Stupidity -- Bravery

[SextusMaximus]

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There is a line between most things... I wish to discuss today, the line between bravery and stupidity.

There was the story of a man who dove on a grenade with his helmet in order to save his fellow troops.

Now I don't know if this is true or not, but use it as an example...

Is this brave, stupid or both? Where do you think the line between bravery and stupidity ends? and tell us some of the bravest stories you've heard.

EDIT: My point was that putting your own life on the line was stupid, I know it's incredibly brave (and heroic) but it is also against the human urge to survive.

 

[TheNamlessGuy]

DELETED

 

[ottenni]

That story is classified as brave i do believe. If he dived at it with a blanket that would be stupid.

 

[Angry Caterpillar]

Bravery. He took up the grenade's impact, knew he was going to die, and wanted to save his friends. I have the utmost respect for the man.
EDIT: http://www.cracked.com/article_17019_p1.html
List of brave men.

 

[Composer]

bravery usually involves doing things that, when looked upon with logic, seems stupid

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

Bravery. He took up the grenade's impact, knew he was going to die, and wanted to save his friends. I have the utmost respect for the man.

This. Bravery becomes stupidity when it's pointless.

 

[Booze Zombie]

He planned to not simply land on the grenade, but contain the grenade with a helmet designed to stop grenade fragments from killing you.
It made sense, really, you either take the risk and possibly don't die or you sit there and just die.

Given the choice between maybe living and dying for sure, I know which one I'd take.

 

[bad rider]

Brave, who knew it would harm himself but help others and he did it.
If he was stupid he would either not know it would harm himself or that it would help others.

 

[Distazo]

Bravery is being able to sacrifice oneself for a cause that is deemed worthy, stupidity is simply if that cause was unworthy. In my mind, the lives of his friends and fellow soldiers classifies it as brave but another could see differently.

 

[Internet Kraken]

I'd only someone's bravery is stupid when it accomplishes nothing. If the story in your post is true, I would not call it stupid bravery. By diving on top of the grenade with his helmets he lessened the impact it would have on his fellow soldiers. I don't see how that is stupid, unless the grenade was twenty feet away from them.

What I would call stupid bravery is trying to jump across a ten foot gap in order to save someone on the the other side. Yes, it's brave that they're willing to risk their life like that for someone else. But it's stupid because there is no way they could have made the jump. So all that happens is that they splatter themselves on the ground and do nothing to help anyone in the process. That's stupid bravery.

 

[hittite]

If I remember correctly from reading Flags of our Fathers, there was a marine at Iwo Jima who jumped on two grenades at the same time. He lived, but it took a lot of surgery. The guys who were handing out the Medals of Honor thought that was brave. I guess I agree.

 

[blindthrall]

Look into the evolutionary advantages of altruism, and this stuff seems less stupid. It's also why armies seek to replace the family in a recruit's mind.

 

[JupiterBase]

That is trained bravery. You trained to do it in the military although few people do. Many of the Medals Of Honor in America were awarded to men who gave there lives by resisting the instinct of self-preservation to save there fellow soldiers. Surprisingly many. Understand this usualy happens when your like in a tank and theres no god damn way your all gonna live if no one jumps ontop of the god damn thing. I heard your chest and belly are pulped but your body will actualy absorb the blast...Rule of Flesh from Conan man...

 

[Timotei]

Bravery. He took up the grenade's impact, knew he was going to die, and wanted to save his friends. I have the utmost respect for the man.

This. Bravery becomes stupidity when it's pointless.

I think this summed up my thoughts perfectly.

Lt. Col Robert Cole led the men of his company on a suicide charge to take a German position had been giving them trouble and would have allowed them to move onto Carentan. He orders his men to fix bayonets and waits for an salvo of smoke rounds. Once they hit he give the order to charge.

Had his charge failed it would have been marked off as a stupid move, but since his charge not only allowed his men to take the barn they charged, but push the Germans back to the bridge outside of Carentan, it was labeled as heroic.

As for the infamous story of him running into the smokescreen firing off his pistol nothing and yelling "God damn it I don't know what I'm shootin' at but if I shoot enough I'm sure to hit something!", would be classified under "crazy".

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

Nowadays, bravery is mostly underappreciated, there's less sense of honor or any good old value, because the majority of human beings are loosing hope of who is leading them, what's happening around; also we were born in lesser harsh ways than our grandparents/ancestors so we don't really know what War, Famine, and other terrible things could happen if we don't care about each other.

 

[PrimoThePro]

the line stops when your no longer fighting for something.
as in, if you do something life endangering when nothing is in danger (except for sky diving... which is awesome)

my story is extremely personal. My eldest brother (God rest his soul) Basically pushed my older brother out of the way of a moving car when my older brother was 5, and my eldest was 14. (I was 1) He died, and we honour his memory every waking moment.

 

[PecosBill]

Bravery = knowingly taking a risk (or actual self-sacrifice) for an intended purpose, where there was no other reasonable alternative, or otherwise taking action instead of gibbering in a corner and meeting your doom in a puddle of your own urine and vomit.

Stupidity = unknowingly taking a risk or taking a risk for a really stupid reason.

Diving on a grenade to save your buddies is brave. You wanted to save your buddies and the only reasonable way to do this was to get yourself killed. Brave.

Diving on a grenade even though nobody else is around because you heard it was brave to dive on grenades would be stupid.

Spotting a deer on the road and spinning the wheel wildly to the right to send your mini-van packed with children flying off of a cliff to explode in flames halfway down a mountain because you were too stupid to just hit the deer is also stupid rather than brave.

Jumping out of an airplane because you are a paratrooper trying to get the drop on the enemy is brave. Doing it because the plane is on fire is still somewhat brave even though it was the only reasonable choice open to you -- you didn't seize up in a panic and you did the correct thing so we would say you had bravery. Doing it for the thrill is what we call "stupid".

 

[RanD00M]

I say that it's stupidly brave.So it's both.And makes no sense at all.

 

[MattZero]

I think going into a situation that's guaranteed to kill you is stupid, bravery is a title we tack on when it achieves something. So the grenade thing is 50/50 stupid and brave.

Here's an example from my life:

Brave: Accepting to bring in a bail jumper who's a well known meth-head
Stupid: Trying to bring him in unarmed
Heroic: Taking six bullets to the chest and still bringing in your mark before you drop dead

God rest your soul Torrin... you stupid bastard.