Recovering prudence

Take a look at the photo below (hat tip: here):

It seems so foolish. These are left-wing homosexuals who are demonstrating in support of the Islamification of Europe - when Islam right now in the Middle-East is brutally persecuting homosexuals.

On seeing the picture my first thought was that these people lack prudence. It is another reminder that some people do not have prudence and are therefore not fit for a leadership role in society.

I thought it interesting to look further into the quality of prudence and discovered that it was once considered to be a cardinal virtue. The Wikipedia page on prudence tells us that the word derives from the Latin "providential" meaning "foresight, sagacity" - and this, it seems to me, remains the core meaning of the virtue. It is exactly what the homosexual protesters lack: foresight and wisdom in considering the possible consequences of their demands.

The Wikipedia page also has a section on the "integral parts of prudence". These seem to have been formulated by St Thomas Aquinas, writing in the 1200s. Aquinas adds a great deal to understanding what is required for the virtue of prudence:

The following are the integral parts of prudence:

• Memoria : accurate memory; that is, memory that is true to reality; an ability to learn from experience;
• Docilitas : an open-mindedness that recognizes variety and is able to seek and make use of the experience and authority of others;
• Intelligentia : the understanding of first principles;
• Sollertia : shrewdness or quick-wittedness, i.e. the ability to evaluate a situation quickly;
• Ratio : Discursive reasoning and the ability to research and compare alternatives;
• Providentia : foresight – i.e. the capacity to estimate whether particular actions can realize goals;
• Circumspection : the ability to take all relevant circumstances into account;
• Caution : the ability to mitigate risk.

Given that prudence has so many parts, it shouldn't be a surprise that it does not come equally to people.

There is a very good and more detailed discussion of the virtue of prudence here.

A question of honour

Any world view is based, in part, on the answer to the question "What makes a person good?" We know the answer given by the dominant Western philosophy, liberalism. The good person is the one who doesn't interfere in others self-defining their own good; the good person, therefore, doesn't discriminate, isn't prejudiced, is tolerant, supports diversity, is accepting of otherness and so on.

What do traditionalists think makes a person good? Our answer has a more positive focus: it has less to do with passively not interfering (a procedural ethics) and more to do with upholding qualities that are inherently good or virtuous.

Many of these qualities are uncontroversial, but I'd like to look at one that might be seen as having both positive and negative characteristics, namely honour.

Honour isn't spoken about much anymore in Western cultures, in part because it was embedded most strongly within an aristocratic culture and aristocrats no longer make up the larger part of the ruling class.

Honour does, too, have a negative side. It can make people so conscious of their dignity that they won't deign to relate to those beneath them; it can encourage people to have such a sense of their own moral worth that they become self-righteous or sanctimonious; and it can make people so self-conscious of their reputation that they will defend it with violence.

Honour at its very worst: the thug who king hits (sucker punches) someone because "they looked at me the wrong way" or the father who kills his own daughter "for besmirching the honour of the family" or (historically) the young men who killed each other in duels because of perceived slights to their reputation.

The Bible very clearly condemns these manifestations of honour. For instance, Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, showing that there is no dishonour in serving those beneath his station (this was incorporated into Christian societies - in Austen's novel Emma the upper-class heroine delivers food hampers to the poor and is rebuked by the hero when she mocks one of the poor women.)

The Bible also tells us to turn the other cheek. There are a number of interpretations of this, but the general sense of the command is that we are not to be easily provoked to violence - hence we are not to turn immediately to violence if we feel that our honour has been slighted in some way.

The Bible also condemns the self-righteous, particularly in the figure of the Pharisee. Jesus tells a parable about a Pharisee and a tax collector to correct "some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else"; the Pharisee loses out for standing by himself and praying "God, I thank you that I am not like other people--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector."

But here's the question. Is it the intent of the Bible to discard honour or to perfect it?

It seems to me that there is a strong case for perfecting honour rather than discarding it. Why? Because it is honour that helps to make morality matter. Honour gives us the sense that a part of who we are - of our self and identity - is our moral being, so that to lose in our moral being means to lose something important of our own self.

Honour, in other words, is a consciousness of the importance of our moral integrity to our sense of self. It is the sense of not wanting to be lesser, in our moral behaviour, than what we were made to be; of wanting to remain complete or whole in our moral integrity; and of there being forms of behaviour that are beneath our dignity.

If someone is conscious that morality matters to who they are, then they are also likely to be sensitive to their moral reputation within a community. If a man, for instance, faces the taunt of cowardice or a woman that of promiscuity, then it will be thought of as affecting how they are perceived, significantly, as a person. The two things go together: if morality matters then to at least some degree so will reputation - whether it is our own reputation or that of our family or community.

I'm not suggesting in all this that honour becomes the main focus of a moral life. My point is that in a society in which morality is taken seriously, there is likely to be some sort of expression of honour. It's not a good sign if honour goes missing.

Can pride be humbling?

Most religious traditions are critical of pride and for a good reason. There is a kind of pride which gives us a self-sufficient arrogance in our own powers. This pride makes us self-enclosed and therefore closed off to any powers higher than ourselves. Little wonder, then, that religious traditions often warn against hubris, or seek to quieten the egoistic self, or seek to cultivate a reverent, outwardly turned humility.

However, if this is the type of pride to be avoided, there still remain aspects of pride that are either not harmful or that perhaps even help to promote a more humble type of outlook.

For instance, is it really a bad thing to take pride in our work? The sense of "pride" here simply means to have a standard of care in what we do; to be willing to work in a careful and concentrated way; and to create something of quality. Think of a craftsman who wants to create a beautiful, well-constructed piece of furniture; his mind will be quietly concentrated on the value of what he is working on (on something of value outside of himself) rather than on a self-vaunting arrogance.

Then there is a pride we feel in the achievements of our family, town or nation. The positive aspect to this kind of pride is that it begins with the individual feeling connected to something outside of, and larger than, his own egoistic self; it is a sharing of identity and endeavour and a recognition that you owe something of yourself to others. In this sense this kind of pride is also a kind of humility.

Left-wing woman criticises feminism

Chelsea Fagan, a decidedly left-wing woman, makes the following criticism of feminism:

Everywhere from Tumblr to Twitter to Facebook groups, there are women getting together and talking about what it means to be both a woman and a feminist. And in many of these circles, there is a heavy focus on “male privilege,” and what that means in an operational sense. There are near-endless blogs dedicated to pointing out everything from the microaggressions to the sweeping legislation which subjugate women. And as the (righteous) anger against some of the institutional disadvantages women face brews, it manifests in a number of ways. “Misandry” has become a cute term to express one’s disgust for the patriarchy. “Kill all men” is another. They are small slogans and concepts which aim to take back a sense of control, of autonomy. The expression of hatred towards men — one regarded as benign because of the lack of societal power behind it — has become a kind of social currency in many more radical feminist circles. It wouldn’t be shocking to see a 16-year-old white girl’s Tumblr with a picture of her holding a heart-shaped card emblazoned with “I Love Misandry” and surrounded by sparkles. It’s cute, and it’s harmless.

But the idea of leveraging a universal hatred against men, or allowing ourselves to feel as though there is a clear divide in terms of gendered power, and that it falls distinctly on the men vs. women line, fuels a slippery slope of profound privilege denying. Because to pretend as though the 22-year-old white female blogger talking about her hatred of men from the comfort of her prepaid dorm at an Ivy League school does not hold many tangible privileges over, say, the undocumented male worker who is cleaning the bathroom stalls of her building at night, is ludicrous. There are countless privileges she has over him, and countless points of access she has in our society that he will never see.
 

To sum up: feminists believe that men are privileged at the expense of women and this leads to anger and, amongst radical feminists, to expressions of misandry (hatred of men) as a means of reasserting female autonomy. As it is assumed that women are a victim class, such hatred is thought to be toothless and therefore harmless.

Chelsea Fagan points out, reasonably enough, that this set of feminist beliefs fails at the first step, as the women making claims about male privilege are often a lot more privileged than large numbers of men in society (she could also have pointed out that the average man works hard in life for the benefit of wife and children rather than to subjugate women, so a measure of gratitude or love is a more appropriate response than anger).

It's a good criticism of the simplistic "group rankings" which occur in a liberal society: if you belong to a group which has been tagged as privileged you lose status in society, regardless of your own circumstances.

Even so, it would be better to ditch the leftist moral focus on privilege rather than merely to refine it.

Chelsea Fagan claims that intersections of privilege and oppression define our lives, but she is wrong. I am not defined by the fact that there are people more privileged than I am in society. There will always be distinctions in status, wealth, intelligence and education. That does not detract from my identity as a man, or as a member of a particular family, ethny or nation, or as a member of a church or a community.

Nor should questions of privilege determine moral status in society. If a man has more wealth and status than I do, that does not make him of lesser moral status; I would ask instead about his integrity, his character, his embodiment of culture, his contribution to society, the quality of his role as a father and husband, his loyalty to the larger tradition he belongs to and so on.

The three prides

It's clearly the case that many Westerners lack pride. But when I write that I'm referring to positive rather than negative forms of pride. So how do we distinguish between them?

I can think of three kinds of pride, two of them of the positive variety, one of them negative.

Self-full or egoistic pride

This is pride in its negative aspect - the one that many religious traditions, including Christianity, condemn.

It is not necessarily bad in its origins. To live well we do need to exercise a controlling or directing will, one that at its best is guided by reason and prudence. This controlling will then regulates our appetites, thoughts, actions and impulses for our larger well-being.

When, instead of being controlled by our appetites or impulses, we do instead control them, we can feel a sense of self-mastery, of enhanced being and of masculine strength.

And the risk is that these benefits can lead us to think that the controlling will is itself the end good in life. And that can lead to a self-worship, an egotism, a will-full pride in self which then sets the limits of what we are receptive to very narrowly at the borders of self.

Little wonder that, as a counterbalance, many religious traditions then emphasise humility as a virtue. But we should understand humility as a counterbalance and not as a quality that should lead to self-erasure or to a lack of assertion of controlling will in its positive aspect.

Loving pride

This is the inspired pride that we feel on perceiving the good in that which we are closely related to, for instance, the beauty of our spouse, the cuteness of our child, the achievements or the finer qualities of our compatriots or ancestors or race. To feel loving pride is a sign of health, of wholesomeness of spirit.

The lack of such pride in many Westerners is an aspect of an alienated existence, something we should seek to overcome.

Masculine pride

I take masculine pride to be a mostly good thing - that is, unless it spills over into egotistic pride. What, after all, does masculine pride often involve? It involves a willingness to prove ourselves in life's challenges; to pit ourselves against adversity; to be emotionally strong; to keep to standards of honour; and to be courageous and loyal. There are good reasons for this kind of masculine pride to be fostered amongst boys, not the least of which is that it cultivates those qualities which men need to effectively fulfil an adult male role in society.

Positive pride

One of the mistakes we can make is to reduce the good or the bad to single words which don't capture the complexity of moral worth.

An obvious example, and one which I've discussed previously, is the word pride. It's not possible to describe pride as either good or bad as it can be either depending on what exactly the word pride is being used to describe.

There are clearly positive forms of pride. For instance, pride is often associated with a warmth of love, as when we take pride in our children, our spouse or our people. Pride, in this sense, is a healthy sign of attachment - it would not be a virtue to be so cold or alienated or denatured that we were incapable of feeling it.

Pride can also be positive when it is a matter of not wanting to be bested. That's particularly true, I believe, for boys or young men - it is an aspect of a healthy competitive spirit that helps boys and young men to push forward their development. Even the dislike boys have of being bested by girls has a logical purpose: given that women tend not to have romantic feelings toward men they feel superior to, it makes sense for boys developing toward manhood not to want to be bested by their female counterparts.

Pride can be positive, or negative, in another sense: when it comes to wanting to hold to standards. For instance, if we take a pride in our appearance it can be positive (if it means not falling into slovenliness) or negative (if it becomes narcissistic or vain). If our pride in holding to standards helps us resist taking part in base actions that is positive; it can be negative, though, in other contexts, e.g. a woman who has an aristocratic standard and who therefore won't engage in ordinary work (snobbery?).

It's the same when it comes to communal pride. If we take pride in the history of our family, or in the beauty of our local surrounds, or in our national culture then we can be motivated to work to hold to the best of these things.

Miles Franklin was a well-known Australian author of the 1900s. She was on the left, but even so she was critical of some of the debasement of Western culture. Just after WWII she wrote a hostile review of a book by a much more radical woman, Christina Stead. She accused Stead of "writing a handbook on whores," one which depicted women "without shame or pride" - note how shamelessness is associated here with a lack of pride. Miles Franklin also tells the story in this book review of how two feminist men in 1920s America tried to persuade her to join their "free love" circle. They didn't get far because Miles Franklin was revolted by the idea of men describing themselves as feminists. She wrote:

[Floyd] and Charlie announced to me the glad tidings that they were feminists. I was so uninstructed that distaste awakened in me. It seemed to me that the word was related to feminine, and for a man to be feminine was to be effeminate, and utterly obnoxious to me, reared where men were men.

This is a more indirect example, but it does suggest the connection between a pride in her national culture and holding to positive standards (in this case, of masculinity).

Religious traditions have tended to emphasise the negative aspects of pride. That makes sense for two reasons. First, it is common for religious traditions to identify too strong an egoistic sense of self as a barrier to being receptive to the spiritual. Second, there is a sense in many human cultures that an overweening pride, (or hubris), when directed against the divine, leads to man's downfall.

There is a more specific understanding of this second negative aspect of pride. Let's say that man is confronted with a reality that has been determined for him, one in which important aspects of his being and his place within a larger order have already been cast without his choice. How does a man respond to this? If he is humble before God he might well accept his place in a larger order oriented toward the good. But if he, from a pride in his own capacity to make things as he will, is not humble but rebellious, then the given reality with all its predetermined distinctions will feel like a restriction, an impediment to his liberty.

This, it seems to me, is at least part of what the Christian tradition is criticising when it comes to pride; it can be seen in the story of Satan, of Adam and of Babel.

Proph at Collapse:The Blog has written a post on this theme:

reality itself is radically unfree: man's species, sex, race, nationality, time and circumstances of birth, and the authorities to which he is subject, to name just a few, are all determined for him without his consent or even his notice. In him, determinism reigns. With a strong sense of the sacred, this lack of freedom becomes understandable and rationalizable: through his participation in the sacred (for instance, by religious ritualism), man understands himself to be part of a rational order oriented toward the good. In other words, the sacred allows man to experience the authority of the order of being as legitimate. Without a sense of the sacred, reality becomes meaningless, senseless, and incomprehensible; the human condition becomes one not of citizenship and duty but of imprisonment and injustice. Rebellion against that order results, with predictable consequences.

I find this particularly interesting as it relates to trends we see in modern society. Clearly there are liberals who do fail to understand themselves as being "part of a rational order oriented toward the good" and who therefore reject predetermined aspects of being such as sex, race, nationality, forms of authority etc. At the same time, there is a risk that those who do understand themselves to be part of a rational order then become overly compliant toward all aspects of hierarchy or given conditions of life, leading to unnecessary injustices or inequalities. And the focus of the modern world (and the modern churches) often seems to be on an exaggerated attempt to demonstrate that one has not committed this error.

There is an irony, too, in that a hubristic pride before God can lead to a loss of the positive pride in belonging to a social order oriented toward the good - including the warmth of love that is associated with given forms of social distinctions, such as being a man or woman, father or son, Frenchman or Japanese etc.

However, although the churches do have reasons for criticising certain expressions of pride, it would be a gross mistake if they regarded pride as always a vice and never a virtue. That's not a reasonable position to take. It should be possible for churches to go beyond a single word and to explain in some depth how best to understand qualities like pride.

C.S. Lewis & the Natural Law

There is an appendix to C.S. Lewis's book The Abolition of Man in which Lewis attempts to set out the natural law, in the sense of moral precepts known across different cultures and times. Lewis does a good job of this; of particular interest to traditionalists, he upholds in these laws particular ties of affection, duty and loyalty.

For example, his first natural law is the law of beneficence. But this is divided into a law of general beneficence and a law of special beneficence. Included as examples of special beneficence are these:

'Love thy wife studiously. Gladden her heart all thy life long.' (Ancient Egyptian. ERE v. 481)

'Nothing can ever change the claims of kinship for a right thinking man.' (Anglo-Saxon. Beowulf, 2600)

'I ought not to be unfeeling like a statue but should fulfil both my natural and artificial relations, as a worshipper, a son, a brother, a father, and a citizen.' (Greek. Ibid. 111. ii)

'This first I rede thee: be blameless to thy kindred. Take no vengeance even though they do thee wrong.' (Old Norse. Sigdrifumál, 22)

'The union and fellowship of men will be best preserved if each receives from us the more kindness in proportion as he is more closely connected with us.' (Roman. Cicero. De Off. i. xvi)

'Is it only the sons of Atreus who love their wives? For every good man, who is right-minded, loves and cherishes his own.' (Greek. Homer, Iliad, ix. 340)

'Part of us is claimed by our country, part by our parents, part by our friends.' (Roman. Ibid. i. vii)

'If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith.' (Christian. I Timothy 5:8)

Another natural law is the duty to parents, elders and ancestors:

'Honour thy Father and thy Mother.' (Ancient Jewish. Exodus 20:12)

'To care for parents.' (Greek. List of duties in Epictetus, in. vii)

'When proper respect towards the dead is shown at the end and continued after they are far away, the moral force (tê) of a people has reached its highest point.' (Ancient Chinese. Analects, i. 9)

 Another is to children and posterity:

'Nature produces a special love of offspring' (Roman. Cicero, De Off. i. iv,)

'To marry and to beget children.' (Greek. List of duties. Epictetus, in. vii)

An interesting law of nature is what is termed "magnanimity" by Lewis, meaning greatness of mind and heart, a refusal to be petty, a willingness to face danger, and actions for noble purposes. It is the opposite of pusillanimity. It has been defined as follows:

Greatness of mind; that elevation or dignity of soul, which encounters danger and trouble with tranquility and firmness, which raises the possessor above revenge, and makes him delight in acts of benevolence, which makes him disdain injustice and meanness, and prompts him to sacrifice personal ease, interest and safety for the accomplishment of useful and noble objects.

It's interesting that this overlaps considerably with the concept of "praetes" which is often (misleadingly it seems to me) translated as "meekness" or "gentleness" in the Bible. Here are some examples as collected by Lewis:

'There are two kinds of injustice: the first is found in those who do an injury, the second in those who fail to protect another from injury when they can.' (Roman. Cicero, De Off. I. vii)

'They came to the fields of joy, the fresh turf of the Fortunate Woods and the dwellings of the Blessed . . . here was the company of those who had suffered wounds fighting for their fatherland.' (Roman. Virgil, Aeneid, vi. 638-9, 660)

'The Master said, Love learning and if attacked be ready to die for the Good Way.' (Ancient Chinese. Analects, viii. 13)

'Death is better for every man than life with shame.' (Anglo-Saxon. Beowulf, 2890)

Finally, I'd point out that you have to be careful in accepting natural law doctrine. Just because something exists in nature doesn't mean it's right or good. Natural law doctrine has to be either a partial justification ("nature intended us to do x") or else it can be argued for along the lines that an objective good can be discerned by the faculties given to men (e.g. reason, conscience). The Catholic encylopedia also points out that there are natural impulses or tendencies which are conflicting and so have to be harmoniously ordered:

Actions are wrong if, though subserving the satisfaction of some particular need or tendency, they are at the same time incompatible with that rational harmonious subordination of the lower to the higher which reason should maintain among our conflicting tendencies and desires. For example, to nourish our bodies is right; but to indulge our appetite for food to the detriment of our corporal or spiritual life is wrong. Self-preservation is right, but to refuse to expose our life when the well-being of society requires it, is wrong.

To be worthwhile an account of natural law has to be set out intelligently and comprehensively; Lewis's, I think, is likely to be one of the more productive accounts.

Is pride a virtue or a vice?

Sometimes language fails us. We have a word "pride" that clearly has both positive and negative associations, so much so that it has been held to be both the crown of virtues and the queen of vices. Reduced to a word, we can then be led to either reject it or exalt it, both of which options seem inadequate. Ideally we would develop two clear terms: one to represent pride as a vice, the other pride as a virtue.

Pride as a vice

The Christian tradition tends to emphasise the idea of pride as a vice. It is listed as one of the seven deadly sins, and St Gregory considered it the queen of vices. We are told:

In almost every list, pride (Latin, superbia), or hubris, is considered the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins, and the source of the others.

That's a serious condemnation of pride. But it needs to be remembered that something very specific is being referred to here. Pride as the original deadly sin is understood by St Gregory to be,

that frame of mind in which a man, through the love of his own worth, aims to withdraw himself from subjection to Almighty God, and sets at naught the commands of superiors. It is a species of contempt of God and of those who bear his commission. Regarded in this way, it is of course mortal sin of a most heinous sort. Indeed St. Thomas rates it in this sense as one of the blackest of sins. By it the creature refuses to stay within his essential orbit; he turns his back upon God, not through weakness or ignorance, but solely because in his self-exaltation he is minded not to submit. His attitude has something Satanic in it, and is probably not often verified in human beings.

Most religions are opposed to a state of being in which we are so full of self that nothing else penetrates. The kind of pride described by St Gregory is even worse: it is a lack of humility before God motivated not by blind egoism but by a knowing self-exaltation.

The condemnation of this kind of pride is not unique to Christianity. The ancient world recognised as fatal character flaw in otherwise great men an overreaching pride, one that offended the gods and which brought about one's downfall. Even in Old English there is a term "overmod" which seems to mean something very similar to "hubris" or "overreaching pride".

Understanding the Ancient Greek concept of "hubris" helps us to understand some of the early Christian approaches to virtue and vice:

In ancient Greek, hubris referred to actions that shamed and humiliated the victim for the pleasure or gratification of the abuser...It was most evident in the public and private actions of the powerful and rich. The word was also used to describe actions of those who challenged the gods or their laws, especially in Greek tragedy, resulting in the protagonist's fall.

Hubris...was also considered the greatest crime of ancient Greek society. The category of acts constituting hubris for the ancient Greeks apparently broadened from the original specific reference to mutilation of a corpse, or a humiliation of a defeated foe, or irreverent "outrageous treatment" in general. It often resulted in fatal retribution or Nemesis. Atë, ancient Greek for "ruin, folly, delusion," is the action performed by the hero or heroine, usually because of his or her hubris, or great pride, that leads to his or her death or down-fall.

There seems to be much in the New Testament which cautions against hubris. To act from a position of power to inflict harm on others is something that the New Testament writers emphasised as a wrong, stressing instead the idea of self-controlled, merciful, benevolent action not motivated by an assertion of power.

So is the lesson then that "God hates pride as the root of all evil"? I think that's an unfortunate message to derive from this, as it strongly condemns not only the negative but also the positive connotations of the word pride. As I suggested earlier, it's a pity that we can't convey the negative associations with a particular term like hubris, or vainglory or vanity or narcissism.

Pride as a virtue

The positive side of pride has been described as follows:

With a positive connotation, pride refers to a satisfied sense of attachment toward one's own or another's choices and actions, or toward a whole group of people, and is a product of praise, independent self-reflection, or a fulfilled feeling of belonging.

Imagine a man who sets out to build a house. He shows great diligence, skill and perseverance and when the job is done, and done well, he has a momentary feeling of pride in his achievement. This is pride that is aroused by having worked hard and well to fulfil a useful task. Is that a deadly sin? I don't see why we should treat it as such - not unless it leads to a vain, closed-off egotism.

Imagine too a boy who is at an age at which he is developing his self-identity. He becomes interested in the life of his forebears and what they achieved and feels a sense of pride in family - one which helps to motivate him to develop the positive qualities that will enable him to contribute positively to the life of his family.

Perhaps too this boy starts to identify with his community, and he feels a sense of pride in the higher achievements of his community. This might help to bring him to a particular love for the great works of art and architecture that are part of his tradition; it might help to motivate him to uphold the standards achieved within the life of the community; it might also lead him to a closer sense of belonging and connectedness to a particular community. A deadly sin? Surely not.

This boy might also feel a sense of masculine pride, one which might make him feel ashamed to act weakly or contemptibly or basely.

Aristotle felt that pride was the crown of the virtues because added to other virtues it strengthened them. But Aristotle was careful to distinguish pride from hubris which he thought aimed:

to cause shame to the victim, not in order that anything may happen to you, nor because anything has happened to you, but merely for your own gratification. Hubris is not the requital of past injuries; this is revenge. As for the pleasure in hubris, its cause is this: men think that by ill-treating others they make their own superiority the greater

Again, note the connection to certain New Testament themes, such as the distinction between justice and revenge, an opposition to achieving superiority by mistreating or disregarding others, a lack of mercy etc. Perhaps the classical and the biblical are not always as far apart as we think.

Anyway, here is the question that has to be asked. In contemporary Christian culture is it more important, to get the balance right, to emphasise the positive connotations of pride or the negative ones? I'm happy to hear the arguments of those who believe otherwise, but it seems to me that it's more important right now in our demoralised, alienated and guilt-ridden Western societies to emphasise the positive aspects of pride, the ones which belong to a healthy and fully-developed personality.

The Roman virtues: dignitas

Ominously for me, dignitas has been described as "a unique, intangible and culturally subjective social concept in the ancient Roman mindset" - which isn't going to make it easy for me, as a novice in this field, to describe.

However, from what I've read, the basic meaning seems to be "one's standing in the community". If my dignatis were great, then more weight would be put on my opinion - I would gain greater clout in society.

If this were all that dignitas consisted of, it wouldn't be that impressive a virtue. But the important issue here is how dignitas was gained. It could be gained by achievement (e.g. military victory), but also by the way a person embodied a range of virtues in the service of the state:

Dignitas and auctoritas were the end result of displaying the values of the ideal Roman and the service of the state in the forms of priesthoods, military positions, and magistracies. Dignitas was reputation for worth, honor and esteem. Thus, a Roman who displayed their gravitas, constantia [perseverence], fides [trustworthiness], pietas and other values becoming a Roman would possess dignitas among their peers. Similarly, through this path, a Roman could earn auctoritas (“prestige and respect”).

So your dignitas was not only a product of holding high office, but was also an estimation of your character as a Roman in successfully discharging your public duties.

Noble Romans did not want to suffer a blow or loss to their dignitas. That seems to have represented something like the loss of one's good name, or the loss of face, or the loss of honour. In that sense, self-worth was tied closely to dignitas.

So how then are we to assess the Roman virtue of dignitas? Seen from the world of today it has one great advantage. In today's world people try to make themselves superior in their social standing by adopting politically correct beliefs. Intellectuals are often the worst offenders here: they tend to believe that by following a liberal political orthodoxy that they stand above the crowd in their moral and social status.

But that is not only a cheap and easy way to chase distinction, it also tends to corrode society over time - it is an anti-public service (a public disservice).

In Roman times, there was at least some connection between social distinction and the cultivation of character - and that is the aspect of dignitas that we need most to restore.

The Roman virtues: gravitas

It's becoming clear to me, as I read about the Roman virtues, that the Romans had a well-developed sense of the public virtues that aren't easily distinguished for a modern Westerner.

I'll quote a variety of sources on the meaning of the Roman virtue gravitas which will hopefully give some indication of what the Romans meant by the term.

One definition I found on the web is this:

Gravitas is an expression used to describe a man who shows dignity, character, and a purposeful life. In roman times a male's gravitas determined when he would leave the ranks of boyhood and become a respected man.

Then there's this:

With its origins in ancient Rome, gravitas is understood to be one of the foundational virtues that men were expected to possess as part of fulfilling the proper role in society. Along with pietas and dignitas, gravitas formed the basis for the expression of all other essential virtues.

As a Latin word, gravitas is understood to embody several complementary attributes. Generally, gravitas is understood to mean dignity, duty, and seriousness. All three qualities were thought to be important in male personal deportment, and were often used as a means of determining when a boy could rightly claim to have reached his majority and could be considered a man in both psychological as well as physical stature.

Elsewhere we find gravitas defined as:

A sense of the importance of the matter at hand, responsibility and earnestness.

And:

...the virtue known in Latin as gravitas, or gravity, a deep-rooted seriousness defines Roman character

A few thoughts spring to mind. First, if gravitas makes the Romans sound too serious, it should be remembered that they also thought of comitas as a virtue, which is defined as "ease of manner, courtesy, openness, and friendliness".

Second, the Romans saw gravitas as a distinctly masculine virtue - it was associated with the public role that adult men were ideally supposed to play in society. In other words, being a virtuous man was not only about being a good father or showing character in your personal life. Masculine virtue was expressed to a large degree in the qualities demonstrated in publicly serving your community and tradition.

Finally, the discussion of Roman virtues should be of particular interest to American conservatives. Why? Because the founding fathers are often associated with a liberal world view. But the founders were also strongly influenced, it seems, by the Roman virtues - which then injects a certain preliberal or non-liberal element into their outlook.

From one website we learn:

Cicero, the antirevolutionary orator of the first century before Christ, had an enormous influence on the Founders...The American Founders discovered not only a venerable political system in Roman tradition, but also extraordinary men whom they sought to emulate...The poet Virgil wrote of an ideal that was Rome...His writings during the time of Emperor Augustus helped to sooth the Empire after a century of civil war and recalled to the disordered Roman mind the old Roman virtues: labor, a joy and purpose in one’s work; pietas, knowledge of one’s proper relation to the higher powers inciting devotion to one’s religion and one’s country; and fatum, Rome’s duty to bring peace, order and justice to the world.

Perhaps some of the influence of the Romans was incorporated into a liberal culture, but there is much that is decidedly non-liberal (e.g. the virtue of pietas). Perhaps American traditionalists can restore a sense of those non-liberal virtues held by the American founders.

To be more specific, let's take three Roman virtues: labor, pietas and fatum. Labor is the idea that it is a manly virtue to be self-reliant. This has been, I think, part of a grass roots American culture which perhaps still lives on in the Tea Party movement. It is not the same as the modern liberal belief in individual autonomy. Liberal autonomy talks of self-determination, but in the sense of throwing off limitations on what we can choose to be. Labor does not mean stripping oneself of predetermined qualities, it means not being reliant on the state but being able to take care of oneself. Left-liberals have entirely abandoned this virtue, classical liberals less so.

Fatum was the idea that Romans were virtuous in the sense of taking on the responsibility of bringing peace and prosperity to the world. Again, there is little trace of this left in left-liberals, who believe that America brings exploitation and violence to others. But you can see a modern day version of it in certain kinds of right-liberalism (e.g. neoconservatism) in which it is believed that there is an American exceptionalism involving America bringing democracy to the world (or being a light on the hill).

So the first two Roman virtues, labor and fatum, are embedded to some degree in certain kinds of classical/right-liberalism but are absent within left-liberalism. But the third virtue, pietas, is found in neither. It is a more specifically traditionalist virtue. It includes a sense of duty and connection to your ancestors, to your family and to your own people.

Below is a YouTube video by Dr Shanon Brooks, who is calling for Americans to "revalue" themselves. I have to say that I think "fatum" as expressed in the idea of "manifest destiny" has not served America well and I can understand why some Americans have reacted against it. I don't think it's a good virtue for Americans to "revalue" themselves with. But it is to the credit of Dr Brooks that he includes pietas in his list of virtues which helped to make America. He is not ignoring the more traditionalist virtue that was present in the American founding:

The Roman virtues: pietas

Pietas has been described as the central Roman virtue. The Encyclopaedia Britannica defines it this way:

a respectful and faithful attachment to gods, country, and relatives, especially parents

Wikipedia has this:

Around the year 70 BC, Cicero defined pietas as the virtue "which admonishes us to do our duty to our country or our parents or other blood relations."

According to the Nova Roma website:

More than religious piety, it is closer to the idea of "Dutifulness", a respect for the natural order socially, politically, and religiously. This includes the ideas of patriotism and devotion to others.

Sondra Steinbrenner writes that:

Pietas is a traditional Roman value which can be defined as duty, honor, and responsibility to others, and the taking of these obligations seriously.

The hero Aeneas was said to embody the virtue of pietas:

Aeneas ... represents "pietas" which to the Romans meant dutifulness, doing what was right for the family, the community, the civilization, and the gods.

The idea of pietas seems to be that it is part of the natural law to demonstrate a loving devotion to your family, to your nation and to the gods and that the duty towards others derived from this should override impetuous acts of selfish emotion.

I think we can learn from the ancient Romans when it comes to this particular virtue.

The Roman Virtues: Auctoritas

I'm going to run a series of posts on the traditional virtues. I'll start with the Roman virtues, move on to the Germanic virtues, before finishing with the Christian ones.

I don't claim to be an expert in this field, nor will I assume that all of the traditional virtues are equally worthy.

Auctoritas is possibly not the best virtue to begin with. It's not one that is easily grasped. It seems to have meant a power to influence through prestige or standing rather than through a more direct mechanism of power.

Wikipedia defines auctoritas as follows:

In ancient Rome, Auctoritas referred to the general level of prestige a person had in Roman society, and, as a consequence, his clout, influence, and ability to rally support around his will.

That doesn't make it sound like much of a virtue. But elsewhere it is defined as a spiritual authority and more specifically as,

The sense of one's social standing, built up through experience, Pietas, and Industria.

Industria means hard work, pietas means something like a respectful and dutiful attitude toward the natural order in its social, political and religious aspects, including a sense of patriotism.

If this is so, it would mean that a man with auctoritas would earn respect and social standing through his industry, his experience and his sense of duty towards his parents, his family, his country and his religion.