Thread: Fearlessness and cowardliness

Originally Posted by taltho

What is fearlessness and what is cowardliness?

I believe that fearlessness is honesty, straightforwardness and truthfulness. While cowardliness is clever trickery, deceit, manipulation, and lies.

What do you think?

I dont think that fearlessness or Cowardliness are really desirable traits to have..

To be fearless of nothing will get you into trouble really quickly, fear is a natural instinct that tells us when danger is close by, of course there are varying degrees of fear, and its healthy to have some fear,

To be a Coward, is to not do something, when it should be done.. to not do the right thing, because you are too scared for yourself, to be a coward is to be in the moment of crisis only caring for yourself and nobody else,

both are extreme traits..

Just my opinion, sure they could be explained in more detail

Namaste

Originally Posted by taltho

What is fearlessness and what is cowardliness?

Can't you just look them up?

Or are you asking which sorts of actions should be considered to constitute such characteristics?

Originally Posted by taltho

What is fearlessness and what is cowardliness?

I believe that fearlessness is honesty, straightforwardness and truthfulness. While cowardliness is clever trickery, deceit, manipulation, and lies.

I think most dictionaries would tend to disagree.

When fearlessness is used synonymous with courage, it simply means action despite fear. Cowardliness, however, means no action because of fear. This is not dictionary-compliant either, though.

Or did you mean to say that <honesty, straightforwardness and truthfulness demand fearlessness> while <tricky, deceit, manipulation and lies imply cowardliness>? For most cases I would agree.

I believe that fearlessness is being true to yourself, to live without fear would mean not to live at all. Cowardliness is allowing the fear to control you, allowing yourself to be true to someone else. i think a desiarable description for a person would be 'true to your own slef, ya know the old saying to thie own self be true. remembering that fearlessness often leads to stupidity and cowardliness leads to a lask of self worth.

Just to intervene ever so slightly here: the word you're looking for is cowardice.

But on topic: cowardice means lack of action, not keen and hidden actions aimed to subvert or sabotage. A coward would much sooner stand tall and proud for something than plot deceit and trickery because while the former (being fierce, courageous, etc.) can be done out of strong morals and ideals even overcoming fear at some crucial point, the latter (deceit, manipulation and lies) are an act of self-centred perseverance.

Originally Posted by Merlock

Just to intervene ever so slightly here: the word you're looking for is cowardice.

yes, that would be it

But on topic: cowardice means lack of action, not keen and hidden actions aimed to subvert or sabotage. A coward would much sooner stand tall and proud for something than plot deceit and trickery because while the former (being fierce, courageous, etc.) can be done out of strong morals and ideals even overcoming fear at some crucial point, the latter (deceit, manipulation and lies) are an act of self-centred perseverance.

so would it be reasonable to say that a person who behaved deceitfuly or used trickery to achive what they believed to be a rite or noble, would be acting fearlessley? or would they be a coward who thought they where acting out of nobility?

They would be neither. They would be sly and keen, perhaps fearless, or perhaps just determined and quelling some of their fear, but not cowardly. Just reaching an end by less noble means.

So, in essence, the fearless and the deceitful are similar but not identical. The former are "good", meaning being noble, respectful, caring while the latter are "evil", meaning being self-centred, selfish, greedy, envious, etc.
And then there are the cowards who are neither. They can't match up to the fearless and noble and don't even have the will to do what they wish through deceit and trickery. They fear causing effect, thus sitting in a corner and doing as little as possible.