To view this on the COS website, click here rethinking-courage

Rethinking Courage

In a world that would sooner embrace civil war, do we have the courage to defend civilization?

Read “Courage > Fear” here. \\ \\ The word “courage” has been tragically drained of its moral weight.

Nowadays, “courageous,” used in a political sense, tends to mean “provocative,” “agitational,” or “inflammatory.” We call commentators “brave” when they speak some controversial truth to the raucous applause of their legions of fans and the supreme annoyance of their critics. We gauge “courage” by the reaction so-and-so incites on social media; if, by breaking a taboo, you irritate the old guard and animate the revolutionists, congratulations, you’ve found your “courage.” Or so we say.

But enough with the air quotes.

True courage has very little to do with how well you “speak your mind” or how often you vex the traditionalists. If anything, vexing the traditionalists must arise purely as a necessary byproduct of taking a moral stand. Otherwise, there is no virtue in obnoxious defiance itself.

G. K. Chesterton, the patron saint of orthodoxy, understood this well. Addressing the dopaminergic pleasure with which professional rabble-rousers set fire to the past, he wrote:

“We often read nowadays of the valor or audacity with which some rebel attacks a hoary tyranny or an antiquated superstition. There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in offering to fight one’s grandmother.”

The modern West perfectly embodies that quote. We who build nothing attack those who built everything: the ancients, church fathers, Founders, pioneers, anyone who can be misconstrued as standing against “progress” (even if they were the leading champions of progress in their day). We accuse them of every insult in the book: racism, colonialism, patriarchy, ethnic cleansing, war mongering, and neoconservatism (to name a few of the most popular examples). Mudslingers and firebrands, demagogues and armchair quarterbacks, we glorify endless deconstruction — the word on everyone’s lips — as if living in ashes is somehow preferable to living in the stable society our imperfect parents built.

The sheer lunacy of this position is compounded by the fact that we then applaud each other for asking questions that have already been asked, crossing lines that have already been crossed, and trampling on sacred ground that has already been defiled. It matters not how many times Mary Sue has crossed our screens: the media is still bound to call her gutsy. The Canticle of Revolution may repeat itself, but it’s a never-ending song nonetheless.

If there’s anything novel about modernity’s obsession with not-so-transgressive transgression, it’s the hubristic assumption that we will be the first generation to go down in history simply for casting stones; that progeny will thank us for liberating them from the last vestiges of antiquity, even if we give them nothing in its place. In reality, our ancestors and offspring demand that we rise above the animalistic tendency to devour and instead act with heroism to preserve our civilization. Only then do we stand a chance of history remembering us fondly.

Now is the time for true courage. According to Chesterton, “The really courageous man is he who defies tyrannies young as the morning and superstitions fresh as the first flowers.” That is to say that brave men will resist the spirit of aimless revolt, fashionable though it may be. They will defend the strengths and successes of the former times, denigrated though they may be.

In a world that would sooner embrace civil war or trade barbs on social media than use the constitutional tools our Founders gave us, the real heroes will be the ones who keep two feet planted firmly in the past even as they seek to build the future. In such a moment of general inaction and fear, may we have the courage to call an Article V convention.

Page Metadata
Login Required to view?	No
Created:	2025-04-29 02:45 GMT
Updated:	2025-05-05 07:00 GMT
Published:	2025-04-29 02:00 GMT
Converted:	2025-11-11 12:05 GMT
Change Author:	Jakob Fay
Credit Author: