It has taken the Paralympians to object to the gushing epithets that the media lard all over them: ‘brave’, ‘courageous’, ‘heroic’ and so on. They are, in fact, no different from the Olympians: a state-sponsored elite, dedicated to an intensity of daily physical training and competition that would kill most of us, giving their all to win.
In one of Plato’s dialogues, Socrates debates the meaning of ‘bravery’. The first definition is ‘resisting the enemy and not running away’. Socrates shows that flight too can be brave. The second definition is ‘a certain endurance of the soul’. Socrates shows that this endurance must be wise, not foolish, though even so he agrees that a foolish endurance could be braver. But how could what is good (bravery) be at the same time foolish? The third definition is ‘knowledge of what is fearful and encouraging’.
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