cromulentenough:

shieldfoss:

wirehead-wannabe:

Actually, there’s another important point to be made here: bravery and evil are not mutually exclusive. Orcs are brave. Stormtroopers are brave. Nazis are brave. Every one of these groups contained people (not all, but many) that sacrificed their lives in the name of what they thought was the greater good, and pushed on even when everything was hell. Trying to tell people that none of the bad guys were brave is inaccurate, and the loved ones of the bad guys are going to *know* that it’s inaccurate.

Simply feeling and performing bravery DOES NOT ENSURE THAT YOU’RE ON THE RIGHT SIDE. It’s often necessary in the service of the good, but it is not and shouldn’t be a target or a reliable indicator. If you want to reliably do good, then you have no option but to think critically, do anything you can to see through the neverending storm of propaganda, and question everything. And this obligation does not ever fully let up, because you might find out at any moment that you’re on the wrong side.

No matter what side you’re on, and no matter how good or evil your cause, bravery very often feels the same from the inside. You might truly feel like you need to find a way to sacrifice or contribute, and feel guilty for not doing so. But you know what? Staying home, eating an entire tub of ice cream, and jerking off is *far more virtuous* than pushing yourself to the limits and even laying down your life for the good of a nation that wants to be able to keep slaves.

I remember a bit of a scandal around 200X where somebody said the terrorists flying the planes on 9/11 weren’t cowards, because they were clearly willing to give up their lives for their beliefs and whoa boy did that not make people feel happy.

But that’s always how it works – we are glorious and brave even when we invade and bomb them from ten thousand feet higher in the air than their weapons could ever reach and they are despicable and cowardly even when they take on the best equipped militaries in the world armed with two goats and a beat up martini rifle left over from the British invasion in the seventies. Eighteen-seventies.

yup. im willing to die for this is like, the definition of bravery no? like, im so brave im willing to go willingly to my death to achieve goals i believe in?

bravery is good in the way that intelligence is good, its not MORAL, the bad guys can be clever and the bad guys can be brave, if you assume theyre all stupid cowards you will underestimate them.