Catharsis at Home Depot

So I'm suffering from a bad case of treppenwitz today, after yesterday an obnoxious driver cut me off on the road after riding impertinently close behind me. While the situation is all-too-common yesterday's instance of vehicular barbarism stands out because I had the opportunity of having my say with one of those discourteous drivers. At long last after years of abhorrent drivers zooming unpunished into the distance, I had my chance for revenge at Home Depot.

Yet just when the moment of triumph was upon me, when I felt the blood summoned up and the shades of Cicero and Demosthenes hovering over my shoulders, the sight of the man moved me to pity.

He stood there, a shabbily dressed shlub clutching his crumpled receipt in the return line. The sight of him reduced from marauding Visigoth—so I had imagined him—to simply, "next customer," robbed me of all desire for vengeance. In his fancy sports car he seemed a raging terror. Without it he was nearly invisible. If you noticed him, you might say he was a little over-fed, a little unwitting. Yet the incongruity of his meek comportment and reckless driving fascinated me.

What had the machine done to its lowly owner, or what passions had it unleashed and enabled? Was he a basically good man whose demons were let loose at the wheel, or was he a real wretch whose unkindness we strangers were spared only on account of his cowardice? It seems unlikely he was a powerful man who acted meekly but drove like one possessed. Could he have been brazen, or was his apparent indifference the soft confidence of the untested?

Worse than such miserable possibilities was the fact that though he stood there an average man whom any onlookers would have said seemed decent and harmless enough, there I and only I knew that on the road he endangered people and treated them badly. Part of me felt guilty, that my gaze made his guilt manifest to all, though of course he did not recognize me as the driver he had so cursorily passed minutes ago. Yet another part of me felt empowered, that I held knew some inner secret of his character.

I had still wanted to reproach and reprimand him, but at the same time the sight of him there, not impudent as he was on the road, but powerless, the husk of his car—that mechanical prop of his insensate intemperance—cast aside and his runaway excess laid bare, exited feelings of pity and fear within me. Pity that such ignorance is the lot of mankind, and fear that I seem far less virtuous than I imagine, for who does not imagine that his vices are mild and hidden, and that his virtues are great and self-evident?

In the end I prolonged his tragedy and deprived him of the opportunity to show shame and remorse, in part because of my amateur psychological speculations but in greater part because when our paths met again he paused to allow me to pass. In the moment I was flabbergasted.

Perhaps his fatal flaw will resolve heroically in self-sacrifice, or perhaps it will find its final resting place when he cuts off a driver like himself. In either case, his ignorance is still my catharsis, for as I envision the day of his reckoning, I imagine my own flaws, ashamed, but encouraged to improve.

Alas, though, I finally did think of a real zinger of an insult.

Advice to Myself: An Examination of Conscience

When considering the causes of your actions, first consider their type so that you may consider more finely their nature.

Did you act by nature, doing what anyone would have done in the situation? Did you do what you usually do? Or perhaps did you do what a certain type of person would do?

Did you act according to habit, doing something simply because it was done before? Does the habit do more good than harm?

Did you act by compulsion, that is, were your desire and reason overcome by emotion?

Did you act to feed an appetite? Are you keeping it temperately controlled, or by either starving or gorging it are you provoking extreme responses?

Did you act by reason, trying to bring about a fixed, particular purpose?

Did you act merely by chance? Perhaps you made a hasty decision without consideration, inclination, or purpose. Do not use this explanation too often or easily.

Vitae Praecepta Beatae

In the last decades before the birth of Christ, as the Roman people learned to embrace the yoke of an ostensibly reluctant autocrat, the historian Titus Livy began the history of his people from their founding up to the final crisis of their ordered liberty. If St. Jerome is correct in setting Livy's birth in the year 59 BC, then it was a propitious date on which to inaugurate the birth of Rome's patriotic, moralist-historian, for such was the year of Caesar's consulship. A nominal consulship for a nominal republic, the year also marked the year when the First Triumvirate–the cadre of Crassus, Pompey, and Caesar–began blazingly to run roughshod over the remnant of the old order.

Yet this beginning of the republican end, with its wars foreign and domestic, its sullied politics–oh poor beshitted Bibulus!–and its civil strife were not foremost what fascinated Livy, though he knew these years, the most infamous in Roman history then and now, would attract readers, festinantes ad haec hova, more than timeworn tales about the past, hoary retellings of Horatius at the Bridge. The Old History, Livy confesses, is a happy diversion from debates about the contentious years through which his people had navigated.

It is more from that spirit less than that of history proper that I would consider the virtues which animated Livy's history. I do not wish to dwell on comparisons–instructive but dolorous and already complete–to nations long powerful making their own demise, nor will not conjecture whether, paraphrasing Charles Cochrane, mere republicanism can save a republic or mere religiosity religion. Whether traditional republican virtues could be broadly revitalized today and if they could, what effect they would have on the American polity, is beyond my scope here.

It is not now my goal to consider history, furnishing examples by which a republic may prosper or decline, yet, labente disciplina, I would look at those virtues which carried the Romans, and which they carried, so far. My approach will be to systematize and rationalize in the Aristotelian fashion of setting means between excess and deficiency, but recall that these virtues were for the Roman traditional, religious, and instinctive. My modest hope is that their presentation might prove salubrious to the individual, not condemnation but encouragement to their prudent consideration and application.

Virtues: Lack, Moderation, Excess

Religio is of course the concept with which to start and what today will either offend people or send them scurrying toward some other virtue they hope to practice without any obligation. The essence of religio is not the definition common today, a system of beliefs, but rather constraint of human endeavor in the face of divine force. Religio vetuit, religion forbids. In Gaul after his consulship Caesar, as he slaughtered the Gauls, wrote as praise that they were dedita religionibus, (De bello Gallico, 6.16.1) dedicated to religion, and thus undertook certain rituals for administering to the dead. Underneath the ritual, though, is the recognition of a divine realm with which one must be in accord. Roger Scruton writes, "[Man] confronts in [worldly things] not objects only, but the eyes of the gods, who remind him of his duties and offer comforting socially endorsed instructions."  [Scruton, 33] The religious impulse then requires first discrimination, namely between sacred and vulgar, between things of utility and the divine which is for its own sake. Second it requires tradition, accepted practices of propitiation, for those on the rock radices non habent, οὗτοι ῥίζαν οὐκ ἔχοθσιν (John, 8.13) they have no root, and cannot cultivate the seed.

When religio reaches extremes we are left either with superstition or materialism, both sharing the common failure to distinguish between the sacred and vulgar. In removing the agency of man, superstition removes his burden of responsibility to discern and act upon the good, enervating both intellectual and moral virtues. In contrast, materialism, in denying any realm which man does not dominate, elevates man to the role of measurer of all things. Nothing escapes his judgment, which is ultimate and which meddles in all affairs sacred and profane, public and private, and through past, present, and future. There exists a balance between the prudential governance of the material world, “a healthy secularism of the State, by virtue of which temporal realities are governed according to their own norms," as Benedict XVI called it, and the acknowledgment that, ipse fecit nos, et non ipsi nos, God mad us, not we ourselves (Psalm 99, 1-2), and therefore we do not dictate all. Laws which are beyond our right to change make claims on us.

The virtue of pietas, then, is the acknowledgement and fulfillment of such claims. Piety is the fulfillment not of contract, but duty, the making of vows, not promises, and the consecration of life not by technology or human will, but by sacrament, action given power by the word of God.

Lack of piety may stem of course from a lack of religiosity, an indifference to the mystery of the passing generations in which one partakes, but it may also stem from a conscious rejection of tradition. Such rejection begins when one finds tradition onerous instead of ennobling and the rejection takes flight when a tradition is first broken and no one sounds the alarm. It is not without reason that Aristotle wrote that a man's crime is worse if he is the first to commit it (1375a,) for once the chain is broken and the world does not promptly end, the chain is thought to have been perfunctory, stuffy, tradition.

Now it would be easy to propose piety and religious obligation as a panacea for modern woes. Recoiling from this extremity I would consider religiosity and piety as balances upon worldliness. Besides its obligations, religiosity is an inducement to eschew the world of utility, of gaining and spending, and to set something aside as not for meddling. Likewise piety encourages us to consider in our actions and reactions not what we are owed by law, but what we owe by nature.

Similarly, and in contrast to the exacting of one's will and the extraction of one's pound of flesh under pain of law, we find clementia, the willingness to forego what is owed.

In the modern world, or rather transition from the ancient to the modern, the Enlightenment, we find clemency at the heart of each mature Mozart opera: In Die Entführung Pasha Selim permits the escaping lovers to depart, the Countess pardons her cheating husband in Figaro, the men forgive their wayward fiancees in Così fan tutte, Die Zauberflöte's Sarastro tutors the inconstant acolytes, and Titus forgives the conspirators. Among the forgivers, there is no compensation for damages, no quid pro quo, just deference to the love which is greater than the penitent transgression. (We see now that virtue begets virtue, clemency implying penitence.) With the exception of Così, which ends philosophical in confusion, we can feel the great-souledness magnifying Selim and the sacred grandeur of forgiveness permeating Sarastro and Countess Almaviva. We feel them grow large in their glad pardoning–the hilaris clementia of Martial 12.5–and we feel the joy of magnanimity with them as Mozart's music brings to us the "consoling vision which religion grants to all its supplicants." [Scruton, 42]

The only exception is Don Giovanni, who thrice unrepentant and bending no knee is dragged to Hell.

Of clementia we can see its defect in both the polity and individual, in excessive grievance. When an individual is only sated when he gets what he feels owed, when he must have his pound of flesh regardless of details which out to modify his expectations–such as past kindness, good reputation, virtues which balance vices, intent, misjudgment, misfortune, and human weakness–he is a small man. This man prefers to sue than settle, and as his way is imitated, private reconciliation by equity is replaced by public adjudication.

The excess of clementia seems easy to imagine: the insolent or downright criminal run rampant over the good. This is surely a possibility, but I would suggest that an excess of desire to seem forgiving is the more observable and pernicious phenomenon, for transgressing a virtue weakens the individual, but its meretricious application weakens perception of the virtue itself. Such application is present, though I would not argue that it constitutes, the impulse behind plea-bargaining. From a desire to appear magnanimous, forgiving, and liberal, offering a plea-bargain confuses admittance with repentance and in doing so confuses a commuted sentence with forgiveness. Moreover, and even worse than the obvious inducing of the accused to expect lessened punishment, the attempted institutionalization of a virtue which can only be practiced by the offended party, not a judge, confuses law and equity. Worst of all, plea-bargaining debases the virtues–in this respect unwritten laws which are not exacted by force–by extending them unasked to those who broke written laws which are backed up by force, and he who would break a written law would certainly break an unwritten, and thus unenforced, one. [Aristotle, 1374] The bargaining process also admits great corruption against the accused. Dr. Dalrymple writes,

...plea-bargaining is intrinsically unjust because it may induce the innocent to plead guilty and the guilty to hold out for a lesser punishment than they deserve. It encourages prosecutors to intimidate defendants by multiplying and exaggerating charges on the great Hitlerian principle that if you sling enough mud, some of it sticks. It undermines the principle that the prosecutor’s purpose is not to secure a conviction at any price, but to secure justice. [Link]

A judge may adjudicate only according to objective legislation and policy of administration. Law is therefore a more harsh and less flexible standard than equity, which may moderate disputes with less severity.

After religio, it is likely gravitas which is the most neglected of Roman virtues. After all, who wants to be the stiff rather than the wit, the killjoy than the life of the party? Yet to the Roman mind, man and his life were predominately serious. The disposal of life, literally the putting down of it, that is, the doing of it, is not a trivial business. To carry oneself with gravitas is not to be a pompous, officiating Polonius, but to walk as if your existence has purpose and consequence. Gravitas does not imply seeking attention or conceit, adrogantia, but simply being counted in the reckoning.

That hard edge of gravitas is burnished by the good humor of comitas, which bids us be responsible and serious, but not stiff. While gravitas urges us to value our dignity, comitas urges courtesy, an ease which does not assert but attends. If gravitas cautions us not to be timid, comitas reminds us to note the humor of life. Still, as Cicero says, however useful it might be, leve enim est totum hoc risum movere. (De Oratore, 2.218) Humor is a relief, not a mainstay, and comitas should never degenerate into levitas, being lighthearted when we ought to be serious.

Pliny the Younger, writing to the orator Arrianus, (Epistulae 8.21.1), advices moderation:

Ut in vita sic in studiis pulcherrimum et humanissimum existimo severitatem comitatemque miscere, ne illa in tristitiam, haec in petulantiam excedat.

Mix, Pliny urges, the light and the severe, so that we do not gravitate toward the extremes of gloom or frivolity.

Again, the false appearance of a virtue is the most damaging. Livy again, writing about Appius Claudius–most famous for the construction of the Via Appia and Aqua Appia under the tenure of his censorship–points to a noteworthy contrast when he observes Appius' fraternizing and canvassing: profecto haud gratuitam in tanta superbia comitatem fore. (Ab urbe condita, 3.35.6) That is to say, the arrogant man may use graciousness to further his ends, therefore in him it is conspicuous.

We join the twin virtues of firmitas and constantia, the latter the origin of a most lovely name. It is easy to caricature constancy of character as obtuseness, but apart from Cicero's philosophizing connection of it to Stoic εὐπάθεια, the Old Roman was not a thinker, let alone one of subtlety. He did not value sophistical refutations and live at the cutting edge of philosophical trends. Caesar, less praising now, writes of the inconstancy of the Gauls, consiliis capiendis mobiles (De bello Gallico, 4.5.1), and how they take new plans easily and must retreat from their errors of their foolish fickleness. In amusing imitation of a self-made Roman, Petronius' Trimalchio, the freedman who made it big, wanted written on his tomb: nec umquam philosophum audivit. (Satyricon, 71) He never listened to a philosopher. Roman virtue was a process less of intellect than tradition, and the Roman did not consider a lot of subtle thinking in choosing the right path.

It is of course worth exploring the philosophical tack in Tusculan 4.12, in which Cicero, summarizing the Stoic position, observes that man naturally seeks what is good and thus what seems good, but in seeking his desire is twofold: either founded in prudence, called volition, or founded in violent desire, lust, which is found in fools (in omnibus stultis invenitur.) Therefore incitement of the former is joyful, whereas excitement of the latter is immoderate elation away from the control of reason. Thinking from the Stoic position, then, we can view inconstantia as an immoderate, immature response to the appearance of the good. It is appropriately associated with youth, who seeing the various goods cannot choose among them but move from one to the other.

One extreme of constantia is of course obtuseness, literally dullness to other observations. This stubbornness can manifest itself as A. pride, for example an intelligent man ignoring reasoning which contradict him, B. anti-intellectualism, an irrational distrust of thinking subtler or finer than our own, or C. traditionalism, distrust of the new. The other extreme is fickleness, in which we find A. an irrational distrust of our own judgment, B. the excessive worship of reason, which trusts what is argued more than what is demonstrated, and C. faddism, which prefers the new simply because it is new. The obtuse persist in error and the fickle wander from error to error.

Constantia then requires disciplina, the learning by which one chooses the good, for he cannot attain the good if he does not aim at it, and who can aim who does not see his target. Let us commend, though, the discussion of humanistic and Christian education to elsewhere, and discuss frugalitas, satisfaction in economy. Of frugalitas Marcus Aurelius spoke best, recalling what he learned from his adopted father: enjoy the luxuries which fortune may furnish, but do not miss them when absent. (Meditations 1.16) Live neither as a pauper nor helluo, poor man or squanderer.

All of these virtues require two more: severitas, the strictness to moderate oneself, and virtus, one's manly essence and full worth. Of all we have mentioned these virtues are perhaps naturally twin, for the exuberance and outward exertion of the virtus implies a need for severitas, a restraint. The virtus must be cultivated, surely with the good allowed to grow and the bad pruned, but even with the good pruned moderate, lest even one good grow at the expense of choking some other virtue.

The excess of these virtues are the most gross, and their defects the most pitiful. Untutored and unmoderated, severitas mistakes self-debasement for self-mastery. Severitas degenerates into excessive fault-finding and doubt. Excess severity is paralyzing, not ennobling as severitas should be. In detriment of severity we find excuse-making, as inimical toward manliness today as it was ever.

In immoderate virtus in excess becomes hubris, arrogance, and insolence run riot. Again we find Don Juan, in the words of David Cairns:

There is no protection against his fundamentally destructive energies... He is the logical consequence of the Enlightenment's cult of individualism and unrestrained liberty. 

In detriment the manly spirit is timid, weak, and enervated. It is cowed when it should be assertive, sluggish when it should soar, and reluctant when it should be ready. Reason fusts in him unused and he plods, but sleeping and feeding.

The modern idioms of looking at oneself in the mirror with pleasure and waking up in the morning with gusto might have pleased a Roman. Wake up neither with regret nor ready for mischief, the extremes of severity, but prepared for a prudent and disciplined day, and seek in the mirror neither the prideful nor pitiable, the extremes of virtus, but the cultivated self.

Auream quisquis mediocritatem
diligit, tutus caret obsoleti
sordibus tecti, caret invidenda
     sobrius aula.

–

Barrow, R. H. The Romans. Penguin Books. Middlesex. 1949.

Cairns, David. Mozart and His Operas. University of California Press. Berkeley and Los Angeles. 2006.

Cochrane, Charles Norris. Christianity and Classical Culture. Oxford University Press. 1968. (Reprint from Clarendon Press, 1940)

Duff, J. Wight & Duff, A. M. A Literary History of Rome. Barnes and Noble. New York. 1960.

Scruton, Roger. An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern Culture. St. Augustine's Press. South Bend Indiana. 2000.

The Thrill of Moderation

If there is any idea which does not excite, it is moderation.

Moderation lacks the pizzazz of excess, with all of its bells and fanfare, and even deficiency can arouse amusement by the shock of insufficiency. Even the ancient fonts of wisdom seem to avail us of little help, for how inspiring is the thought of the auream mediocritatem. Yes it says golden mean, but who can look at that phrase and not see mediocre! shining through Horace's Latin? It is perhaps the fate of this idea to find no easy selling point, no hook by which to snag potential moderates. Even those meticulous verses of Horace in which moderation comes to life in full grandeur and gravitas, even the meticulous logic of Aristotle which proves moderation wise, such persuasions do not excite one to moderation. We may undertake it out of emulation or prudence, but never out of enthusiasm. If one takes the leap of moderation, though, one finds its practice nothing short of thrilling. How is this possible?

First, moderation gets you thinking. It is not so hard to glob onto an extreme and pursue it toward appalling excess without thinking, but to be moderate one must examine both sides, as far to their extremes as possible. This process is not only stimulating but entertaining, and no small part of life's intellectual pleasure comes from the consideration of the absurd. More practically, in examining extremes we are arguing for and against the one which we prefers by inclination.

As such and second, moderation encourages self-examination by requiring us to consider alternatives to one's habitual or natural preferences. Thinking about oneself–not from a sense of narcissism but of humility–is typically an intense task, requiring repeated reflection and consideration.

Thinking of oneself then promotes, thirdly, thinking of others, a task which is likewise without end. How many and how happy are the moments of remembrance, calling to mind the wise and prudent with as much pleasure as the imbecilic. Of course this reflection takes the forms of empathy and criticism, which both lead back to considerations of ourselves.

Reflectivity aside, though, the pursuit of moderation makes each choice an exiting, vital one. Upon the precipice of each action moderation imbues us with purpose both moral and intellectual: Can I figure this problem out as a rational man? Can I negotiate these waters and find the just end?

Speaking of which, moderation makes us consider ends. When we considers the extremes of behavior we also consider their effects, likely preferring to avoid one. In a choice, for example, between upsetting two people, we may learn whom we fear to hurt, or perhaps which principle prevails in our heart. Absent considering alternatives, such knowledge remains obscure.

Of course all of these exciting effects are those of process, and as exciting as they are, I find the thrill of moderation chiefly to lie in its success. How often after I've chosen just the right word, just the right time to interject–or more often, to be silent)–or even the proper time to stop chowing down, do I feel that I've dodged a bullet. In contrast, failures of moderation in both excess and defect always find the same ends of shame and regret. Like walking out of a movie which is too short or slight, defect stirs feelings of disappointment, as one leaves an overlong film numbed insensate.

Finally, we see that apart from the salubrious effects of moderation we find that moderation seems to magnify the spirit. In examining a choice, viewing the alternatives, and then choosing what one deems prudent, we find the happy, just, and of course moderate joy in the exercise of our will. Not the will of whim, but of virtuously directed agency. Choices never seem so mine and I never seem so in control of myself and my life than when I act with moderation. In contrast, following instinct and habit, conniving or striving to get what I wanted before thinking about all sides, makes me feel small. I feel then feeble, as if I can only be happy when sated.

Contra expectations of stuffy, stodgy, mean-finding, moderation is nothing short of choice itself, for who can be said to choose who does not look to all ends, and whom do we say, of course, sees all ends?

On Inclinations, Judgment, and Clemency

La Clemenza di Tito

It has been said that comedy is tragedy plus time. Ignoring fact that the statement is attributed to comedians and hails from the 20th century–which excelled beyond most in heartfelt mendacity–and putting aside the rarity of thigh-slapping hilarity during Antigone or the Oresteia, I think there is a grain of truth in the observation. I would, however, reformulate it as information plus time equals prudence. Or something like that. I distrust maxims and aphorisms, seeming as they do to dress up arguments as facts. In fact I frown on much by inclination, and wondering why is really my point. Ought we judge, how much, and how best manage judgment for those who cannot resist?

Some people are born with a favorable disposition, liberally bestowing their approbation to various things and parties and ideas. This is a socially useful trait and people so disposed are well-liked and called agreeable. They always enjoy the movie, are delectated by dinner, and think the affairs in the nation are generally going well. Now it goes without saying that my own inclination toward such people is a presumption of imbecility, and while I mean imbecile in the modern sense of foolish or simply stupid, Latin's sense of imbecillus as fragile or feeble is not off the mark, for is not there something fragile about the mind which cannot tell good from bad? There's not much of a bright side to the Latin adjective, but to me there is something beautiful about innocence–literally not knowing, in-nocens.

On one hand, yes, innocence means a lack of knowledge without which one cannot determine the truth of a thing. On the other hand, though, it implies an ignorance of the bad, a longing for the Edenic ignorance of evil and the eternal reconciliation with the good, God. Yet that reconciliation is outside time, and our temporal concerns require judgment so that we can be and do good.

Everyone grows apprehensive about judging others, though, for no one wants himself judged. By what better method, though, is one inspired to improve oneself than by the thought of being judged? It is perhaps not necessary–it is certainly not desirable–constantly to fear the judgment of others, but the concept of being judged from without seems a necessary, or useful, part of learning to judge oneself, that is, judge from within. Moreover it seems a fundamental part of discerning, of separating, one thing from another, one person from another, oneself from another.

The process of judgment, though, can prove as hazardous as ignorance or indifference, especially if we do not distinguish deliberation from other types of investigation, such as science, conjecture, and opinion. Even still, the process of judgment is far from simple. It requires a certain ignorance, not in the sense of lacking but in the sense of ignoring, ignoring what is wrong, ignoring what is true but irrelevant, ignoring what is true and relevant but insignificant, and finally what is possible but improbable. Listing only these difficulties is to put aside the difficulty of judging the reliability of the evidence on which one does base judgment.

This skill of deliberation, or as Aristotle says correctness of thinking (Ethics, 1142a) does not exist for us in a vacuum, either, but rather among our preconceptions and inclinations. One's subjective sense of life, subject to the vicissitudes of his experiences, limitations of his scientific knowledge, prior judgments, and reason, all influence a verdict. What do these variables tell us about how we should judge?

My own experience tells me that most things are junk and as such should be judged unsparingly. Junk proliferates with the increase of mechanical facility. Junk cannot be fixed or upgraded. Junk is wasteful. A world of junk–of styrofoam cups, tawdry clothing, ridiculous movies, and slight music–is inclement toward man. Being disposable, things should be judged harshly.

People, however, are not disposable. Neither are they wastes, nor are they impossible to emend. Only in an age of tremendous medical skill and a lack of political strife can we even be tempted to say, seeing the billions of the world, that it is easy to make bring about a life. If we take then as a principle that we wish to do no harm, the motto of the Gentleman, then how shall we judge? I should like to be stubbornly literal about the word judge, Latin's iudex literally meaning to say the law. By literal I mean that we should be liberal about proclaiming standards, but clement in judgment of failure.

Clement is of course the key word in this statement. First, we must distinguish it from agreeableness, a benign disposition, forgiveness, encouragement, support, sympathy, tolerance. Clemency is not identical to:

• following another's lead (agreeableness)
• being kindly (benign)
• granting pardon (forgiveness)
• approval (encouragement)
• providing succor (support)
• intellectual agreement (empathy)
• emotional agreement (sympathy)
• or permission (tolerance)

Clemency takes all variables into consideration and renders a prudent judgment and appropriate response. As such, clemency requires both practical wisdom, that is, the province of choosing action, and also right judgment, the "discrimination of the equitable." (Ethics, 1143a). Discrimination has been debased in our society, but it is a necessary tool, literally the discernment between things, the ability to observe where one thing ends and another begins. It is the opposite of equate, equivocate and, by no small irony, confuse.

Confusion constantly threatens clemency, whether it is confusion between virtues and vices, or among virtues and vices. How often do we use forgive, support, sympathy, tolerate, and help, all more or less interchangeably? Clemency most among the virtues is also threatened by the elimination of virtues and vices. For one cannot practice clemency if there are no vices to forgive, nor can one practice clemency if there are no virtues which make a man good and therefore worthy to judge. Clemency along with generosity, fortitude, and magnanimity are the most difficult and last virtues to cultivate. They require a lifetime of practice and they are those virtues which distinguish a good man from a Gentleman.

Presidential Rhetoric VIII: Martin Van Buren

Welcome to Part Eight of our series on the rhetoric of American presidential inaugural addresses. Please feel free to look at the previous entries in the series:

1. Worthy of Marble?
2. John Adams
3. Thomas Jefferson
4. James Madison
5. James Monroe
6. John Quincy Adams
7. Andrew Jackson

See Also: Presidential Rhetoric: Grading the Graders

We continue with our present look at the rhetoric of Martin Van Buren's inaugural address. Will there be any stylistic curiosities in this speech from the New York-born, Dutch-speaking president?

The text of the speech, via Bartelby.com

–

1. Fellow-Citizens: The practice of all my predecessors imposes on me an obligation I cheerfully fulfill—to accompany the first and solemn act of my public trust with an avowal of the principles that will guide me in performing it and an expression of my feelings on assuming a charge so responsible and vast. In imitating their example I tread in the footsteps of illustrious men, whose superiors it is our happiness to believe are not found on the executive calendar of any country. Among them we recognize the earliest and firmest pillars of the Republic— [1] those by whom our national independence was first declared, [2] him who above all others contributed to establish it on the field of battle, [3] and those whose expanded intellect and patriotism constructed, improved, and perfected the inestimable institutions under which we live. If [A] such men in the position I now occupy felt themselves overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude for this the highest of all marks of their country's confidence, [B] and by a consciousness of their inability adequately to discharge the duties of an office so difficult and exalted, [C] how much more must these considerations affect one who can rely on no such claims for favor or forbearance! Unlike all who have preceded me, the Revolution that gave us existence as one people was achieved at the period of my birth; and whilst I contemplate with grateful reverence that memorable event, I feel that I belong to a later age and that I may not expect my countrymen to weigh my actions with the same kind and partial hand.


While the opening sentence begins with the now traditional sentiments of modesty and following in the footsteps of great predecessors, two words stand out: cheerfully and happiness. This is the first time any degree of cheer or joviality has made its way into any inaugural address, and while these words don't constitute frivolity, they do mark a uniquely festive sense of gratitude for having inherited such a great nation from such great men. Van Buren's use of the word calendar is also worth a note, for on the one hand it can simply mean register, but also it can mean guide or example, and even by metonymy it can refer to the history of the presidency. The firm image pillars of the Republic is no throwaway, though, but itself becomes the foundation for the rest of the paragraph. Van Buren breaks the Founders into three groups of those who 1) declared independence, 2) fought for it, and 3) those who firmed and expanded it. This is a novel and engaging way of reiterating the feats of the Founders, and note with him who the indirect reference to the now nearly deified Washington.

The next sentence is a gradatio of increasing tension from phrases A-C, but it reads simply as a condition: If A and B, then C. Van Burn ends with a most surprising turn, an invocation to the people to regard him not as one of the Founders but to regard him as one of them and to judge him not with the gentleness with which they treated their forefathers, but impartially. A most uncommon sentiment, in and out of politics.

Finally, note the simple, lucid flow of ideas in connected pairs of conditions:

1. I follow in the footsteps of great men
2. who fall into three categories.
3. If they were nervous about the duty, great as they were,
4. how much must I be?
5. Also unlike my predecessors, America was a nation when I was born, 
6. so judge me as one of you and not one of the Founders.

This is a solid opening, full and formal but not orotund, and tightly organized.

On Courage

Danger is an escapable part of life. We fear confronting it, but we like the thought of doing so. We adore our heroes, real and fictional, who confront danger and we say that they possess courage. Two recent articles on the dangers of farm life in Modern Farmer and on the dangers of sanitation work in City Journal. They both spout the boilerplate that such work should be made safer,
but more noteworthy they suggest that somehow we should "talk about" and recognize the danger, as if courage is its natural companion. Is this so? We need to recognize danger so we can recognize courage, but to recognize courage we also need to know the man.

N.B. Some of the following is paraphrase or summary of Aristotle and some my own explanation, extension, expansion, and examples. The full text of the Ethics is here for your examination in English and here in Greek.

Aristotle's discussion of the virtue Courage is one of his most nuanced in the Nichomachean Ethics and anywhere. The Philosopher writes:

is a mean with respect to things that inspire confidence or fear... and it chooses or endures things because it is noble to do so, or because it is base not to do so. (1116a)

Foremost then, the brave man has to experience fear, the pain due to a mental picture of a an approaching destructive or painful evil or danger which may harm us. Likewise he must have sufficient character as to face the danger with the hope that he will succeed at his noble end, for example either in preserving his life or honor. Aristotle continues:

The man, then, who faces and who fears the right things and from the right motive, in the right way and at the right time, and who feels confidence under the corresponding conditions, is brave. (1115a)

What a great number of conditions on which Aristotle predicates the first of virtues. Whom do we not call brave, then? One can fail to be brave, 1) by being unaware of danger, ignorance, 2) by giving into fear and fleeing the danger, cowardice, 3) by not fearing that which a man ought to fear (such as disgrace) out of a) recklessness (rashly meeting the danger), b) overconfidence (arrogantly meeting the danger), c) imprudence (fearing the wrong danger), or d) shameless indifference to the good, or 4) by fearing at the wrong time, such as fretting before one is in veritable danger or fearing only after it is too late to act.

Aristotle also presents us with situations in which a man may seem brave, but is not so at all or not in the purest sense.

First, Aristotle discusses those who fight by compulsion, such as citizen soldiers. The may be brave in facing danger and avoiding shame, but they may also do so out of fear of penalty, rather than out of nobility.

Second, consider also a professional with a risky job, even a professional soldier. These people have special knowledge and/or tools to deal with specific dangers, and their experience has given them special confidence with which to approach the challenge. These people are very good at their jobs, for the strongest not the bravest men fight the best, but their bravery is not the purest form.

Third, those who act from passion have something akin to courage, but not what we have called true or pure courage, for they act not from honor or nobility, but from strength of feeling. Passion may aid the noble man, but he does not act driven by feeling but from nobility.

Fourth, the confident (εὐέλπιδες) man who faces danger which he has conquered before may not exhibit pure bravery, if previous success has made him feel unconquerable. Facing risk with the expectation of success is not the same facing a danger which you think may kill you. Likewise facing a sudden danger with courage exhibits more bravery than reacting with preparation, for the former results not from preparation or expectation but a state of character.

Finally, we must say that it is the greatest of losses which is the ultimate concern of the brave man: death. As such, the courage of the noble and happy man is intensified because he at the risk of losing or in preservation of his good and finite life, risks death.

–

Where does this leave our discussion of people who face danger, such as farmers, police officers, sanitation workers, fire fighters, and soldiers? It would seem to leave us with an inability to call any of these entire groups brave. For the character of the individual and how he approaches danger, not the danger itself, constitutes courage.

Mini-Review: Thank You For Arguing

Thank You For Arguing. by Jay Heinrichs. Ch. 26

I don't know quite what to say about a chapter which begins with a leading quote that translates, "Quid multa? clamores," as "I brought the house down." The Latin is a self-satisfied remark from Cicero to his intimate friend Atticus (letter I.14) in February of 61 BC about a particularly quick comment the orator tossed off. The tendentiously-related English is from Ch. 26 of Jay Heinrich's Thank You for Arguing, in which Heinrichs purports to demonstrate the brilliance and utility of President Obama's rhetorical prowess. The gap between the English and Latin, though, speaks volumes. Namely, it says that the author is not serious about scholarship or precision, but is content to repackage serious work for lazy readers. I'll charitably assume this is the case rather than considering if the author hasn't done his homework or that the author of a book on rhetoric doesn't know Latin and Greek.

To cut to the chase, though, it's the title of the chapter, not the book, which held my interest in the store: Capture Your Audience: The Obama Identity: Steal the tricks of a first-class orator. Dear reader, that's one wacca away from full blown incredibility. Let's break this down.

–

Skipping over the introduction in which the author relives the glory of Obama's ascendency, the sloppiness starts. First we get the turn of phrase that "Aristotle wanted political speeches to be deliberative," which makes anyone who has read Book I of the Rhetoric cringe at the kitschy summarization of Aristotle's detailed taxonomy. Then, Heinrichs uses the word demonstrative, which doesn't explain to the reader what epideictic means in a formal, specific, Aristotelian sense. All political or demonstrative or forensic oratory be demonstrative in some loose sense? In fact Heinrichs goes out of his way not to use this word, saying on p. 30 that only academics use it because "they're just being demonstrative," which is his periphrastic way of saying people who use this word are assholes. I wonder what he thinks of people who write it in Greek! Third, he writes that "in a speech that seeks to bring people together, you want to get demonstrative" with no explanation. He's not wrong at all, but that statement tells us almost as little as his next, which reads, "Get to know demonstrative rhetoric better...you'll become a better orator yourself." Manum de tabula, discipuli, the master has arrived!

Worst perhaps is his tag that, "This is rhetoric the way the ancients taught it." Well, I know what he means, which is that this is authentic ancient style, but besides the fact that it's not, he's using a modern example of use to prove how ancient rhetoric was taught. We don't have to get into the history of rhetorical manuals and progymnasmata, but this is sloppy.

Next he breaks then-Senator Obama's 2004 keynote address at  the Democratic National Convention into five parts: Introduction, Narration, Division, Proof, Refutation, Conclusion.

In the introduction, he praises Obama for "establishing his character" at the beginning of the speech by citing Obama's phrase, "My presence on this stage is pretty unlikely." How does acknowledging your presence on a stage establish character? It was obvious he was standing there. Those words don't describe, explain, depict, or evoke anything.

In his demonstration of Obama's narratio he explains that "a moral" links Obama's character with the American way. A moral what? He has three choices:

1. the moral teaching or practical lesson contained in a fable, tale, experience, etc.
2. the embodiment or type of something. 
3. morals, principles or habits with respect to right or wrong conduct.

I can't find what "moral" could mean in the speech.

Next he writes that "the good orator uses the division to represent both sides." The division of what? What is "the division?" Does he mean the division of the speech in to introduction, facts and details, proof, and conclusion? Is the division a part of the speech? He says to "use the division to sound like you're more reasonable than the other side," which is so vague and incomplete that you have to question whether he knows  what he's talking about. At any rate, it's impossible for such an explanation to be of use to anyone, let alone a layman.

Even if we assume that by division of the speech he means its organization into exordium, narratio, probatio, and peroratio, how could one say as he does that, "the good orator uses the division to represent both sides," an exceedingly general statement.

Then he cites the use of a catalogue as "proof," in place of, say, direct evidence like witnesses and contracts, argumentation from evidence or example, or even an emotional appeal. A list constitutes proof. Wow.

After this he cites the following as evidence of the entire refutatio:

Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America.

That's not bad, but it's not at all enough by itself to constitute a full-blown refutatio.

As far as conclusions go, fine, let's say the speech has one, if only so we can admit it's over.

Finally, it's very telling that Heinrichs sees this speech as being successful because it's all about Obama, even though it was supposed to get John Kerry elected. This is a clever way of avoiding the fact that the speech failed. Of course many great speeches, even the best, have failed to produce the outcome their authors had hoped, but to call either set of Philippics, say, failures is not the same as to call this speech a failure. Cicero and Demosthenes might have chosen poor tacks of persuasion, hypothetically, but they didn't fail by having the ulterior motive of aggrandizing themselves. So either Obama wrote a bad speech or he deliberately threw Kerry under the bus to promote himself, a fact about which "Cicero would be proud." Don't let that tack-on about Cicero being proud pass, though. Heinrichs uses his presumption of Ciceronian approval to justify an ulterior motive which he imputes to Obama, all to avoid the fact that the speech failed. Now that is some rhetoric.

–

Now Heinrichs turns his attention to some of Obama's other speeches, citing and praising a line from President Obama's 2009 Inaugural Address in which Heinrichs finds an instance of prosopopoeia. Literally "to put on a face," this device most properly involves adopting a persona through which one speaks, especially the guise of a deceased. More loosely some categorize under the umbrella of prosopopoeia the use of the historic present and the introduction as speaking of any absent party. Cicero's usages are perhaps the most famous, especially the instance in the Pro Caelio (s.34) in which Cicero, adopting the character of Appius Claudius Caecus, excoriates the infamous Clodia, his wicked distant progeny. As notable is the use in the First Catilinarian (s. I.7) in which he pleads with Catiline in the voice of the Roman people.

The difference in Obama's usage is that there is no layer of mimesis, no moment in which he puts on the mask of another. He is actually speaking for the people. Also, Obama uses we 32 times throughout this short speech, and as such no given moment nor the whole is prosopopoeia.

After a some preposterous praise not worth our attention, Heinrichs characterizes the following passage as "pure enargeia," Greek for vividness:

One march was interrupted by police gunfire and tear gas, and when the smoke cleared, 280 had been arrested, 60 were wounded, and one 16-year-old boy lay dead.

That's vivid? A sentence with no imagery, told in the present tense, with no amplification by structure, and no characters? Heinrichs is at pains to paint this scene as vivid, pointing out how the unfolding story seems to "zoom in" on the details as it progresses. But the narration is bland chronological, that is to say, normal. How is this order "cinematic" and "pure enargeia?"

Compare it to Cicero's vivid narration of the night raid in which the lackeys of Verres, a corrupt governor of Sicily, attempt to steal statues from the square at Agrigentum. We may identify in this passage against Verres (In Verrem II.IV), devices such as the vivid present, pleonasm, characterization, impersonal verbs (emphasizing action), diminutives, sarcasm, the charge of sacrilege, humor, imagery, assonance, emphatic placement, and climax, which constitute enargeia. There is no enargeia in Obama's sentence in which he tells a story with no details or characters in a past tense.

Heinrichs is aware of Obama's tense problem, though, for admitting the story is in the past tense he hurries to say that "it's in the service of demonstrative rhetoric" and that its "secret" lies in that alleged cinematic narration. Since demonstrative rhetoric is concerned with praising or censuring someone and is concerned with the present state, it's hard to reconcile this sentence to the speech. Heinrichs seems by demonstrative to mean simply anything that has a point.

–

The remaining examples which Heinrichs points out are not misnamed as rhetoric but simply bland and unremarkable instances. Calling attention to them, let alone lauding them, is akin to praising Transformers for adhering to Aristotelian tragic theory because its action takes place in one day. Yet Heinrichs seems to know his praise of Obama's rhetoric is not on the firmest  ground, conceding in his closing paragraph that, "Soon after taking office, Obama toned down his demonstrative rhetoric, choosing to deal with pragmatic policies between campaigns." First, the time "between campaigns" is usually referred to as a presidency. Second, Obama spoke ad infinitum and ad nauseam during his first term. He also spoke poorly, but just as poorly as he ever did. It's not surprising that liberals want to remember a perfect honeymoon, though.

Their desire to agree agree with and elevate their idol has clouded their judgment and this chapter of Heinrichs' Thank You For Arguing demonstrates what I've written elsewhere about reactions to Obama's rhetoric: if you already agree, you'll love it. Unfortunately, that's not the stuff of great rhetoric. Likewise, sloppy uses of terminology, sketchy examples, encomiastic editorializing, and imprecise explanations are not the stuff of great books. If you're looking for a sophomoric justification of Obama's greatness, though, this will surely float your boat. Thanks, but no thanks.

Memento

Memory is a strange word for a strange concept. What does it mean to remember? Our English word memory is not helpful, conjuring images of a faculty of remembering, as if drawing water from a well. The clunky memorize has its connotation of firing synapses, but tells us how, not why is memory. Latin's tenere in memoria is an improvement, suggesting as it does the activity of holding in memory, as does its recordare, the holding of something in one's cor (stem cord-) or heart, living spirit. We retain something of this understanding in the phrase, "learn by heart," which alas seems to be ebbing away.

As we often do, though, we turn to the Greeks, and not just to their pair of λήθη and μνήμη, forgetfulness and memory, but to the famous discussion of memory which concludes Plato's Phaedrus. This passage is often quoted by proud memorizers who revel in recollections of their favorite poems, and while it's all well and good to wag a finger at the philistine who can't quote a line of any significance, it doesn't answer much to say tritely that reading print simply weakens the memory. It even elucidates little to say that the written word is not knowledge, as pretty as the thought may be.

Plato's insight, though, comes soon after the oft-quoted and there he idealizes not the tender of letters who sows words in the garden of letters for recollection, but the dialectician who plants words in souls, not perfected but alive, potent to propagate. This claim sounds incredible, for how can an idea differ simply by its location? This is surely some ploy to lay secret knowledge in the hands of the few. Our lack of imagination often fails philosophers, but especially Plato who might jest about our mental infecundity. Here, imagine a word in a book: it does nothing. If one asks it a question, as Plato said, it responds nothing. Yet the word in the mind partakes in our activities, observes them and changes them, even perchance changing itself. It is only passed on if by, or through, a memory.

There is something of this thinking, quite unexpectedly, in Aristotle's causality wherein man, the lover of understanding, seeks that "why" of things which is both question and answer, and in understanding fulfills his nature and the promise of worldly intelligibility. Understanding, then, is a reconciliation of self and other, and to remember Plato and Bach and Horace as much as mathematics and astronomy is as much to know oneself as to know them as to know the world. To hear the words of the mass not as spoken text but as an awakening of the words within you, an awakening of words shared, transferred through time and transfigured through the sacrifice, is the reconciliation of all things.

Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
–Little Gidding

On Gratitude

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought;  and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. – G. K. Chesterton

Achilles tends to Patroclus

By what quirk of fate I know not but the quote above fortuitously percolated its way to my attention in my Twitter feed this afternoon. I say fortuitous because of the wonderful counterpoint it plays to a short story about gratitude I came upon this morning, also by chance, via a friend. From him I read a brief expression of love from a woman, now passed, for her grandson. "What a joy you are to me," she wrote. Now I did just say the letter expressed love but truly the first word that occurred to me was thanks. We of course will not indulge that facile tendency to say that two things are the same but there is of course much of thanks in love. A specific kind of thanks, mind you. 

It is not the thanks for equitable exchange or thanks for justice. It is not even strictly thanks for kindness since the kind act, for all its good, can be done simply for the sake of kindness and not the individual. It is not even thanks for emulating, that is to say, thanks to someone for providing a good example. Why? All of these forms of thanks imply some kind of utility, ulterior gain, or adherence to some other principal to which the deed is ancillary. As The Philosopher instructs us, friendships of utility love not for themselves but some good gained, that is, some good for you, be it pleasure or convenience. These relationships are facile and feeble. Often they are not even mutual but when such utilitarian friendships are mutual it is best when each gets the same from each.

We may observe in the above examples there is indeed, though, some element of thanks, of gladness at the happy accident, the fortunate turn of events, a kindness, an obliged return and so forth. Yet from any of the Latin forms, grates and gratus, it is hard to tease out from the quotidian sentiments any pure sense of unobliged, useless thankfulness, what I propose to call gratitude. Useless, I say?

Venus

Yes, useless, though it may sound a strange thing. We scarcely realize it but we are trained to use things, all things. Commerce, rather reasonably, trains us to use things. Today art trains us to use it and it is indeed use because without any sense of purpose such as religiosity or beauty it can only be used, to rouse and pleasure or relax and mollify, even to conjure an image or emotion. Such works, even great ones, exist to do and do for you or even to you, rather than simply be. Education too teaches us to use. Science teaches us to use nature only to manipulate it and to gain knowledge to get a job. English teaches us to write just to learn about ourselves. Economics teaches us to work only so we may spend. Even philosophy itself is abused to the point of utility today because without some view of man's nature and his good, whether it be Aristotle's contemplative life or some other, without true philo-sophia, it is simply a tool of breaking down, of de-struction. 

The love of someone or something for its own sake then is something quite special. To have gratitude not toward but for someone and not because of any qualities but for the sum of that person, to have gratitude for a work of art not because of what it does but what it is, is to have gratitude for that which makes up an important part of living. To know such gratitude, in giving or receiving, is to make a joy of being in the world, and thus "that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."

If you enjoyed this essay you may also be interested in:

• Why Beauty Matters (Documentary) [YouTube]
• Ideas: Part I | Part II
• The Anonymous Artist
• Culture and Community
• Caution: Intellectuals at Work

The Last Virtue

an inquiry into anecdotal evidence

It is an annual goal of mine to attempt, throughout a year, to observe one particular idea in detail throughout the many circumstances a year will provide. This past year of 2011 I observed the ways in which people compliment each other and I must say the inquiry has proved rather revealing. This year I noted that people tend to praise others as "smart." Now I suppose I ought to make an anthropological caveat and explore the possibility that in my presence people might praise others as "smart" because they figure, incorrectly, that I am reasonably smart and thus would value intelligence in others. If this possibility has ever been true the fact would puzzle me. Why would one person possessing one virtue not recognize or value excellence in the others?

This question is, in fact, the essence of my inquiry. More specifically, where is this bias in favor of intelligence and what do people mean by "smart?" Let us attempt to answer the second question first and in doing so turn our attention to Aristotle.

We can observe that Aristotle makes a number of distinctions amongst the Intellectual Virtues, what we gloss over as "intelligence." In brief, Aristotle mentions 1) techne, what we might very loosely consider a particular skill, 2) scientific knowledge about universal principles derived from logical argument, 3) practical judgment, that is, the ability to judge the good for man in a particular situation, 4) knowledge of first principles, and lastly 5) wisdom, a combination of knowledge of first principles and reason.

As useful as these distinctions are, and their usefulness and the keenness of the mind who made them are revealed even upon the most cursory consideration, they do not seem at all akin to what people mean when they say "smart." Craftsmen are seldom referred to as smart and I have never observed "smart" to refer to anything so specific as formal training in logic. In fact in my observation I seldom nonticed "smart" used with any connection to particular knowledge at all. Of Aristotle's subsets of "intellectual virtue," nous, or the ability to observe first principles, seems to be closest to what people mean when they call someone "smart." Yet people tend to be unable to point to first principles that a "smart" person does know. How do you know he is smart then? They usually form this judgment based on a perceived readiness or cleverness in conversation or simply general competence, but not from serious consideration about the nature and degree of the person's intelligence.

This fact brings me to my conclusion about the significance of this last virtue, "smart." It is tempting to suggest that "smartness" survived as a virtue because as a society we value intelligence most and there may be some truth to this but I think "smart" survived simply because it was the easiest to corrupt and indeed it has been corrupted into a meaningless catch-all compliment. Most significantly, though, is that unlike all of Aristotle's virtues, it is not connected to action. It requires no learning, experience, or contemplation, unlike Aristotle's Intellectual Virtues. "Smartness" requires nothing of its possessor therefore it is a "virtue" anyone can have. You need to do practically nothing to get it and there is nothing you can do to lose it. It is an invented virtue to compensate for the loss of classical education (that is, Aristotle's Intellectual Virtues) and the social abandonment of Aristotle's Moral Virtues. Speaking of them, where did they go? When was the last time you heard someone (other than a warrior) described as courageous? Or anyone described as temperate or moderate, or liberal, or good-tempered? Instead people are glossed over with meaningless adjectives.

These vagaries are both, I would wager, accidental and convenient. They allow us to praise and condemn at whim without reason and consideration and worse they give us the illusion of being discriminating. They allow us to create a safe-zone around ourselves and others which cannot be breached. If you're "smart" you're smart and nothing can change that. You might be deficient in every other virtue, but you're still "smart."

Well, "smart" is not a virtue. There are in fact many others, though, all of which are worth perceiving, valuing, and cultivating. Perceiving is of course the first step but the second is perhaps even mor difficult: judging yourself and others based on these virtues. This is not something we like to do and it can be taken too far, but it is a necessary step toward a meaningful life in which people are better, are more, than "nice" and "smart."

Book Review: On Moderation

On Moderation: Defending an Ancient Virtue in a Modern World
by Harry Clor. 2008.

In everything it is no easy task to find the middle. . . therefore goodness is both rare and laudable and noble. –Aristotle

I have tried to imagine a reader who would not benefit from Harry Clor's On Moderation, to find someone for whom this volume is of no use. Surely this book must be redundant for the philosophically literate? No. Too esoteric for the layman? No. Too long? Certainly not, at 120 pages. On Moderation has enough of tempered sagacity to earn the trust of the old and enough challenges to common suppositions to stir the youthful. It is neither sententious nor witless, chastising nor therapeutic. It neither overwhelms with footnotes nor suffers from a lack of references. On Moderation is for everyone. Perhaps it is a banal, even hokey, compliment to say that a book titled On Moderation is itself of moderate proportions but such is quite a feat. How might we fare weaving the thread of one of Western Civilization's oldest ideas throughout all of its history? And not just through its treatment at the hands of philosophers but by authors and in the lives of political figures?  And then presenting it in a clear and useful form for any reader? Quite a feat.

Why attempt it, though? Why be moderate? To answer this question we obviously must define the idea and Clor divides the task into three categories: What does it mean to practice, 1) political moderation, 2) personal moderation, and 3) philosophical moderation. In each Clor seeks out the the proponents and examples of moderation and issues which seem to present challenges to moderation, i.e. people and problems who urge or seem to require some more extreme course of action. Present throughout is the author's own moderation. In particular Clor is always attentive to the alternative sides of an argument, the limits of what one may know of particular circumstances, the potential to gain insight from a position that seems generally wrong or unreasonable, and lastly that there exists a multitude of goods and one may not always attain them all.



Political Moderation

Clor begins discussing political moderation with a frank question. "Isn't political moderation just splitting the difference?" This is depressingly plausible, isn't it? We don't seem to be off to a great start. He then continues with an inviting and elucidating anecdote:

Once while teaching a course on the American Founding I thought it appropriate to stress the virtues of political moderation. An outstanding student (and congenital debunker) responded with a challenge: "So you would have been against the American Revolution or you would have looked for some compromise to avoid it!" At the time the question threw me embarrassingly off balance. [Clor, 11]

First off, anyone who has taught for any duration can spare a chortle for his experience. More to the point, though, Clor (citing the late Martin Diamond's amusingly-titled essay, "The Revolution of Sober Expectations") observes that the revolution was moderate as far as revolutions go. Unlike the French and Bolshevik ones it did not seek to overthrow all of society, to change man's nature, or to attain a massive list of rights. No one marched in the streets chanting, "We will have equality or we will destroy civilization," as in the French Revolution. Clor uses this example to demonstrate how moderation in political life consists in part of putting up with defects or limiting aspirations in order to bring about some good (presumably enough so that the defects are bearable.) Some may find this approach unsatisfying and tantamount to a revisionist approach in which certain events are demonstrated really to be moderate, yet another of the author's points provides a corrective to this criticism: that perspective and an impersonal distance are required for political moderation. One must step away and examine the issue, and its extreme positions, in order to perceive the moderate position.

Another aspect of political moderation Clor identifies is that of acknowledging a multiplicity of principles. Not mere conflict and strife, he points out, but multiple values deserving of your attention and which must be balanced, though preserving one may damage the other. Similarly, Clor identifies the principle of proportionality as appropriate to political moderation, finding it in the American system of government which achieves the balance of "constituted representative democracy" in contrast to "radical populistic democracy." Applying Burke's words to the American system, one may say that it "tempers together those opposite elements of liberty and restraint in one consistent work."

In contrast to the aforementioned principles of moderation Clor finds the so-called "value pluralism" unpersuasive as a force of moderation, for while its toleration is preferable to polarized struggles for control of the state, "tolerance by itself does not produce the sense of community on which it depends." [Clor, 20] That is, toleration is really only plausible when some underlying fundamentals, often unspoken, exist. Too, value pluralism, extolling diversity itself as a virtue, requires one to praise all walks of life and actions as good without recourse to any particular understanding of a "good life." Well how can they all be good?

One of the most important aspects of political moderation Clor picks up from Aristotle, who argued that we "ought not expect more precision from our study than the subject matter permits." This means not that there are no universal truths but that prescriptions to bring them about or abide by them may only be offered in outline because particular instances are variable. A few obvious examples follow, namely the two which philosophers have wrangled with and tried to, once and for all, proclaim as evil: lying and murder. Are they not sometimes the lesser of evils, for example if they prevented mass devastation? Too, does power really "always corrupt" or is it sometimes necessary as a force to counter evil? Clor infers two points from Aristotle's observation: 1) do not attempt to turn politics into an exact science, and 2) don't turn ethics into a body of categorical imperatives. Do so, and every political decision you make becomes an intractable one without any hope of negotiation. If all issues are moral ones, then no societies are possible except for ones in which everyone agrees about everything or about nothing. Most societies reach some degree of moderation, permitting some things and forbidding others.

A "moderate" political citizen then, with these "situational ethics" in mind, has much to observe in trying to negotiate what is and is not acceptable. Yet what happens when something is finally decided upon? It is usually made into some kind of law. How useful is this? Clor, again channeling Aristotle, notes that on the one hand laws are made by fallible men and thus may be biased and imperfect, and on the other they are still more dispassionate than any human judgment would be on the spur of the moment by virtue of their distance from the event in question. Again, on the one hand the law provides an impartial standard for a situation and on the other there are times when a "judgment call" is needed. It is hard to foresee every circumstance. Sentencing someone to life in prison for violating a rule which has been superseded or rendered defunct would be "excessive legalism." The rule of law itself, then, is a moderator in need of moderation.

Finally, then, the politically moderate man must be able to balance the demands of various principles, to calculate reasonable goals, to admit a degree of uncertainty to the situation, to refrain from moralizing, to be diligent about obtaining the facts, and maintain capacity for disinterested examination. Too, he must remember that all men are subject to passions and that even reason may find itself passion's instrument.



Personal Moderation

Nietzsche contest with the ancients for man's nature is at heart of this chapter. For both parties man may be of two natures, of reason and chaos, but in which does his ideal state exist? The former sees in  chaos the will to create and the latter in harmony the happiness of man. Does reason reveal the path to prosperity or does it simply saddle and devitalize one's passions and inner drive? After laying out the arguments for passion and reason, for order chaos and order, Clor makes a recommendation for moderation all the more powerful and sensible for its brevity: Are we not reasoning and social creatures, do we not carry various imperatives and entertain different claims upon us? Is an energetic or happy human really one in which many of these claims lay undeveloped? Relax control, maybe here and there, but only if you have a moral constitution as the norm. Clor concludes, "the demands of rationality may be relaxed by a mind in which reason retains a prominent voice." [Clor, 58] Such moderation feels almost like a relief from the extreme claims.

The author begins his discussion of love without much hope that he will find room for moderation. Who wants to be loved moderately? To recommend a "temperate ecstasy" is to invite parody. Yet if moderation has no place here than its overall usefulness to us is considerably less. Clor weaves through the extremes, though, noting, "if you don't want happiness and unhappiness to be a kind of lottery, you had better be in some position to judge the qualities of the person you consider giving yourself to and cherishing." [Clor, 60] As in political moderation, self-restraint and a rational consideration of character are called for. Yes, the act is the act regardless of whether it is good, but it cannot be fitting for man or you without some deliberation about life, self, and other. Love requires both dependency and independency. Love requires dedication, but general happiness requires investment in many pursuits, of which the attachment of love is but one. Clor finds in Freud just such a sort of pragmatic injunction for moderation. "Any choice that is pushed to an extreme will be penalized by exposing the individual to the dangers which arise if a technique of living that has been chosen as an exclusive one should prove inadequate." [Clor, 63]

While discussing man's capacity for passion Clor makes an interesting stop to discuss compassion. Yes, of course it maintains certain personal and social benefits. Yet is it somehow overrated? Perhaps, but perhaps one simply ought to distinguish more finely just what it is.  Sometimes compassion is simply rooted in a fear that the same thing could happen to you. Second, you may feel pity and empathy for someone's suffering but such is not the same as persistent concern for his well-being. Neither of these instances of "compassion" are quite so laudable as we might think. Lastly, one may indeed be deserving of compassion but also of anger or indignation. Compassion is not a virtue, something that refines a passion toward some good end, but a passion itself. As such, it requires guidance and consideration of goods since it can be properly or improperly directed.

Concluding Clor's discussion of the nature of man's passions he asks: are they wholly benevolent or do they need to be vigorously squelched? On the one hand we may consider if they are wholly benevolent, a position which Clor finds supported in some modern psychologies in which in which one needs to "grow" and "be oneself" and be "open to possibilities." In this thinking one must forge "contacts" through which the self will reconfigure and very little can be seen to be determinedly wrong. Though clearly unpersuaded by this immoderate approach, Clor, persistently moderate, accords gestalt psychology its due noting that, "the idea that personality develops through the experience and incorporation of connections with others is a sensible one as far as it goes, but the other side of wisdom is full recognition of the fact that not all contacts are good ones."[Clor, 74]

Yet if some passions are moderated, how is this accomplished? It seems foolish to think that one can "temper impetuous impulses by remonstrating with them." To Aristotle, one's habits and dispositions, the ways in which the passions are incorporated into one's disposition, moderate otherwise unrestrained desires. Repeatedly choosing an action, under whatever guidance or communal pressure, slowly makes that way of dealing with the passion part of who you are. Personal moderation, like political moderation, would seem to require much of the individual. In fact it requires nothing less than an awareness of self and society. It requires rationally choosing values but also understanding those which one has unconsciously acquired through habituation. It requires building a character but also understanding the values one has inherited as an individual in a particular family and country and even those one has by chance. It requires measured introspection and accordingly corrective action, not dogmatism or unlimited "openness" to any outcome. It requires having a character, which necessitates the ability to perceive a situation and reason what the right thing to do is, and then the will to temper oneself. One might say it requires both wisdom and virtue.



Philosophical Moderation

We have several times spoken of reason and therefore must defend it as legitimate. We must defend reason if we are to justify the habituation, education, and self-discipline that moderation calls for. A defense of reason is necessary, as Clor puts it, because, "one who has no respect for reason is ill-disposed to listen to argument, entertain viewpoints differing from those one currently holds, and cultivate that capacity for deliberation that is part and parcel of a self-controlling character." [Clor, 86]

Clor takes on a number of the postmodernist attacks on reason and his first is surprisingly simple. If it is so that "everyone is coming from somewhere" and that no one can escape his influences and circumstances, why bother with structures of any kind? Why bother with a liberal education, for example, if reason and debate are meaningless? Why bother with structures for legislative deliberation if it is really just a contest of wills? Clor makes an excellent and subtle observation about Plato's Republic

The persons Socrates encounters in the Platonic dialogues assert opinions that reflect their (diverse) personalities, backgrounds, or aspirations, and the encounters are designed to show the attentive reader both who difficult it is to make them entertain challenges to their received opinions and that it is sometimes possible to do so. Platonic dialogues recognize that everyone is coming from somewhere, but that where you are going is, at least on occasion and with the right person, open to effectual discussion. [Clor, 87]

Indeed, postmodernist anti-reason ideologies do not promote questioning traditional thought so much as they "render the injunction 'know thyself' virtually meaningless." [Clor, 88] Such attacks on rationality of course also affect all norms and standards, which "are dissolved under the acids of a critique that pronounces them to be groundless if not fraudulent." Clor refers to this as an "ultra-libertarianism," quoting Dostoevsky's disapproving observation, "everything is permitted." The postmodernist position also unravels society by rendering all lifestyles equal. Clor makes less than he could of the disconnect between these postmodernist ideas and the positions of some contemporary liberals that "equal respect is a categorical imperative." (Never to us a straw man, Clor uses Dworkin's 1977 Taking Rights Seriously as an example.) As with political moderation, there must be some recourse to values which transcend particular circumstances lest the whole enterprise of moderation be equally relativistic. Using Clor's example, a terrorist leader who compromises amongst the extreme demands of his followers cannot be considered a moderate.

At last Clor tackles Nietzsche's epistemology. If we take Nietzsche's philosophy to be true, with its conclusion that  philosophy is not reasoned inquiry but creativity driven by the will to power, then what do we make of it? If we do believe it, how can we believe it? Clor seems slightly offended by Nietzsche's own response to the question, that if you realize this conundrum, "So much the better." So much the better?" asks Clor. Truly? Yet Clor's moderation restrains him and he seeks a moderate view of Nietzsche, culling from the bluster that from Nietzsche's perspectivism we learn that our understanding is often only partial, that seeking the truth is not precluded but rather no one can presume to have grasped the whole of it.

Despite such observations about epistemology, which Clor, perhaps with tongue-in-cheek, calls "contributions to moral relativism," Nietzsche's philosophy itself praises something and discourages others. It affirms zeal over enervation and struggle over complacency. In Nietzsche Clor does not find the philosopher of "anything goes" but of "a demanding spiritedness." "What is to be admired is "energetic commitment, which is, at its pinnacle, self-creative." [Clor, 93] Whether or not one agrees with this reading of Nietzsche, it certainly is allows a moderate person to learn something from the philosophy without committing to its extreme prescriptions. It also casts considerable doubt upon it as anything workable on its own.

Perhaps the most novel attack on reason, though, comes not from Nietzsche but from Rousseau, who argued that reason (and imagination) produce desires which are distinct from our natural, necessary, inclinations. "Sensual desires are inflamed into lusts. . . thought makes possible egoism." [Clor, 99] Nature's impulses are simple, inescapable, and able to be sated. Appetites rooted in thought may not be. Clor counters:

Without thought, "know thyself" is impossible, and it is even quite doubtful that without thought you could come to have a self at all. . . Rousseau's original man has no ego about which to be egotistic. Who among us would want to trade places with that "man" and pay that price? [Clor, 100]

There is in this a bit of a challenge to the Rousseauian, Nietzschian, and post-modernist programs: if you want to live like that, go ahead, but you'll end up tempering it with something anyway.


Conclusion

On Moderation is a terrific and spirited read. It makes the task of living the good life, navigating its extremes, seem challenging, rewarding, and even noble. The text starts with simple examples using famous political figures like Franklin Roosevelt and Churchill and eases the reader into more complex discussions of Rousseau and Nietzsche. It is judiciously footnoted with a short suggested reading list of recommendations ranging from Jane Austen to George Will. Clor is so consistently even-handed and concerned with useful learning over proving, the book is as much a model for moderation as a discussion of it. One may tire of the many "what ifs" and "on the other hand" but such scrutiny and even-handedness, such work, well that's moderation.

A Terrifying Rhetorician?

Martin Amis has a column in yesterday's Guardian in which he puts contemporary intellectual, author, and famed debated Christopher Hitchens on par with Cicero and Demosthenes. Now first please try to understand how difficult it was for me to write that. It is nearly inconceivable for anyone who has in fact read Demosthenes and Cicero in Greek and Latin to compare anyone to them. Yet in this case I think they are merely invoked as totems of excellence rather than set up as examples for comparison. That this is not a scholarly article and there are, in fact, no meaningful comparisons, or comparisons of any kind, supports this statement. In fact were not for the amiable tone of the piece I would be tempted to borrow a phrase I used last week to describe Terry Eagleton's piece on Marx: embarrassing encomium. Yet this essay, from its prefatory picture of the two boozily unkempt friends to its apostrophe to Mr. Hitchens himself, resists such an evaluation. It does not, however, resist some scrutiny.

Actually I don't so much care to evaluate the accuracy of Amis' assertion than I want like to unpack the implications of his praise. Of course I balk at the comparison itself, more than I would at referring to Patrick Henry as the "Cicero of Virginia" but less than referring to President Obama's speeches as "worthy of marble." Perhaps one day we will examine some of Mr. Hitchen's writing against Demosthenes but right now I'm simply concerned with the analogy Amis uses to describe Hitchen's rhetorical ability, which is to the supercomputer Deep Blue, which defeated several chess grandmasters, both of whom described the encounter thus: It's like a wall coming at you.

In contrast I call to mind the timeless statement about Demosthenes, that he was δεινὸς λέγειν (deinos legein) a phrase which unfortunately requires a little explanation in itself. On the one hand it can simply mean a "clever speaker" and indeed it means this and such is how it is most often translated from Greek. The first word, though, δεινὸς, has more associations, namely with the seemingly contrasting pair of ideas, "terrible" (or fearful, dangerous) and "wondrous" (or marvelous.) Yes, to be called δεινὸς λέγειν might simply mean you were a clever speaker, a speaker clever with your tongue who, like Odysseus, could beguile and outwit an opponent. (It may be of interest to recall Dante in Canto XXVI of the Inferno has Odysseus in in the Eighth Circle (with Diomedes) for his trickery (agguato, arte.)) Too Socrates begins his famous defense by addressing the accusation that he is a clever speaker, asserting that he is not clever unless by clever you mean truthful. 

That distinction, I think, is essentially the one Amis is making. (Unless he is making the unexpectedly banal assertion (i.e. not an argument) that Hitchens is a good rhetor "because he makes good arguments quickly.") For while the descriptions of Demosthenes and Amis' of Hitchens share a common theme of power, the Greek is tinged with many subtler ideas. Amis means Mr. Hitchens is a great speaker not because he is artful or clever or because his prose is beautiful, his images vivid or because he uses figurative language and paints a persuasive picture, but because he is truthful. Hitchens' argumentation is a wall of truth coming at you. Thus Amis is essentially saying that truth is persuasive. This statement, put clearly by Aristotle as, "what aims at truth is better than what aims at appearances" (paraphrased, see Rh. I.vii, 1365a) and beautifully by Keats, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty–" poses a serious question: is what is true naturally more appealing or easier to prove? It might seem so today of certain facts, but in many cases "facts" to a great deal of time to be considered so. One could undoubtedly come up with simpler, wrong, explanations of physics than those of quantum mechanics.

To digress once more, it might make an interesting exercise, dear reader, to read a work of fiction, something presenting a complete world view like the works we discussed in reviewing Santayana's "Three Poets" or at least something a clear single concept that is explored. Then consider whether you find it beautiful: is that world a beautiful one. Then, consider whether you find it more or less beautiful and truthful than the world in which you live. Are they the same?

Is there truth in fiction? Is truth the source of beauty in fiction? Aristotle considered fiction (ποίησις, (poieisis) from ποιέω (poieo) to make) more philosophical because it deals in absolutes whereas history, which seemingly is more scientific and truth-seeking because it deals with facts and things which have actually happened, deals only with specific things which have happened and not universal truths about what must happen.

I would call attention to the fact that Amis goes on to praise Hitchens' "crystallizations," i.e. aphorisms. This is odd in contrast to his opening in which he essentially praises Hitchens' rationality as being persuasive, because of course aphorisms are not arguments. Maybe Amis just means that being persuasive can take many forms, both through rigorous argumentation and through indivisible aphorisms. Perhaps, but I'm not sure.

Let us revisit, though, his actual argument for Hitchens as rhetor. Can it really be called an argument?

. . . his judgments are far more instinctive and moral-visceral than they seem, and are animated by a child's eager apprehension of what feels just and true); he writes like a distinguished author; and he speaks like a genius. As a result, Christopher is one of the most terrifying rhetoricians that the world has yet seen.

What does that mean? How does that make him persuasive? The phrase "as a result" implies some kind of causality, some argument, that has not been introduced. Perhaps he is a great rhetor because he thinks in paragraphs and does not get bogged down in "a mess of expletives, subordinate clauses, and finely turned tautologies. . . " What? He is persuasive because he makes good arguments? This is simply, and ironically, not enough of an argument comment on. Perhaps we might say that persuading consists not simply in constructing a rational argument, but making use of all the means of persuasion, as Aristotle says. Such a definition would necessitate a significantly more elaborate argument from Amis. We could belabor the point that the word "rhetorician" implies much not addressed here, in part and separate from "an argument," small-scale and large-scale structure, diction, imagery, figurative language and rhetorical devices, different types of argumentation, moving the emotions, and using the right combination on the particular audience at the particular time you must speak. Yet such would be a mere list against such a lack of formal argument.

In fact this his lack of argument for Hitchens as rhetor, this insistence that he is one, and the thread of "persuasion" throughout the essay, suggest he feels that because he agrees with Hitchens, that Hitchens must be a good rhetor, which is not quite right. Someone has persuaded you if he has changed your mind to agree with his, hence the Greek fear of a clever speaker who could "put a thought in your head."

If I may offer a conjecture, Amis is not confused. He has simply been persuaded by Hitchens the man, in toto. He praises Hitchens as charismatic and highly thought of qua author by other authors. Clearly he has some sense of the Aristotelian definition of rhetoric as utilizing all means of persuasion and he has been persuaded, but Cicero and Demosthenes are the wrong analogues. He has seen and known Hitchens throughout many years and today he sees all of the books deeds amounting to something significant to him, "Christopher's most memorable rejoinders, I have found, linger, and reverberate, and eventually combine, as chess moves combine." Amis being persuaded by Hitchens is not so different from being persuaded by a great rhetor, the essential difference being the means of persuasion are spread out over many times, means, and places, the only common thread being the man himself. Yet all of these talents and occasions are not rolled up into one speech or performance which can be sensibly be compared to a speech by Cicero or Demosthenes in any meaningful way. Too the differences in occasion and debate structure between Demosthenes' and Hitchens' venues make the comparison even more off-the-mark. These things being so, Amis' comment is sincere but little-considered praise.

In all, Amis has not persuaded me Hitchens is a "terrifying orator" or that he is correct (or incorrect) about anything in particular. He has, though, persuaded me that he loves his exceptional friend. Unfortunately the hyperbolic title (probably not Amis' own) is misleading and will probably do more to increase the blind adulation of Hitchens the intellectual than it will to put the reader in the proper frame of mind to appreciate Amis' happy recollection of his life with his dear friend.