Ilya Repin, “Duel between Onegin and Lenski,” from Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin”
1,044 words
Patrick Buchanan’s recent column on Anders Behring Breivik is almost note perfect, until the very end, where he calls Breivik a “coward.” Buchanan is not the only one to use this canard when discussing Breivik. It is a stock accusation directed at all terrorists.
Remember when George W. Bush crept out of his secure location to accuse the 9/11 hijackers of cowardice? But this is just an abuse of language motivated by anger. Breivik may be a lot of things, but he is no coward.
What is cowardice? Cowardice the inability to master fear. Courage is the ability to master fear so that one can act, or not act, appropriately. The paradigm of fear is of death in battle. But there are many lesser fears that one needs to master as well: the fears of social disapproval, personal failure, and public embarrassment are often greater than the fear of death.
Courage, therefore, is not just one virtue. It is a virtue that makes other virtues possible. We need courage to be honest, just, moderate, wise, and so forth, for almost every decent act carries with it the risk of personal failure or public opposition.
There is a sense is which courage and cowardice are morally neutral. It takes courage to do bad things as well as good ones. Indeed, it takes more courage to do bad things than good ones, because more people will oppose you. So if someone is doing evil, decent people should pray that his courage fails; cowardice suddenly becomes praiseworthy.
I think that Breivik’s killing spree was evil. It is not evil because violence per se is evil. Aside from complete pacifists, everyone recognizes situations in which violence is morally justified. It is not even evil because it is an act of terrorism. A single act by a single man might be terrorism. But a whole series of such acts by a group of men is a war or a revolution. And wars and revolutions can be morally justified.
No, Breivik’s acts were evil simply because he targeted people who were largely innocent of the crimes he deplored: government clerks and passersby in Olso, teenagers and young adults at a Labor Party youth camp. The full horror sinks in with a question: How many of you, dear readers, were politically liberal at age sixteen? How many of you simply believed what your parents believed?
Breivik’s acts were also evil because they will hinder rather than help those trying to save Europe from declining white birthrates and rising non-white immigration. And from my point of view, saving the white race is the most important thing in the world, an end that can justify any means—provided they really are means.
But as evil as Breivik’s acts may have been, they still took nerves of steel; they took courage. Breivik knew very well that he might be facing death. Or, if he survived, he would face a nightmare for the rest of his life: the hatred of healthy people and the adulation of the insane; the betrayal of friends and family; the indignities of interrogation, trial, and imprisonment.
It takes courage to face death. It takes even more courage to face a life of infamy. (A very high percentage of suicides are out of cowardice.)
As Breivik planned and carried out his mission, there were thousands moments of decision when his courage could have failed, but he continued. He did horrible things with his own hands, things that he saw before his very eyes, things that probably sickened him. But he steeled his nerves and kept on killing.
Personally speaking, I am too much of a coward to do what Breivik did, and too much of a coward to have faced the consequences. And I suspect the same is true of the bloggers hurling the word “coward” into cyberspace from the safety of their studies. But we can console ourselves that our form of cowardice—cowardice in the commission of evil—is, after all, a praiseworthy thing.
But Breivik killed people who were unarmed. Doesn’t that make him cowardly? No. It still took courage to do what he did. Yes, it would have taken more courage to face down armed opponents. But as far as he knew, there could have been armed opponents on that island. And even if he knew that his opponents were unarmed, his task still entailed risks. He could have been rushed as he reloaded, for instance. (I would like to know if anything like that was even attempted.) Moreover, he surely had to struggle to master feelings of horror at what he had accomplished.
Granted, the most honorable battle is a duel in which both parties fight with the same weapons out in the open under conditions of strictest equality so that only valor and martial skill matter. It entails the maximum risk and therefore requires the maximum courage.
But it is just wishful thinking to demand that an opponent who enjoys a strategic advantage give that up merely out of a romantic notion of chivalry, particularly since one’s real motive is hardly chivalrous either. It is simply to increase one’s own chances of success.
“Come out here and face me like a man, you coward!” merely translates to “Come out here so I can get an easier shot at you.” One merely phrases it in the language of a playground taunt in the unlikely event that one’s enemy is insecure enough to risk his life proving something to a person he sees fit to kill.
Courage is one of the most important traits we can cultivate. With courage, we can face down the impediments to living a decent and honorable life. Without it, none of our other virtues really matter. Yes, courage in evil is a terrible possibility. But that is possible only because courage makes all things possible.
Because courage is so important, we have to know exactly what it means—and what its opposite means. Thus we cannot afford to abuse words like “coward,” even when our anger is righteous. There is a long list of vices and expletives that can justly describe Anders Berhing Breivik. But coward is not among them.
31 comments
You are right, but I still feel there is an element of “cowardice” to choose defenseless targets. Maybe another word would be more appropriate, but something that is very much the opposite of a “knightly” warrior ethics.
Soldiers are supposed to destroy their targets, not aggrandize their own egos. They have nothing to prove to the people they are supposed to kill. It is a criminal failure of military discipline to be baited into a duel on equal terms. It is not, in the end, about the individual soldier facing an individual enemy, but the effectiveness of his whole team against the enemy team. Real soldiers think of the common good, not their own egos.
“Real soldiers think of the common good, not their own egos.”
Let’s carve this one in stone.
I disagree with Buchanan epilogue of classing Bratwick as a ” coward”. He may be anyhting one may decide to label him, but not a coward. He was fully conscious of the consequences of his actions, and I don’t think a coward would relish to contemplate what is coming to him in confinement and seclusion. The treatment he’ll be accorded is a payment for his actions, and it is not a payment a coward would welcome. Bratwick sent a message; he could have taken a few policemen with him as well, had he wanted. The message most probably will go awry and missed by the audience it was intended. The repercussions would be contrary to what Bratwick hoped to achieve. The leftist ideologues have a simple remedy, more and more repression. The atttack was against multicult.; don wait for Norway to bring in immigration barriers or to stop immigration of auslanders; if anyhting Bratwick action will spur the treasonous government to open the borders further. The minister of defence said as much. ” We are a multicultural nation”. A multicultural nation waves good by to its autoctonous population by a process of displacement and replacement. The only way a message can get through is through critical mass.
Well, let us all then have the courage to call Breivik “a soldier in the war that the West has been too cowardly to recognize yet”.
Or at least let’s call those troops who we’re are now cajoled into supporting and calling “heroes” by their true name of “Lackey”, “Dupe”, and “Coward”… when they drop bombs on children and pregnant women who are of no risk to the West.
The dupes and lackeys do not get free passes around here.
Yes, tiring, all these armchair heroes…
Let us not forget that Breivik was a self made millionaire, but he sacrificed his life for his beliefs. Instead of being in prison now and facing a life of infamy, he could have been somewhere in the Pacific in a yacht full of girls and plenty of coke.
People may call him insane, but not a coward. I doubt there are many individuals in the West nowadays who have the determination to do what Breivik did. Such testicular fortitude is currently present only in muslims and they are motivated by their idiotic belief about the virgins in the afterlife. Breivik doesn’t expect to get anything of the sort, he states in his manifesto that he is not a believer.
The way I see it, Breivik imitated his beloved Knight Templars, they too killed the enemy without mercy and didn’t spare children and women.
Yes it is true that most people are liberals at the age of 16 (not that everyone at the camp was that young though), but I doubt a heavily indoctrinated teenager already active in politics would have changed his mind later in life. Those teens were not the average students who flirted with marxism during their first year at the university. We are talking about zombies brainwashed since birth and programmed to implement the final destruction of their country and race.
maaldweb in blockquote:
Shooting children, unarmed children, at summer camp, is not the act of a coward?
What is?
He imitated the Templar Knights as a Child imitates Batman on Halloween; spiffy uniform, and maybe even a (Child’s) utility belt.
He lacked the all-important metapolitical vision of the Knights, and the ruthless, relentless discipline and intellectual brilliance of Bruce Wayne.
de Molay and The Order posed a threat to the degenerate Christian social order of that time and place. Of use to us, for example, they created a banking system that was fair, and actually worked against the usurious institutions. The Enemy’s love of gold motivated him to place false charges against The Order. He ended up losing the gold, and the brilliance that allowed them to create solutions to complex problems, while (in part) laying the foundations for a new order, based on what Christianity SHOULD become.
All the Templar Knights did was done with a metapolitical purpose in mind; first, foremost, forever.
That is an example we should all emulate.
What’s In YOUR Future? Focus Northwest!
@ “Shooting children, unarmed children…”
Make your point without resorting to the language of the enemies. Adolescents are no longer children.
Chechar:
Respectfully, this is exactly how it will be framed in the media, in the courts, in the tribunals. Again, he was armed, and they weren’t. Of first importance, I believe, is that this action was not tied to a metapolitical system.
Contrast this with the group that is declaring, with posters, sections of London to be Sharia Zones. They will win. They have the courage of their convictions, and work steadily towards their fulfillment, regardless of the approval or disapproval of those they disapprove of – us.
Again, exactly what did this accomplish for us, save as the canary in the coal mine, a coal mine that will now be flooded so the canary can sleep the sleep of the dead. Shooting unarmed
childrenadolescents creates martyrs for them. Those pictures, those posters, of handsome young Nordics, will flood the society, with special emphasis on the schools, using the fallen as object lessons for the children. “This could happen to YOU! You don’t want that, do you? Let’s open our arms to everyone in class. Helga, Brunhilde, reach out and hold hands with Abdul and Fatima. Now form a circle! Good!”At the end of the day, don’t the actions of Breivik resemble nothing so much as that of a man who had been neutralized by the Enemy into feelings of demoralization, of despair, f one who was all but defeated in all but name? Isn’t this more along the lines of a Child lashing out than the clear, focused anger of the Adult that is harnessed to fulfill a greater purpose?
Couldn’t he have done more, so much more, instead of blindly accepting The Enemy’s Terms and Definitions?
Yes.
Remember, come back in twenty years, and the last words of “God Save The Queen” shall be a long, drawn out “Innnnn-shaaaaa-lahhhh.” Posters declaring an area to be a Sharia Zone that remain up will help make that happen. So will people who seem more inspired by “Hunter,” than “Imperium.”
What’s In YOUR Future? Focus Northwest!
Fourmyle of Ceres: “Shooting unarmed
childrenadolescents creates martyrs for them. Those pictures, those posters, of handsome young Nordics, will flood the society, with special emphasis on the schools, using the fallen as object lessons for the children. “This could happen to YOU! You don’t want that, do you? Let’s open our arms to everyone in class. Helga, Brunhilde, reach out and hold hands with Abdul and Fatima. Now form a circle! Good!”What you describe doesn’t sound convicing at all. I don’t think it can work. I hope, on the contrary, that Breivik’s action will help people associate leftism with fanatical support for our racial replacement by non-Whites, even in the face of civil war.
The media won’t even say that Breivik is an anti-immigration activist. I don’t think they can effectively use him to vilify popular opposition to race-replacement. Normal people will certainly not become more tolerant of non-White immigration as a result of the Utoeya tragedy. If they understand that Breivik killed the leftists’
childrenadolescents because the leftists want to kill the White race, it will be an encouragement to them.We shouldn’t fear that the whole incident will enrage White people’s enemies. Their initial objective was to destroy us anyway.
I wish someone would take a poll and ask people if they think that the Breivik massacre may help the government realize that immigration must be stopped and reversed. Most people would say yes.
Armor:
The nesting boxes are getting too small in this thread. Forgive my breaking protocol. You’ve made excellent points, but I think the way this will be framed by The Opposition – those who support White Genocide by race replacement – might support an alternative position.
Armor in blockquote:
Breivik failed to force the framework to define the issue in terms of the genocide of White Race, limiting his criticism to a criticism of immigration. Yet, this did not come from the Labor Party of Noreway, did it?
His narrow framing did not resonate in the hearts and minds of those he wished to CONVERT to his way of thinking.
It will not “enrage” them at all. It will inspire them, as Charlie Brown falls flat on his stupid, fat ass, once again. Breivik did not frame his argument in terms of the genocide of the White Race; he framed it in terms of stopping Islamic assimilation and control of Norwegian society. The Jews quite agree, and quite support him in this. After all, anything that places the Whites and the Arabs at each others throats is very, very “good for Jews.”
All of which may be true, none of which matters.
What matters is. the genocide of the White Race in the guise of race replacement, and the destruction of Western Civilization by the class warfare called multiculturalism, continues apace.
Breivik will be used in THEIR fundraising appeals, to great effect. The posters of the
childrenadolescents will be used as silent salesmen against any who address the immigration issue, much less the deliberate policy of genocide of the White Race.THEY will use this opportunity to make Money, and with control of the pictures you see, they will control the framing of the debate. Another round down for Charlie Brown.
What’s In YOUR Future? Focus Northwest!
Here is the picture of one of the victims, who was only 16 years old. Seeing her picture won’t make anyone regret that Norway doesn’t have more Somalis and fewer people like Breivik. The leftists really brought that tragedy on themselves.
People have taken radical positions out of cowardice. For instance, a woman could get an abortion because she is a coward about becoming a mother. A man could kill his wife because he was too much of a coward to reveal to her that he had lost the house gambling. People have come out to their friends as “gay” because they were basic cowards in day to day life and wanted attention from friends.
Buchanan could have been mistaken that Breivik was the type of coward who used a political platform as an excuse for his alienation from social life and for his heinous crimes. But he does not seem to be correct when one learns the whole story of his life. He was a self-made millionaire and probably could have been successful in other spheres of life. He truly seemed committed to these ideas, no matter how misguided his attempt to bring them forward was.
Rather than addressing Buchanan’s article or linking to OD’s latest entry, we expected a reply to what (to my mind) is the best article to date published about this incident, the one by Sebastian Ernst Ronin (here).
What do you see of significance in Ronin’s piece?
Ionesco’s Rhinozeros syndrome is already on the run it seems…
Western pundits and governments project their own cowardice when they routinely resort to the coward canard. It is cowardly to lie one’s way into a war. It is cowardly to use drones to kill women and children. It is cowardly to hide behind all forms of false propaganda. It is cowardly to wreck one’s own nation in order to gain a few extra dollars in personal profit.
That said, I agree with Buchanan that Breivik is a coward. He is also a sociopath. I enjoy Buchanan’s writings, and I do not see him as using the “coward” label frivously. Only a coward, living at home with his mommy, would devolve into the degree of hate and selfishness that we see in Breivik’s acts and the words of his “manifesto.”
Life is rough, and we’re all in this together. Only cowards throw all empathy to the wind, and lash out at people around him.
Breivik lived a (comparatively) pampered life in Norway. He is not like a Muslim suicide bomber who has lost everything to Western occupiers, and bravely takes as many of the invading killers with him as possible. Did anyone invade and occupy Norway, reducing it to a ruin? Did Breivik lose his family, his home, or his livelihood? Did he personally, materially suffer from the presence of Muslims in Norway? No, I think his acts were supremely selfish – i.e. cowardly. It doesn’t take any courage to say in word or deed “F**k all of you!”
If he really had courage, he would have had the nerve, patience, and perserverence to enter Norwegian politics and stump for his agenda that way.
Greg,
I agree that the word coward is a fake. What is clear its that it is a word that all of the Jewish leadership is asking from everybody in the spotlight. From the ADL to the Likud, all Jew Lobbyies are working actively to make sure that anybody that is in the spotlight must come out and say this is unacceptable, and this is how I reconcile Buchanan using this word.
Denys
But I am not very at ease with your description of Breivik’s courage either, I must say that it is a bit vomiting.
You see, the Jews when they say they want to carry this event as a “Crime against Humanity” in International court, it’s because they want to make this a crime against jews again. Most Israel papers and many Jew bloggers came out immediately that it was an act of anti-semitism. And the funny thing is that the guy is a Zionist, and showed the brutality that comes from an egotistical ethnocentric life experience such as that of the Jews. There has never been anything as brutal as a jew in Man’s history, and Breivik wanted to emulate them, be a hero to the Jews. He is an imbecile. That is what he is, an imbecile, thinking he would save his people by kissing the ass of Jews and Zionists.
Specification:when I say ?he thought he could save his people”, I mean Breivik, not Buchanan. Breivik is the imbecile brute Jew ass kisser. I really love Buchanan, have much respect for him, but he is human. I pray for the day when he won’t have to bend to the Zionists lobbies, maybe we could offer him that as a gift.
That day will probably never come. Buchanan has to throw certain bones to the mainstream to keep his visibility in the mainstream. Buchanan has done more than, well, than just about anyone to oppose Jewry’s aims in front of a huge audience and keep his job. Some heavy Jewish hitters have come after him over the years. His next book will supposedly be about ethno-nationalism and the pending break up of the United States. Maybe he will go all in this time since he is at the end of his career. I’m enjoying Buchanan while we still have him. Once he dies, we will never see anyone like him with mainstream visibility ever again.
@ And the funny thing is that the guy is a Zionist, and… Breivik wanted to emulate them, be a hero to the Jews. He is an imbecile. That is what he is, an imbecile, thinking he would save his people by kissing the ass of Jews and Zionists.
And do Tasntaafl and I were imbeciles too? Do you know that (like Breivik) both Tan and I started our blogging quest as counter-jihadists? Do you know how many other conscious people today started the same way and later became racialists? I can give you the names of those bloggers if you want.
I was a philo-Semite as late as the beginning of the last year! But I wasn’t an imbecile: the System hid vital info from me. See e.g., my latest comment in my own blog. I invite you to comment there if you wish (the subject-matter of that specific thread is not Breivik but the JQ).
Courage, therefore, is not just one virtue. It is a virtue that makes other virtues possible.
I am reminded of what Socrates says in the Republic about justice (or human virtue, as human virtue is the correct ordering of the soul, being the rule of reason, which is justice) being what allows the other virtues to come into being (433b).
I recall that there’s an excellent discussion of various forms of courage in Victor Davis Hanson’s Carnage and Culture. I don’t have his book on hand, but from what I recall of his discussion (it might be towards the end of the chapter on the battle of Rorke’s Drift), Hanson emphasises the value of courage which is ruled by law and reason and which is in the service of a group, as opposed to the rash and mercurial courage motivated by passion, whether it be overconfidence, despair, or vainglory. The good soldier is not one who seeks the highest body count, or who seeks to perform spectacular acts of heroism, but rather one whose courage is steadfast, regardless of circumstances, and who fights as a member of a group, rather than as an individual. Such is the courage that must be engrained into the laws and mores of an army, for it enables it to weather the defeats, attrition, and fatigue that are part of war, and to take on quantitatively superior forces. This is far removed from the courage of sociopaths, which is essentially selfish, irrational, and criminal.
White Republican: “The good soldier is not one who seeks the highest body count, or who seeks to perform spectacular acts of heroism, but rather one whose courage is steadfast, regardless of circumstances, and who fights as a member of a group, rather than as an individual.”
You make an interesting point that I have often thought of when researching the military history of WW2. When you examine the highest decorated soldiers of WW2 on the German side, you notice that their awards were always for something that facilitated the collective war effort, and required physical courage as well as skill, intelligence, and sometimes genius. It was a pyramid of that kind of courage, displayed over years of war, that garnered a handful of German warriors the highest decoration Germany had to offer.
Colonel Ulrich Rudel, the Stuka pilot who commanded a German air squadron and inspired every German combat pilot, received a special award at the end of the war. At that time, he had survived six years of combat, was shot down a dozen times over enemy territory, and making it back to his own lines, single-handedly knocked out over 500 Soviet tanks and a Soviet battleship. He finished the war still flying combat missions with one leg amputated and the other in a cast. It took six years of such heroics to receive the highest decoration the German military had to offer.
Compare that with the American criteria for the Medal of Honor, the US military’s highest decoration. A single act without premeditation, skill, or intelligence, i.e., throwing yourself on a hand grenade—which is always interpreted as being motivated to save your comrades, a motive at least questionable in some cases–is almost a guarantee to receive the Medal of Honor.
As a former US Marine, I’m not implying that there are no courageous soldiers in the US military; such individuals are part of every country’s military. My point is that courage during wartime meant something very different to the German, as compared to the American, high command.
Greg,
You wrote one of the best pieces defining the meaning of courage I have read. Having said that, I would like you to reconsider, or qualify, two statements you made.
“Indeed, it takes more courage to do bad things than good ones, because more people will oppose you. So if someone is doing evil, decent people should pray that his courage fails; cowardice suddenly becomes praiseworthy.”
For the most evil people in the world today, it takes little or no courage to do evil. People like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Blair—the list is endless—are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents, and it required no courage at all. On the other hand, it would have taken courage for them to have refused to follow the directions of those who are pulling their strings.
Your argument only applies to comparatively minor criminals who are not surrounded by battalions of security to protect their miserable lives.
“(A very high percentage of suicides are out of cowardice.)”
I don’t believe this is a fair assessment. The fact that one does not have the will or ability to deal with the consequences of a particular situation–which can be monumental–does not mean one is a coward for committing suicide. I don’t believe Field Marshal von Paulus at Stalingrad, based on his military record, was a coward. But when the time came to save his honor and prevent becoming a tool of the Soviets by committing suicide, he could not summon the courage to kill himself.
Suicide, at any time, takes courage since we are all born with a self-preservation drive. At different times, it just takes a little less courage than facing life. But less courage, and cowardice, are two different things.
Reno,
These are good and thoughtful comments.
It takes courage to do evil that is unpopular. It takes no courage to go along with an evil society.
There are good and bad reasons for suicide. I think that suicide to preserve one’s honor is not cowardly.
I suppose you could say that people “fear” dishonor, but I think that smacks of reductionism. The fact is that not all motives can be reduced to physiological pushes and pulls.
Courage is such an important virtue because it keeps those pushes and pulls in check, which allows us to erect a superstructure of different, higher, and distinctly human motives.
But I do think that many people commit suicide out of cowardice: they simply cannot face life. The motive of a suicide generally manifests itself in the method chosen. Honorable men kill themselves in an honorable fashion. Generally, the do it in private, with minimum inconvenience to others, and they succeed.
Pusillanimous individuals make public spectacles out of themselves; they often fail, or make it possible for others to stop them; the whole spectacle has a quality of emotional self-indulgence.
Pusillanimous people also often choose suicide by inches. They want to die because they can’t face life. But they can’t face death either. So they are drawn to drink and drugs. A lot of “deaths by misadventure” are people seeking suicide but who are too cowardly to just get it over with.
I have a moralistic side that thinks that people who drink or use drugs habitually are probably cowards who are afraid of reality.
“There is a sense is which courage and cowardice are morally neutral. It takes courage to do bad things as well as good ones.”
Courage also means the courage to make cold calculations and strive for moral and intellectual coherence, which is always a good thing. The leftists lack that ability.
“Breivik’s acts were also evil because they will hinder rather than help those trying to save Europe from declining white birthrates and rising non-white immigration.”
Whether his actions will help us or hinder us is the fundamental point. I think it will help us.
“Breivik’s acts were evil simply because he targeted people who were largely innocent of the crimes he deplored “
That point of view would mean that every war is immoral. The big question is not whether the victims deserved to die, but whether their sacrifice will increase White people’s chances of surviving the policies of the oh, so kind and innocent liberals. Of course they didn’t “deserve” to die. But if the aim was to target people who bear a responsibility in our destruction, Breivik’s choice wasn’t all that bad, even though he missed Gro Harlem Brundtland.
In usual European wars, you don’t kill people because you think they are evil and deserve to die. You kill them out of social conformity, because you lack an independent mind, because that’s what your fellow soldiers are doing, and because the newspapers, the government, the church, the school teachers, and so on, tell you it is the right thing to do. In WW1, for example, 1.7 million French military staff lost their lives to retake Alsace, a German territory peopled by Germans. But I don’t think the French soldiers ever thought that the German soldiers were evil. Their philosophy was: better be a butcher than be butchered. But overall, more French soldiers were killed by German soldiers than the reverse. And now, Alsace is being repopulated by Arabs and Africans. Breivik is obviously better than the average European soldier. His motivation of stopping the genocide by race-replacement is unimpeachable.
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