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We lack courage because if we happen sometimes to be brave as individuals we know that we will for sure be undercut by committees (by managers).
Once this has happened, once some individual has done the right thing (what would strike any individual as the right thing - maybe just a normal routine right thing - like telling the truth) only to be deserted, persecuted, harassed, interrogated, left hung-out-to-dry by a faceless, un-responsible, safety-first, avoid-costs-at-all-cost, dodge-risks-at-any-risk, short-termist committee/ bunch of managers (and put through some kind of prolonged time-, emotion- and money-draining procedural torture) ... then it is a strong (um...) deterrent against doing the right thing.
Ever.
Again.
Which makes a perfect, and perfectly understandable, excuse to be cowardly thenceforth.
Which is presumably why we lack courage.
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3 comments:
"We lack courage because if we happen sometimes to be brave as individuals we know that we will for sure be undercut by committees (by managers)." That was precisely my reading of University life. Don't do the right thing - the buggers will always let you down.
Surely that’s the minimum reason why courage is needed -- in every age?
Why ‘we’ - really, the rest of the people traditionally known as ‘us’ - so spectacularly lack courage in this age, is because we know at a gut level that the people in public positions of power and trust are themselves subject to being removed or rubbed out at the whim of Europe’s traditional ‘them’ -- who are now our real rulers. In relationships across ethnic lines trust is lower, fear is heightened, and conflict more likely; and while class or ideological wars are infrequent and relatively minor, ethnic conflicts are ubiquitous and more bloody, so the predictable costs of opposing a native regime are lower than going against an alien regime. Also, ‘our’ leaders are more than usually vicious and oppressive toward us because this is really the only way to prove their fealty to the new elite.
Indeed. To hold a firm line requires that every soldier stands firm; if only one steps back, then the line will be broken.
We used to have strong sanctions against breaking the line, and against those who failed to use sanctions against those who broke the line - but not anymore.
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