On Cowardice and Heroism

Another massacre happened recently in Binghamton, New York. It seems that a Vietnamese immigrant, Jiverly Wong, went psycho and killed 13 people. Obviously, such an act is reprehensible. And either Wong was insane or evil. However, the police maintained this was a “cowardly” act.

“Cowardly” is defined as an inappropriate response to fear. However, this word has been transformed to label anyone that we don’t like. For example, our troops are always “brave”. But the enemy is always “cowardly”. While this might be nice for propaganda purposes, it horribly twists the meaning of the word. The Japanese Kamikazes in World War 2 may have been the enemy, but I don’t think they could be described as “cowardly.