The Courage To Be
By DONALD DeMARCO
We can learn a great deal from English words that have a Greek origin. “Pandemic” refers to something that affects “all the people” (pan + demos). “Panic” can be just as contagious as a viral epidemic. According to Greek mythology, Panikos of Pan was said to cause contagious fear in crowds. We know that a pandemic can cause panic. Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl has observed that a social crisis can trigger a “psychic epidemic.”
The ancient Greeks certainly knew about great calamities. But they also believed that there were two opposing forces that were at work in the world. “Pandemonium” refers to demons (daimon) being everywhere. Pandemonium’s antithesis is “enthusiasm,” which refers to the god within (entheos). And it is said that the happiest, most interesting people are those who have found the secret of maintaining their enthusiasm, that is, the God within.
When we put the four words together we see that a pandemic can lead to panic when a state of pandemonium gets the better of enthusiasm. It may also be said that enthusiasm can get the better of pandemonium.
This article is a panegyric to enthusiasm which, possessing a god within, is able to summon the courage to be at a time of great turmoil. In other words, we need God to help us to find the courage to be true to ourselves, especially in a time of crisis.
The word “courage” comes from the French word “coeur,” referring to the “heart.” Just as the heart is needed to pump blood to all the organs of the body, so too, courage is needed to animate the various virtues we need in order to be fully alive. Winston Churchill ranked courage as “the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all the others.” Paul Tillich held that courage is ontological since it is essential to our being. And yet, we are often alienated from our own being.
Paul Tillich’s The Courage To Be makes appropriate reading in this hour when a pandemic is sweeping over the world. However, it may be difficult to acquire at the present time, given the closing of libraries and limitations on book deliveries. A synopsis of Tillich’s central idea, nonetheless, can be a source of inspiration and understanding for many who are searching for that inner courage to be.
Paul Tillich was an existentialist philosopher/theologian who was also a linguist. His writing can be challenging. But the effort to understand what he is saying can be richly rewarding. Despite his many errors, his contribution on the subject of anxiety is invaluable. “Nonbeing threatens man’s self-affirmation,” he writes. By “nonbeing” he is referring to any force that attacks one’s being, dissolving it into less than what is should be.
Situated as we are in a world in which the forces of “cosmos” and “chaos” clash with each other, life becomes a drama. We fear that nonbeing will undo us. Therefore, we need the courage to resist the seductive power of nonbeing so that we can affirm our own being. The fundamental struggle in life is the struggle to be oneself.
Nonbeing, like evil, is not something that exists. It relates to our fear of losing, if we may utilize a term from the world of sports. Imagine the centerfielder patrolling his terrain. He is, relatively speaking, just a dot in the midst of a vast stretch of playing field. There are so many ways in which a batted ball may elude his grasp. He simply has too much landscape to superintend.
Yet, he takes his position knowing that he cannot always succeed in preventing balls from landing safely. He does this with the courage needed to be a good center fielder despite the threat of nonbeing.
We may also think of Horatio at the Bridge, James Bowie at the Alamo, and Eddie Rickenbacker shooting down 22 enemy planes in perilous dog fights. “Courage is grace under pressure,” wrote Ernest Hemingway. It is standing one’s ground, self-possession in the face of all the threats announced by nonbeing.
Tillich refers to three levels on which we need self-affirmation: on the level of being (ontically), with regard to morality, and psychologically. On the first level we fear “fate” and “death.” On the second level we fear “guilt” and “condemnation.” On the third level we fear “emptiness” and “meaninglessness.” According to Tillich, the fears on the first level were dominant during the ancient period when the lifespan was relatively short. During the Middle Ages, when faith was strong, people feared guilt and condemnation. In the modern age, according to Tillich, emptiness and meaningless are its characteristic fears. The principal anxieties of these three stages all correspond to the fear that nonbeing will assault and dissolve our personal being.
Given the epidemic produced by the present coronavirus, however, it seems that the chief anxiety of the moment is one that we share with the ancients — the fear of doom and death. Tillich is realistic and does not expect heroic courage from everyone. If our eyes are open, we all experience some form of “existential anxiety.” That simply comes with the territory.
Tillich’s caveat, however, is that if we fail to summon the courage to be, we assume the risk of falling into “pathological anxiety.” We do not want our fear of nonbeing to prevent us from activating our own being. We do not want to be so anxious about the effects of nonbeing that we avoid what we can do to strengthen our being: take precautions, be hopeful, understand what is happening, be of assistance to others, pray, and allow God to reign in our heart. A “neurosis,” for Tillich, “is a way of avoiding nonbeing by avoiding being.” We do not want to panic, but, as much as we can, we want to stay strong.
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(Dr. Donald DeMarco is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University, and an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College and Seminary. He is a regular columnist for the St. Austin Review. His latest three books are How to Navigate through Life and Apostles of the Culture of Life, which are posted on amazon.com, and the soon to be published A Moral Compass for a World in Confusion.)