Good choice of illustration. The Maremma sheepdog has none of the visible characteristics of a ferocious breed, but if you read accounts from the 19th C of life in the Roman Campagna, the warning to travelers is explicit: do not approach shepherds without great care: you may very well be killed!
Honestly, "chivalrous" seems to me a good translation for "meekness." It encompasses both ferociousness in battle and gentleness outside it. But otherwise, I have no idea.
We as Christian laymen sorely need a virtuous biblical theology of righteous violence that answers those who emphasise pacifist interpretations of turn the other cheek and would make us gelded men, but also calls is higher than the Mano sphere which emphasises strength and aggression for unrighteous greed and ego. Not written from the ivory tower but from the dirt of real life lived among criminals and islamists we European’s now have to live among.
I like the point about potentially having to get one's hands dirty. Too many have confused virtue with a safe distance from anything that might make one uncomfortable. There's nothing virtuous about seeking safety and comfort and refusing to engage with problems.
I love this! One thing that gives me so much pleasure in reading this is that I feel like you and I start from very different places, where you're a tough guy and I'm more of a bookish nerd, but we're both under the tutelage of the Gospel and the tradition of the virtues, and consequently we're converging. It's exciting to deal with someone so different and feel that you have the most important things in common.
Building on what you've argued here, one thing that I think is important to understand is that the greatest exemplars of courage are NOT the warriors, there are plenty of warriors deserve plenty of respect, but the martyrs. And this claim is capable of a kind of proof.
Who must face more pain, the warrior or the martyr?
The warrior's enemies want to kill him, but in general they have neither the motive nor the opportunity to inflict maximum pain on him. If they can kill him, that's all they want to do. Causing him maximum pain probably doesn't serve their ends. Even if they want him to suffer as much as possible out of resentment, it's probably imprudent. It will make his comrades angrier, so they'll fight harder. And anyway, if they have the opportunity to kill him, they'd better do it immediately and efficiently. Probably they can't wait for an opportunity to do it more cruelly and painfully. In any case, the warrior will try to stop them. He's risking his life, but he's also trying to save it, if he can. His goal is to kill and not be killed.
But the martyr's enemies have both the means and the motive to cause him maximum pain. He is not resisting. He is at their mercy. There's nothing to stop them from being as cruel as they wish. And even if they don't want to be cruel, their goal is to break him, to make him burn the incense to Caesar or trample the Cross or submit to Allah or whatever. The more pain they can cause, the more likely he is to give in.
The martyr is more innocent than the warrior. A warrior may be fighting in a just cause, but that's always a delicate and doubtful question. He will kill, and those he kills may not have deserved it in the grand scheme of things. They may be conscripts, or deluded, innocent by their own lights, and it's a shame they have to die. Not that we should be paralyzed by scruples. But here again, the superiority of the martyr shines, for he does not kill. He dies, but does not cause others to die.
The warrior can sometimes be meek. But the martyr is characteristically more meek, and for that reason more brave. Of course, he may not speak very meekly. He is meek in his deeds, but he may be very bold indeed in his words, as Christ often was. Christ was not afraid to give offense.
Christ taught us to turn the other cheek. By contrast, I think it was part of the ritual of knighting that a man was struck on the cheek, to symbolize the last time that he could endure such an insult, for once he was a knight, his honor would not permit it. They lived by a lower law than the Sermon on the Mount, those still a noble one. But Christ, when he was struck on the cheek on the eve of the crucifixion, answered meekly yet potently. "If I have spoken wrong, bear witness to the wrong. Else why do you strike me?" Not combative, but cogent and uncowed.
One of the challenging and fascinating insights from the chapter on courage in Pieper's Four Cardinal Virtues has to do with the courage of endurance being more true to life than courage of attack. Reality is constituted such that we are more often called to suffer evils without losing good cheer than to launch a heroic attack. Not to take anything away from heroic attacks against evil. They are great and rousing, of course.
This is so true. But the English word has been so destroyed. Sometimes I don't believe the original meaning can be restored, and that we just need to use a different word. [Shrug]
Not really. Honestly, I think chivalrous might come closest to combining both the sense of ferocity on the battlefield and gentleness off it. Although chivalry means more than that.
What a great essay! Lately I have been discovering that a lot of the virtues that have been turned around and are perceived nowadays as weak are actually courageous. Thank you for shedding light on this topic!
What I'm saying is it's harder to deny your human nature and act like Our Lord and His Saints, than to act carnally (naturally) or to take carnal advice.
Good choice of illustration. The Maremma sheepdog has none of the visible characteristics of a ferocious breed, but if you read accounts from the 19th C of life in the Roman Campagna, the warning to travelers is explicit: do not approach shepherds without great care: you may very well be killed!
Honestly, "chivalrous" seems to me a good translation for "meekness." It encompasses both ferociousness in battle and gentleness outside it. But otherwise, I have no idea.
We as Christian laymen sorely need a virtuous biblical theology of righteous violence that answers those who emphasise pacifist interpretations of turn the other cheek and would make us gelded men, but also calls is higher than the Mano sphere which emphasises strength and aggression for unrighteous greed and ego. Not written from the ivory tower but from the dirt of real life lived among criminals and islamists we European’s now have to live among.
I like the point about potentially having to get one's hands dirty. Too many have confused virtue with a safe distance from anything that might make one uncomfortable. There's nothing virtuous about seeking safety and comfort and refusing to engage with problems.
Fierce to the nth, meek (properly understood) to the nth.
A very good example to illustrate the point. Composed and yet deadly !
I love this! One thing that gives me so much pleasure in reading this is that I feel like you and I start from very different places, where you're a tough guy and I'm more of a bookish nerd, but we're both under the tutelage of the Gospel and the tradition of the virtues, and consequently we're converging. It's exciting to deal with someone so different and feel that you have the most important things in common.
Building on what you've argued here, one thing that I think is important to understand is that the greatest exemplars of courage are NOT the warriors, there are plenty of warriors deserve plenty of respect, but the martyrs. And this claim is capable of a kind of proof.
Who must face more pain, the warrior or the martyr?
The warrior's enemies want to kill him, but in general they have neither the motive nor the opportunity to inflict maximum pain on him. If they can kill him, that's all they want to do. Causing him maximum pain probably doesn't serve their ends. Even if they want him to suffer as much as possible out of resentment, it's probably imprudent. It will make his comrades angrier, so they'll fight harder. And anyway, if they have the opportunity to kill him, they'd better do it immediately and efficiently. Probably they can't wait for an opportunity to do it more cruelly and painfully. In any case, the warrior will try to stop them. He's risking his life, but he's also trying to save it, if he can. His goal is to kill and not be killed.
But the martyr's enemies have both the means and the motive to cause him maximum pain. He is not resisting. He is at their mercy. There's nothing to stop them from being as cruel as they wish. And even if they don't want to be cruel, their goal is to break him, to make him burn the incense to Caesar or trample the Cross or submit to Allah or whatever. The more pain they can cause, the more likely he is to give in.
The martyr is more innocent than the warrior. A warrior may be fighting in a just cause, but that's always a delicate and doubtful question. He will kill, and those he kills may not have deserved it in the grand scheme of things. They may be conscripts, or deluded, innocent by their own lights, and it's a shame they have to die. Not that we should be paralyzed by scruples. But here again, the superiority of the martyr shines, for he does not kill. He dies, but does not cause others to die.
The warrior can sometimes be meek. But the martyr is characteristically more meek, and for that reason more brave. Of course, he may not speak very meekly. He is meek in his deeds, but he may be very bold indeed in his words, as Christ often was. Christ was not afraid to give offense.
Christ taught us to turn the other cheek. By contrast, I think it was part of the ritual of knighting that a man was struck on the cheek, to symbolize the last time that he could endure such an insult, for once he was a knight, his honor would not permit it. They lived by a lower law than the Sermon on the Mount, those still a noble one. But Christ, when he was struck on the cheek on the eve of the crucifixion, answered meekly yet potently. "If I have spoken wrong, bear witness to the wrong. Else why do you strike me?" Not combative, but cogent and uncowed.
One of the challenging and fascinating insights from the chapter on courage in Pieper's Four Cardinal Virtues has to do with the courage of endurance being more true to life than courage of attack. Reality is constituted such that we are more often called to suffer evils without losing good cheer than to launch a heroic attack. Not to take anything away from heroic attacks against evil. They are great and rousing, of course.
This is so true. But the English word has been so destroyed. Sometimes I don't believe the original meaning can be restored, and that we just need to use a different word. [Shrug]
Do you have any proposals? Should it just be gentlemanliness? The Latin that Aquinas uses is, I think, mansuetude.
Not really. Honestly, I think chivalrous might come closest to combining both the sense of ferocity on the battlefield and gentleness off it. Although chivalry means more than that.
What a great essay! Lately I have been discovering that a lot of the virtues that have been turned around and are perceived nowadays as weak are actually courageous. Thank you for shedding light on this topic!
Thank you kindly--what you are describing is a curiously common phenomenon. It leads me to believe there are larger forces at work in the campaign.
I am reflecting recently on Psalm 119; the writer is aggressively opposed and persecuted, but always “stays the course.”
“They have almost made an end of me…but I have not forsaken your precepts.”
Yes, the meek man remains faithful in the face of affliction!
If people were aware of what being pius and devout, entails, they'd cease their macho posturing, if they were honest with themselves….🙄
What do you have in mind when you mention "macho posturing"?
What I'm saying is it's harder to deny your human nature and act like Our Lord and His Saints, than to act carnally (naturally) or to take carnal advice.