Absolutely and good points. I suppose it all depends on how you view 'bravery' and how you view 'fanatic'. Bravery is not always obvious but neither is fanaticism.thatdberight wrote:I'm not sure it's right though. 'Bravery' surely requires a balance between what you feel you have to do and what you might lose by doing it. If (rightly or wrongly) you've decided that all the outcomes of an action, including your own demise, are positive, there's no bravery required, surely? I'm not meaning to trivialise it but there's more bravery in me risking a paper cut than what they did because I think a paper cut is a downside. They (in their own minds) had no downside.
Were the kamikaze pilots brave? Maybe up to a point but lack of fear of death makes what they did less brave - or does it? The same with suicide bombers - brave or fanatical? Certainly the latter but who knows.
What of the 'brave' soldiers on the Somme etc. who willingly walked into machine gun fire to face the enemy - no greater picture of bravery. Or was it? They were ordered to do it and I doubt if any would had they not been told too, and the alternative was to face certain death by firing squad for cowardice. So what do you do? Face a very high percentage chance of death by going over the top and taking your chances or definitely being 'shot at dawn' for refusing to do so (or running away and hiding).
I think the only definite bravery is that which people do willingly, of their own volition, knowing that they risk serious injury or death, whilst of sound mind. A man I knew years ago died in a house fire that he had safely escaped from but went back in to successfully save his daughter. Now that was, without a doubt, bravery.