiliation (on pain of death) will render you unable to live with yourself, then why not let the other fellow dispatch you and save yourself the trouble?
Well, sure SB, but figuring out, in the moment of facing death, what you'll be able to live with is rather difficult.
(I guess this means he is a philosopher....)
If the aim of philosophy is to turn interesting questions into dull ones by way of missing the point, then I suppose I am.
There are also, of course, situations where physical bravery is simply rationally your safest option. My understanding, for example, is that the current belief about likely outcomes for women when attacked by a rapist is that fighting back physically increases your change of not being raped, but does not increase the chance that you will be injured -- it's unambiguously the best strategy. The fact that it's your best option to minimize the severity of the attack doesn't mean that it still doesn't take some bravery to fight back.
Not to mention, Tim, that you've made the argument here that you have a different willingness to accept the risk of being blown up in exchange for keeping your civil liberties than someone who supports, say, the Patriot Act. That decision also has something to do with bravery (assuming you live in a place that might be attacked).
I must defend our honor--26 sounds like something an economist, not a philosopher, would say. In fact I think it's a direct quote from Landsburg.
Also, how one reacts when a weapon is brandished in one's face is nearly impossible to predict, I think. I don't know if a panicked or petrified reaction indicates cowardice; I think it's partly just a function of our daily lives being so far removed from actual violence, which is a luxury that most of the world does not share.
Re 32: I was thinking of being in a class where we were discussing Rawls's "Law of Peoples" and sketched his basic argument and the professor said something like, "Of course, there will be disagreements about how much freedom is acceptable and equality of the sexes, but those are just details." He did catch himself. "Just like a philosopher," I think he said.
But you're right, Matt, that 26 sounds more like an economist.
In fact I think it's a direct quote from Landsburg.
Can we keep this civil, please? Let's dismiss 26 as too much typing, too little thinking.
Which is typical of which easily stereotyped group, exactly?
To return to the original post.
I believe that what ogged is talking about in the original post is not bravery per se, but rather images of masculinity.
I tried to make that clear in my responses without trying to completely shift the conversation. But I'm amused by the ways in which the images of masculine strength (soldiers, hemmingway) are used without being explicitly named as such.
Is there a mythology of a gender neutral heroism that is as readily availible as the mythology of masculine strength?
Which is typical of which easily stereotyped group, exactly?
Cats.
Damn cats. Send 'em back to Mongolia, I always say!
NickS, true, and the question of what it means to be a man in our culture is a deep and burning one, responsible for a great many of our society's ills, in my opinion. Susan Faludi's book Stiffed is an excellent, excellent book on the subject.
Another thought:
I strongly believe that bravery, independence, strength of will, and strength of character (and arrogance, hubris, and the will to power) are just as much traits of women as men.
I believe that it is part of a tradition of masculinity to see those traits exemplified and embodied in physical violence and physical struggle.
In succession:
By a fight you lose, I meant something like a fight where you get permanently injured or dead. Otherwise, you're in the cost-benefit realm. It's reasonable to accept a bloody nose in return for impressing a woman (though I've never actually seen this work). It's reasonable to accept diminished salary or career prospects where that diminishment impacts your life less than your guilt or what have you.
[S]ome people really do take "death before dishonor" seriously. I'm torn between replying, "Yeah, dead people," and, "A lot more say it than act it."
I'd say that Darby, whether still in protective custody or not, is closer to leading a good life than someone with who had the same knowledge of abuses and didn't go public. (1)Let's wait and see. Darby's on the run from his own home; England will no doubt be mayor of some small red city someday. (2) Darby acted, I don't doubt, because his reading of the social system in place gave him certain protections and yielded certain results. One of the problems that's going to arise from this war is that your every day soldier is going to treat those "honor" commitments a lot less seriously. IIRC, this was one of the great problems that arose from the Vietnam experience.
the fact that it's your best option to minimize the severity of the attack doesn't mean that it still doesn't take some bravery to fight back. True, but it falls under cost-benefit in my mind. You're better off, you do it, whether by bravery or training. But whatever the motivation, the reason to do it is that you're better off.
you have a different willingness to accept the risk of being blown up in exchange for keeping your civil liberties than someone who supports, say, the Patriot Act. That's because I know how minimal the risks are to me from terrorists; check back when it approaches the risks associated with driving.
Everything you need to know about acts of physical courage sits in the WH. We've a POTUS and VP who dodged the Vietnam War and who are now lauded for their courage, strength and resoluteness. If interests align, someone will come up with a narrative to backstop your character. (See, e.g., the claim that the planes Bush flew were peculiarly dangerous - not true at the time he flew them.)
But what if you are a man with fists like skin-wrapped brick, a slick headed young-hemingway sort (one m, peeps), who enjoys a good fisticuff exchange like good food with wine, and then coffee, or the lovely sound of the sawmill, and who squats in the road, smoking expertly -- that is, there is a way to be brave in the old sense and intelligent. You get so by looking at paintings after bandaging your head from nights prior.
Actually, cats also have this problem.
I mentioned before that I was in Europe. It's not the first time that I was in Europe, I was in Europe many years ago with Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway had just written his first novel, and Gertrude Stein and I read it, and we said that is was a good novel, but not a great one, and that it needed some work, but it could be a fine book. And we laughed over it. Hemingway punched me in the mouth.
That winter Picasso lived on the Rue d'Barque, and he had just painted a picture of a naked dental hygenist in the middle of the Gobi Desert. Gertrude Stein said it was a good picture, but not a great one, and I said it could be a fine picture. We laughed over it and Hemingway punched me in the mouth.
Francis Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald came home from their wild new years eve party. It was April. Scott had just written Great Expectations, and Gertrude Stein and I read it, and we said it was a good book, but there was no need to have written it, 'cause Charles Dickens had already written it. We laughed over it, and Hemingway punched me in the mouth.
That winter we went to Spain to see [Maneletti?] fight, and he was... looked to be eighteen, and Gertrude Stein said no, he was nineteen, but that he only looked eighteen, and I said sometimes a boy of eighteen will look nineteen, whereas other times a nineteen year old can easily look eighteen. That's the way it is with a true Spaniard. We laughed over that and Gertrude Stein punched me in the mouth.
I read it in a book, but I just found it again on the interweb.
I was sitting with Erik Satie and Himingway, and Erik said that Hemingway couldn't write for shit and would never amount to anything, and Himingway came over to punch him, but Erik always carried a hammer in his pocket for just such eventualities.
Erik always called him Himingway because of he affected macho qualities. Erik really could be quite malicious.
"Some of us don't care, but some of us go around wondering if deep down we're timid and cowardly...."
And some of us have never, ever, ever, had the faintest doubt that we were timid and cowardly, and damn happy to be so.
My dreams are fulla bitches an' hoes an' punx just step up to get beat down!
I thought that was normal.
I dreamt that i was in graduate school and hated it.
In my opinion bravery is confronting your personal fears. That's it. Full stop.
I used to have a fear of spiders but I got tired of it. Now if I want to get rid of a spider I will squish it with my bare hand. Since I no longer have the fear touching spiders is no longer brave for me.
I also have a great fear of public speaking, but I have seen how that fear has crippled my brother's life. One reason I continue to act in the theatre is to keep that fear at bay. It never goes away completely but I don't want to let it control me.