THE COLD SUMMER OF 323 BC
There had been whispers and rumors for some time now, but there were often whispers and they were often wrong.
Confirmation came as more messengers came streaming into Athens.
The despot was dead! The despot was dead!
Alexander III of Macedon, ruler of the largest empire ever known, had died in Babylon. His body would be returned to Macedon in a funeral procession.
The Athenians had been paying tribute for nearly exactly 15 years to the Macedonians since submitting to Alexander’s father, Philip II, as their Hegemon
, grand ruler.
Almost exactly 13 years earlier, they had risen in revolt when Philip was assassinated.
Alexander had marched quickly to enforce his will on the great city, and had made peace and pardoned the rebels.
Many of them, thus, would still be alive now, 13 years later, now that Alexander too had died.
And so the whispers grew to spoken voices, and the spoken voices to shouted words.
Throw the Macedonians out! Death to the Macedonians! Free Athens!
Many of the elders of Athens would have been alive before Philip II had claimed his hegemony – and while mostly quiet the past 13 years, now they began to rise against the Macedonian Regent Antipater.
The following year, the Athenian Eurymedon stands in front of an assembly – more like a mob, really – and says, “Aristotle served the despot! Aristotle is no Athenian! Aristotle respects not the gods! The impious must be punished!”
***
TWICE AGAINST PHILOSOPHY
Aristotle, now 62 years old, reacted differently than Socrates when faced with a similar charge.
He proclaimed – "I will not allow the Athenians to sin twice against philosophy!" – and fled, never setting foot in Athens again.
He died later that year, of natural causes, in Chalcis.
***
ARISTOTLE ON FOOT, SHIP, AND HORSEBACK
We are of course enamored with Aristotle’s life, even to this day. The word “Philosophy” comes from the Greek compound “Philo Sophia” – love of wisdom.
It included some of what we understand to be philosophy these days, yes, but broadly was the study of everything
.
Aristotle pushed forward science, biology, zoology, poetry and drama, theories of government and politics, logic, rhetoric, and day-to-day conduct among people.
Perhaps this may seem odd, but one question I find myself coming back to again and again – I wonder how Aristotle traveled between cities.
He was, you know, a man once. Flesh, blood, bone, sinew. Not too different from you or I.
The young Aristotle’s father had been court physician to King Amyntas of Macedon, Alexander the Great’s grandfather. The young Aristotle would likely have lived and quartered near the Macedonian monarchy in Pella.
He father died when he was only 10 years old; when he was 18, he went to the famous Academy in Athens for the first time to study.
A trivial question, maybe, but one that intrigues me – how did he get there? Ship, foot, or horseback?
I want to know how the man whose mind sprung forth such greatness chose to travel, how he moved his body through time and space.
He would have transited to Lesbos to do his famous studies of the animal life by ship; of course, it was an island.
When he fled the persecution of Athens, did he gather his materials and immediately take to foot? Horseback? Did he get passage on one of the merchant ships, slipping away to the docks one morning before they set sail?
This question is of the utmost interest to me. Horseback, foot, or ship – what was Aristotle’s preferred means of transit?
***
21 CENTURIES LATER – ON HEROES
We’ll come back to that question; first, let us turn our attention to 21 centuries later.
It is May in the year 1840; it is 25 years after the final defeat of Napoleon; it is 25 years into the Pax Britannica
; London is the capital of the world.
The foremost scribe of this era is the Scottish lawyer, Tomas Carlyle, and he is giving a series of lectures on Heroism
; the next year they would become a book. His oratory is still explosive today, some 200 years later –
“
It is well said, in every sense, that a man’s religion is the chief fact with regard to him.
A man’s, or a nation of men’s. By religion I do not mean here the church-creed which he professes, the articles of faith which he will sign and, in words or otherwise, assert; not this wholly, in many cases not this at all. We see men of all kinds of professed creeds attain to almost all degrees of worth or worthlessness under each or any of them.
This is not what I call religion, this profession and assertion; which is often only a profession and assertion from the outworks of the man, from the mere argumentative region of him
, if even so deep as that. But the thing a man does practically believe (and this is often enough without asserting it even to himself, much less to others);
the thing a man does practically lay to heart, and know for certain, concerning his vital relations to this mysterious Universe, and his duty and destiny there, that is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively determines all the rest.
That is his religion…”
***
TOUGHNESS #4: RELIGIO
You’ll recall from Chapter #4 that our definition of Mental Toughness is –
“Doing what one ought to do, regardless if you feel like doing it or not.
”
Carlyle is another one of those titans of thought, one of those types that penetrates deep into the nature of mankind.
In On Heroes
, he continued –
“
The thoughts they had were the parents of the actions they did; their feelings were parents of their thoughts: it was the unseen and spiritual in them that determined the outward and actual;—their religion, as I say, was the great fact about them.
”
Hmm – this seems true.
Is there something here?
It seems like there’s something important here.
***
PEACE FOR OUR TIME, NEVER WAR AGAIN – 1938 IN EUROPE
We need one more data point before we can understand how one’s religio
turns into toughness.
Let’s turn to another season in Europe, one that felt warm for one Englishman – and devastatingly cold for another:
“This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine. […] We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again. […] My good friends, for the second time in our history a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time.”
– Neville Chamberlain, on signing the Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler
“We have suffered a total and unmitigated defeat […] we have passed an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of Europe has been deranged, and that terrible words have for the time being been pronounced against the Western democracies: ‘
Though art weighed in the balance and found wanting.’
Do not suppose this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning, this is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proferred to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.”
– Winston Churchill, on Chamberlain’s signing the Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler
Churchill, that old and unlikable war monger, that belligerent relic of a dying age, that leftover from Victorian times, that holdover of something more primitive than Chamberlain’s sophisticated treaty-making and compromising – Churchill would continue on this theme in the coming months –
“
You were given the choice between war and dishonour – you have chose dishonour, and you will have war.
”
He was roundly booed and jeered in the House of Commons for this line of thinking.
In September 1939, Hitler’s tanks rolled into Poland. The Munich Agreement forcing the Czechs to disarm and concede to the Nazi Empire, the illusion of Chamberlain’s “peace for our time”… this had lasted… for all of a single year.
***
WHAT OUGHT ONE TO DO?
It is, of course, more useful to be strong than to be weak; more useful to be brave than to be cowardly; more useful to be solid than to be a quivering mess; more useful to take action when action is called for, than to be a useless bundle of anxious and nervous energy…
Two chapters ago, we laid out our definition of Mental Toughness –
“Doing what one ought to do, regardless if you feel like doing it or not.
”
If you agree with that definition of Mental Toughness, then it’s one of the most useful things on the planet. Mental Toughness is what lets you breach through the walls of fear and inaction, to do what you ought to do.
But what ought you to do?
Where does an instinct to appease come from, as compared to an instinct towards a “supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour”?
This is not a question of a tax rate a little lower or higher; Chamberlain and Churchill do not merely disagree on a simple question of policy; no, it seems like the very foundations of their instincts differ immensely
.
Their feelings differ immensely – those feelings become their thoughts, and those thoughts then become their actions.
Whither comes this from?
***
RELIGION AND RELIGIO
In On Heroes
, Carlyle talked of how every man has a religion, and that a man’s religion is the most important characteristic about him.
“By religion I do not mean here the church-creed which he professes…”
The word “religion” could have been confused in Carlyle’s day, and is even more likely to be confused in our own.
I prefer a Latin word – religio
– that’s used in English exactly the way we’re talking about.
In 1645, an English physician wrote Religio Medici
, “The Religion of a Doctor,” but he meant it to go far beyond organized religion –
“But to difference my self neerer, & draw into a lesser circle:
There is no Church whose every part so squares unto my conscience
, whose articles, constitutions, and customes seeme so consonant unto reason, and as it were framed to my particular devotion, as this whereof I hold my beliefe, the Church of England, to whose faith I am a sworn subject; and therefore in a double obligation, subscribe unto her Articles, and endeavour to observe her constitutions: whatsoever is beyond, as points indifferent, I observe according to the rules of my private reason, or the humor and fashion of my devotion, neither believing this, because Luther affirmed it, or disproving that, because Calvin hath disavouched it. I condemne not all things in the Councell of Trent, nor approve all in the Synod of Dort.
In briefe, where the Scripture is silent, the Church is my Text; where that speaks, tis but my Comment; where there is a joynt silence of both, I borrow not the rules of my Religion from Rome or Geneva, but the dictates of my own reason.
”
We’ll undoubtedly cover “faith vs works” at some point in a future edition of The Strategic Review, and Martin Luther’s claim that direct interpretation of the Scriptures from the Bible is paramount over the authority of any given priest or church – these have been two of the longest running debates in history. America is firmly in the Protestant “faith” camp over the Catholic “works” camp, and in the Protestant “direct reading” over the Catholic “authority” camp – though most people are not aware of the historical context.
But let’s merely put an asterisk on that history, and say we’ll come back to it in the future – we’re right now investigating in Toughness
, that great and terrific thing that lets us do worthy things on this planet.
I’ll state my view simply: Organized religion varies greatly based on time and place, based on the leadership and community participation, but an individual’s religio
is always and ever critical to how their life is lived and what they do in this world.
To come back around to Carlyle – “… the thing a man does practically believe (and this is often enough without asserting it even to himself, much less to others); the thing a man does practically lay to heart, and know for certain, concerning his vital relations to this mysterious Universe, and his duty and destiny there, that is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively determines all the rest.”
***
POTENCY
When you think about it, isn’t that the most potent and marvelous statements?
My first reading of On Heroes
shook me; it’s something so clear, and yet was so elusive until I read it on paper.
What you lay to heart, and know for certain, concerning your relation to this mysterious Universe, and your duties and destiny here… this is the primary thing for you, and creatively determines all the rest.
Wow.
Wow.
Wow.
I’m not talking about any mysterious forces, no “laws of attraction”, no angels, no provenance guiding your hand – no, I’m talking about a much more simple and straightforward phenomenon. Your belief at the deepest level about how you relate to the universe and your duties and destinies here, this becomes the wellspring of your feelings – those become your thoughts, and those becomes your actions.
Wow.
***
TOUGHNESS VIS-À-VIS RELIGIO
The connection to Toughness
, then, becomes simple and obvious – some of us believe on the deepest levels in service, especially in times of crisis, in navigating strife in order to produce and serve.
Others do not; many people believe on the deepest levels that avoidance of pain is of paramount importance.
Churchill’s Religio
, his relationship with the Universe and his belief about his place here, was not just evident in his belligerence against Hitlerism and later, Stalin’s Iron Curtain; no, more than that, that force deeply animated him across all his affairs.
All of us know Churchill as Prime Minister during World War II, but not as many people realize that he was a committed historian, journalist, soldier, painter, and bricklayer in his life as well. He won the Noble Prize for Literature in 1953 and wrote dozens of books in his life.
In just that single paragraph denouncing the Munich Agreement with Hitler, we can see so much about how Churchill relates with the Universe –
“…’Though art weighed in the balance and found wanting.’ Do not suppose this is the end. This is only the beginning of the reckoning, this is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proferred to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise again and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.
”
Read that paragraph and reflect on it – you can Churchill’s whole religio
on display. He believes that history is judging him, that every people is “weighed in the balance” – and lo, if you are found wanting, then there will be a reckoning.
Cowardice will be forced to drink a bitter cup, year-in and year-out, unless met by moral health, martial vigour, and arising and standing for freedom as in olden times.
You can see the defiance of Hitler’s takeover of Sudetenland there, but you can see infinitely more if you reflect on it – this is a person who believes that the way to building great things is through enduring through strife, through cultivating honour and vigour and health, and requiring one to stand in the face of fire.
His religio
– his deepest understanding of his purpose in the Universe – was a wellspring of toughness for Sir Winston.
***
ARISTOTLE ON FOOT
Aristotle’s school of philosophy became known as the “Peripatetic School” – peripatetic meaning “walking about” in Greek.
For my part, I imagine Aristotle went over land on foot and horseback often, even though he had the funds to travel by ship.
I don’t know – it’s not recorded – but he seems like the type who liked to engage his body. He lived on the ground, not in the clouds.
We see a stark difference between him and Socrates when the Athenian mob wanted to have him executed – “I will not let them sin twice against philosophy!”
Compare that to Socrates drinking the cup of hemlock, accepting execution in a high-minded way to make a political and moral point.
These two old Greek philosophers, they differed in this regard. Aristotle had no inclination to martyrdom or making an abstract point about democracy and piety.
***
ON THE REFINEMENT OF RELIGIO
It is clear that developing your understanding of your relation to the Universe has the most critical significant on how you live your life.
Is this all high-minded stuff? If you go to the final last abstractions of moral concepts, there are not too many of them – justice, loyalty, family, beauty, a few more along those lines.
Frankly, this is not the thing that interests me the most.
I’m more interested in whether one commutes by walking or by taxi.
A few questions to mull over –
How valuable is tactile pleasure to you? Cakes, wonderful coffees, etc?
Do you express your true viewpoints and feelings when sober, or only when intoxicated?
Is intoxication good, bad, or neither?
Is it virtuous to lose in a morally superior way?
Is conflict to be avoided at all costs?
Is there merit in being in more beautiful surroundings?
Is there more value in beautiful tools and furnishings, or functional and hardy less-beautiful items?
Is sweating good or bad?
***
THE STUDY OF ONESELF AND OTHERS
The economists have a term called “revealed preferences” – it means that the only way you can tell a consumer’s preference is by observing what they actually do when they purchase things, not by surveying or asking them.
I think, to understand ourselves, we should look at our revealed preferences.
Justice, beauty, honor – bah! These are worthless if they live in the realm of ideals without prompting any action or living.
Vigour requires strain; most triumph requires strife; most people in wealthy and comfortable backgrounds, if they study themselves, will find that strain and strife is not how they are living and relating to the Universe.
Can you evolve?
Yes, of course yes. This is the reason that we have books, scriptures, lectures, community, art, culture.
It’s worth studying yourself to see how you’ve been living, and then studying the lives of others while thinking deeply on why they lived the way they did.
Churchill’s life was certainly a fantastic one, Aristotle’s life was a fantastic one – can we gain some of Churchill’s vigour and Aristotle’s pragmatic sense of study and love of wisdom?
Of course we can. These men were not born finished products; they grew into who they became.
If I lived 200 years ago, in 1816, I might have used the term “Spiritual Toughness” – but the time has passed for that way of thinking about the world.
And yet, now as always, inescapable, ever-present, we all have some view, deep down, of how we ought to relate to the Universe.
We must study ourselves to discover how we relate to the world now, and then study lives of admirable people to see where we can cultivate better ways to live and relate.
Religio
– toughness.