Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Courage to Stand Alone in an Age of Cowards
American Greatness ^ | 3 Oct, 2025 | Maureen Steele

Posted on 10/03/2025 5:37:44 AM PDT by MtnClimber

True courage is resisting conformity—standing firm in truth while the crowd bends, even when applause fades and loneliness is the price.

The bravest souls are rarely the loudest in the room, but they are often the most misunderstood. In an age when conformity is dressed up as virtue and applause is the currency of self-worth, those who refuse to play by the script become lightning rods. They provoke discomfort simply by existing in truth. They trigger the insecure, unsettle the complacent, and disturb the carefully curated illusions of the fake.

We like to imagine that the pressure to conform ends with adolescence, with the awkward teenage years when belonging matters more than authenticity. But Solomon Asch’s conformity experiments in the 1950s proved otherwise. In a simple exercise—identifying which line matched another in length—he planted actors in the room to all give the same obviously wrong answer. Time and again, the lone real participant abandoned the truth they could plainly see with their own eyes and went along with the group. Three out of four conformed at least once. Not because they were fooled, but because they did not want to stand out. The fear of sticking out, of being “that person,” overpowered reality itself.

And here is the sobering part: that experiment never ended. It repeats itself every day in classrooms, workplaces, media echo chambers, and politics. People choose the safety of the crowd over the solitude of truth. They surrender what they know is real because they do not want the chill of unpopularity or the sting of rejection. The applause comes cheap, but the price of dissent feels unbearable.

Pair that with Stanley Milgram’s obedience studies in the 1960s—where 65 percent of participants willingly administered what they thought were lethal shocks to another person simply because an authority told them to—and you see the bleak pattern. Obedience to authority and conformity to the crowd are the twin forces that crush truth. And yet, every turning point in history has been authored by those who resisted both—the prophets, the dissidents, the whistleblowers, and the reformers.

To live this way is to accept loneliness as a companion. It is to endure suspicion, ridicule, and rejection, not because one is wrong but because one refuses to settle for the comforting lie. Truth costs dearly, but its reward is integrity: an internal compass that does not lose its bearing when the crowd veers off course.

Applause fades. It always does. What endures is the quiet, steady force of those who never sold out, never bent, and never exchanged their essence for acceptance. They may never be fully understood in their time, but they will always be remembered as the ones who saw clearly, stood firmly, and lived bravely.


TOPICS: Society
KEYWORDS: conformity; courage; essay; intercession; leftism; obedience; standup

Click here: to donate by Credit Card

Or here: to donate by PayPal

Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794

Thank you very much and God bless you.


1 posted on 10/03/2025 5:37:45 AM PDT by MtnClimber
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

I think democRATs are crowd people who do not think for themselves.


2 posted on 10/03/2025 5:37:55 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber
Pair that with Stanley Milgram’s obedience studies in the 1960s—where 65 percent of participants willingly administered what they thought were lethal shocks to another person simply because an authority told them to...

The 2020 update to this study conducted by the CDC produced the same dismal results.

3 posted on 10/03/2025 5:41:53 AM PDT by Mr. Jeeves ([CTRL]-[GALT]-[DELETE])
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

My bet would be that studies of “Social Media” would be frightening.


4 posted on 10/03/2025 5:46:00 AM PDT by Empire_of_Liberty
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Mr. Jeeves

Indeed.

I couldn’t believe how weak and compliant millions of Americans were when told to do stupid and dangerous things without question......it really was surreal.


5 posted on 10/03/2025 5:48:50 AM PDT by V_TWIN (RIP Charlie Kirk)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Very good. There are a few here who live this by example. I commend them because it is not easy to stand out against the herd.


6 posted on 10/03/2025 5:49:53 AM PDT by Openurmind (AI - An Illusion for Aptitude Intrusion to Alter Intellect. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:2


7 posted on 10/03/2025 5:51:41 AM PDT by Vision (“Our Democracy” means "Our Slush Fund." The Left is hate.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

A good and sobering truth.


8 posted on 10/03/2025 6:01:54 AM PDT by BEJ
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber
Agree with you.

They are also pathologically afraid of having new ideas.

They grade themselves on their ability to parrot and carry forth an argument by some other leftist who is perceived as an authority figure.

If you try to challenge or even question them about details of their beliefs, they go into a frenzied, lashing out mode.

That ranges from ad hoc "fascist" name calling to punching, stabbing, and murderous behavior.

They are incapable of self-rule, definitely should not be mixed in with normals/conservatives at election time.

They should be excluded.

They know we know this; their response to that is ballot harvesting, fraud of all kinds.

They would be pathetic if they were not so toxic and murderous.

9 posted on 10/03/2025 6:10:13 AM PDT by caddie (Going forward we all need to become Trump, and also Captain Obvious, and Charlie Kirk too. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

The Milgram studies have been debunked by his own assistants. He had an agenda and he wanted to get paid.


10 posted on 10/03/2025 6:15:15 AM PDT by T.B. Yoits
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Charlie kirk certainly fit the bill of a man who stood out in a crowd of cowards- he took the enemy head on, knwoingm that they were unhinged and what they were capable of.


11 posted on 10/03/2025 6:24:31 AM PDT by Bob434 (Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

I started 10 - 15 years ago. And I am down to about 5 friends I would call real... and out of my entire family, 3 talk to me regularly. The rest do not believe i am entitled to an opinion because it doesn’t mesh with theirs...

Im almost dead. I’ll be damned if I spend the rest of my days ducking up to people. Ain’t gonna happen!!


12 posted on 10/03/2025 6:32:25 AM PDT by sit-rep (START DEMANDING INDICTMENTS NOW!!!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: sit-rep

Sucking up**


13 posted on 10/03/2025 6:33:38 AM PDT by sit-rep (START DEMANDING INDICTMENTS NOW!!!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

Planted actors in the room to all give the same obviously wrong answer.

Democrats and media operation still active danger warning.


14 posted on 10/03/2025 6:51:04 AM PDT by Vaduz
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

“Stanley Milgram’s obedience studies”
_____________________________________________

The author says “lethal” shocks. That is not correct. The person in the experiments giving the supposed “shocks” never thought they were lethal. The thought they hurt a lot . . . a whole lot. But they were not told they could be lethal.


15 posted on 10/03/2025 7:13:33 AM PDT by oldplayer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Openurmind

Very good. There are a few here who live this by example. I commend them because it is not easy to stand out against the herd.
________________________________________
Yes, it was best summed up by Aaron Tippin in his song of a father’s advice to his young son. “You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.” Censoring and prosecuting free speech is the new vogue trend around the world where enlightened dictators use the amorphous euphemism called ‘hate speech’ to shut people up - and now it’s even being used to lock them up for years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_s-Qk07KxA


16 posted on 10/03/2025 7:23:31 AM PDT by iontheball
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: iontheball

“Censoring and prosecuting free speech is the new vogue trend around the world where enlightened dictators use the amorphous euphemism called ‘hate speech’ to shut people up.”

Yet right here eight out of ten people are calling for that very thing against the left for their recent hate speech.


17 posted on 10/03/2025 7:47:19 AM PDT by Openurmind (AI - An Illusion for Aptitude Intrusion to Alter Intellect. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: Openurmind

Yet right here eight out of ten people are calling for that very thing against the left for their recent hate speech.
_____________________
It proves my point that it is the new universal trend and it’s goes on everywhere. Speech is one thing, action is entirely another thing Today we are spinning out of control and in the direction of heightened intolerance and disagreement now seems to lead to threats and physical action. No more constrained discourse just name calling, no ability to take the Charle Kirk approach, just personal invectives rule the day.


18 posted on 10/03/2025 8:15:26 AM PDT by iontheball
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: MtnClimber

I real life I would put it at 1 out of 300 or 400 that would stand against the crowd.


19 posted on 10/03/2025 3:11:48 PM PDT by jimfr
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson