Last Sunday marked the 77th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy. On that day, Operation Overlord began, launching the Allied invasion of Europe that would spell the beginning of the end of the Nazi regime. At least 4,400 Allied troops died in the Normandy landings, and another 10,000 were wounded.

As the invasion started, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took to the radio airwaves to ask Americans to join him in prayer: “Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity … let our hearts be stout, to wait out the long travail, to bear sorrows that may come, to impart our courage unto our sons wheresoever they may be.”

Nearly eight decades later, President Joe Biden had nothing to say or tweet about the D-Day anniversary. Breaking with bipartisan precedent, Biden remained silent on that topic. The next day, however, Biden did tweet something noteworthy about bravery: “To transgender Americans across the country—especially the young people who are so brave—I want you to know your President has your back.”

Bravery circa 1944: young men charging from the choppy seas of the English Channel onto the corpse-strewn beaches of Normandy, hellfire raining down upon them, to liberate a continent.

Bravery circa 2021: young men identifying as women, and vice versa.

Our definitions of bravery have shifted rather dramatically.

Our old definition of courage used to comport with the Aristotelian notion of virtue. The virtue of courage—andreia, or manliness, in Greek—lay in recognition of serious risk in pursuit of a heroic telos, a final end.

“The courageous man withstands and fears those things which it is necessary [to fear and withstand], and on account of the right reason,” Aristotle explains in “Nicomachean Ethics.” Courage is calculated and calm risk-taking for the sake of the noble and the good.

Not anymore.

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