The Real Moral Courage Is Screwing Over Your Friends

When I was a kid I was taught about various moral heroes, and how they courageously stood up to their enemies. This is fine as far as it goes, but the real moral courage is screwing over your friends.

The way it was taught to us, there were two elements to how the Great Heroes are described:

1. they were willing to buck the mainstream of society for something that was Right
2. they were willing to take on huge risk and suffering to themselves, for the greater good

I understand why we teach this to children, but I think it's misleading. I'm not saying it's easy to stand up to society, nor to take risk on yourself. But I don't think that's the gating issue that stops most people for standing up for (what they believe is) justice.

The real issue with being a hero is not what it will do to your enemies, but what it will do to your friends. The best case is that your friends and family will be ashamed of you: if you're bucking mainstream society then you're bucking your friends and family, or their friends and family; you're doing and saying things that will get your friends looked at badly by association.

But that's just the best case. The other case is that your friends and family will face direct retribution: lose their incomes, or their freedom, or their lives.

The powers that be are aware, of course, that there are far more people who are willing to throw their bodies onto the gears of the machine than willing to see their loved ones thrown onto those gears. So they threaten consequences not just for the troublemakers but for their friends and associates.

I think the real differentiator of the people we now look back on as moral heroes was not their personal courage, but their willingness to let their friends and family suffer for their beliefs: they were so confident in the righteousness of their cause that they were willing to let their loved ones face terrible consequences for them.

I don't know what to think about this.