Courage is doing something you know you need to do, but are afraid to do it.
Conformity is doing stuff that other people are doing.
They're completely different axis and its a non-sequitur. I can't agree with the statement in any sense. Its worse than wrong, its just nonsense.
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You can be courage and conformity: IE: charging into a battle with your friends is both. You all know you might die, but you know it must be done.
You can be non-courageous but with conformity. Someone's being bullied by the Tyrant of the Crowds... its easier to just keep bullying (and conforming with others) rather than doing the courageous right thing to do and break out of the mob-mentality.
You can be courageous and non-conforming. IE: The fool or jester who taunts the king to provide key advice when all the others know that the king might kill them for speaking that way.
You can be non-courageous and non-conforming. You can run away and desert your post when everyone else was brave enough to face a threat. Alternatively, you can be the one to run away from a hopeless fight and be a rare survivor. The smart one, rather than the group moving in a death march inevitably dying.
Each possibility has good and bad connotations. Its stupid to pretend that "always being courageous" is correct, or whatever. Sometimes running away from a fight is the right move. Sometimes, standing and fighting is the correct move. Sometimes, working with your friends and conforming with the crowds is correct. Sometimes, it is not.
Generally speaking, "courageous" is the right thing to do. But fear is an instinct for a reason. Its more important to live and fight future fights, than to die on the first fight opportunity. George Washington famously ran away from most of his fights during 1776, but critically kept the American Army alive long enough to defeat the British.
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Fear is the opposite of courage. But Fear comes from Wisdom, which is also the opposite of courage. Its okay to run away, often its okay to run away _a lot_. But you gotta pick your fight eventually (you can't just run away from everything).
Having served in active combat I can tell you unquestionably that this is totally wrong and your entire perspective is, in my opinion selfish and looking for validation - you seem to encourage or at least silver lining the fear response of "flight."
Fear is an emotional response to a threat - You have no choice in fear, it is simply a response.
Courage is reacting to the fear to protect others above yourself - this is as simple as admitting you are wrong and as extreme as lunging onto a grenade.
Cowardice is reacting to the fear by protecting yourself first above others - this is as simple as ignoring someone who is hurt to actively harming others in preemptive violence.
I think your examples are great, and you're right, but I also think you're ignoring the specific context of the actual quote. This is a psychologist talking about people in our culture dealing with social issues. So yeah, I think the statement taken as such is strictly false as you noted, but that the meaning is highly indexical[0] and probably has merit.
Nope, plenty of ‘alternate’ takes are complete cowardice and destructive - as well as plenty of ‘mainstream’ ones.
In fact, the actual courageous stand - for something that works on balance for nearly everyone, isn’t destructive (but might be boring) even if some folks don’t like it has pretty much no voice right now. Doesn’t generate clicks, would generate haters.
A quote doesn't need to be true in 100% of cases to be interesting or have merit. This one is naturally divisive, because most people tend to conform (by definition) and few would like to think of themselves as cowardly.
This is like Apple calling the removal of their headphone jacks "brave", because they were non-conforming. Its... a bullshit use of the term. Assigning virtue ("courage") to actions that really have nothing to do with courage, and more to do with saving a few bucks and millimeters on the design.
Its already a stretch IMO to call "courage" strictly a virtue, as it leads to pride and idiocy in many cases. In many cases, courage is needed though, so I think its a good heuristic to "try to be courageous" more often than not.
Stretching it even further on conformity vs non-conformity is just too far to me. Conforming is sometimes good, sometimes bad. Its grossly depends on a case-by-case basis.
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Its important to know the destructiveness of crowds, the tyranny of the majority, and other such situations where non-conformity is a virtue.
But there's also the issue of looking like a fool, a proud fool, for just going against the grain for no good reason. And then "courageously" doubling down on your position over and over again. I think this mistake is more common today. Think Westboro Baptist Church, if you need a real-world example. Or the "courage" of the Proud Boys. Etc. etc.
I don't know quite when Rollo May was born or the state of society was when he made this quote. But... in _today's_ society, there's a lot of special snowflakes who want to stand out. IMO, its more common for people to be non-conforming to a fault these days.
Courage is doing something you know you need to do, but are afraid to do it.
Conformity is doing stuff that other people are doing.
They're completely different axis and its a non-sequitur. I can't agree with the statement in any sense. Its worse than wrong, its just nonsense.
--------
You can be courage and conformity: IE: charging into a battle with your friends is both. You all know you might die, but you know it must be done.
You can be non-courageous but with conformity. Someone's being bullied by the Tyrant of the Crowds... its easier to just keep bullying (and conforming with others) rather than doing the courageous right thing to do and break out of the mob-mentality.
You can be courageous and non-conforming. IE: The fool or jester who taunts the king to provide key advice when all the others know that the king might kill them for speaking that way.
You can be non-courageous and non-conforming. You can run away and desert your post when everyone else was brave enough to face a threat. Alternatively, you can be the one to run away from a hopeless fight and be a rare survivor. The smart one, rather than the group moving in a death march inevitably dying.
Each possibility has good and bad connotations. Its stupid to pretend that "always being courageous" is correct, or whatever. Sometimes running away from a fight is the right move. Sometimes, standing and fighting is the correct move. Sometimes, working with your friends and conforming with the crowds is correct. Sometimes, it is not.
Generally speaking, "courageous" is the right thing to do. But fear is an instinct for a reason. Its more important to live and fight future fights, than to die on the first fight opportunity. George Washington famously ran away from most of his fights during 1776, but critically kept the American Army alive long enough to defeat the British.
--------
Fear is the opposite of courage. But Fear comes from Wisdom, which is also the opposite of courage. Its okay to run away, often its okay to run away _a lot_. But you gotta pick your fight eventually (you can't just run away from everything).