by Steno Sari — We live in a world where visibility counts more than truth, where those who remain silent and adapt are rewarded, while those who expose themselves are labeled as naïve or inconvenient. In this "liquid" society, relationships are often based on the fear of commitment, consensus is worth more than conscience and courage has become a rare commodity. I am not talking about the reckless courage of the unaware, but of the clear-headed courage of those who remain true to themselves, even at the cost of paying a high price.
Courage is saying what you think when silence would be convenient. It is the strength to refuse compromises that debase dignity. It is resisting conformism, choosing the truth when the lie would guarantee applause. In a society that rewards ambiguity, the courageous risk isolation, criticism, even exclusion.
But it is precisely these people that we need: not headlines heroes, but men and women capable of small, but significant daily acts of moral resistance. People who do not turn their eyes away from injustice, who do not sell out their consciences, who are not satisfied with being spectators, but want to be witnesses.
On the contrary, we are surrounded by cowards who, as Dante wrote in the Comedy, "live without infamy and without praise", and who reserved for them a fate even more miserable than hell: excluded even from it, condemned to an eternity of waiting for their vile indifference. They are not a marginal category: they are everywhere, transversal and camouflaged. They wear the mask of respectability, talk too much or not at all, without ever questioning the status quo. They survive, sometimes they emerge, precisely because they do not disturb. We find them in places of power, but also among ordinary people. Sometimes they are brilliant, polite, even nice. But when the time comes to take a choice, to defend what is right, they step aside. Their silence makes them accomplices.
Cowardice is the opposite of courage: it is living in fear of exposing oneself, in the will not to displease, in the illusion that quiet living pays. The modern coward does not flee from danger, but renounces ethics for convenience. It leaves room for those who shout the loudest, for those who impose lies as truth, for those who mistake arrogance for authority. Thus, homologation and "political correctness" pushed to excess make those who do not comply a suspect.
Let's be honest: in many areas – work, politics, religion, media, relationships – profit is prioritized over what is right. Cowardice is not only tolerated, but often rewarded. Those who express outrage are ridiculed, those who remain silent move forward. Thus, evil no longer needs violence to thrive, but only complacent silence.
Without courage, truth remains silent, justice blind, freedom empty. To be courageous today means to go against the tide, not out of a sterile polemical spirit, but out of fidelity to the truth and to oneself. In a time that mistakes cowardice for prudence and conformism for balance, we should admire those who do not conform, those who are willing to lose something in order not to lose themselves, those who remain standing, even when everyone else sits down, those who resist not to become heroes, but to be free.
Article published by Libero on 14 September 2025 and republished with the author's permission
