faint-heartedness

Cave, describing modern rock music as “afflicted with a kind of tiredness and confusion and faint-heartedness”, suggested that “the new moral zealotry that is descending upon our culture could actually be a good thing”.

For literary professionals, it is a sign that in a time of faint-heartedness, there is still another path to follow: Rather than publishing feel-good books for silly entitled people, you can reach a wide audience betting on real literature.

In a book published in 2014 under the title Out of Concern for Europe, Kohl berated his countrymen for “historical amnesia, faint-heartedness, anxiety and complacency.”

There are endless ways to justify faint-heartedness in repressive times like this.

But the possibility is floated that it's over for serious novels of any sort other than those that salve our faint-heartedness.