What Is Courage?

What is courage? It may be the most desirable -- and the messiest -- human virtue. William Ian Miller wrote the book on courage, and even he calls it a mystery. The first story that he tells in The Mystery of Courage (Harvard University Press, 2000) is that of "the good coward" in the Civil War. The soldier resolutely marches into every battle -- and every time runs at the first sign of bloodshed. When each battle is over, he returns and prepares for the next fight, resolving to do better. But he repeats the pattern again. Many Civil War soldiers were court-martialed or shot for desertion, Miller writes, but not this soldier. "The coward was never punished," Miller says, because "categories like 'coward' are not so easy to fathom."

In his book, Miller, who teaches at the University of Michigan Law School, has taken as his client the idea of honor, defending its virtue in a society that he sees as self-obsessed. His own standards are strict, and although he embraces the world, much of it simply doesn't measure up -- himself included.

"If I had a wish," says Miller, "it would be never to be scared, never to feel the shame of being scared. Writing this book meant trying to understand my own feelings of cowardice. Even now, in day-to-day encounters, we politely accept behavior that, if we were brave enough, we would never stand for. Yet if we stood up to every opponent, we would be barbaric. So how do we live with ourselves when we're humiliated and fearful? What form should courage take? That's the question that keeps me up at night." While there may be no resolution to the mystery of courage, here are Miller's thoughts on that most complex of attributes.

The Mystery of Courage is different from the kind of book that most businesspeople read: There are no answers, definitions, or 10 easy steps to bravery. Why is there no resolution?

I think most men and women would say that courage is the virtue that they would most want to secure for themselves. But even though courage is the dominant theme in literature, second only to love, it is elusive. Is courage about taking pain, or is it about dishing it out? Is it about rushing into a fire when that's your job, or is it about doing something that falls beyond your job description? Is courage the same for those who are brave in war and those who are brave in sickness?

Or consider this dilemma: You can be courageous and cowardly at the same time. Take the case of Tim O'Brien. He served a tour of intense combat duty in Vietnam, but he wasn't the typical Vietnam War soldier. He was more suited for graduate school -- Harvard, to be exact -- which is where he went after his military service. O'Brien wrote a book called If I Die in a Combat Zone that describes a scene where some Vietnamese boys are herding cows in a free-fire zone. The men in O'Brien's company fire at the herders. One cow stands her ground despite the bullets that are tearing at her flesh. O'Brien doesn't protest this behavior by his comrades. He's courageous in that he faced combat in Vietnam, but he doesn't stand up to his buddies.

These days, is it an act of courage to open an envelope?

I define courage as a virtue that allows us to face real risk. I get nervous about being too generous with the term. I don't like our "make everybody feel good" culture. Merely not being cowardly is not the same thing as being courageous. Courage is a grand and noble virtue. That's why I'm so stingy with the word.

It takes a certain kind of character to do certain jobs. Firemen are called upon to put their lives on the line. But doing your duty isn't being courageous. The mail carrier who works under heightened risk isn't being courageous: Out of approximately 850,000 postal workers in the United States, only 10 were exposed to anthrax. That isn't the virtue of courage.

If we hear about someone who won't walk down the street because it's too risky, we probably think of that person as defective or insane. But today, in most suburbs, you see kids dressed like knights in armor -- face pads, knee pads, goggles -- just to go out bicycling. In my town, parents level the snowbanks so that kids won't put themselves at risk. That isn't even cowardice. That's ridiculous.

Your own study of courage is linked to the issue of cowardice.

Actually, I set out to write a book about cowardice. I asked myself how many times in my life I had felt cowardly. I know what that emotion feels like: fear, shame, and self-loathing. But had I ever been courageous? What did that feel like? I didn't know. Had I never been courageous in my whole life?