Monthly Archives: December 2021

Tolerance and Intolerance

by Dave Mathwin

I appreciate writers with strong points of view who take big swings. I wince at those who swing and miss badly, but I can usually admire the effort. I can usually forgive those whom I think get things wrong if I perceive that they try to see different sides of an issue. For example, I think Arthur Miller gets the Puritan witch trials mostly wrong in The Crucible, but he still writes a good play, because he clearly understands the strengths of the Puritans and what virtues might have led them down a wrong path. One can see good and bad, but misinterpret the place and balance of each in a particular epoch. What sends me to an early grave are those who see different possible sides of a civilization and interpret all sides negatively as it suits their purpose.

For example, the Old Testament has come under deconstructive criticism for the last 150 years or so, as various Germans have tried to reduce the authority of the text by pointing out two contradictory things:

  • The texts are a mashup of various Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian etceteras that contradict each other at a variety of places, or
  • The text is the work of a devious editor, carefully culling and sculpting a single product from a variety of sources, who tries to present a Potemkin village of unity, and hence, authority. Thank goodness for all those 19th century Germans, who, after millennia of wool pulling by said devious editors, finally exposed their wicked ways.

In other words, the Old Testament is made to seem meaningless for completely opposite reasons. Choose whatever view of the text you like–you can’t win either way. Or, you can have any color you like, as long as it’s black.

The Middle Ages, a relatively recent battleground for modern political controversies, also gets it with both barrels for different reasons. On the one hand,

  • They were strongly authoritarian and narrow, throttling heretics and witches, science and philosophy, at their leisure, or
  • That out of weakness, unable to stamp out pagan gods and folkways, they stooped to a muddy, broad syncretism in culture and religion.

Hypothetically they could resemble one or the other, but not both at the same time.

Every civilization must have its “narrow” traits, for we must define ourselves in some particular way in order to distinguish from others. And, every civilization has its broad traits, for every human friendship, marriage, or political association will involve some kind of “mixing” and compromise. Intolerance and tolerance both have their place–just make sure you have the proper places for them. The historian then, must construct a narrative by attempting to see how and why civilizations made their choices, by attempting to find their modus operandi, and work outwards from there. If they fail to see this central point of departure, they will conflate things in all the wrong ways.

Ultimately I found myself conflicted by John Williamson’s The Oak King, the Holly King, and the Unicorn, which attempts to explain medieval symbolic thought and culture. Williamson knows many facts, and I found some of his observations about the famous unicorn tapestries illuminating. But at times, he commits the worst of errors, stooping to sheer imbecility.

For example . . .

As the title indicates, he devotes a portion of the book to showing the role of oak trees in the medieval mind. Now, most anyone who has seen an oak tree and noted their size and age, might easily guess as to why such wondrous things might fascinate anyone. But for his answer as to why the medievals valued oaks, Williamson quotes approvingly from Joseph Frazer, who writes,

“Long before the dawn of history, Europe was covered with a vast primeval forest which must have exercised a profound influence on the thought as well as the life of our rude ancestors who dwelt dispersed under the gloomy shadow or in the open glades and clearings of the forest. Now, of all the trees which composed those woods the oak appears to have been the most common and the most useful.” Thus [writes Williamson], it was natural enough that the oak should loom so large in the religion of a people who “lived in oak forests, used oak timber for building, oak sticks for fuel. “

So–the “rude” ancestors who lived in a “primeval” forest “must have”–surely they must have–had a fascination with oaks because of the particular geography they inhabited. They then passed this fascination on down to their ancestors. Ok, I think this wrong-headed, but it is a coherent point of view.

But, in the next few paragraphs, Williamson then shows the universality of the importance of oaks, citing that the Greeks and the Norse both gave a high place to oak trees also–neither of which lived in geographies with dense “primeval” forests. So they “must have” been fascinated with oaks because they were not so plentiful where they lived? Almost on the same page, seemingly without realizing, Williamson

  • Shows that the medievals got their ideas from “rude” ancestors in their one, narrow, backward part of the world, and
  • They borrowed from universal, pre-Christian “pagan” ideas from more developed civilizations with more developed mythologies.

It baffles me, and keeps me up late at night clacking on the keyboard, that Williamson cannot see the inherent contradiction.* To make matters worse (if possible), Williamson never wonders why a similar symbolic meaning for oak trees has permeated different cultures across time and space. His curiosity extends only to the facts, and not to the reason for, or the meaning of, the facts, despite the fact that anyone who has seen an oak tree can make a better guess than he. This too I find incomprehensible and indefensible, and errors of approach like this find their way into different aspects of the book.

Williamson has strengths as an author. Many see the medievals lack of experimentation as an inherent weakness. Williamson sees it as at least a semi-deliberate choice, and I say bravo to him for that. Medieval people preferred bringing things together rather than pulling them apart. They constructed, while we deconstruct. Science, or certain kinds of science, has the marvelous ability to break things down into smaller components–no doubt a useful skill at times. Williamson rightly recognizes, however, that science cannot give the kind of cohesion that medievals sought. The medievals constructed cohesion and meaning through story and symbol, realms where science has little to no part to play.

I also appreciated Williamson’s insights into holly, which strangely I had never thought of before, despite a variety of Christmas hymns that reference holly. Every culture has more or less associated winter with death, but evergreens remind us of the promise of new life even in the midst of death. The red berries on holly trees add extra meaning, with a foreshadowing of Christ’s shed blood even in His birth. Williamson then deftly turns to an interpretation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with insights that I had thought of before related to oak and holly, and the interplay between winter and summer, death and life, that mirrors the tension between the Green Knight and Gawain.

Kudos to Williamson for seeing that medieval people, and most any other pre-modern people, consciously constructed their world through participation. They of course concerned themselves to a point with belief in a more abstract sense. But participation mattered much more to them, that is, entering into the reality professed through ritual reenactment. He applies this pattern to medieval thoughts about unicorns. I address whether or not unicorns actually physically existed in another post. For us “literal” existence of the unicorn is what really matters, but not so for medieval people. For them, the meaning of the unicorn was its reality. We might understand this, if we say that “obviously Santa Claus exists.” We know what he looks like, and how he is supposed to act. We know that when he steps outside of certain bounds, he will be unmasked as “not really Santa.” In this sense, most of us interact with Santa every year.

“Ah,” one might say, “but we can visit Santa at the mall, whereas we cannot hunt unicorns unless they actually exist somewhere.”

This is certainly a fair point.

But given the Christological symbolism of the unicorn hunt–the ‘wooing’ of God through beauty, the death of the Christ figure, etc.–medieval people entered into the hunt through participation in the liturgical cycle. Even supposing that unicorns physically existed and that medieval people really hunted them (this is not my view), the unicorn hunt tapestries did not depict an actual hunt, for the final frame has the unicorn resurrected, enclosed in a wedding band of sorts, “married” to the people as an image of salvation, it’s wounds still visible just as Christ’s.

So despite my heavy criticism of Wiliamson earlier, he understands and appreciates certain aspects of medieval thought better than most. But as mentioned earlier, he has no larger frame into which he can think about the bigger, more important questions of why Christians used classical and mythological sources as they did.

Those who seek for a “pure” Christianity unmixed with any particular culture will seek for a long time. Some aspects of Mosaic law resemble laws from Babylon and other cultures. Certain parts of Genesis seem written at least partly in response to surrounding creation narratives. Some decry the “Greek” influence on the early church fathers but Judaism and Greek culture had interacted for centuries prior to Christ’s coming, at least as far back as the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, from which the Apostles quoted in the New Testament. Very early in the church’s history depictions of Christ took on some Roman forms and tropes.

True, the Church warred against the pagan culture around them, showing their “intolerance.” But almost all of our written sources from the classical world come down to us only because monks copied, preserved, and protected those manuscripts. Many are aware of this fact, yet few take it into their heads why the Church encouraged such behavior. It takes quite a leap of faith to imagine monks scattered throughout saying something like, “The Church has grown stronger and more numerous through the blood of countless martyrs for three centuries. We have done what no other civilization accomplished and conquered Rome. But we have no confidence in our message or our faith. Let’s copy their manuscripts, and incorporate their artistic style, and maybe if we’re lucky they’ll hear us out and convert.” Most sane people look at Dante, for example, and marvel at his integration of biblical and contemporary history, and classical and Christian culture. We don’t assume that he made Virgil his initial guide due to the weakness of his faith. We should not do so with the civilization that produced him.

One must decide how to interpret medieval incorporation of pre-Christian ideas, whether they acted out of weakness or confidence.

Every reason exists within the history of the church to see this move as one of confidence, a consistent outworking of bedrock theological principles.

If, as the Creed declares, that all things were created in, through, and by Christ, then we might naturally expect creation to witness to that fact. In the 3rd century Origen wrote that,

The apostle Paul teaches us that the invisible things of God may be known through the visible, and that which is not seen may be known by what is seen.  The Earth contains patterns of the heavenly, so that we may rise from lower to higher things.  

As a certain likeness of these, the Creator has given us a likeness of creatures on earth, by which the differences might be gathered and perceived.  And perhaps just as God made man in His own image and likeness, so also did He make remaining creatures after certain other heavenly images as a likeness.  And perhaps every single thing on earth has something of an image or likeness to heavenly things, to such a degree that even the grain of mustard, which is the smallest of seeds, may have something of an image and likeness in heaven.

Dionysius the Areopagite later wrote (perhaps 6th century AD?) concerning hierarchies and their images that,

The purpose, then, of Hierarchy is the assimilation and union, as far as attainable, with God, having Him Leader of all religious science and operation, by looking unflinchingly to His most Divine comeliness, and copying, as far as possible, and by perfecting its own followers as Divine images, mirrors most luminous and without flaw, receptive of the primal light and the supremely Divine ray, and devoutly filled with the entrusted radiance, and again, spreading this radiance ungrudgingly to those after it, in accordance with the supremely Divine regulations. 

We can add St. Maximos the Confessor (7th century) to our query, one of the very greatest minds of the Church. He picked up these threads and developed the idea of the Logos and the logoi, that is, how the diversity of things coheres in the Logos/God-Man (without confusing or diminishing any particularity). One commentator writes,

The supreme unity of the logoi is realised in and by the Logos, the Word of God himself which is the principle and the end of all the logoi. The logoi of all beings have in effect been determined together by God in the divine Logos, the Word of God, before the ages, and therefore before these beings were created; it is in him that they contained before the centures and subsist invariably, and it is by them that all things, before they even came into existence, are known by God. Thus every being, according to its own logos, exists in potential in God before the centuries. But it does not exist in act, according to this same logos, except at the time that God, in his wisdom, has judged it opportune to create it. Once created according to its logos, it is according to this same logos again that God, in his providence, conserves it, actualises its potentialities and directs it toward its end in taking care of it, and in the same way by his judgment he assures the maintenance of its difference, which distinguishes it from all other beings.

Here–and elsewhere–lies the foundation for how to deal with the pagan past. It need not be wholly good, for “all the gods of the nation are demons” (Ps. 96:5). But, pagans also are made in the image of God, and so the Church knew that fractals of the Logos lay there as well. Here lies an entire framework for medieval people to examine and integrate the past. One might debate what to include, and what to exclude, but clearly they knew the necessity of both.

As we approach Epiphany, the pattern for how to see as the medievals saw shows itself in the Scriptures and prayers of the Church. The magi, likely from Babylon, looked to astrology, and a star guided them to the maker of stars. “Those who worshiped the stars were taught by the stars to worship You, o Sun of Righteousness” (Christmas troparion). The “Sun” here is not a typo. God uses their idolatry and affirms something of it–that’s tolerance, if you like. But the Church also shows where the magi fall short, and transforms their false faith into a pointer to Truth, the Sun who is the Son. At a certain point, one cannot tolerate paganism and remain a Christian.

To my mind, this is the project of Christendom in a nutshell.

Dave

*Any student of mine, past or present, actually reading this post who wants to get revenge on me in any way . . . you need not worry about putting a tack on my chair, or not turning in homework, or talking in class. You simply need to go onto graduate school, get an advanced degree in Cultural Studies (or something like that), get published, and write the kind of nonsense as Williamson has here. I guarantee you will make me question the very reason for my existence.

When Williamson strays from the details and attempts to draw broad conclusions, he makes blood boiling mistakes dealing with Christian and pagan distinctives. For example, on page 98, he compares Christ to “other vegetation deities . . . such as Narcissus and Adonis.” Narcissus and Christ?! I ask you!

Dueling for your Health

by Dave Mathwin

In Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis makes a provocative point about the modern mind.  In discussing love and marriage, he observes that we have a hard time talking about degrees of good and bad.  We can only discuss absolutes and never relative goods.  This leads to a narrowing of societal discourse.  So he writes about duels that,

They ask you what you think of dueling.  If you reply that it is far better to forgive a man than to fight a duel with him, but that even a duel might be better than a lifelong enmity which leads to continuous secret efforts to ‘do the man down,’ they complain that you have not given them a straight answer.

V.G. Keirnan’s book The Duel in European History has certain strengths but lacks some of the necessary subtlety that Lewis urges.  He has a lot of juicy gems and some incisive points.  He searches for a unified field theory of dueling, which I admire.  He seems to think that dueling’s best explanation lies in a quasi-Marxist theory of maintaining class dominance, which fails in my view for a few reasons.  Of course dueling had something to do with class, but not always. Of course dueling is wrong, but . . . maybe not always?

Some personal examples . . .

I had a good friend growing up and we did various things together.  Around our freshman year we decided to add some spice to our various games of ping-pong, poker, H-O-R-S-E, or video games.  We invented consequences for the loser of these contests.  These consequences either brought great discomfort (put hot pepper on your tongue for five minutes, run barefoot in the snow, eat a spoonful of mustard, etc.), or great embarrassment (fall down dramatically in a restaurant, sing loudly in the middle of the street, etc.).  Looking back, many of these things were essentially harmless and created some good memories.  I should say too that losing brought no shame, but to back out of the “consequence” would have been unthinkable and damaging to the friendship.  You made a pledge, now see it through.

But . . . I think a lot our motivation stemmed from boredom.  No longer could we play “just for fun.”  The game itself no longer satisfied.  As you might imagine, with this motivation the consequences themselves inevitably intensified over time.  Also it seemed that we both sought to find great enjoyment in the suffering of the other person, what the Germans call “schadenfreude.” So perhaps on balance this was “primitive” or “destructive.”

Another example . . .

In college I remember walking into my dorm room one day and seeing my roommate and another guy on the hall wrestling.  It was not purely play, neither were they “fighting” in any real sense of the word.  They engaged in something in between those two.  Some sort of personal disagreement lie at the heart of this–I have no idea what.

I stayed to watch.  Keirnan might want to ascribe the fact that I watched to some sort of love of destructive spectacle.  Obviously I preferred watching the “match” to opening my biology textbook. Keirnan has a point.  But I also stayed to act as a kind of “second” for my roommate should level of fighting go too far.  Soon enough a few others came and watched, much for the same reasons, I’m sure.

After several minutes one of them agreed to say “uncle” and they stopped.  Commendations for both participants flowed from the audience.  It seemed entirely natural that now we should all go to dinner, and the first 15 minutes of conversation had most of us laughing about this or that moment in their match.  The two participants seemed entirely reconciled and never again had another such incident.  One of them had “lost,” but that carried no consequence.

I would love to know what Keirnan would think about this “duel.”  Can duels ever be good for you or society, and if so, why?  To answer this question we need to think about why duels happen in the first place.

Before we think about anything possibly positive about duels, Keirnan deals well with their obvious problems:

  • Most duels occur inextricably bound up with the sin of pride.  Perhaps this, even more so than the violence, explains their consistent condemnation by the Church.
  • Many duels bring death or grave physical harm that had no relation to the nature of the “offense” that caused the duel in the first place.  For example, towards the end of the era of dueling poets and musicians fought over particular points of artistic criticism.
  • At certain points in history duels happened not to settle disputes, but to prove manhood or courage.  Duels might then morph almost into a way of life–a way of life that can only end in death.
  • And yes, Keirnan has a point about the “social-control” aspect of dueling as its link to aristocracies.  Democratic peoples resort to dueling at a vastly lower rate than aristocratic nations, and this tells us something.

None of this surprises the reader.  But Keirnan has more interesting parts of his book.

From his tour through the history of the duel, we may guess at when duels tend to emerge more so than other times.

First, it appears that the amount duels rose in times of significant cultural and political shift.  Two main examples hint at this possibility.  First, dueling increased in the 17th century as the power of monarchs increased.  Increased power to the king meant perhaps that aristocrats felt the need to “strut their stuff” and duel more often.  They may have had the political motive of settling disputes outside of royal courts–an act of survival.

In time the power of the state grew and aristocracies declined.  Duels faded gradually through the 18th century.  But the coming of the Industrial Revolution revived it again.  Here we have part two of their attempt at survival, as the Industrial Revolution made mince-meat of the aristocratic class. This time, however, the dueling had no obvious political purpose.   Also–as to how they thought dueling would ensure their survival . . . ?  Maybe they thought they needed to leave the stage in dramatic and pointless fashion?  I don’t buy the “irrational” motif Keirnan may favor, but he can put this one in his corner.*

In his eyewitness account of the English Civil War, Edward Hyde, the Earl of Clarendon, spends his first chapter criticizing the government of Charles I.  One might suppose that certain policies impoverished England and this led to rebellion.   In fact, as Hyde and other historians point out, England enjoyed relative prosperity during Parliament’s long exile under Charles.  The problem lay not in the suffering of the country, but in part in its lack of suffering.  At length Hyde argues that Charles’ chief error lay in not giving England’s political class anything to do for several years.  They had nothing to do in part because times were good in most respects.  In other words, boredom and restlessness helped lead to the Civil War.

Keirnan mentions this as well at certain points in his narrative, and this rings true with my own experience that I mentioned above.  At some point, things got stale and we wanted to liven them up.  But I keep coming back to the question of the possible validity of some kinds of duels.

I had a long talk with my wife about this and she brought up several interesting questions about my experiences.  “Couldn’t we have had mercy on one another and forgiven the consequence?”  I answered that would not have been possible.

“But why not?”

True, many duelists had “mercy” on their combatant by firing in the air or some other such method.  But this was possible because they had already “won” by showing up and standing for the contest.  Victory was a side benefit.  They had already proven themselves.

For my friend and I, we could only prove ourselves by going through with the consequence.  That was the whole point.  When reminiscing about what happened we never said, “Remember that time you made that shot and won at H-O-R-S-E?”  Instead we reflected, “Remember that time when your feet bled from running in the snow, or when I had to sing the Police’s “Roxanne” in the middle of my street?”  Going through with the consequence gained us fame, not winning the contest.

To “forgive” a consequence in our case would have made the whole process pointless.**

So on the one hand we “proved ourselves” as “men” without doing any real harm to ourselves or others.  We bonded over this.

But on the other hand, it had all the negatives I listed above.

I still wonder about the possible ancillary benefits of duels.

Amidst the many reasons for duels–obscene pride, class control, the destructive impulse, etc.–what stands out to me most is boredom.  In some way, shape, or form, deep down we know that we need to suffer to be who we need to be.  Democracies don’t encourage suffering in any way.  We are told to gratify our desires.  Most modern American manifestations of Christianity have no concept of voluntary suffering and many churches do all they can to accommodate, not challenge, the modern man.

I think if we can recover the true purpose and place of suffering, we may get closer than Keirnan to understanding duels.  And it is here that I must demur, for I have been a somewhat silly teenager, but I am not a saint.

-Dave

*I generally disagree with Marxist interpretations of history but they sometimes have merit.  Kiernan’s class emphasis makes historical sense, but not logical sense–at least to me.  Aristocrats have power because of their birth.  They do not need to “earn” it in the modern sense of the word.  Clearly dueling at times served a purpose of validating their status as aristocrats.  But why feel this need?  Again, they never had to earn their status in the first place.  Perhaps the duel represented for some a kind of atonement oriented suffering for their societal position?  Perhaps this might allow them to feel that they had “earned” their role?

I wonder why democracies eschew the duel.  After all, in theory all of their citizens are born equal and must distinguish themselves in some way from their fellow man.

**In fact I believe this happened once and only once in our years of performing “consequences” and I was the lucky recipient.  If memory serves, we were playing some kind of basketball video game and I had lost multiple times, which meant I had to drink a concoction consisting (I think) of raw egg, tabasco sauce, and mustard.

But my friend did not simply just “forgive” this consequence.  Rather, he had to back out of plans we had made for the following day and in compensation released me from drinking the miserable concoction.

Needless to say, however grave and disappointed I made myself sound when he told me this, I accepted his offer quite readily!

The Etiquette of Battle

by Dave Mathwin

A friend of mine has a friend who teaches in a classics department at a university.  On different campuses different kinds of progressive ideologies have more sway, and at this particular school the administration required the classics professor to document how he would help his students encounter “the other” in the time periods he studied.

This in itself is a worthy goal, for getting outside of the prejudices and perspectives of one’s own time is one of history’s great benefits.  Like C.S. Lewis said about great literature, history can get one outside of oneself, and ultimately can prepare us for worship.

My friend’s friend made the argument that in studying the Greeks and Romans one studies “the other.”  We need nothing else.  Many aspects of their society make them very weird indeed to our current sensibilities.  Anyone from ancient Greece or Rome would feel completely out of place in the modern world.

Alas that his argument held no sway with the administration.*

But we need not go back thousands of years to get at “the other.”  Even certain aspects of European culture from just a few centuries ago would suffice.  We inherited a great deal from the Enlightenment era, but even so, we could not imagine settling disagreements as they did.

I have dealt with the subject of dueling before, but wish to speculate on the connections between dueling, warfare, and ceremony.

Many unwritten rules governed duels, but eventually a man named Crow Ryan (perhaps a pseudonym?) codified them into the “Code Duello.”  No need to review all 26 stipulations, but a few examples will help illustrate for us how they thought.  First, the hierarchy of insults:

I. The first offence requires the first apology, though the retort may have been more offensive than the insult. Example: A tells B he is impertinent, etc. B retorts that he lies; yet A must make the first apology, because he gave the first offence, and (after one fire) B may explain away the retort by subsequent apology.

II. But if the parties would rather fight on, then, after two shots each (but in no case before), B may explain first and A apologize afterwards.

N.B. The above rules apply to all cases of offences in retort not of a stronger class than the example.

And

V. As a blow is strictly prohibited under any circumstances among gentlemen, no verbal apology can be received for such an insult. The alternatives, therefore, are: The offender handing a cane to the injured party to be used on his back, at the same time begging pardon, firing until one or both are disabled; or exchanging three shots and then begging pardon without the proffer of the cane.

N.B. If swords are used, the parties engage until one is well blooded, disabled, or disarmed, or until, after receiving a wound and blood being drawn, the aggressor begs pardon.

VI. If A gives B the lie and B retorts by a blow (being the two greatest offences), no reconciliation can take place till after two discharges each or a severe hit, after which B may beg A’s pardon for the blow, and then A may explain simply for the lie, because a blow is never allowable, and the offence of the lie, therefore, merges in it. (See preceding rule.)

It seems obvious to me (someone correct me if I’m wrong) that the code prohibited “blows” because any Joe Six-Pack can use their fists.  Fists then, would offer no opportunity to distinguish oneself as a gentleman.  In addition, fists lack the deadly power of pistols or sabres.  If we’re going to fight, let’s really fight and not play around as children. To use your fists on someone communicates to them that they are not “worth your sword.”  The contest wouldn’t count because it would lack any real gravitas.

But I think that fists lacked the proper ceremony that helped legitimize dueling.  The rituals of the duel gave the duel the power to confer status on the participants.  We see an example of this ceremony from a scene in Barry Lyndon:

This short scene captures much:

  • The setting for the duel serves the immediate purpose of being away from the law or other bystanders.  But it also is a “genteel” spot that elevates the occasion.
  • The seconds do their duty and attempt a reconciliation before the event.
  • Once the apology was refused, they must fight.  Though Captain Quinn looks as if he had second thoughts, he cannot back down now.
  • Captain Quinn’s second accepts the results and even encourages the other to get away so as to avoid the police.**

The word for duel comes from the Latin “duo” and “bellum,”–a “two-person war,” shortened to “duel.”  It should not surprise us that at the height of dueling, war itself had some of the same rituals.

Another scene from Barry Lyndon shows the ritual nature of battle to some extent.  Neither side employs any strategy.  They declare themselves plainly and come at each other simply and openly.

The first 1:30 of this next clip show the ritual nature of battle well:

In his magnificent The Centurions, Jean Larteguy has the character of Jacques Glatigny, who hails from an established French military family, muse on how things have changed during the French disaster at Dien Bien Phu:

Glatigny’s reaction [he has just been captured near Dien Bien Phu] was that of a regular officer; he could not believe that this “officer” squatting over him and smoking foul tobacco was, like him, a battalion commander with the same rank and responsibilities as his own.  

Glatigny thought that his “opposite number” looked much like a peasant.  His face was neither cruel nor intelligent but rather sly, patient, and attentive.

So this was one of the officers of the 308th Division, the best unit the Vietminh had; it was this peasant from the fields that had beaten him, Glatigny, the descendant of one of the great military dynasties of the West, for whom was was a profession.  He looked at the Vietminh captain with some confusion.  They had fought against each other on equal terms. Their heavy mortars were just as effective as French artillery, and the French air force had not been able to operate over the battlefield.  They had fought hand-to-hand and the position had changed several times throughout the battle, but there remained neither respect, hatred, or even anything resembling interest on his inscrutable face.

The days when the victorious side presented arms to the vanquished garrison that had fought bravely were over.  There was no room left for military chivalry.  In the deadly world of Communism the vanquished was a culprit and reduced to the position of a man condemned by law.  

Up to 1945 the principles of the old world still held.  Second Lt. Glatigny was then in command of a platoon outside Karlruhe.  He had taken a German major prisoner and brought him back to his squadron commander, of the same social class as himself.  The commander had established his HQ in a forester’s cottage.  They saluted and then introduced themselves.  The captured major, after all, had fought gallantly himself and came from a vaunted division of the Wehrmacht.  

The German and the Frenchman, completely at ease with one another, discussed where they might have fought against each other since 1939.  To them it was of little consequence that one was the victor and one the loser, provided that they had observed the rules and fought bravely.  They respected each other and became fast friends.  The major drove the captured German to the prison in his personal Jeep and before departing, shook hands.

Democracies tend to eschew ceremony as elitist, and this has some truth to it.  Ceremonies need presiding, and those that know how to conduct them must have some kind of training not available to all.    But without ceremony we will have a hard time finding meaning in our military endeavors–or in general, for that matter.  This perhaps sheds light on the current problem of the “War on Terror.”  What are we doing, where are we doing it, how are we fighting, and to what end?

But one can have the opposite reaction.  Many students who view the videos above see the actions of the army and the duelists as essentially meaningless.  Two of the clips above come from Stanley Kubrick’s highly praised Barry Lyndon, and one might interpret the movie as an indictment of the meaningless nature of Lyndon’s life in pursuit of aristocratic status.

Maybe, maybe.  But if we eschew one form of ceremony, we will need to replace it with something else, as nature abhors a vacuum.

Dave

*For the administration in question, the “other” had to be defined ethnically.  The Greeks and Romans were “white.”  This tendency of some progressives to label people primarily or almost exclusively by their gender and ethnicity is quite unfortunate and even dangerous, but that is another post.

**Those who have seen the movie know that this is not quite the whole story . . .

11th/12th Grade: The Athenian Assembly

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings,

This week we looked at some debates in the Athenian Assembly, and discussed the merits of their democratic processes.

Athenian democracy certainly had some similarities to our own system, but most initial observers would I think be struck by the differences.  Anyone familiar with C-Span would report that Congressional sessions often devolve into a process few understand, with rigid rules.

Both the language used and the process itself probably lead in part to laws that no one can really understand.  Here for example, is an honest-to-goodness random page from the controversial health-care law, though any law would do. . .

‘‘(2)(A) For calendar quarters in 2014 and each year there-

after, the Federal medical assistance percentage otherwise

determined under subsection (b) for an expansion State

described in paragraph (3) with respect to medical assistance

for individuals described in section 1902(a)(10)(A)(i)(VIII) who

are nonpregnant childless adults with respect to whom the

State may require enrollment in benchmark coverage under

section 1937 shall be equal to the percent specified in subpara-

graph (B)(i) for such year.

‘‘(B)(i) The percent specified in this subparagraph for a

State for a year is equal to the Federal medical assistance

percentage (as defined in the first sentence of subsection (b))

for the State increased by a number of percentage points equal

to the transition percentage (specified in clause (ii) for the

year) of the number of percentage points by which—

‘‘(I) such Federal medical assistance percentage for

the State, is less than

‘‘(II) the percent specified in subsection (y)(1) for the year . . .

How can we debate what no one really understands?

As an aside, this has led to a pet theory of mine — if you would enjoy a rabbit hole click here.

Some practices that look foolish to us make more sense in this light.  The Athenians often insisted that proposed laws be voted on that same day.  This could lead to short-sightedness and lack of depth.  But I think one reason the Athenians did this was to keep the debates centered on one issue.  They had no ridiculous “riders” to bills.  It also meant that issues needed clarity and simplicity so that all could understand.  In the ancient world. laws could also be simpler because they didn’t write on paper.  Their laws had to fit on a single stone or clay tablet, which in itself limited their focus.

Athenian politics operated much more dynamically, probably because the main decision making body in Athens was comprised of whichever 5-7,000 citizens happened to show up for a particular session.  Votes were usually taken on the same day someone proposed a particular law or action, so the language had to be plain and direct.  We don’t need to assume word-for-word accuracy from Thucydides to rest comfortably with this assertion.  In fact, Thucydides probably “dressed up” the sessions a bit for his narrative.  If we think of British Parliament, we might get some idea of how the Athenians probably operated.

One student commented that, “They’re like a pack of monkeys!”  but we should not underestimate the strengths of this approach.  Some students noted that in the British system obfuscation behind elaborate formality might be much less of a problem.  The “common” approach to debate gives everyone a chance to participate.

Speakers at the Assembly took many more risks than any of our politicians.  In a number of Thucydides’ speeches, for example, speakers criticize the people, the “demos.”  No politician could ever get away with calling out the “American people” for our faults and survive, but in Athens some of their most respected politicians did this often.  Perhaps we have much thinner skin, or perhaps we worship democracy more than our ancient forebears.  We could partly attribute this to a strong aristocratic tradition in Athenian history which served as a silent, but often distant alternative to democracy, and again, we have no other tradition to use as an internal reference point for our policies.

If we find our political process frustrating we may find Athens a wonderful breath of fresh air.

However, the approach has its drawbacks.  The rollicking nature of the process could get out of hand.  In the discussion on whether or not to attack a Spartan contingent on the island of Pylos, the “dove” Nicias took a gamble and tried to bait the “hawk” Cleon, by urging Cleon to take command personally of the expedition if he wanted to fight the Spartans so much.  Cleon demurred, claiming correctly that he had no legal authority to command any expedition, but the crowd was into it, and did not buy that “excuse.”  Cleon had to assume command illegally or face shame forever, and he chose the former.

As fate would have it, he and Demosthenes led the Athenians to a shocking and crushing victory over Spartans, making him an instant hero.  All’s well that ends well? Perhaps.  For its strengths, the rough-and-tumble nature of the Assembly could lead to extra-legal actions such as these.  This time it worked out, but when something similar happened in the aftermath of the Battle of Arginusae years later, the results would bring disaster upon Athens.

For those interested, below is a famous debate in the Assembly about the fate of Mytilene, one their rebellious allies.

Blessings,

Dave

(36) When the captives arrived at Athens the Athenians instantly put Salaethus to death, although he made various offers, and among other things promised to procure the withdrawal of the Peloponnesians from Plataea which was still blockaded. Concerning the other captives a discussion was held, and in their indignation the Athenians determined to put to death not only the men then at Athens, but all the grown-up citizens of Mytilenè, and to enslave the women and children; the act of the Mytilenaeans appeared inexcusable, because they were not subjects like the other states which had revolted, but free. That Peloponnesian ships should have had the audacity to find their way to Ionia and assist the rebels contributed to increase their fury; and the action showed that the revolt was a long premeditated affair.17 So they sent a trireme to Paches announcing their determination, and bidding him put the Mytilenaeans to death at once. But on the following day a kind of remorse seized them; they began to reflect that a decree which doomed to destruction not only the guilty, but a whole city, was cruel and monstrous. The Mytilenaean envoys who were at Athens18 perceived the change of feeling, and they and the Athenians who were in their interest prevailed on the magistrates to bring the question again before the people; this they were the more willing to do, because they saw themselves that the majority of the citizens were anxious to have an opportunity given them of reconsidering their decision. An assembly was again summoned, and different opinions were expressed by different speakers. In the former assembly, Cleon the son of Cleaenetus had carried the decree condemning the Mytilenaeans to death. He was the most violent of the citizens, and at that time exercised by far the greatest influence over the people.19 And now he came forward a second time and spoke as follows:–

(37) ‘I have remarked again and again that a democracy cannot manage an empire, but never more than now, when I see you regretting your condemnation of the Mytilenaeans. Having no fear or suspicion of one another in daily life,20 you deal with your allies upon the same principle, and you do not consider that whenever you yield to them out of pity or are misled by their specious tales, you are guilty of a weakness dangerous to yourselves, and receive no thanks from them. You should remember that your empire is a despotism21 exercised over unwilling subjects, who are always conspiring against you; they do not obey in return for any kindness which you do them to your own injury, but in so far as you are their masters; they have no love of you, but they are held down by force. Besides, what can be more detestable than to be perpetually changing our minds? We forget that a state in which the laws, though imperfect, are inviolable, is better off than one in which the laws are good but ineffective.22 Dullness and modesty are a more useful combination than cleverness and licence; and the more simple sort generally make better citizens than the more astute. For the latter desire to be thought wiser than the laws;23 they want to be always getting their own way in public discussions; they think that they can nowhere have a finer opportunity of displaying their intelligence,24 and their folly generally ends in the ruin of their country; whereas the others, mistrusting their own capacity, admit that the laws are wiser than themselves: they do not pretend to criticise the arguments of a great speaker; and being impartial judges, not ambitious rivals, they hit the mark. That is the spirit in which we should act; not suffering ourselves to be so excited by our own cleverness in a war of wits as to advise the Athenian people contrary to our own better judgment.

(38) ‘I myself think as I did before, and I wonder at those who have brought forward the case of the Mytilenaeans again, thus interposing a delay which is in the interest of the evil-doer. For after a time the anger of the sufferer waxes dull, and he pursues the offender with less keenness; but the vengeance which follows closest upon the wrong is most adequate to it and exacts the fullest retribution. And again I wonder who will answer me, and whether he will attempt to show that the crimes of the Mytilenaeans are a benefit to us, or that when we suffer, our allies suffer with us. Clearly he must be some one who has such confidence in his powers of speech as to contend that you never adopted what was most certainly your resolution;25 or else he must be some one who, under the inspiration of a bribe, elaborates a sophistical speech in the hope of diverting you from the point. In such rhetorical contests the city gives away the prizes to others, while she takes the risk upon herself. And you are to blame, for you order these contests amiss. When speeches are to be heard, you are too fond of using your eyes, but, where actions are concerned, you trust your ears; you estimate the possibility of future enterprises from the eloquence of an orator, but as to accomplished facts, instead of accepting ocular demonstration, you believe only what ingenious critics tell you.26 No men are better dupes, sooner deceived by novel notions, or slower to follow approved advice. You despise what is familiar, while you are worshippers of every new extravagance. Not a man of you but would be an orator if he could; when he cannot, he will not yield the palm to a more successful rival: he would fain show that he does not let his wits come limping after, but that he can praise a sharp remark before it is well out of another’s mouth; he would like to be as quick in anticipating what is said, as he is slow in foreseeing its consequences. You are always hankering after an ideal state, but you do not give your minds even to what is straight before you. In a word, you are at the mercy of your own ears, and sit like spectators attending a performance of sophists, but very unlike counsellors of a state.

(39) ‘I want you to put aside this trifling, and therefore I say to you that no single city has ever injured us so deeply as Mytilenè. I can excuse those who find our rule too heavy to bear, or who have revolted because the enemy has compelled them. But islanders who had walls, and were unassailable by our enemies, except at sea, and on that element were sufficiently protected by a fleet of their own, who were independent and treated by us with the highest regard, when they act thus, they have not revolted (that word would imply that they were oppressed), but they have rebelled; and entering the ranks of our bitterest enemies have conspired with them to seek our ruin. And surely this is far more atrocious than if they had been led by motives of ambition to take up arms against us on their own account. They learned nothing from the misfortunes of their neighbours who had already revolted and been subdued by us, nor did the happiness of which they were in the enjoyment make them hesitate to court destruction. They trusted recklessly to the future, and cherishing hopes which, if less than their wishes, were greater than their powers, they went to war, preferring might to right. No sooner did they seem likely to win than they set upon us, although we were doing them no wrong. Too swift and sudden a rise is apt to make cities insolent and, in general, ordinary good-fortune is safer than extraordinary. Mankind apparently find it easier to drive away adversity than to retain prosperity. We should from the first have made no difference between the Mytilenaeans and the rest of our allies, and then their insolence would never have risen to such a height; for men naturally despise those who court them, but respect those who do not give way to them. Yet it is not too late to punish them as their crimes deserve. And do not absolve the people while you throw the blame upon the nobles. For they were all of one mind when we were to be attacked. Had the people deserted the nobles and come over to us, they might at this moment have been reinstated in their city; but they considered that their safety lay in sharing the dangers of the oligarchy, and therefore they joined in the revolt. Reflect: if you impose the same penalty upon those of your allies who wilfully rebel and upon those who are constrained by the enemy, which of them will not revolt upon any pretext however trivial, seeing that, if he succeed, he will be free, and, if he fail, no irreparable evil will follow? We in the meantime shall have to risk our lives and our fortunes against every one in turn. When conquerors we shall recover only a ruined city, and, for the future, the revenues which are our strength will be lost to us.27 But if we fail, the number of our adversaries will be increased. And when we ought to be employed in repelling the enemies with whom we have to do, we shall be wasting time in fighting against our own allies.

(40) ‘Do not then hold out a hope, which eloquence can secure or money buy, that they are to be excused and that their error is to be deemed human and venial. Their attack was not unpremeditated; that might have been an excuse for them; but they knew what they were doing. This was my original contention, and I still maintain that you should abide by your former decision, and not be misled either by pity, or by the charm of words, or by a too forgiving temper. There are no three things more prejudicial to your power. Mercy should be reserved for the merciful, and not thrown away upon those who will have no compassion on us, and who must by the force of circumstances always be our enemies. And our charming orators will still have an arena,28 but one in which the questions at stake will not be so grave, and the city will not pay so dearly for her brief pleasure in listening to them, while they for a good speech get a good fee. Lastly, forgiveness is naturally shown to those who, being reconciled, will continue friends, and not to those who will always remain what they were, and will abate nothing of their enmity. In one word, if you do as I say, you will do what is just to the Mytilenaeans, and also what is expedient for yourselves; but, if you take the opposite course, they will not be grateful to you, and you will be self-condemned. For, if they were right in revolting, you must be wrong in maintaining your empire. But if, right or wrong, you are resolved to rule, then rightly or wrongly they must be chastised for your good. Otherwise you must give up your empire, and, when virtue is no longer dangerous, you may be as virtuous as you please. Punish them as they would have punished you; let not those who have escaped appear to have less feeling than those who conspired against them. Consider: what might not they have been expected to do if they had conquered?–especially since they were the aggressors. For those who wantonly attack others always rush into extremes, and sometimes, like these Mytilenaeans, to their own destruction. They know the fate which is reserved for them by an enemy who is spared: when a man is injured wantonly he is more dangerous if he escape than the enemy who has only suffered what he has inflicted.29 Be true then to yourselves, and recall as vividly as you can what you felt at the time; think how you would have given the world to crush your enemies, and now take your revenge. Do not be soft-hearted at the sight of their distress, but remember the danger which was once hanging over your heads. Chastise them as they deserve, and prove by an example to your other allies that rebellion will be punished with death. If this is made quite clear to them, your attention will no longer be diverted from your enemies by wars against your own allies.’

(41) Such were the words of Cleon; and after him Diodotus the son of Eucrates, who in the previous assembly had been the chief opponent of the decree which condemned the Mytilenaeans, came forward again and spoke as follows:

(42) ‘I am far from blaming those who invite us to reconsider our sentence upon the Mytilenaeans, nor do I approve of the censure which has been cast on the practice of deliberating more than once about matters so critical. In my opinion the two things most adverse to good counsel are haste and passion; the former is generally a mark of folly, the latter of vulgarity and narrowness of mind. When a man insists that words ought not to be our guides in action,30 he is either wanting in sense or wanting in honesty: he is wanting in sense if he does not see that there is no other way in which we can throw light on the unknown future; and he is not honest if, seeking to carry a discreditable measure, and knowing that he cannot speak well in a bad cause, he reflects that he can slander well and terrify his opponents and his audience by the audacity of his calumnies. Worst of all are those who, besides other topics of abuse, declare that their opponent is hired to make an eloquent speech. If they accused him of stupidity only, when he failed in producing an impression he might go his way having lost his reputation for sense but not for honesty; whereas he who is accused of dishonesty, even if he succeed, is viewed with suspicion, and, if he fail, is thought to be both fool and rogue. And so the city suffers; for she is robbed of her counsellors by fear. Happy would she be if such citizens could not speak at all, for then the people would not be misled. The good citizen should prove his superiority as a speaker, not by trying to intimidate those who are to follow him in debate, but by fair argument; and the wise city ought not to give increased honour to her best counsellor, any more than she will deprive him of that which he has; while he whose proposal is rejected not only ought to receive no punishment, but should be free from all reproach. Then he who succeeds will not say pleasant things contrary to his better judgment in order to gain a still higher place in popular favour, and he who fails will not be striving to attract the multitude to himself by like compliances.

(43) ‘But we take an opposite course; and still worse. Even when we know a man to be giving the wisest counsel, a suspicion of corruption is set on foot; and from a jealousy which is perhaps groundless we allow the state to lose an undeniable advantage. It has come to this, that the best advice when offered in plain terms is as much distrusted as the worst; and not only he who wishes to lead the multitude into the most dangerous courses must deceive them, but he who speaks in the cause of right must make himself believed by lying. In this city, and in this city only, to do good openly and without deception is impossible, because you are too clever; and, when a man confers an unmistakeable benefit on you, he is rewarded by a suspicion that, in some underhand manner, he gets more than he gives. But, whatever you may suspect,31 when great interests are at stake, we who advise ought to look further and weigh our words more carefully than you whose vision is limited. And you should remember that we are accountable for our advice to you, but you who listen are accountable to nobody. If he who gave and he who followed evil counsel suffered equally, you would be more reasonable in your ideas; but now, whenever you meet with a reverse, led away by the passion of the moment you punish the individual who is your adviser for his error of judgment, and your own error you condone, if the judgments of many concurred in it.

(44) ‘I do not come forward either as an advocate of the Mytilenaeans or as their accuser; the question for us rightly considered is not, what are their crimes? but, what is for our interest? If I prove them ever so guilty, I will not on that account bid you put them to death, unless it is expedient. Neither, if perchance there be some degree of excuse for them, would I have you spare them, unless it be clearly for the good of the state. For I conceive that we are now concerned, not with the present, but with the future. When Cleon insists that the infliction of death will be expedient and will secure you against revolt in time to come, I, like him taking the ground of future expediency, stoutly maintain the contrary position; and I would not have you be misled by the apparent fairness of his proposal, and reject the solid advantages of mine. You are angry with the Mytilenaeans, and the superior justice of his argument may for the moment attract you; but we are not at law with them, and do not want to be told what is just; we are considering a question of policy, and desire to know how we can turn them to account.

(45) ‘To many offences less than theirs states have affixed the punishment of death; nevertheless, excited by hope, men still risk their lives. No one when venturing on a perilous enterprise ever yet passed a sentence of failure on himself. And what city when entering on a revolt ever imagined that the power which she had, whether her own or obtained from her allies, did not justify the attempt? All are by nature prone to err both in public and in private life, and no law will prevent them. Men have gone through the whole catalogue of penalties in the hope that, by increasing their severity, they may suffer less at the hands of evil-doers. In early ages the punishments, even of the worst offences, would naturally be milder; but as time went on and mankind continued to transgress, they seldom stopped short of death. And still there are transgressors. Some greater terror then has yet to be discovered; certainly death is no deterrent. For poverty inspires necessity with daring; and wealth engenders avarice in pride and insolence; and the various conditions of human life, as they severally fall under the sway of some mighty and fatal power, lure men through their passions to destruction. Desire and hope are never wanting, the one leading, the other following, the one devising the enterprise, the other suggesting that fortune will be kind; and they are the most ruinous, for, being unseen, they far outweigh the dangers which are seen. Fortune too assists the illusion, for she often presents herself unexpectedly, and induces states as well as individuals to run into peril, however inadequate their means; and states even more than individuals, because they are throwing for a higher stake, freedom or empire, and because when a man has a whole people acting with him,32 he magnifies himself out of all reason. In a word then, it is impossible and simply absurd to suppose that human nature when bent upon some favourite project can be restrained either by the strength of law or by any other terror.

(46) ‘We ought not therefore to act hastily out of a mistaken reliance on the security which the penalty of death affords. Nor should we drive our rebellious subjects to despair; they must not think that there is no place for repentance, or that they may not at any moment give up their mistaken policy. Consider: at present, although a city may actually have revolted, when she becomes conscious of her weakness she will capitulate while still able to defray the cost of the war and to pay tribute for the future; but if we are too severe, will not the citizens make better preparations, and, when besieged, resist to the last, knowing that it is all the same whether they come to terms early or late? Shall not we ourselves suffer? For we shall waste our money by sitting down before a city which refuses to surrender; when the place is taken it will be a mere wreck, and we shall in future lose the revenues derived from it;33 and in these revenues lies our military strength. Do not then weigh offences with the severity of a judge, when you will only be injuring yourselves, but have an eye to the future; let the penalties which you impose on rebellious cities be moderate, and then their wealth will be undiminished and at your service. Do not hope to find a safeguard in the severity of your laws, but only in the vigilance of your administration. At present we do just the opposite; a free people under a strong government will always revolt in the hope of independence; and when we have put them down we think that they cannot be punished too severely. But instead of inflicting extreme penalties on free men who revolt, we should practise extreme vigilance before they revolt, and never allow such a thought to enter their minds. When however they have been once put down we ought to extenuate their crimes as much as possible.

(47) ‘Think of another great error into which you would fall if you listened to Cleon. At present the popular party are everywhere our friends; either they do not join with the oligarchs, or, if compelled to do so, they are always ready to turn against the authors of the revolt; and so in going to war with a rebellious state you have the multitude on your side. But, if you destroy the people of Mytilenè who took no part in the revolt, and who voluntarily surrendered the city as soon as they got arms into their hands; in the first place they were your benefactors, and to slay them would be a crime; in the second place you will play into the hands of the oligarchic parties, who henceforward, in fomenting a revolt, will at once have the people on their side; for you will have proclaimed to all that the innocent and the guilty will share the same fate. Even if they were guilty you should wink at their conduct, and not allow the only friends whom you have left to be converted into enemies. Far more conducive to the maintenance of our empire would it be to suffer wrong willingly, than for the sake of justice to put to death those whom we had better spare. Cleon may speak of a punishment which is just and also expedient, but you will find that, in any proposal like his, the two cannot be combined.

(48) ‘Assured then that what I advise is for the best, and yielding neither to pity nor to lenity, for I am as unwilling as Cleon can be that you should be influenced by any such motives, but simply weighing the arguments which I have urged, accede to my proposal: Pass sentence at your leisure on the Mytilenaeans whom Paches, deeming them guilty, has sent hither; but leave the rest of the inhabitants where they are. This will be good policy for the future, and will strike present terror into your enemies. For wise counsel is really more formidable to an enemy than the severity of unreasoning violence.’

(49) Thus spoke Diodotus, and such were the proposals on either side which most nearly represented the opposing parties. In spite of the reaction there was a struggle between the two opinions; the show of hands was very near, but the motion of Diodotus prevailed. The Athenians instantly despatched another trireme, hoping that, if the second could overtake the first,34 which had a start of about twenty-four hours, it might be in time to save the city. The Mytilenaean envoys provided wine and barley for the crew, and promised them great rewards if they arrived first. And such was their energy that they continued rowing whilst they ate their barley, kneaded with wine and oil, and slept and rowed by turns. Fortunately no adverse wind sprang up, and, the first of the two ships sailing in no great hurry on her untoward errand, and the second hastening as I have described, the one did indeed arrive sooner than the other, but not much sooner. Paches had read the decree and was about to put it into execution, when the second appeared and arrested the fate of the city.

So near was Mytilenè to destruction.

Song of Wrath

by Dave Mathwin

For years now I have wondered how many books actually get published.  In the Christian book world every year, for example, books on prayer, grace, parenting, and so on tumble off the shelves each year.  Those I glance at sound almost exactly the same.  Of course it’s no business of mine that books are published, but nonetheless, I am surprised.

The same phenomena exists in the world of history as well, perhaps especially in ancient history. Here we deal with limited sources and unsure timelines, and so it seems that one can say only so much.  When dealing with the Peloponnesian War I thought that we had reached our limit.  The advent of archaeology and the concomitant renewed interest in the ancient world in the late 19th century begot groundbreaking history on ancient Greece. This all culminated, I thought, with Donald Kagan’s masterful four-volume work published in the 1960’s-70’s.  Having read portions of those books, I thought that the final word had been uttered.  Victor Davis Hanson’s uneven A War Like No Other, and Nigel Bagnall’s  disappointing book on the conflict proved to me that indeed Kagan had the last word. Now saying anything else would put one in an awkward position . . .

Or so I thought.

After all, in any field we should encourage new books because we have to encourage new ways of thinking.  Maybe 90% of what gets published never need see the light of day but that 90% might be needed to get the 10% that shines new light just where it’s needed.

Enter J.E. Lendon, Virginia’s own spirited iconoclast, and his new book Song of Wrath.

Every student of the Peloponessian War rightly begins with Thucydides, and he impresses immediately with his penetrating analysis and fluid arguments.  He talks little about what would be for us, the curiosities of ancient life (commonplaces to them of course), and instead focuses on what moderns would tend to appreciate.  For Thucydides, practical power politics and universal psychological principles explained the war.  But Lendon points out that the very fact that Thucydides has to argue for his point of view shows that he departed from traditional ways the Greeks understood conflict.  He did not reflect, then, a typical Greek understanding of the war.  This does not mean he was wrong, but it means that we must wonder if this great authority spoke rightly.  In the end, Lendon admirably challenges some of Thucydides’ key beliefs and conclusions.

Lendon begins his work by discussing Achilles.  The Iliad begins with a seemingly petty dispute between Agamemnon and Achilles over who has the right to a captured slave-girl.  Agamemnon pulls rank on Achilles and takes Achilles’ woman which leads Achilles to withdraw from the fighting altogether.  Most every modern reader inevitably views Achilles as a total heel, a petulant jerk who would rather see his companions die than accept Agamemnon’s decision, however unfair it may be.  And yet Achilles, not Agamemnon or Odysseus, remained for centuries a revered hero of the Greeks, nearly worshipped by such luminaries as Alexander the Great.

How can this be?

Lendon uses this as a window into what the Greeks valued and how they structured their world.  Once we see the great value they placed on rank and honor, we understand the reasons for the war, and the reasons for certain strategies pursued by both sides much more clearly.  Achilles earned his reputation by sacrificing all to the Greek concept of honor.  We know that he sacrificed long life for glory in battle for starters, but he also willingly defies his king and his friends to preserve his honor.  He reenters the conflict not when his honor receives satisfaction, but when his friend Patroclus dies.  When Achilles fights  he does so not for Agamemnon, but to revenge Patroclus, another key Greek concept.  After slaying Hector, Achilles goes too far and succumbs to hybris.  He drags around Hector’s body and initially refuses burial.  For this, he suffers ignominious retribution in the form of an arrow from spineless Paris. But — he had a magnificent run before he ran aground, and that’s what mattered most.

If we understand honor, revenge, and hybris, Lendon argues, we will understand the Peloponnesian War.

Some might suppose this to be a mere gimmick, but I found this lens suddenly made sense of things that had always puzzled me.  Take the strategy of Athens’ star politician Pericles in the wars earliest days.  Thucydides records Pericles arguing that,

[Sparta’s] greatest difficulty will be want of money, which they can only provide slowly; delay will thus occur, and war waits for no man. Further, no fortified place which they can raise against us is to be feared any more than their navy. As to the first, even in time of peace it would be hard for them to build a city able to compete with Athens; and how much more so when they are in an enemy’s country, and our walls will be a menace to them quite as much as theirs to us! Or, again, if they simply raise a fort in our territory, they may do mischief to some part of our lands by sallies, and the slaves may desert to them; but that will not prevent us from sailing to the Peloponnese and there raising forts against them, and defending ourselves there by the help of our navy, which is our strong arm. For we have gained more experience of fighting on land from warfare at sea than they of naval affairs from warfare on land. And they will not easily acquire the art of seamanship; even you yourselves, who have been practising ever since the Persian War, are not yet perfect. How can they, who are not sailors, but tillers of the soil, do much? They will not even be permitted to practise, because a large fleet will constantly be lying in wait for them. If they were watched by a few ships only, they might run the risk, trusting to their numbers and forgetting their inexperience; but if they are kept off the sea by our superior strength, their want of practice will make them unskilful, and their want of skill timid. Maritime skill is like skill of other kinds, not a thing to be cultivated by the way or at chance times; it is jealous of any other pursuit which distracts the mind for an instant from itself.

The Athenians, Thucydides, and the ancients who commented on the war all approved of Pericles’ strategy, which the above quote outlines in bare detail.  Essentially Pericles wanted to make Athens an island by bringing the population within its walls and refusing to fight the Spartans on land.  Then, with their superior navy they could ravage the Peloponnesian coasts.  Most moderns, on the other hand (myself included) have thought little of his approach.  At best it appears a recipe to avoid losing rather than actually winning.  At worst, it’s a passive strategy guaranteed to give all the advantages to the other side.

Lendon argues that we misunderstand the strategy because we misunderstand the Athens’ war aims.  Athens did not care about imposing their will on Sparta, or finding their “center of gravity” (a la Clauswitz) so much as they desired equal rank with Sparta.  Sparta had the rank of “hegemon” in the Peloponnese, Athens sought hegemon status in Attica and thus, equal status with Sparta in the Greek world.  Sparta will ravage our lands, but we can ravage theirs as well.  We don’t need a “shock and awe” response because we strive not to prove our absolute superiority, but our equality.  Besides, the Athenians would wish to avoid the hybris of seeking something beyond their station. They contented themselves with equality, follow the unspoken rules of war, and avoid the wrath of the gods.*

Armed with this perspective, suddenly other aspects of the war made sense to me. Before I criticized Athenian coastal raids for wasting time and resources to achieve purely symbolic results. This led me to make broader conclusions about the vacillating nature of democracies at war.

Lendon argues of course, that honor and rank have everything to do with symbolism. The Athenian coastal raids had nothing to do with “imposing their will” or tactical advantage, and everything to do with displaying status.  So Lendon’s work not only entertained me, it has forced me to reconsider most of my lesson plans for teaching the war.  Grudgingly . . . I give Lendon my thanks.

Does any of this new analysis have a modern application in war?  Some have suggested that 3rd-world warfare resembles many of these “traditional” concepts of honor and symbolism, and that we must abandon all the Cold-War principles that guided our statecraft.  Some argue that acts of terrorism have a lot more to do with symbols of honor than tactical advantage. I cannot comment on this as I lack the knowledge to do so.  But I do think we see a lot of the same principles in our modern political scene.  Democrats and Republicans both press for legislation that will give them “honor” in their districts or with their national following, and often this legislation has mere symbolic value.  Both sides too can obstruct purely for reasons of status, or to refuse honor to the other side.  Some might argue that this is part and parcel of any democracy.  If so, we will need to redefine our definition of democracy, and accept that at least in its modern context, it has little to do with Christianity. It may bear much more direct similarity to our pagan democratic ancestors, and to the song of wrath sung in ancient times . . .

Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus
and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians,
hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls
of heroes, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting
of dogs, of all birds, and the will of Zeus was accomplished
since that time when first there stood in division of conflict
Atreus’ son the lord of men and brilliant Achilleus. . . .

*In Kagan’s great work he comes close to understanding this.  He addresses the modern puzzlement over Pericles’ strategy by pointing out that the Athenians essentially voted for it on multiple occasions and kept it going even after a plague struck their city  In other words, he points out that the strategy surely made sense to them and they must have thought it effective for their purposes.  Lendon argues that after a few years, Athens could have made a legitimate argument that they had won and proved themselves.  The problem with such conflicts lie in that they need interpreted, and Sparta did not interpret events as the Athenians did.  So the war continued, and in time ended with defeat for Athens in a way no one could misconstrue.

A Can of Corn

by Dave Mathwin

I was never a great baseball player but I had my moments. Somehow, though I am not tall and never was very fast or in possession of a strong arm, I fanangled my way into playing the outfield. Compared to the infield, one had less action, but the action was superior and more intense. The stakes were higher. Muff a grounder and no one really notices, but not so a fly ball. Of course chasing down a long moon shot had its pleasures, but my favorite moments were always the high, lazy fly balls, the “cans of corn” as known in baseball parlance. You knew you would catch these, and so you could just stand under them serenely, watching the ball spin against the blue sky. Time stood still, one needn’t worry about Republicans or Democrats, the past or the future–it was enormously satisfying.

This will sound weird, but Odell Shepherd’s The Lore of the Unicorn, an examination of various arguments before and against the existence of the fabled beast, struck me in just this way. There were so many ways this book could have gone wrong. We would be disinclined to believe a medieval writer. In the 17th century the book would have been too technical. In the 18th century it would have had way too many commas and semi-colons. A 19th century treatment would be too emotional and romantic. Bill Bryson on this topic would be too jocular and snarky. But Shepherd brings a light writing style combined with proper reverence for the sources pro and con.

Why not unplug for a bit and consider the unicorn?

When I began the book I thought the foundation for belief in the unicorn’s existence in the pre-modern west rested on a few old Greek guys, and that is true. But, it is only partially true, and true in more complex ways than I expected:

  • Ctesias wrote about the unicorn around 400 B.C., but he lived much of his life in Persia in service to the Persian kings. Xenophon writes that Ctesias healed the wound of Artaxerxes II after the Battle of Cunaxa. Seeing as how Ctesias kick’s this question off, we’ll quote him in full.

“There are in India certain wild asses which are as large as horses, and larger.  Their bodies are white, their heads dark red, and their eyes blue. They have a horn on their forehead which is about 1 ½ feet long.  The dust from this horn ground is made into a potion that protects against poisons. The base of the horn is pure white, but the top is the purest crimson, and the remainder is black.  Those who drink from this horn, they say, are not subject to epilepsy.

The animal is exceedingly swift–powerful and fierce, so that nothing can overtake it.”

  • Aristotle thought Ctesias untrustworthy overall, but he agreed with him that the unicorn did exist.

“We have never seen an animal with a solid hoof (i.e., not cloven) and two horns, and there are only a few with a solid hoof and one horn, as the Indian ass [unicorn] and the oryx.  Of all animals with a solid hoof, the Indian ass alone has a talus [he large bone in the ankle that articulates with the tibia of the leg and the calcaneum and navicular bone of the foot].

Animalium Book 3, Chapter 41

Perhaps only second to Aristotle in authority for such questions would have been

  • Pliny the Elder, ca. 60 A.D.

The Orsean Indians hunt an exceedingly wild beast called the monoceros, which has a stag’s head, elephant’s feet, and a boar’s tail, the rest of its body belng like that of a horse.  It makes a deep lowing noise, and one black horn two cubits long projects from the middle of its forehead. This animal, they say, cannot be taken alive.

Natural History, Book 8, Chapter 33

Some of what we read here may perplex us, such as the multi-colored horn (did he see painted or decorated horns?) and the fact that the unicorn is not white. If we take also the testimony of Appolonius of Tyana and Aelian, we get some basic agreement, but more disagreement than I expected. Pliny introduces the question of whether or not we should be thinking of a rhinoceros. All in all, the ancient sources appear to me to operate basically independently.

If you have a King James Bible, one notes that several passages mention a unicorn (Num. 23:22, Deut. 33:17, Ps. 39:6, Is. 34:7, Job 39:9-10, etc.). Some of these passages could possibly refer to a rhinoceros, and others, not so much, i.e., in Psalm 39:6 the unicorn is said to “skip like a calf”–rhinos don’t skip. Also, different passages mention “exaltation” like the horn of a unicorn, and a rhinoceros horn doesn’t quite fit this.

For some, the fact that the Bible mentions the unicorn is proof that it never existed, since for them the Bible contains so much fanciful gobbledygook. Others assert that the unicorn can’t exist because they haven’t seen it and don’t know anyone who has. These silly attitudes merit little attention. But I have also seen Christians who say, “The Bible mentions unicorns, so if you believe in the authority of the Bible, you must believe in unicorns.”

The question has more complexity, however. It mainly involves the translation of a two key words: “re’em” in Hebrew and “monoceros” in Greek. St. Justin Martyr, St. Ireneaus, and St. Basil the Great all seem to profess belief in the unicorn based on how they translate the Greek along with other factors. But St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, and St. Gregory the Great all believed that the passages quoted above speak of a rhinoceros and may have denied the existence of unicorns altogether. We cannot say that such men denied the authority of Scripture.

Still, for medievals the case for the unicorn remained stronger than the case against. Even Albert the Great, teacher to St. Thomas and one of the best scientific minds of that era, believed in its existence (though doubted the horn’s medicinal effects). Interestingly, belief in the unicorn may have increased in the Renaissance as the ancient Roman arts of poisoning found a new home in the classically obsessed Italians. Various dukes traveled with unicorn horns (so called) in hopes of having them ward off poisons.

But in time, belief in the unicorn ebbed away, and why this happened deserves attention as well, but more on this later. All throughout the history of unicorn belief, skeptics have weighed in with alternate theories.

Theory 1: The Unicorn as Rhinoceros

We have touched on this briefly already from the Bible, but a few other points of interest could be mentioned:

  • With its very tough hide, the rhino cannot be hunted in the standard way other beasts can
  • Like the ancient descriptions say, the rhino is very strong
  • Some even today believe in the medicinal powers of its horn
  • The “elephant’s feet” from Pliny’s description match that of a rhino.

For me, however, this stretches things a bit too far. More persuasive, in my view is

Theory 2: The Unicorn as the African Oryx

  • Like the descriptions of the unicorn, it is tall, fast, and powerful
  • It somewhat matches the colors mentioned by some ancient authors
  • Its location in Africa matches that of many ancient sightings
  • The oryx was known as difficult to hunt and rare even in the time of Oppian (ca. 160 A.D.).
  • As for the two horns, there are two possibilities: 1) African natives testify that when two oryx’s fight, sometimes a horn can break off, or 2) Some naturalists suppose the possibility of a genetic anomaly occurring and an onyx being born with just one horn.

And, one rare form of the species, the Arabian Oryx, is actually white:

Some also think that Aristotle thought that unicorn was in fact, the oryx.

I much prefer this theory to the unicorn as rhinoceros. I am very nearly convinced, but still . . . two horns is not one horn, and the ancients and medievals could count.

Theory 3: The Unicorn as a Transmuted Eastern/Christian Myth

St. Isidore of Seville (7th century) did believe in the unicorn, and he had a strong influence on the formation of medieval bestiaries. He writes,

“Rhinoceron” in Greek means “Horn in the nose,” and “Monoceros” is a Unicorn, and it is a right cruel beast.  And he has that name for he has a horn in the middle of his forehead of 4 feet long. And that horn is so sharp and strong that he throweth down all, and all he rests upon.  And this beast fights oft with the elephant and wounds him and sticks him in the belly, and throws him down to the ground. And a unicorn is so strong that he cannot be taken with the might of hunters.  But men that write of such things say that if you set out a maid [i.e., a virgin] he shall come. And she opens her lap [or possibly, her breast], and he lays his head thereon, and leaves all of his fire, and sleeps thereon.

In the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis there is a curious image of what appears to be a unicorn and a lion:

Lions represent the masculine and kingly power. Some see in this image, then, that either 1) The power of the king was mighty enough even to hunt and kill a unicorn, or 2) The masculine sun triumphs over the feminine moon, day triumphs over night (it seems even in Persia unicorns may have been thought of as white in color).

I agree with Shepherd that we should view this image mostly in mythological rather than historical or political terms. But Shepherd makes nothing of the violent depiction here, and the contrast with the medieval version of the similar story.

We have already noted the power of the unicorn and that no one can capture or contain him. The medieval versions of the story go deeper into the archetypal patterns. First, the singular horn. Shepherd cites numerous stories of how single-horned beasts had a position of great honor. For example,

  • Plutarch relates that Pericles’ farmhands presented him with a one-horned bull (the horns had merged into one) as a mark of thanks and honor.
  • One-horned cattle are seen as bending towards the king in Ethiopian carvings.
  • In the Jewish Talmud, Adam offers to God a one-horned bull after his exile from Paradise, the most precious thing he owned.

The singularity of the horn unites all these instances. In the standard bestiary of the middle ages, the author writes as a postscript,

The unicorn signifies Christ, who was made incarnate in Mary’s womb, was captured by the Jews, and was put to death. The unicorn’s fierce wildness shows the inability of hell to hold Christ. The single horn represents the unity of God and Christ. The small size of the unicorn [relatively, one must assume–an elephant is certainly bigger], is a symbol of Christ’s humility in becoming human.

Even as far back as The Epic of Gilgamesh, the feminine has always humanized or tamed the masculine. This pattern finds its ultimate expression in the Incarnation itself, where the Virgin Mary contains the uncontainable God, and, dare we say, “humanizes” God? They went on to say that that through the virtues of the spotless Virgin Mary, humanity “wooed” God–the so-called “Holy Hunt.”

So, it should not surprise us that in the famous Unicorn Tapestry, the unicorn is captured within a circular fence, reminding us of a wedding ring–God binding Himself to humanity.

Lions make their way into this tapestry as well, though in a different way than ancient Persia:

So, some argue that the maybe the medievals never really thought the unicorn was a real beast, but simply a helpful story to convey spiritual truth. Or, if they did believe in a real unicorn, they did so only as a mistake, a pleasing and helpful tale incarnated too far in their fertile imaginations.

My one beef with Shepherd’s marvelous book is that he refuses to pick a side in this debate, but I will do so.

I am able to accept that the theory of the unicorn as rhinoceros has merit, but I am not convinced. It does have one horn which many regarded as salutary. But the horn is not “exalted,” and the rhino simply lacks the grace, dignity, and metaphorical heft history has placed upon it.

The oryx theory very nearly convinces me. The speed, elusivity, and necessary “dignity” of the beast are present. Imagine a genetic anomaly with an Arabian oryx with one horn and it nearly solves the problem stem to stern. But oryx’s have two horns, and as we have seen, the singular horn stands as a crucial fact in the case. True, in a pure profile one would only see one horn of the oryx. But again, oryx’s do move, and people can count to two.

In fact, Shepherd mentions many citings of the unicorn throughout the centuries. Yes, hypothetically all could be mistaken, exaggerating, or lying. Maybe some saw the Arabian oryx. And yes, it seems strange that in the era of iphones, that none would have a picture if it existed. Possibly it did exist and went extinct some centuries ago.

What I can’t abide are those that say that because the medievals allegorized at length with the unicorn, it shows that they are easily fooled or cannot tell the difference between fact and fiction. It also minimizes the importance of the patterns laid down throughout all the ages–as if isolated”facts” that have no meaning had greater importance than all of our stories. Undeniably certain myths existed around the unicorn, but myth is not a symbol for “falsehood.”

Which brings us to why belief in the unicorn has sharply declined over the last few centuries, and especially in our day. Belief in dragons declined rather markedly after the Middle Ages, if they were ever literally believed in at all. Clearly many ancient and medieval people believed literally in unicorns. Unlike other so-called fanciful beasts, unicorn belief persisted after the medieval era, into the Renaissance and beyond. Even in the 17th century some still believed in the unicorn, as did some British explorers into the 19th century–a Major Latter wrote in 1820 that he had definitely seen a unicorn in Africa. None of this has happened with dragons.

I think the reason for the decline, regardless of whether the unicorn ever existed or not, is that we have lost the stories, we have lost the reasons for anything being anything in the first place. True, if the unicorn had not existed, the medieval people might have made him up–it fits that well into their symbolic world, just as it did for other cultures. I suppose this could be slight critique against them if one really felt the need for it. But we, on the other hand, have no need for anything to exist for any particular reason, including ourselves. Many of us are, as Walker Percy brilliantly deduced some 40 years ago, Lost in the Cosmos.

I think a discussion on cable news over whether or not the unicorn existed would reveal a lot about us, such as the role of tradition, science, and the sexes. I say, we should get at all our major worldview questions not through Twitter, CNN, Fox, or the National Review, but through pleasant cans of corn like the one Odell Shepherd has given us. These moments that stop time are likely the most important of all.

Dave

11th/12th Grade: Democracies and their Allies

by Dave Mathwin

This week we continued our look at the Peloponnesian War and especially at Athens’ crucial decision regarding their ally Platea.

Platea had been a long time ally of Athens, and a strategically important one because of its geographical location near Thebes, a Spartan ally.  Sentiment and history also bound Athens and Platea, as these two city-states were the only ones to show up at the Battle of Marathon.  Thus, they forged their alliance not just out of mutual need but out of a shared history.

As part of their strategy the Athenians purposely decided to use their infantry sparingly, and rely on their navy to win the war.  Unfortunately almost immediately Thebes took the opportunity to attack Platea and add to their territory.  Platea had success in their initial resistance but knew that ultimately they could not outlast Thebes and would lose.  They asked for Athenian help.

Usually of course, allies come each others’ aid.  But in this case, Athens wasn’t so sure. To get to Platea would mean fundamentally altering their strategy for the entire war. Using Athenian infantry meant exposing their own city to attack by the more deadly Spartan infantry.  The chances of the Plateans maintaining control after the Athenians inevitably left were slim.  How should they respond?

The dilemma the Athenians faced is akin to what we faced regarding West Berlin in the Cold War.  Undoubtedly it was a great coup to have part of a significant city be “on our side” right in the heart of the Iron Curtain.  West Berlin stood as a constant embarrassment to the puppet regime in East Germany.  President Kennedy made this famous speech regarding the city.

But surely much of our talk regarding West Berlin was bravado.  The city remained immensely vulnerable, and we had no way of guaranteeing its security.  If they were attacked, the best we could do would be to retaliate somewhere else.  Would defense of this city truly be worth a world war?  If push came to shove, should the U.S. let its bluff get called, or would we go “all in” on West Berlin?

Though the issue doesn’t have the relevance it once did, the problem of Taiwan and China also has resonance with the Athenian dilemma.  In the aftermath of communist takeover of China, the nationalists fled to Taiwan.  Taiwan had a long history of being a part of China, but the communists lacked the naval strength to take the island from the nationalist party.  We immediately recognized Taiwan as the “true China” and pledged its defense.

Early on this was almost as easily said as done.  China had no real navy or air force.  Recently of course, this has changed.  Their navy has greatly improved, and they have the world’s largest air force.  Defense of Taiwan has become a much more difficult problem.  Not only are they so far away, not only would defending Taiwan require large amounts of our naval resources, war with China would cost a great deal more now than even 25 years ago.  When push came to shove, would we truly risk so much for Taiwan’s sake?

For the most part the students agreed that Athens really shouldn’t help Platea, and neither would they really have started World War III over West Berlin.  This prompted the question, “Are democracies more likely, less likely, or just as likely to keep these kinds of alliances as other forms of government (such as monarchies or oligarchies).

If we believe that different forms of government have their own personalities, their own strengths and weaknesses, then we might expect them to act differently in different circumstances.  Some  might point out that aristocratic governments might indeed be more willing, for aristocracies have a great deal in common across national lines.  A duke in country ‘X’ has more in common with a duke in country ‘y’ than he does with a factory worker in his own country.  Thus, alliances between aristocratic countries will be more personal, and less politically abstract.

Some suggested that since monarchies and aristocracies rely much more on tradition than democracies, the past assumes much more importance for them — thus past alliances hold more weight.  Often aristocracies put a strong emphasis on a shared honor code, and this too might give them more internal incentive to keep past agreements.

De Tocqueville suggested the democracies would be inherently more practical than aristocracies.  In a famous passage he wrote,

Nothing is more necessary to the culture of the higher sciences, or the more elevated departments of science, than meditation; and nothing is less suited to meditation than the structure of democratic society. We do not find there, as amongst an aristocratic people, once class which keeps in repose because it is well off; and another, which does not venture to stir because it despairs of improving its condition. . . .  Men who live in democratic societies not only seldom indulge in meditation, but they naturally entertain very little esteem for it.

Thus, he concludes that aristocracies can be driven much more by ideas than democratic countries, who will usually use “practicality” as a guide for their decisions.

Whether or not De Tocqueville is correct, the issue of alliances and when to uphold them will always be relevant.  Athens preserved its infantry by refusing to come to Platea’s aid (to be fair to Athens, much of their population was stricken with a deadly plague) but Platea paid the price.  They succumbed to a joint Theban/Spartan attack.  The Thebans executed all their men, and sold their women and children into slavery.  Platea simply ceased to exist.

Next week we will see how the war expanded and changed its character as time went on.

Blessings,

Dave

A Donut Shaped Universe

by Dave Mathwin

If anyone every feels a tinge of excitement opening Plato’s Republic for the first time, many find the text quickly snuffs it out. This foundational philosophical work starts off with a rather mundane conversation. Then, when Plato starts to talk about how the state should be built, one of the first points he makes is that no one should more than one job, one task. Stay in your lane, and do not deviate. Otherwise, “great evil” would result.

Such pronouncements strike moderns as absurd and non-sensical. I like Plato and think The Republic deserves its place in the canon, but I too never really liked the explanation given by various commentators about this section of the work.

Ah . . . but Jane Jacobs may have discovered the answer–one I had never heard or considered before.

All readers know the pleasure of discovering a new author, with the prospect not only of the current book in front of you, but of all of their other works. Well, historians get the same thrill as seekers of fiction, and I have to say . . . Jane Jacobs has been too long absent from my life. I am not sure if I agree with her, but that is not the point. The best teachers you have had may not have agreed with you, but pushed you to think, explore, and wonder.

But I have another qualification for a good historian–one cannot be simply a “one thing after another” type of historian. I would say that such people are in fact not historians–however good their research skills–for historians must create meaning. This means that historians must consciously synthesize even if they do not wish to overtly systematize. Jacobs showed in her most famous work (which I have not read) The Life and Death of American Cities that she can pick order out of the seemingly scattered flotsam of different neighborhoods.

One wants to agree with such people, and I find it annoying for the moment that I cannot decide quite what I think about one of her perhaps lesser-known works, Systems of Survival, a book that attempts to unify the entirety of history into two moral systems, or two ways in which civilizations, organizations, or movements, can order themselves. I admire the audacity of the attempt, and I love too that she organizes her thoughts in the form of hypothetical conversations–more books should take this accessible approach.*

Jacobs broadly identifies two “casts of mind” throughout history that derive from these two moral modes of being. The first, the “Guardian,” and the second, the “Commercial.” I think that “Cosmopolitan” fits better (my first minor disagreement with Jacobs), but I will stick with her terms. She has two of her characters demonstrate this with the following conversation:

Guardian: The love of money is the root of all evil.

Commercial: The love of power is the root of all evil.

G: History tells of the dynasties and the fates of nations and empires.

C: History tells us of how social, material, and economic conditions have changed.

G: The most valuable archeological findings are of art, religious artifacts, tombs, of kings, etc.

C: The most valuable artifacts are clues to how people lived everyday life, how they made their living, their tools and materials.

G: War and preparations for war are normal and peace a hiatus from war.

C: No–peace is normal, war is the aberration.

G: Man is a territorial animal.

C: People are city-building animals.

G: Knowledge is a weapon or possibly an adornment

C: Knowledge is a tool.

G: Intelligence gives us insight into others’ way of thinking–we should focus on what divides us.

C: Intelligence means primarily the ability to pick up new skills and good reasoning.  We should focus on what unites us.

G: China is prosperous at our expense.

C: China’s prosperity raises everyone’s standard of living.  Economic gain is not zero-sum.

G: ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.’

C: The state exists for the sake of the people–that’s Locke, Rousseau, Madison–the social contract.

These casts of mind come from what Jacobs describes as two “moral syndromes.” By “syndrome” she simply means that the various parts of the moral system necessarily run together. She calls these the “Commercial” and “Guardian” moralities, and part of the vim and dash of the book is that she commits to the idea that these two “syndromes” are all that have ever existed. The values of each system are . . .

The “Commercial” Syndrome

Shun Force–Come to voluntary agreements

Be honest–collaborate easily with strangers

Compete–but respect contracts and other voluntary agreements

Use initiative and creativity

Be open to new things–change should be embraced

Be thrifty and efficient

Promote comfort and convenience

Dissent is valuable for the sake of the task

Invest for productive and practical results

Be optimistic

The Guardian Moral Syndrome

Shun trading, and exert prowess

Be disciplined and obedient

Value tradition and the ‘old ways’

Respect hierarchy–strive for loyalty

Make rich use of leisure–be ostentatious

Dispense largesse

Group exclusivity strengthens internal identity

Treasure honor

Jacobs has much to say about both, and of course both go right and wrong in different ways. In general, most of the world used to subscribe to a Guardian morality and now certainly the first world at least has shifted to the Commercial syndrome. But the shift has not been absolute, as ancient Babylon and classical Athens strike me as mainly “Commercial” in nature, and even “Guardian” civilizations had Commercial aspects. Cities, and any civilization with a port, generally need to adopt a commercial mentality.

I found myself much taken with her analysis, as it explains a lot of the success and frustrations we have with our predicament. The benefits of the Commercial syndrome seem almost second-nature. Our religious and political freedoms arise from it. The material comforts we enjoy come from the speed of innovation (and its accompanying trampling of tradition) over the last 250 years.** Many of our “freedoms” have also resulted from a variety of moral innovations, especially in the area of sexuality. To point out the obvious, if we like democracy we have to value collaborating with strangers.^

But a second look reveals its weaknesses. A “Commercial” society will never build pyramids or cathedrals–hence the constant critique of the vanilla-tapioca nature of democratic culture. The promotion of comfort will make it hard for us to sacrifice without an extreme need. The combination of valuing comfort and dissent make it hard to act as one with common purpose.

The Guardian Syndrome obviously has its associations with aristocracy and its attendant abuses–be they spiritual (such as pride), moral, (indolence) or otherwise–we see right away. But the Guardian syndrome can also give more civic-mindedness & “noblesse oblige.” Those in a Guardian society know their place and need not fight for it. Most every kind of environmental advocate, for example, uses aspects of the Guardian syndrome, i.e., hedging in and protecting defined spaces, and knows the futility of their approach to a Commercial syndrome society (something that Paul Kingsnorth discovered).

But back to Plato . . .

Jacobs surmises that what Plato might have meant by his condemnation of having more than one job or “calling” strongly correlates to these moral syndromes. When we “mix” these syndromes together we have the possibility of dangerous moral hybrids. A few examples . . .

  • In the 1980’s NYC sought to help fix crime on their subways by injecting the Transit Police (police have a natural Guardian morality) with certain Commercial incentives. The cops got rewards for things like efficiency, i.e., numbers of arrests, and competition (promotions for higher numbers). The result–Transit Police began falsely arresting people least able to fight the charges–the poor–who were mostly minorities.
  • The Nazi’s took certain aspects of the Guardian morality (such as defense of the homeland) and combined them with Commercial science, whose ‘innovation’ had spawned new racial theories, military ideas, and industrial capacity.
  • Marx hated bourgeois Commercial morality. But all of his theories lay rooted in western political categories of thought. One result–A generally Guardian mentality in terms of communal unity, but applied on a scale of universal Commercial ideology. Guardians tend towards being apolitical, but the Soviet Union also united the Guardian aspect of loyalty with Commercial ideological innovation. So–to be on the wrong side of the prevailing ideology=disloyalty to the state.
  • I think that SJW’s make the same moral monster, but start from the other end–the Commercial values of openness, inclusion, and moral innovation combined with the Guardian mentality of rigid loyalty and protection of its own–i.e. “safe spaces.”

Yes, Jacobs also discusses positive moral hybrids, but seems to lean towards Plato’s conclusion that mixing them brings problems more often than solutions.

So far, so good. I found Jacobs’ thoughts stimulating and illuminating. Where I part ways with her comes with her theory of how these two moral syndromes developed. She postulates a material cause for each, with the guardian mentality arising from war, and the commercial from trade. But it is mind that generates matter, so to speak. It is mind that shapes matter. I won’t defend this proposition here, suffice to say, as a Christian I reject a strictly materialist argument for the origins of civilization. But, Jacobs has a point. These moral syndromes have ancient roots–more ancient than she supposes.

For civilizations to work, they must take into account both unity and diversity. Something must bring them together for a society to form at all, yet if this “something” binds them too tightly it will neglect their individuality. This has its roots in Being Itself. God is both Unity (1 God) and Diversity (3 Persons).

Christ, being both God and Man incarnated this duality/tension. He revealed to us both what I will “Open” and “Closed” ways of being. The Open way shows how God shows Himself in Nature (Ps. 19:1) or our fellow man (Mt. 25). Marriage is an icon of Christ and His Church. (Eph. 5). In other words, the Open way encourages us seek Truth in our experience of the world.

But just as often, we are encouraged to take the Closed way. We must gouge out our eye if it causes us to sin (Mt. 5). St. Paul often posits enmity between the world, the flesh, and the Spirit. Christ tells us that we must “hate” even our mother and father for the sake of the Kingdom. The Closed approach urges us to seek the Truth by narrowing, not broadening, our focus and shunning the trappings of this mortal coil that we might see God and God alone.

So–is the Open or Closed way superior? The answer, of course, is ‘Yes.”

I love that the world Jacob’s presents has coherence–two halves, coming together to make a whole. The problem is that, like a donut, it lacks a center. Without this center, Jacobs’ outstanding observations lack any real meaning. But with it . . . well, we have the possibility of real coherence.

And who would complain about having another bite of a donut?

Update . . . if only Jane Jacobs were here to comment on the Blue Angels flyover that happened Saturday (May 2, 2020), she might argue that one’s reaction to the event would pefectly pigenhole a person into one of the two aforementioned moral syndromes–if we keep in mind that heavily symbolic and “ostentatious” nature of the event:

Commercial:

  • This display wasted money that could have been used to so much better practical good
  • This display wasted time and effort.
  • This display foolishly misdirected our attention–encouraging the American public to look at the shiny object, rather than a) the problem itself, or b) the politicians and agency heads responsible for gross mismanagement of the whole pandemic.

Guardian:

  • We live by symbols, and having our most famous and powerful planes flyover gave the nation a powerful symbol of American pride and resolve.
  • These “unnecessary” displays are in fact, absolutely necessary. We are not materialists–we need such acts to lift us out of the mundane of our lives. We need ‘elevated’ out of our current circumstances. We need inspiration as a people if we are to win the “war” against the virus.
  • Leaders act responsibly when they provide these symbols for the people–something to inspire awe and help unify them.

*Another notable fact about Jacobs–she had no college degree and can be therefore classified as an amateur. Toynbee would have rejoiced.

**Though–different writers from different perspectives, such as Tyler Cowen, Ross Douthat, Peter Thiel, and even Jane Jacobs herself (in her last book Dark Age Ahead) have declared that innovation has essentially ceased in western economies.

^This kind of collaboration also seems on the decline, in Congress, in marriages (Republicans don’t marry Democrats, and vice-versa), etc.–and this may herald a decline in democratic practice.

9th/10th Grade: Ramandu and the Scientific Revolution

by Dave Mathwin

Greetings to all,

We spent the week looking at three key figures of the Scientific Revolution.  An explosion of scientific awareness and knowledge occurred from the beginning of the 17th to the middle of the 18th centuries.  Some of the great minds in history like Descartes, Galileo, and Newton made extraordinary discoveries and changed the way we viewed the world.  All three of these men may have been devout believers but their ideas seemed to push people away from Christianity.  Why was this?

In the aftermath of the devastating period of religious wars that ended after the Thirty Years War in 1648, people began to search for a new way of understanding the world.  During the Middle Ages things were understood first as a whole, then broken into its component parts.  Now knowledge would begin with the particulars.  One gained understanding of a thing through observation and induction.

This new way of understanding is perhaps best encapsulated by a conversation in C.S. Lewis’ ‘The Dawn Treader.’  In this volume of “The Chronicles of Narnia,” the character Eustace meets a retired star named Ramandu (in Narnia stars are personal beings), and tells him that “in our world a star is  a huge ball of flaming gas.”  “That is not what a star is,” replied  Ramandu, “but only what it is made of.”  Eustace represents this new way of understanding as a result of the Scientific Revolution, the star the old.  Eustace has a reductionistic view of reality, one influenced by our modern scientific outlook.  The star sees things more in terms of their teleological purpose — who we are should be defined not by our biology, our circumstances, or even our choices — all measurable, tangible things.  Rather, our identity should come from we were made for, our design, our “telos.”

Perhaps one can see the impact this might have on Christianity, which would ultimately be robbed of mystery and imagination.  Without mystery and imagination, orthodox belief about the incarnation, the trinity, and the atonement, among others, cannot be sustained.  The full impact of this way of thinking for society would not be felt until the 20th century (at least in my opinion), but we will see the beginnings of its effects in the Enlightenment and French Revolution, and more debatably, perhaps also in the founding of America.

We began by looking at Francis Bacon, the “Father of the Scientific Method.”  He believed that science had long laid imprisoned by dogma.  Medieval Science had largely proceeded along the following lines.

1. Deduction over Induction

Deduction works like this:

All Men are Mortal

Socrates was a Man

Therefore, Socrates was mortal.

We have a certain conclusion based upon a universal premise.  But of course, the premise must be assumed, it can’t be proven.  In other words, you have to work from assumptions, from ‘faith.’

2. The Dominance of the Past

Aristotle, Ptolemy, and others held great sway over Medieval science.  Part of this fact was rooted in humility.  If you and Einstein did the same problem and arrived at different results, would you trust Einstein or yourself?  Part of this attitude had its roots in the loss of so much scientific heritage after the fall of Rome, and the fact that the Romans were not particularly scientific to begin with.  This led to an assumption that past thinkers were smarter than you.

In general, Medieval society was not geared towards innovation, both in economics, industry, and science.  That is not to say that no innovation existed in the Medieval world.  It did exist, especially in architecture.  But,  it was not their priority.

Bacon sought to overturn the whole basis of science by focusing not on unproved assumptions, but measurement, observation, and experimentation.  He favored Induction.  If we return to our previous syllogism we see it would run this way.

Socrates was a man

Socrates was mortal

Therefore, ???

What can you say in the final analysis?  You cannot say that all men are mortal.  You can only say that Socrates is mortal, or perhaps that ‘Some men (meaning at least 1 man) are mortal.  Nothing needs to be ‘taken on faith,’ but on the other hand, no ultimate truth can be discovered.  Modern science would be much more effective at advancing our specific knowledge of the finite world, but would not be able to communicate any grand meaning.

Marshal McLuhan wrote in 1964 that, “The medium is the message.”  This idea has many facets, but one of them is that the form of communication will have a decisive influence over what exactly we communicate.  Bacon did much for Science in freeing from over-reliance on accepted theory. But, if Science has as its “modus operandi” observation and experimentation, then the ability to do something becomes the reason for doing it.  Hence, science  can gallop far ahead of a society’s moral compass, i.e. abortion, nuclear weapons, cloning, and so on.

We see this specifically in the philosophy of Descartes.  Descartes fought in the 30 Years War and must have thought that the world he knew, all the old certainties, were crashing down about him.  He sought a new path to certainty.  Ultimately he wanted a fresh basis for acting in the world which certainly included God and the Church.  What went wrong?  With his famous phrase, “Cognito ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am) Descartes builds his system on

  • Doubt.  He found that he could doubt everything — except the fact that he was doubting.  This doubting proved that he must be thinking, and if he was thinking he must exist.
  • Himself.  It is the individual thinking man on which Descartes builds his universal system.  But we are finite, and not universal.  Thus, any system built upon something finite would be bound to fail.  In a famous Socratic dialogue, the philosopher Protagoras proclaimed that ‘Man is the measure of all things.’  “Which man?” was the essence of Socrates’s famous reply.

Again, and again, with Thomas Hobbes, Galileo, and perhaps even Newton we will see this phenomena.  Galilelo, for example, said,

“In every hypothesis of reason error may lurk unnoticed, but a discovery of sense cannot be at odds with the truth.”

Is this indeed true?  Are our senses infallible?  Is what we can measure the highest standard of truth?

A great deal of good came from the Scientific Revolution, and many of these pioneering scientists professed a Christian faith.   What I want the students to recognize for how, however, is the reductionistic view of reality shared by most of these Scientific pioneers.  Descartes, for example, reduced everything to doubt, while Hobbes reduced everything to motion.  The de-mystifying of the world around us would not serve Christianity in the long run.  Below are Descartes’ own drawings.  Who would not admire their elegance and grace?  I do feel, however, that they belie something of Descartes’ materialism.

It is not so much the conclusions they reached, but how they reached them, that should have been of great concern to the Church.  Unfortunately the Church’s hold on the populace had diminished, mostly thanks to their own actions, wars, and brutalities.  We see this spirit of reaction against the concept of ‘faith’ in general throughout these eminent men.  Many, like Bacon, Descartes, and Galileo, seemed to be honest Christian men who thought they did Christianity a favor.  No doubt in some respects they did.  But some of  their assumptions were just as unproven as Aristotle’s.

Next week we will continue with a few other thinkers of the Scientific Revolution as we work towards the mid-term exam.

If you are curious, I include below some primary source text from the period indicating the shift that took place.

The Great Divide: Primary Sources on the Scientific Revolution and Religion

The fierceness of violent inspirations is in good measure departed: the remains of it will soon be chased out of the World by the remembrance of the the terrible footsteps it has everywhere left behind it.  And yet, though the Church of Rome still preserves its pomp, yet its real authority is also decaying.   This is the present state of Christendom.  It is now impossible to spread the same cloud over the world again: the universal disposition of this age is bent on rational religion.

Let it be a true observation that many modern naturalists have been negligent in the worship of God; yet perhaps they have been driven on this profaneness by the late excesses of enthusiasm.  The infinite pretences to . . . Divine inspiration that have abounded in this age have carried several men of wit so far as to reject the whole matter.   From hence it derives that [for religion to recover its place] it must not endeavor to cast a veil of darkness, but chiefly to allay spiritual madness.

Sprat, The History of the Royal Society for Improving Natural Knowledge, 1667

Man’s lot is so unfortunately placed that those lights that deliver him from one evil precipitate him into another.  Cast out ignorance and barbarism, and you will overthrow superstition.  But in the act of illuminating men’s mind’s regarding these [mental disorders], you will inspire them for a passion to examine everything, and they will apply the fine tooth comb, and they will go into such subtleties that they will find nothing to content their wretched Reason.

Bayle, The Dictionary, 1696

It is worthy to be observed and lamented that the most violent of these defenders of truth, the “opposers of errors,”  . . .do hardly ever let loose this their zeal for God, with which they are so inflamed, unless they have the civil magistrate on their side.  As soon as court favor has given them the better end of the staff, they begin to feel themselves the stronger, then presently peace and charity are laid aside.

One finds that, as soon as Christians were in a position to persecute, they leveled the same reproach against religious error that Paganism leveled at Christianity.  Unhappy advocates of intolerance!  Your malady must indeed be a bizarre one, considering that it is proof against being cured by the application of lex talionis.

John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, 1689

When [the spirit of religious division] is rife, you need have no fear that the multiplicity of sects will create many skeptics.

Bayle, Letters, ca. 1690

The doctrine of right and wrong is perpetually disputed, whereas the doctrine of lines and figures is not so, because men care not so what be the truth as pertains to their lust or ambition.

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651

Mechanics is the paradise of the mathematical sciences, because with mechanics, we reach the fruit that mathematics can be made to bear.

Mechanical science is most noble above all sciences, because this one is the means by which all living bodies that have the power of movement perform all their operations.

Science is the Captain and Practice the rank and file. . . .   People who fall in love with Practice without Science are like the skipper who boards ship without rudder or compass and who consequently never knows where he is going

Leonardo da Vinci

All knowledge is to be got the same way that a language is: by industry, use, and observation.

Whatever other hurt or good comes by such holy speculative wars, yet certainly by this means the knowledge of Nature has been very much retarded. . . .  The wit of men has been profusely poured out on religion, which needed not its help, and which was thereby made tempestuous.  Experimental Philosophy [i.e. Science] will prevent men spending the strength of their thoughts about disputes by turning them into works.

Sprat, The History of the Royal Society of London, 1667

It cannot be denied that it is rare to find any great religious devotion in people who have tasted of the study of mathematics, or have made any progress in the province of Science.

Bayle, The Dictionary, 1696

Only let Mankind regain their rights over Nature, assigned to them by the gift of God, and obtain that power, whose exercise will be governed by right reason and true religion.

F. Bacon, Novum Organum (emphasis mine), 1620

I perceived it to be possible to arrive at a knowledge highly useful in life, . . . .to discover a practical philosophy, by means of which — knowing the force and action of fire, water, air, the stars, the heavens, . . .we might also apply them in the same way to all the uses to which they are adapted, and thus make ourselves the lords and possessors of Nature.

Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method, 1637

 

Have a great weekend,

Dave