Cowardice

Some weeks ago I wrote an article about Fear. In that text I mentioned the natural instinct of either facing or escaping from a threat (whether real or imaginary). In today's article I am going to focus on the escape alternative of that natural impulse, and will name it as cowardice – avoiding the social connotation given to the word in the sense of moral condemnation.

We are all afraid of danger. It is an essential part of our nature. The fear of threats is a primary emotion we share with every animal. As we had seen in that previous article, the body instinctively prepares itself for confrontation or escape moved by that emotional stimulus. Over history, the alternative of escaping the threat has been defined as cowardice.

The etymological root of cowardice is to be found in ancient French Coart, which would mean “one with a tail”. It could be a reference of the dog's behaviour of “going away with its tail between its legs”. But to be a coward is not to be afraid of danger. Fear is natural; it is an emotion we don’t control. Cowardice, on the other hand, is a choice. Coward would be he who escapes and does not react to that fear. It is he who is under the grasp of fear and freezes himself at the possibility of being hurt; his response is escape.

It is normal to see in our society how the brave is honoured and the coward is condemned – he who fights is rewarded, while he who escapes is vilified. These standards are shaped by morality, the socially constructed values. I will try no to fall here in moral judgements: sometimes confrontation preserves, sometimes it kills; sometimes escaping preserves, sometimes it kills. It all depends on the circumstances. I consider it important to understand the mechanisms of cowardice, since we sometimes find ourselves in the middle of a conflictive situation (not necessarily physical, it can also be psychological, related to decision making, work-related dilemmas, emotional dilemmas, etc.) and hesitate between acting or not, deciding whether we should face the situation, or accept it as it is, or rather avoid it. We hesitate between fighting, inaction or escape. Reading this might be of some help for us to understand what it is we are experiencing the next time we find ourselves in a circumstance of conflict and tension.

Many authors have written on cowardice. I allowed myself to adventure into interpreting some of these opinions from the actual point of view I hold on this issue.

Montesquieu said, “Cowardice is the mother of cruelty”. I believe what he meant is that as a result of not acting in the face of a threat (real or imaginary), what we are really doing is holding back the natural impulse of confrontation or escape, thereby refraining the primary emotion or energy of fear. We are not allowing the expression of an essential reaction. The consequence of this is that, by imprisoning that impulse, the individual is suffocated by this powerful elemental energy. When it is not positively expressed by action it is negatively contained as a reflex of repression. The suppressed energy will then seek other ways of expression and eventually turn into the germ of cruel acts.

William Shakespeare wrote, “Cowards die many times before their deaths... The valiant never taste of death but once”. This is clearly showing the social punishment inflicted on cowardice.

Peter Ustinov said, “Courage is often lack of insight, whereas cowardice in many cases is based on good information”. I find this to be a very comical point of view: the author is indicating that when we are not completely aware of the emptiness, of the cliff of the future and all that goes along with that lack of determination, we act in a confident way, being brave. Consciousness of the uncertainty can lead us, on the other hand, to paralysis. This statement relates with those who consider “ignorance is bliss”. I do not deny the truth of this way of looking at the subject, however I still consider that awareness and knowledge should result in greater courage, that the more information we have the bigger our duty is to act bravely and not to use the new data as a reason for paralysis.

There is an Irish saying that goes “it is better to be coward for a minute than dead for the rest of your life”. In this case cowardice is viewed as a strategy of preservation, showing how sometimes withdrawing is the best choice.

I finally find Plato, who believed that there is not a man so coward that love will not turn courageous and transform into a hero. He understood the revolutionary power of love and its vital impulse; a force that multiplies us, that makes us grow and advance full of confidence and break through fear with courage and resolution, dissipating the potential reaction of cowardice.

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