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Our definitions of bravery have shifted rather dramatically…
Now, courage lies in authenticity. Authenticity has not been, until recently, conflated with courage. In fact, authenticity very often cuts directly against the virtue of courage: After all, wallowing in the solipsistic generally involves ignoring the demands of a higher noble goal.
But now, our higher virtue isn’t in upholding and defending some standard for civilization at risk to ourselves. Higher virtue lies in finding our personal truths, and then demanding applause from the rest of the world. Heroism lies in forcing the world to bow before our subjective ideas of truth and decency.
Or perhaps there’s another possibility. Perhaps the new definition of bravery does serve some higher goal: the goal of tearing down the old definition of the good.
True courage lies in personally rejecting old systems of thought and objective truth and in joining with others to demand that all systems of power be brought low. In this fight, the personal is political: Subjectivism isn’t the enemy of courage but a new form of courage, since the final good to be sought is the destruction of truth itself.— Ben Shapiro
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