Courage vs fear
The wise and great Benjamin Franklin once wrote, "Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." People quote this all the time, and yet, time after time after time people choose to err on the side of "temporary safety."
Where I currently work there is a tyrant who makes everyone they come in contact with miserable. Students cower before this person, employees hide from them (literally), other departments fall all over themeselves to deal with anyone else in our department. Yet, everyone is terrified of reporting the violations this person commits, supervisors become convinced that if they call this person into line the person will somehow destroy them. So, piece by piece, chink by chink, this one person is causing inefficiency, misery, loss of financial gain and no one does anything. When someone does do something the people who whine, and moan, and spend hours saying they hope someone will help do not praise the courage of the person who acts. Instead they cower and whisper and talk about how much they fear getting in trouble for knowing the person who did something. Until it is over. Then, though grateful someone acted, they look suspiciously upon the heroic individual, as if fearful they will turn on them.
In a university dorm there was a tyrant who was known for spreading false rumors, for going to extremes to get people in trouble. This little tyrant would violate all of the university policies, all of the dorm policies. People joined in on the little tyrant's destructive ways with the mistaken belief that this would somehow protect them from the tyrant. It did not. Eventually a hero came along who stood up to the tyrant. The tyrant fell, the hero went on with a peaceful life. The cowards rushed to tell the hero how they wanted to stand with them, how they knew the tyrant was wrong all along. The hero didn't want to inherit the little herd of cowards.
In history, time after time after time, heros stand up to tyrants and great things happen. Yes, there are casualties along the way, but today I keep wondering, what if Franklin and Adams and Jefferson and Hancock had said, "King George will squash us, just be quiet. It isn't really THAT bad". I wonder what world we would live in in Churchill and Patton and members of the French resistance had said, "We don't want to make Hitler angry by standing up to him." What if Christ had said, "my ideas about treating everyone the way you want to be treated are unpopular. My ideas about love and forgiveness and helping people even if they don't think and act and look just like you aren't popular, so I'll just keep them to myself." What if Dr. King had cared more about fire hoses and lynch mobs and his own safety than his cause?
Every day a person has a chance to be a hero. In school it may be as simple as having the courage to sit next to the kid no one else likes and say, "Hi, how are you doing today?" In college it may be as simple as telling a Dean, "This professor is not even trying to teach a class. They don't show up 90% of the time, and when they do they slap a reading assignment on the board and leave." At work it may be standing up to the tyrant boss and letting people know, "You CAN fire me for this, but I will NOT be silent about what I see that is illegal and wrong."
Is a job, or a B, or popularity worth your personal integrity? Is living, every single day, in fear you'll be the next target of the bully worth the "peace of mind" that "today I'm not it"?
We laud heros.
Why do we also stone them?
Where I currently work there is a tyrant who makes everyone they come in contact with miserable. Students cower before this person, employees hide from them (literally), other departments fall all over themeselves to deal with anyone else in our department. Yet, everyone is terrified of reporting the violations this person commits, supervisors become convinced that if they call this person into line the person will somehow destroy them. So, piece by piece, chink by chink, this one person is causing inefficiency, misery, loss of financial gain and no one does anything. When someone does do something the people who whine, and moan, and spend hours saying they hope someone will help do not praise the courage of the person who acts. Instead they cower and whisper and talk about how much they fear getting in trouble for knowing the person who did something. Until it is over. Then, though grateful someone acted, they look suspiciously upon the heroic individual, as if fearful they will turn on them.
In a university dorm there was a tyrant who was known for spreading false rumors, for going to extremes to get people in trouble. This little tyrant would violate all of the university policies, all of the dorm policies. People joined in on the little tyrant's destructive ways with the mistaken belief that this would somehow protect them from the tyrant. It did not. Eventually a hero came along who stood up to the tyrant. The tyrant fell, the hero went on with a peaceful life. The cowards rushed to tell the hero how they wanted to stand with them, how they knew the tyrant was wrong all along. The hero didn't want to inherit the little herd of cowards.
In history, time after time after time, heros stand up to tyrants and great things happen. Yes, there are casualties along the way, but today I keep wondering, what if Franklin and Adams and Jefferson and Hancock had said, "King George will squash us, just be quiet. It isn't really THAT bad". I wonder what world we would live in in Churchill and Patton and members of the French resistance had said, "We don't want to make Hitler angry by standing up to him." What if Christ had said, "my ideas about treating everyone the way you want to be treated are unpopular. My ideas about love and forgiveness and helping people even if they don't think and act and look just like you aren't popular, so I'll just keep them to myself." What if Dr. King had cared more about fire hoses and lynch mobs and his own safety than his cause?
Every day a person has a chance to be a hero. In school it may be as simple as having the courage to sit next to the kid no one else likes and say, "Hi, how are you doing today?" In college it may be as simple as telling a Dean, "This professor is not even trying to teach a class. They don't show up 90% of the time, and when they do they slap a reading assignment on the board and leave." At work it may be standing up to the tyrant boss and letting people know, "You CAN fire me for this, but I will NOT be silent about what I see that is illegal and wrong."
Is a job, or a B, or popularity worth your personal integrity? Is living, every single day, in fear you'll be the next target of the bully worth the "peace of mind" that "today I'm not it"?
We laud heros.
Why do we also stone them?