[HN Gopher] Who is Rollo May?
___________________________________________________________________
Who is Rollo May?
Author : kiyanwang
Score : 20 points
Date : 2023-05-19 20:35 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.clues.life)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.clues.life)
| sparrish wrote:
| Title should probably be "Who is Rollo May?", not the first quote
| block.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, changed. Thanks!
|
| Submitted title was "Opposite of Courage Is Conformity"
| dragontamer wrote:
| Hardly.
|
| Courage is doing something you know you need to do, but are
| afraid to do it.
|
| Conformity is doing stuff that other people are doing.
|
| They're completely different axis and its a non-sequitur. I can't
| agree with the statement in any sense. Its worse than wrong, its
| just nonsense.
|
| --------
|
| You can be courage and conformity: IE: charging into a battle
| with your friends is both. You all know you might die, but you
| know it must be done.
|
| You can be non-courageous but with conformity. Someone's being
| bullied by the Tyrant of the Crowds... its easier to just keep
| bullying (and conforming with others) rather than doing the
| courageous right thing to do and break out of the mob-mentality.
|
| You can be courageous and non-conforming. IE: The fool or jester
| who taunts the king to provide key advice when all the others
| know that the king might kill them for speaking that way.
|
| You can be non-courageous and non-conforming. You can run away
| and desert your post when everyone else was brave enough to face
| a threat. Alternatively, you can be the one to run away from a
| hopeless fight and be a rare survivor. The smart one, rather than
| the group moving in a death march inevitably dying.
|
| Each possibility has good and bad connotations. Its stupid to
| pretend that "always being courageous" is correct, or whatever.
| Sometimes running away from a fight is the right move. Sometimes,
| standing and fighting is the correct move. Sometimes, working
| with your friends and conforming with the crowds is correct.
| Sometimes, it is not.
|
| Generally speaking, "courageous" is the right thing to do. But
| fear is an instinct for a reason. Its more important to live and
| fight future fights, than to die on the first fight opportunity.
| George Washington famously ran away from most of his fights
| during 1776, but critically kept the American Army alive long
| enough to defeat the British.
|
| --------
|
| Fear is the opposite of courage. But Fear comes from Wisdom,
| which is also the opposite of courage. Its okay to run away,
| often its okay to run away _a lot_. But you gotta pick your fight
| eventually (you can't just run away from everything).
| lend000 wrote:
| A quote doesn't need to be true in 100% of cases to be
| interesting or have merit. This one is naturally divisive,
| because most people tend to conform (by definition) and few
| would like to think of themselves as cowardly.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Okay, so lets discuss the "merit" of this phrase.
|
| This is like Apple calling the removal of their headphone
| jacks "brave", because they were non-conforming. Its... a
| bullshit use of the term. Assigning virtue ("courage") to
| actions that really have nothing to do with courage, and more
| to do with saving a few bucks and millimeters on the design.
|
| Its already a stretch IMO to call "courage" strictly a
| virtue, as it leads to pride and idiocy in many cases. In
| many cases, courage is needed though, so I think its a good
| heuristic to "try to be courageous" more often than not.
|
| Stretching it even further on conformity vs non-conformity is
| just too far to me. Conforming is sometimes good, sometimes
| bad. Its grossly depends on a case-by-case basis.
|
| ---------
|
| Its important to know the destructiveness of crowds, the
| tyranny of the majority, and other such situations where non-
| conformity is a virtue.
|
| But there's also the issue of looking like a fool, a proud
| fool, for just going against the grain for no good reason.
| And then "courageously" doubling down on your position over
| and over again. I think this mistake is more common today.
| Think Westboro Baptist Church, if you need a real-world
| example. Or the "courage" of the Proud Boys. Etc. etc.
|
| I don't know quite when Rollo May was born or the state of
| society was when he made this quote. But... in _today's_
| society, there's a lot of special snowflakes who want to
| stand out. IMO, its more common for people to be non-
| conforming to a fault these days.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| >Fear is the opposite of courage.
|
| Having served in active combat I can tell you unquestionably
| that this is totally wrong and your entire perspective is, in
| my opinion selfish and looking for validation - you seem to
| encourage or at least silver lining the fear response of
| "flight."
|
| Fear is an emotional response to a threat - You have no choice
| in fear, it is simply a response.
|
| Courage is reacting to the fear to protect others above
| yourself - this is as simple as admitting you are wrong and as
| extreme as lunging onto a grenade.
|
| Cowardice is reacting to the fear by protecting yourself first
| above others - this is as simple as ignoring someone who is
| hurt to actively harming others in preemptive violence.
| pmichaud wrote:
| I think your examples are great, and you're right, but I also
| think you're ignoring the specific context of the actual quote.
| This is a psychologist talking about people in our culture
| dealing with social issues. So yeah, I think the statement
| taken as such is strictly false as you noted, but that the
| meaning is highly indexical[0] and probably has merit.
|
| [0]: https://carcinisation.com/2020/01/27/ignorance-a-skilled-
| pra...
| lazide wrote:
| Nope, plenty of 'alternate' takes are complete cowardice and
| destructive - as well as plenty of 'mainstream' ones.
|
| In fact, the actual courageous stand - for something that
| works on balance for nearly everyone, isn't destructive (but
| might be boring) even if some folks don't like it has pretty
| much no voice right now. Doesn't generate clicks, would
| generate haters.
| theLiminator wrote:
| I'd argue fear isn't the opposite of courage. It's giving in to
| fear that is.
|
| "Bran thought about it. 'Can a man still be brave if he's
| afraid?' 'That is the only time a man can be brave,' his father
| told him." - GRRM
| erehweb wrote:
| A similar sentiment is expressed in "Asterix and the Normans"
| cynicalsecurity wrote:
| Not always.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-05-19 23:01 UTC)