Three stories of The Brave

Three Stories of The Brave.

I have had the radio playing away in the background as I continue with the mammoth task of decorating the kitchen. News bulletins interrupt the music and chat every half hour or so and during these regular news bulletins I noticed three stories of incredible personal bravery; these stories were repeated in brief, throughout the day and then shown on TV in full at the end of the day. They are three very different stories but each is an example of the bravery human beings are capable of. They were introduced as stories of people showing incredible courage and bravery in the face of personal tragedy.

As I methodically sanded my walls, up and down, backwards and forwards, I began to ponder the meaning of bravery, what is this thing we call bravery??


My thoughts drifted away…………I began by considering, in a general sort of way, the fact that bravery was one of the ‘’Virtues’’ written about by the ancient Greeks. The Greek concept of virtue and morality had a number of core assumptions which all Greek thinkers and philosophers shared. The notion of a ‘’Virtue’’ was tied up closely with the notion of ‘’Morality’’, (to be a virtuous man was to be a moral man) and ‘’Morality’’ was the hot topic of the day for any self respecting ancient Athenian. Any decent Bath House conversation would include references to; Moral motivation, or ‘why be moral’? Moral obligation, or ‘who says we have to be moral’? And moral epistemology how we can be certain what is right and what is wrong. This general line of thought was usually followed by the really BIG question…. Can virtue (and therefore morality) be taught?

Socrates

Virtues were more than a basis for morality; they encapsulated the essence of what it is to be human. The Greek word for virtue is 'ARETE'. For the Greeks, the notion of virtue is closely linked to the notion of function (ERGON). The virtues of someone are what enables him to excel at his designated function and often the debate would arrive at the question of if mans function was to be a moral being.
At the time of Socrates the general assumption was that there were 5 basic virtues. These were Wisdom, Temperance (moderation), Justice, Piety and of course….  Bravery (sometimes called courage).

The common belief of the time was that a person could possess all of the virtues, some of the virtues, one of the virtues or none of the virtues. But the greatest thinkers of them all Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all believed that the virtues were completely inseparable, for them it was black and white, a person either had them all and was a moral man, or a person had none, and was not a moral man.
Back to sanding the walls of my kitchen and the three stories of bravery………………………..Time for a tea break and to gather my thoughts. 

Aristotle

Therefore, I thought, if we apply the philosophy of the ancients to these three stories, and if these people are truly brave, according to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle they must, by definition, be also moral people.

The first was the very sad story of John Suchet, TV newscaster and personality and his wife Bonnie. John began to notice small changes in his wifes behavior about six years ago, it took three years of odd little incidents, all gradually getting more bizarre before they finally had a diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s Disease. Bonnie was diagnosed with this horrible disease three years ago and has probably been suffering from it for a total of about six years. It struck her when she was very young, in her early 60’s.To listen to John describe the loss of his beloved Bonnie, the woman he loves so much is heartbreaking. He talks of how he is grieving for Bonnie because she is effectively lost to him, and yet he continues to care for her. He talks of the dreams and hopes they had for their retirement, of how they were going to travel the world and go to the Opera and the ballet. He talks of the loneliness of not being able to share things with her. He talked of the Bonnie who was bright and engaging and beautiful, and of how hard it is to reconcile that person with the person she has become. His devotion to her is obvious and painful to listen too. I have to agree, this man is quietly, heartbreakingly brave and courageous.

The second story to be broadcast today was an update on the story of Patrick Swayze and his fight against pancreatic cancer. I listened to bits from the Barbara Walters interview of him and his wife Lisa. What an incredible couple they are. This man insisted on carrying on working, he went off and filmed his TV series The Beast; he did his own stunts and worked mostly without pain relief while on set and he did it several months AFTER the doctors thought he would be dead!! This man lives through sheer determination.  Patrick and Lisa are two remarkable people, childhood sweethearts, they have been together since she was 16. She is obviously totally besotted with him and he loves the bones of her, describes her as his soul mate. He spoke of how his cancer was at stage 4 by the time it was diagnosed. This makes a cure impossible, his cancer is not going to go away, and while he and Lisa accept this, he remains determined to live with it as opposed to dieing from it. They exude bravery and courage.

The third story is one I find quite difficult. A young woman of 27, a mother of 2 young boys, is dying of ovarian cancer. She has been told the disease is now terminal and she can only expect to live for another couple of months. The reason I personally find this one difficult is because I never had any time for the woman. I didn’t like seeing her on TV, she irritates me, she is loud, vulgar, ignorant, foul mouthed and has definite anger management issues. Her name is Jade Goody, she was first seen on TV when, as a complete unknown, she entered the reality TV show Big Brother. That was a while ago and since then she has become a bit of a ‘celeb’ (what ever that means). She periodically appears on TV, in magazines, on the radio and just about any where else that will make her a quick buck and get her noticed. She went back into the Big Brother House last year and was thrown out for her angry racist abuse of another house mate, (a charming and gracious young lady who is a Bollywood actress). Jade Goody was so ignorant and bigoted she didn’t even realise her behavior was racist!!
And now the woman is dying and I cringe at all the awful things I have ever said about her. She has a film crew following her around and the saga of her dysfunctional family, her very strange mother, her prisoner boyfriend and her terminal illness is all being played out in front of the world on TV.
She is marrying her boyfriend next week in one of those ‘’footballers wives’’ type glossy magazine weddings. She has an exclusive deal with one of the magazines; she has been given a Harrods wedding dress and intends leaving her hospital sick bed to walk down the aisle and marry her (newly released from prison) boyfriend. Except now I have some sort of creeping admiration and respect for her.
I have watched some of the footage of her, she IS loud and ignorant, but she is also a completely natural mother, no false airs and graces, she loves her boys and is doing the best she can for them. She seems to smile and laugh a lot, she is very loud………….but it doesn’t seem to irritate me the way it used to. She doesn’t have a lot of time left and the time she does have is being spent with her boys. She is doing as many deals and making as much money as possible. She wants her boys to have a better life than she had. She says of herself ‘’I am ignorant but I want my boys to have the best education money can buy’’. I can’t remember ever hearing humility like that.  It was reported that she intends getting her boys baptised soon. She reasons that if her boys are baptised they will grow to known Jesus and if her boys know Jesus they will have more chance of keeping in touch with her. Her cancer was missed by her NHS doctor and diagnosed by a private doctor her friend finally took her too. She is frequently asked if she will sue the NHS, her response is……….’’how will that help the NHS??’’. She has no desire to blame any one for her illness and rather than sue the NHS she wants to find ways of allowing them to offer a better service. She publicly asks young women to get them selves regularly checked out. She supports charities for ovarian cancer. One web site reported a massive increase in ‘hits’ once her diagnosis became public. The spokesperson claimed that prior to Jades diagnosis the web site had 3000 visits per week and after her diagnosis became public they had a massive 30,000 hits in one day. I have listened to and watched Jade and now I admire her, only 27 and dying, every day she tries to be brave for her boys, every day she hugs them as much as possible she laughs with them and above all she loves them. This story I find very sad………and she is incredibly brave, I can’t imagine how a Mother of 27 begins to say good bye to such young children. She doesn't seem bitter, sad sometimes but not bitter.

And then this conversation with myself did full circle, I remembered sitting in a vast lecture theater and listening a lecture on the Virtues, reading about the Brave, the Courageous and the Moral. It’s all very interesting stuff but what I didn’t think about then was how Socrates and Plato arrived at their assumptions. The way they thought and rationalised was alien to the way we rationalise, but I can’t help thinking their observations of the human state must have been pretty similar. How they interpreted what they experienced was a product of their own intellect and their own specific time and place in history………….but WHAT they observed in human beings, these gut wrenching examples of human bravery and courage must have been as mind boggling  then as it is today. I always suspected Plato & co were right about an awful lot but now I am convinced they were right about the Brave