Social Research articles from March 2004

Social Research archives from March 2004

Editor's introduction.
March 22, 2004... SHORTLY AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, SUSAN SONTAG WAS TAKEN TO task for arguing in the pages of The New Yorker that the 9/11 hijackers were not cowards since they were willing to die for a cause they believed in. A reader of the magazine wrote to...

The anatomy of courage.
March 22, 2004... WERE THE SEPTEMBER 11 HIJACKERS COURAGEOUS? SUSAN SONTAG wrote in the New Yorker a week after the attacks that "if the word 'cowardly' is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation, high in...

Intellectual courage.
March 22, 2004... THIS IS AN ARTLESS PAPER, WITH MORE AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL CONTENT than is proper. The autobiographical content may be excused by this consideration: teaching political philosophy for 40 years in a great variety of institutions, I have been puzzled...

The tyranny of petty coercion.
March 22, 2004... COURAGE SEEMS TO ME TO BE DEPENDENT ON CULTURAL DEFINITION. BY this I do not mean only that it is a word that blesses different behaviors in different cultures, though that is clearly true. I mean also, and more importantly for the purposes of...

Courage as a virtue.
March 22, 2004... COURAGE IS AN IMPOSSIBLE SUBJECT. NO MATTER WHAT ANYONE SAYS, people (including myself) will always respect, even admire, courage regardless of the purpose or the cause in which it is displayed. One of the worst reproaches in the world is to be...

The dark side of democratic courage *.
March 22, 2004... COURAGE IS THE MOST EXCITING OF THE CANONICAL VIRTUES. ONE RECENT student ranks courage alongside love as the most popular theme in world literature (Miller, 2000: 8-12). By contrast, other virtues, such as justice, patience, or self-control,...

Civil courage and human dignity: how to regain respect for the fundamental values of western democracy.
March 22, 2004... I. AN ESSAY REFLECTING ON COURAGE--OR MORE SPECIFICALLY, CIVIL courage--might be thought to be a timeless effort. Yet these reflections are stimulated by current experiences that challenge us and call for reassuring thoughts. After the...

Courage and the terror of death.
March 22, 2004... IN 1979 I WAS RECONVICTED, ALONG WITH TEN OTHER PRISONERS, for membership in a counterrevolutionary organization. Sixteen years were added to my sentence. After an odyssey through punishment cells, I was transferred from the prison camp of Spac...

Courage, heroism, and the postmodern paradox.
March 22, 2004... I SHOULDN'T THINK I WAS INVITED TO CONTRIBUTE TO THIS SPECIAL issue in order to write about the concept of heroism in antiquity, or C. G. Jung's for that matter, let alone analyze the theme of heroism as treated in the speeches of George W....

Fear and courage: a psychological perspective.
March 22, 2004... Socrates: Then, Laches, suppose we set about determining the nature of courage and in the second place, proceed to enquire how the young men may attain this quality by the help of study and pursuits. Tell me, if you can, what is courage?--Plato...

Courage in dark places: reflections on terrorist psychology.
March 22, 2004... The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all convictions, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. --WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, "The Second Coming" ...