Discussing courage and bravery

Here's my first attempt to write about something which happened a long time back, but is still fresh in my mind.

I was in a train with a group (batch mates from college) of 6 people, on a weekend trip, during summer of 2001. Those days, looting of passenger trains was in news frequently, and somehow, the discussion turned to what we will do if robbers attacked our train.

Everyone had an opinion, and lot of joking was going around. People wanted to flee, surrender, fight, use their unknown super powers and so on. This went on for some time, and then someone asked for my 'sincere' answer. I said that it will depend on the exact situation, their vs. our strength, the kind of arms they have and so on, but I don't have a 'ready made', 'fit for all situations' decision.

To raise the stakes, the question was changed to, what if they loot someone in the group. My answer changed to that the odds of my staying and fighting would increase, but again it would depend. Somehow, the conversation took a personal touch, and two of us were involved in a verbal dual:

Him: "Depend on what? How can you even think of leaving someone with robbers, and run away, or surrender?"
Me: "I'm not thinking of any such thing. What I'm saying is that I don't really know what I would do."
Him: "I surely would fight till there's life in me."
Me: "I can say this too, but I'm not sure that I would, so I will not say this. It's very easy to say and equally hard to follow such words."
Him: "You are a coward. How will you fight when you are already thinking about options of running away or surrendering."
Me: "We can only find out what any of us will do when we really face such situation. Till then, anything we say are just words."
Him: "What if your family is there?"
Me: "For them, I'll be prepared to fight till any eventuality."
Him: "So you have double standards. I am sure you will run away even when your family is attacked."
Me: (sarcastically) "But you will still be there to save them :-)."
Me: (continuing) "What my stand is that I know I can die saving my family, but whether I will do so for someone here, I'm not sure. And yes, god forbid if any of us is attacked, we'll see who will stand longer. The only thing is, I cannot promise anything now."
Him: "So you don't care about people here?"
Me: "Lemme put it this way, would you care more for your family, or people who you don't even know properly?"
Him: "For me, anyone in trouble is a personal responsibility."
Me: "Oh yeah!!! So far, I haven't seen you helping a beggar get a job, or admitting an orphan to school."
Him: "That has nothing to do with courage."
Me: "So is courage just about violent fighting? What about fighting the circumstances? What about helping others who are victims, though not of a direct robbery?"
Him: "I'll do all that when when I have more money."
Me: "How much more?"
Him: "Well, hard to say right now."
Me: "Can I assume you don't care for those poor people?"
Him: "No, of course not. Just because I'm not doing anything now doesn't mean I don't care."
...
...

There were some more words exchanged, but eventually, others intervened and we ended our verbal dual midway.

5 years down the line, both of us stick to our arguments as we are fortunate and have not been attacked by robbers to prove any of us right/wrong :-) . Why write about this incident? Because it taught me an important lesson. Too often we quickly come to the belief that our opponents are not only mistaken but scoundrels, something which is not true most of the times. It might be you who is holding mistaken belief, or in fact both may be correct in some way. What I learn from such encounters is that two completely honest people can easily have different viewpoint about a given situation, and it's good to discuss about the differences. You benefit simply by understanding more viewpoints about the issue. As a bonus, it convinces you that even those whom you disagree with usually have heartfelt good intentions.

It will be great if I can get more views on this.