You see, then, how straightforward and peremptory virtue is; but what man on earth can your deceptive logic make more courageous or more upright? Rather does it break the spirit, which should never be less straitened or forced to deal with petty and thorny problems than when some great work is being planned. It is not the Three Hundred—it is all mankind that should be relieved of the fear of death.
But how can you prove to all those men that death is no evil? How can you overcome the notions of all our past life—notions with which we are tinged from our very infancy? What succor can you discover for man’s helplessness? What can you say that will make men rush, burning with zeal, into the midst of danger? By what persuasive speech can you turn aside this universal feeling of fear, by what strength of wit can you turn aside the conviction of the human race which steadfastly opposes you? Do you propose to construct catchwords for me, or to string together petty syllogisms?
It takes great weapons to strike down great monsters. You recall the fierce serpent in Africa, more frightful to the Roman legions than the war itself, and assailed in vain by arrows and slings; it could not be wounded even by “Pythius,” since its huge size, and the toughness which matched its bulk, made spears, or any weapon hurled by the hand of man, glance off. It was finally destroyed by rocks equal in size to millstones.
Are you, then, hurling petty weapons like yours even against death? Can you stop a lion’s charge by an awl? Your arguments are indeed sharp; but there is nothing sharper than a stalk of grain. And certain arguments are rendered useless and unavailing by their very subtlety. Farewell.
But how can you prove to all those men that death is no evil? How can you overcome the notions of all our past life—notions with which we are tinged from our very infancy? What succor can you discover for man’s helplessness? What can you say that will make men rush, burning with zeal, into the midst of danger? By what persuasive speech can you turn aside this universal feeling of fear, by what strength of wit can you turn aside the conviction of the human race which steadfastly opposes you? Do you propose to construct catchwords for me, or to string together petty syllogisms?
It takes great weapons to strike down great monsters. You recall the fierce serpent in Africa, more frightful to the Roman legions than the war itself, and assailed in vain by arrows and slings; it could not be wounded even by “Pythius,” since its huge size, and the toughness which matched its bulk, made spears, or any weapon hurled by the hand of man, glance off. It was finally destroyed by rocks equal in size to millstones.
Are you, then, hurling petty weapons like yours even against death? Can you stop a lion’s charge by an awl? Your arguments are indeed sharp; but there is nothing sharper than a stalk of grain. And certain arguments are rendered useless and unavailing by their very subtlety. Farewell.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 82
I have gradually learned how difficulties are not impossibilities, and why hardships will often conceal the greatest opportunities. My old yuppie classmates may slap me on the back, happy to see me finally coming around to their mercantile way of thinking, but I am not referring to scheming my way into the corner office. No, I am confronting the fear of pain, of loneliness, and ultimately of death, which challenges me to find serenity in the virtues.
Though I am quite the nerd, no amount of egghead ruminations will convince me to be brave, because an abstraction has no weight on its own—the universal only becomes real in the context of the particular. It will be tedious work to sweep aside the assumptions of the years: the habits of mediocrity, the ease of compliance, the terror of the unknown. Words are cheap, though deeds are priceless.
I am guessing the serpent refers to a story about Marcus Atilius Regulus during the First Punic War, and even if you tell me, just like Newt’s parents, how monsters aren’t real, I will assure you that grave dangers take on many forms, and the gravest ones live only inside our heads. It will take strong convictions to slay those mighty dragons.
As I read through this letter, I am reminded of Plato’s account of the soul in the Republic, which explains how the rational should rule over the appetitive, by means of the spirited. Yet we often get this order reversed, where the desires in our gut seduce the resolve in our hearts, in order to enslave our heads. However noble and refined our thoughts might be, they are helpless without the drive to put them into effect.
I also think of C.S. Lewis, in The Abolition of Man, warning us about the “men without chests”, whose advanced intellects are divorced from any moral courage:
In battle it is not syllogisms that will keep the reluctant nerves and muscles to their post in the third hour of the bombardment.
While the scholars will surely scold me for finding such common ground between Stoicism, the Academy, and Christianity, I will insist that the demands of daily living do not permit us the luxury of tribalism. However diverse its forms, wisdom is always one and the same.
I will at last have the fortitude to accept my mortality on the day when I am willing to cast off my petty attachments to worldly diversions. The knowing will then rightly be joined to the doing.
I have gradually learned how difficulties are not impossibilities, and why hardships will often conceal the greatest opportunities. My old yuppie classmates may slap me on the back, happy to see me finally coming around to their mercantile way of thinking, but I am not referring to scheming my way into the corner office. No, I am confronting the fear of pain, of loneliness, and ultimately of death, which challenges me to find serenity in the virtues.
Though I am quite the nerd, no amount of egghead ruminations will convince me to be brave, because an abstraction has no weight on its own—the universal only becomes real in the context of the particular. It will be tedious work to sweep aside the assumptions of the years: the habits of mediocrity, the ease of compliance, the terror of the unknown. Words are cheap, though deeds are priceless.
I am guessing the serpent refers to a story about Marcus Atilius Regulus during the First Punic War, and even if you tell me, just like Newt’s parents, how monsters aren’t real, I will assure you that grave dangers take on many forms, and the gravest ones live only inside our heads. It will take strong convictions to slay those mighty dragons.
As I read through this letter, I am reminded of Plato’s account of the soul in the Republic, which explains how the rational should rule over the appetitive, by means of the spirited. Yet we often get this order reversed, where the desires in our gut seduce the resolve in our hearts, in order to enslave our heads. However noble and refined our thoughts might be, they are helpless without the drive to put them into effect.
I also think of C.S. Lewis, in The Abolition of Man, warning us about the “men without chests”, whose advanced intellects are divorced from any moral courage:
In battle it is not syllogisms that will keep the reluctant nerves and muscles to their post in the third hour of the bombardment.
—Reflection written in 12/2013
IMAGE: Karel van Mallery, Roman Consul Atilius Regulus Fighting a Giant African Serpent (c. 1596)
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment