Courage of convictions: an American relic?
Mark Greathouse
(7/2022) Recall the phrase "have the courage of your convictions?" Whether individuals or businesses or governments, courage mostly seems to ring hollow these days and convictions are about as morally shallow as they can get. The very idea of having the mental or moral strength to persevere and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty has become anathema to far too many folks. Seems we have an ever-smaller number of citizens with the moxie to muster even a shred of courage much less hold high moral convictions, as we are inundated with movements like woke culture and a host of "isms" targeted at dividing and breaking down our society. Has courage of convictions become a relic of our nation’s past?
As a published author of western genre fiction, I necessarily immerse myself in the history of America’s old west. In my research, I came upon a thought-provoking question by my poet/novelist cousin Mary Maude Dunn Wright (pseud. Lilith Lorraine). In writing the preface to her father "Red John" Dunn’s autobiography back in 1932, she boldly asked, "Not in the spirit of judging their actions by artificial standards which in their day had no existence, but by asking ourselves if we were in their places, should we have acquitted ourselves as well, and by putting to ourselves the still more potent question: how well have we kept the birthright that they have given us, how well have we safeguarded the liberties that they purchased through untold privations, how courageously are we meeting the problems that confront us today; in short when we stand before the tribunal of remote posterity, to whom shall the laurel be awarded?" Courage? Convictions?
Many say that the incredible durability of the western novel is owed largely to the frontier mystique that’s wired into our American DNA. It’s at least partly because westerns dish up thrills, action, and adventure in a way that entertains while tapping directly into America’s foundational psyche. It’s a petri dish of courage of convictions. There’s truly no other genre that reflects the determination, courage, morality, and adventure so well. Westerns offer a magnifying glass through which to view America’s heritage of courage and strong faith-based convictions. They trace our nation’s shifting self-image from economic booms to crashes, morality to depravity, faith to hopelessness, but invariably to roots nurtured in rugged individualism and accompanying freedom.
The old west represents the brave pioneering spirit and the courage of convictions of settlers that met the challenges and transcended mere survival to enable America to achieve exceptional growth. The settling of the American west is replete with tales of leveraging the courage of making free choices for individual achievement. Thus, it seems fair to say that reliving our past often has the effect of pointing the way to an ever-brighter future. Might we be up to it?
What about courage in business? Are there corporate leaders today up to that elusive courage of convictions? Can we rely upon Mickey Mouse to deliver morally courageous messages given Disney’s knuckling under to the woke crowd? What sort of convictions did Coca Cola show over the Georgia voting rights act? What are the convictions of Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg? How about Amazon’s Jeff Bezos? Do they meet the high bar of courage? How do their convictions stack up in terms of moral strength and upon what are they based? Seems that we have a pandemic of corporate cowardice that gains function with each new hate-filled woke aberration. By comparison, the corporate barons of the old west like railroad and fur tycoon John Jacob Astor could hardly be placed on any moral high ground. The convictions of the unscrupulous Jay Gould of gold and railroad notoriety were hardly lily pure. Whom do we point to as holding the moral high ground?
Alas, there seems to be less a dearth of courage in America than a lack of convictions based upon high moral standards. For decades we’ve endured the uprooting of our nation’s core virtues. There’s been a fundamental erosion of respect evidenced in cancel culture and the cow-towing of spineless corporate executives to their ill-conceived threats. Do we hold out some level of hope with the likes of Elon Musk controlling Twitter? What are his convictions rooted in?
The courage of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and their contemporaries linger in the mists of our memory. They were not moral paragons, yet by their example we hold high but mostly unfulfilled expectations of our nation’s business and government leaders.
From its beginnings, the United States has been rooted in the fundamental concept of freedom, especially freedom of opportunity. Freedom is essential to maintaining high moral convictions. We desperately need courageous leaders with those high moral convictions and the backbone to fight to preserve our freedoms. The lack of convictions of corporate America runs far deeper than boycotts or Congressional hearings might resolve. The raising of the moral and ethical bar underlying our nation begins with individual citizens evincing pride in our nation’s exceptionalism. It must encompass families, communities, education, media, corporations, and governments. Theodore Roosevelt once said, "To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society." Folks must stand strong for the founding principles that enabled us to build a powerful nation over the past 240 years. Can such moral resolve of convictions among the citizens
comprising our families and communities well up to capture the leaders of corporations and thence to government? Will it thus provide the strength to ward off woke aberrations and recapture the sort of courage of convictions rooted in the Godly morality upon which America was founded? Only when these questions are resolved will we salvage American courage from the ignominious amoral fate of becoming a relic of the past.
Meanwhile…M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U…Stop! Our nation’s future is at stake. Whether individual or business, we must strive for the courage of strong Godly moral convictions. By being exemplars of our own courage of such virtuous convictions; only then can we hold business and government accountable to the high standards we should expect and by which America will endure. How might we answer Lilith Lorraine’s question? Courage of convictions must not become an American relic. Carpe diem indeed.
Read past edition of the Tumbleweeds
Read other articles by Mark Greathouse
