About The Courage Review Newsletter
Can you feel the anxiety bubbling beneath society today? Are you tired of people choosing sides, demonizing one another, and assuming that anyone who disagrees must be the enemy? Does it sometimes seem that we are being pushed by forces we don’t fully understand?
Ralph Ellison explored this problem in Invisible Man: what happens when other people and institutions define who we are until we have trouble knowing ourselves. Oscar Wilde put it even more starkly in De Profundis: “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”
What if Wilde was right? What if our beliefs and actions are influenced far more than we realize by the people, institutions, political movements, and social pressures around us?
The Courage Review examines moments in history when people faced consequential moral choices—and how societal, political, and institutional forces pressured them to conform.
We tell the stories of people who resisted those pressures and chose what they believed was right, often at considerable personal cost. We ask what influenced them, what was at stake, what they chose, what it cost them, and what happened afterward.
This isn’t about telling people which political or religious side to join. It’s about understanding the forces that shape our decisions—and developing the critical judgment necessary to recognize them.
If you believe we have more in common than our divisions suggest, join us. We’ll look to history and occasionally to the present for people who faced the pressure to conform and nevertheless chose to act according to conscience.
How did they find the courage? Let’s find out.
What readers receive
Free subscribers get:
Essays, profiles, and historical narratives exploring the decision to do the right thing when it carries a real cost—all meant to engage you, not lecture you.
Posts that examine not only the decision itself, but why and how societal, political, and institutional forces influence the behavior we see in today’s headlines.
In addition, paid subscribers get:
The ability to comment on posts and interact with the community of other paid subscribers.
Opportunities to provide feedback, suggest subjects, and contribute or collaborate on ideas and content.
If you like what we’re doing and want to spread our message, paid subscriptions directly support the research, writing, and promotion necessary to grow The Courage Review.
A different kind of gift
Sharing The Courage Review is a way to say, “I hope you become this kind of person,” without saying a word.
For a graduate stepping into the world, a student confronting difficult choices, a son or daughter finding their footing, or anyone interested in character tested under pressure, The Courage Review offers something increasingly difficult to find: real examples of people who had to decide what they believed—and an examination of the pressures that made those decisions difficult.
— The Editors
