Coward?

I was just reading a Myspace blog. I know. I know. The guy was pissed off that the guy did a cowardly thing and killed himself, thus depriving the public about why he did. He branded the guy a coward.

This is interesting. Cowardice. I recall Bush saying that the terrorists on that fateful day were cowards. Why do we apply a word to a situation that seems far the opposite of cowardice. Because the opposite of cowardice is bravery, and bravery is seen as something positive, and so we don't want to glorify what's going on by asserting how brave these people were. We have no real notion in our English language to say the "brave actions of a lunatic", because bravery and good our put side by side, when they shouldn't.

Bravery, in its essence, is overcoming fear. And while a guy with an automated weapon probably didn't fear too much, he must have feared he would not live the end of the day, and was willing to do it anyway. A hero? Hardly. A kind of bravery? Yes, a kind. But not a commendable form of bravery. And so we lack a word for it, and so we call it cowardice.

Cowardice is hiding from action, too scared to do anything. Cowardice may have saved some lives in this tragedy, people who, in a moment of abject terror, hid, unable, unwilling to give their lives to save others. These aren't trained soldiers, and so we can't expect people whose parents would advise cowardice every time if it meant they could see their sons and daughters again. And in this senseless acts, there were those who did sacrifice themselves for others, even as their academic life gave them no inkling that they would feel bravery, and in this case, an overcoming of fear to do something good for others.

I agree with Bill Maher in this case. We use cowardice because we can not think of a word to describe what happened. and we want to insult the people, degrade them, even as they can't hear what is being said, so as to demean the action for any future individuals, who might somehow, perversely, see such actions as brave. If they somehow get it in their head that it is beneath them to behave this way, I suppose the word will have its benefit. But it's hard to say that people of their right mind actually reason this way when such acts occur.

Words can be so limiting sometimes.