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October 25th, 2007
09:46 am - Walking the Path Again: Virtues (courage)
There is a page about lost, stolen, or destroyed Victoria Cross medals (the UK's equivalent to the Congressional Medal of Honor). One in particular caught my eye:
"The loss of Samuel Harvey's Victoria Cross in the 1920s are variously believed to be: swapped for beer in a pub; lost in a wood near Ipswich whilst returning home from a pub; or possibly Harvey sold his Victoria Cross privately. There have been no sightings of the VC since."
I guess I'd rather swap mine for a beer than have my kids loose it in a field while playing "soldiers," like Duncan Home's VC was. . .
I was re-reading Medal of Honor and VC citations last night as I was working on my Nine Virtues essays, hoping to get a better feel for the virtue of "courage." Courage, of course, is different now than it was. The inscription on the monument to Periclean citizen-warriors at Yale University sums up our modern idea of courage best, I think: "Courage disdains fame, and wins it."
And yet, the ancient world (particularly the IE world) was very strongly centered on the immortality of fame. I might almost be willing to argue that the IE example is best described as, "Courage wins fame, and revels in it."
It is an interesting issue for me to consider. I love re-doing my Dedicant Path documentation, particularly since I did my work before the change in requirements in 2003/2004.
Every time I sit down to re-work my DP, I find that I am learning more from the process. It's an excellent Path for those who take it seriously: easy enough that if you want a hoop to jump through, you can use it as that; but if you're serious about the work, and you want to gain deeply from it, the DP can be as challenging and rewarding as you want it to be.
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: working
Current Music: "No Woman, No Cry", -JB
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