Lessons in Cowardice

Student Caine requires a number of teachings in cowardice — probably because this notion is as bound up with misconception and folly as any in either the East or the West. Let’s see what Kwai Chang’s teachers had to tell him about cowardice…

We begin with Master Kan and the candle-snuffing scene (which, as frequently happened in this series, benefits from some luminous direction and cinematography). Kan recapitulates, though rather more eloquently, a two-word instruction Caine received from another Master: when mere conquest or empty conflict rather than emergent danger is the issue of the fight, “run away.” We are reminded that, way back in 2006, Lt. Gen. William E. Odom had written a piece on the American occupation of Iraq for Foreign Policy magazine entitled, “Cut and Run? You Bet!” Master Kan would have seconded the proposal.

Master Po, below, had also challenged the boy Caine to think differently about cowardice. Thinking himself a coward, Caine fights madly, foolishly, self-destructively. Contending is difficult; contending with a millstone around your neck is impossible. Once the truth about the reason for his blind combat comes out, Po goes into his Taoist comedy routine: cowardice is the “body’s wisdom of its weakness.” We recall that Shakespeare’s Falstaff echoes this teaching: “honour is a mere scutcheon” that “comes unlooked for, and there’s an end.”

Master Po adds another perspective that further lightens the weight of this leaden self-image of the coward, which many a man will run from, even if his flight takes him straight into the arms of death. He reminds Caine that, even if we accept the image, it is not to be considered a life sentence. Every condition can swing to its opposite, because every possibility is within us. A dead hero is just as useless as a living coward; the difference, and the outcome in real life, come not from the image but from the wisdom of knowing when retreat or cowardice is the appropriate response, and when the moment calls for courage.

Throughout the series, Caine allows himself to be punched, kicked, beaten, insulted, and threatened, always without responding. When someone hands him a gun, he treats it like a radioactive turd. It is self-knowledge and wisdom, not the self-consciousness of his power, that tell him when and how much to strike. If this is not a lesson for both our geopolitical and American moment in history, then perhaps there is nothing left to teach.