The Timid Generation

[Valin]

National Review:

Try to imagine Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan caving in to North Korea.

Victor Davis Hanson

Dec 23 2014

 

Aristotle thought courage the preeminent virtue. Without it, there could be no morality. Virtue becomes a mere abstraction, a high-sounding platitude that is easy to live by in one’s sleep.

 

The present generation may be the most abjectly cowardly cohort in memory. When the Sony Corporation was victimized by North Korean–sponsored hackers upset over Sony’s new movie The Interview, it caved and withdrew the film. The Obama administration so far has offered no real support. Instead it blamed Sony for its appeasement. By joint inaction both Sony and the United States government sent the message that foreign dictators can determine what Americans see or read, as long as their targets are private citizens.

 

(Snip)

 

Imagine the Greatest Generation withdrawing movies deemed critical of Nazi Germany. In 1940 Hitler promised to ban all films made by the MGM studio because of the release of The Mortal Storm. That movie was an indictment of the totalitarianism and anti-Semitism of the Third Reich. MGM in the end ignored the threats, and so had its films banned in Nazi Germany. Would the current generation instead have withdrawn The Mortal Storm and have been content to send bodyguards to protect its star, Jimmy Stewart, from German threats? Stewart, remember, would later lead B-17 and B-24 bombers over Germany.

 

(Snip)