The highest type of courage, The Mechanics of Virtue, aphorism 270

270 

The highest type of courage in an aircraft pilot is the calm demeanor and the matter-of-fact tone when he has lost control of his craft and is on his way down.  The highest type of courage in a berserker is frenzy.  Though these are not the same passion, both go by the name of courage.  When the pilot is in a frenzy while on his radio, he is regarded as having yielded to fear – he has panicked.  When the berserker calmly approaches the enemy, he is not yielding to fear, but this is still not the orgy of courage that represents his highest type.  Such calm in the berserker is also not desirable, for only in passionate abandon is surplus strength called up in the midst of overwhelming danger and to a degree that calculation alone can never attain.  The pilot in a frenzied attempt to regain control on the way down cannot exceed accuracy without also falling short of it.  His extra energy is his fear precisely where it would have been courage in the berserker.


As technology continues to encroach on warfare, the berserker’s ideal of bravery and honor will recede, and the pilot’s and commander’s cold calculation will become the ideal response.  Soon any hint of passionate courage in our warriors will be seen as just as much of a flaw as that of cowardice: the soldier and the mathematician will arrive at that single point of fearlessness.  The courage to remain reasonable or mere courage?

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