Bravery and Fearlessness.

TheMadMan

We don't really use these terms in different context because most of us consider them to be the same.

I think that there is a fundamental difference between the two.
A fearless person is a completely different person from a brave one.

Important clarification: By fear I mean psychological fear, not natural fear, i.e fear from a snake or from a person who is pointing a gun to you.

As it has been often said, a brave person is someone who is afraid but acts/lives through despite the fear.
Lets say, someone is afraid from public speaking. One can, through will, force oneself to face the fear and do the speech, but that person's fear is still there.
If this person does face this fear over and over again then his/her minds adapts to the situation and "is not afraid anymore".
But... fear is fear!
This person has not become fearless, he/she has only pushed fear to the side through reconditioning (by exposure therapy).
That fear is possible to reappear again in the same form or another.
This is the case of many now famous people who preach bravery by fear exposure ( like David Goggins).
So that I am clear, I'm not saying that there is something wrong with this, au contraire, I find it useful, I just want to make the distinction clear.

On the other hand -fearlessness.

Why is a fearless person on a different level from a brave one?
The short answer is ego.
Fear resides in the ego. Every psychological fear rests on the image of myself and every feeling of fear is directly connected with the threat to this image.
A fearless person cannot have a shred of fear from public speech, not because he/she is used to it through exposure but because for him/her there is no sense of threat to the ego/self-image.
So this ego-lessness does not make the person brave because there is nothing to be brave about in the first place.

A brave person is a person whose ego creates fear but through that same ego, he/she tries to conquer the fear through enough exposure.
A fearless person has no ego, which means, no threat to the self-image, hence there is no need to fight with fear for no fear arises in the first place.

We can say that a fearless person cannot be a brave person, because a brave person fights with the threats that come from the ego by using that same ego.

So that's why I think these two terms not only are not synonymous but actually exclusive.

javi2541997

So that's why I think these two terms not only are not synonymous but actually exclusive. — TheMadMan

Interesting post.

But in the last paragraph, it is where I disagree a bit. Actually, I think they are synonyms. When I searched on Google, I experienced a loop regarding the words.

The Oxford Dictionary says that 'bravery' is a noun, and simply defines it as: 'the quality of being brave'. And says that a synonym is courage. When I searched for information about the latter, I found the following information:' courage is the ability to do something dangerous, or to face pain or opposition, without showing fear. For example: It takes courage to sing in public'.

I think this definition is adjustable for what you did consider as 'fearlessness', right?

Fearlessness and bravery are synonyms. However, they sometimes have different nuances. Fearlessness is often centered around facing difficulty or danger without or despite fear. Bravery can be associated with daring.

If they were exclusive to each other, the correct word to refer to would be 'coward' or act 'cowardly'.

GRWelsh

I think fearlessness refers to an ignorant state akin to foolhardiness. I often think of young people and young animals in this context since they are daring without considering or being aware of the consequences -- or they just don't care, because they're biologically wired to be more daring. It is with the experiences of pain and other unpleasant consequences that we develop fear, which is a good thing but can also have negative or paralyzing effects. Bravery is the next level where a person overcomes their fear to attempt to achieve a better consequence (e. g. charging into a burning building to rescue a child).

I don't know of anyone who has no ego, per the OP. That sounds like an ideal from Zen Buddhism or something like that, where the enlightened person gets rid of their ego self or understands there is no difference between the self and other, there is no dualism, that all is illusion... This all sounds good, but it reminds me of the story of the guru who was teaching his students there is no need to fear anything because all of reality is just an illusion. Just then, a tiger jumped into the midst of the group, and the guru ran away faster than any of them.

Vera Mont

I wouldn't bring the ego into it, either. I think it's more a question of information, memory and imagination.

If you are aware of all that can go wrong, all that can happen to yourself or some enterprise about which you care, or have had or witnessed negative experiences associated with the action required, you can imagine every sort of bad outcome. Many fears are quite rational and realistic, and it takes resolve to subdue those fears for the sake of a desired good outcome. Some fears are unfounded, irrational: phobic. They are far harder to control; one must be quite brave to attempt those actions.
If you don't know what bad things might happen, or believe yourself in mastery of the situation, or don't care how it turns out, or have faith in supernatural intervention on your behalf, you might not experience fear at all. It takes no particular resolve or courage to do what you know you can do successfully.

Leontiskos

Why is a fearless person on a different level from a brave one?
The short answer is ego. — TheMadMan

I would say that the brave person confronts fear, but the fearless person has no fear to confront. Yet the fearless person is irrational, for some things deserve to be feared.

Moderation in the feelings of fear and confidence is courage: of those that exceed, he that exceeds in fearlessness has no name (as often happens), but he that exceeds in confidence is foolhardy, while he that exceeds in fear, but is deficient in confidence, is cowardly. — Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, Book II

mcdoodle

↪TheMadMan

Aristotle has a powerful examination of courage and its relationship to fearlessness in the Nicomachean Ethics, Book III. As is his way, it boils down to fearing the right kind of thing in the right kind of way. You can find a rather quaint translation online here: https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.3.iii.html

Tom Storm

I think that there is a fundamental difference between the two.
A fearless person is a completely different person from a brave one. — TheMadMan

Words do not have inherent meaning, they have usage. I can see the argument you are making but someone with a different usage preference may not. What does it matter? We can certainly argue that a sociopath is fearless. Perhaps because they have an emotional malfunction at the centre of their personality. But there are those who might call a serial killer brave and bold for their courageous approach to their horrible crimes. I think it is possible to pin a range of interpretations on a given word, the key is to be clear about how you are using it when you do.

Why is a fearless person on a different level from a brave one?
The short answer is ego.
Fear resides in the ego. Every psychological fear rests on the image of myself and every feeling of fear is directly connected with the threat to this image.
A fearless person cannot have a shred of fear from public speech, not because he/she is used to it through exposure but because for him/her there is no sense of threat to the ego/self-image.
So this ego-lessness does not make the person brave because there is nothing to be brave about in the first place. — TheMadMan

I'm not convinced this is right. Ego isn't a model I subscribe too. People experience ontological threats in different ways. You can't really say for certain why someone is afraid of one thing and not another. Not being afraid of public speaking, for instance, may correlate with extroversion and a desire to show off to others, rather than not having a fear of being judged. Some people draw energy from situations others find frightening. I don't have a developed theory here, but I don't think fear resides in some construction called ego (whatever that might be, perhaps personality or self-system are better words) I think fear comes from our capacity for sense making which inform our preferences and awareness.

180 Proof

↪TheMadMan

So ... acting without fear (i.e. "fearless") and acting despite fear (i.e. "brave") seems to correspond to self-deception and lucidity, respectively.

Paine

Going into conflict, knowing full well it could end badly, is courage. Being certain that you will survive, no matter what, is fearlessness. So, you may have it precisely backwards:

A fearless person has no ego, which means, no threat to the self-image, hence there is no need to fight with fear for no fear arises in the first place. — TheMadMan

Responses to fear is a close portion of anybody's life. I am not proud of all of mine. But I did stand up sometimes.

ToothyMaw

↪TheMadMan

Fear resides in the ego. Every psychological fear rests on the image of myself and every feeling of fear is directly connected with the threat to this image.
A fearless person cannot have a shred of fear from public speech, not because he/she is used to it through exposure but because for him/her there is no sense of threat to the ego/self-image.
So this ego-lessness does not make the person brave because there is nothing to be brave about in the first place. — TheMadMan

It seems to me that the state you describe is at best conditional, as everybody has fears - and if they don't, they just don't know about them yet. Someone mentioned a sociopath: sociopaths might oftentimes have less fear due to some irrational confidence, and many are also narcissistic - in which case it is not a lack of ego that gives rise to the fearlessness, but it is actually the inflated ego itself causing the fearlessness. You should take that into account, I think.

If we are talking about a person who has totally just negated their own ego, then that act itself would probably have required effort and bravery. No one would achieve such a thing easily or in some mundane way, I think. So, we are discussing an incredibly rare person if indeed the two words are categorically exclusive when applied to people, as you claim, which is a different claim than that just the two terms are exclusive.

Otherwise, I mostly agree with you. It is, however, strange that you present it like it is a dilemma ("fearless people can never be brave"), when really it seems like more of a tradeoff than anything to me.

Paine

in which case it is not a lack of ego that gives rise to the fearlessness, but it is actually the inflated ego itself causing the fearlessness. You should take that into account, I think. — ToothyMaw

That is a good point. It surely is a good description of those "encouraged" through intoxication.

The Bushido code of accepting death is an interesting counterpoint to that. The state of mind is not the cessation of ego but access to a capability outside of its operation.

ToothyMaw

The Bushido code of accepting death is an interesting counterpoint to that. The state of mind is not the cessation of ego but access to a capability outside of its operation. — Paine

I am not familiar with Bushido, but that sounds mostly ideal. Honestly, I don't think anyone just doesn't have an ego, although it may appear that way.

Bushido is pretty cool as a philosophy, heard the word before but never actually read about it until now.

Bravery and Fearlessness.

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