M. M. Thomas

Reflections on History, Literature, and Philosophy

The Young Mr. Lincoln

by M. M. Thomas on posted in ,

Statesmanship in a democracy necessarily consists, in part, of the capacity and will to restrain the community’s worst impulses. A democratic people, owing to its engagement in the political process, regularly becomes animated – sometimes to the point of frenzy – by the issues about which it must deliberate. The various passions, as the old books call them, of a democratic people often run directly contrary to even previously agreed-upon standards of justice. Extrajudicial killings – lynchings – testify to this phenomenon most notoriously. The community has previously agreed that punishment for some crime or alleged crime will be determined by a structured judicial process. Yet, faced with the spectacle of what it perceives immediately to be a crime, without due consideration of whether it is, in fact, a crime, the community, in a fit of madness and stimulated by its coalescence into a vanguard of the vengeful, takes matters into its own hands, apprehending and slaying the accused – no trial, no delays. The matter, resolved in complete discordance with established procedures and staining the individual conscience of each member of the mob, is, nevertheless, settled satisfactorily to restore harmony to the community. We note, in passing, that this process is suggestive of Girard’s conception of the skapegoat; an entity whose sacrifice performs the essential function of resolving a tension within a community that otherwise would destroy the community itself.

The defender of the accused, in seeking to bring about a trial of the accused by means of established legal procedures, is also the defender of law – an ultimately rational and civilizing force – against emotion, impulse, and the pure will of the accusers. There can be no civilization without law; it is, however imperfect, the only method to resolve disputes without making an ultimate appeal to force. In political circumstances without rule of law, the strong always dominate the weak. This is not to say that, in political circumstances with rule of law, the strong never dominate the weak; in truth, the majority of time, the strong still do dominate the weak. But in such a system, the weak at least have the possibility of protection and redress. States, in contradistinction from communities or nations, understand themselves as essentially legal entities, whose legitimacy grounded in frameworks that determine the ‘rules of the game’ of political life within them. A nation derives its legitimacy exclusively from its identity; what it is, as opposed to frameworks it has elected to adopt, as in the case of a state. A state can change as the result of conscious decisionmaking; a nation can change only as part of a more general process whereby a new identity is gradually and intuitively assimilated by its members.

The United States of America is a state more than its inhabitants are a nation because the conditions its inhabitants must accept to belong to it are legal in character. The requirements for citizenship are clearly defined; they include nothing about identity or self-identity. They are external insofar as they are, in principle, attainable by any individual. The possession of citizenship is sufficient to be an American.

The tension between what the community seems to collectively desire at a given moment and the restraints on what the community is able to legally do in pursuit of what it desires is frequently observed in American history. One of the most famous examples that comes to mind is John Adams’ defense of the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre. Adams determined to defend the soldiers, whom the community, or in any case, the driving elements of the community, desired to lynch. Adams, by successfully defending the soldiers, defended the rule of law as something of greater importance than the outcome of any individual dispute or controversy. He also managed to impose upon an unruly assembly the acceptance of facts that made the persecution of the soldier manifestly unjust. Facts are stubborn things because the community may never fully accept them as true but is compelled, by law, to act as if they are true. In a sense, the law is the mechanism to which the rational person can appeal to impose his rational arguments upon those who may never agree with him on an intellectual basis. It is, often, foolishness to believe people can be won over or persuaded by good arguments and the power of the law functions as an intermediate – but more elevated – step between the extreme positions of accepting the community’s passionate position as the basis for further action and of using pure force to compel the community to accept a version of events contrary to its own.

The summit of statesmanship in a democracy, however, is not, in fact, using the law to force compliance but persuading the community with arguments which appeal to its particular sensibilities. It is very possible to make a good argument that is unpersuasive and a bad argument that is persuasive. This frequently happens with scientific or highly technical topics. The specialist can satisfactorily demonstrate the truth of his position on such and such by furnishing evidence which, from the standpoint of other specialists, is indisputable and yet fail to convince non-specialists – members of the general public – of his position by poorly calibrating or communicating his position. The politician – or the statesman, which is a more highly developed version of the politician – is unconcerned with making the most valid argument and wholly concerned with making the most persuasive one. Importantly, the statesman and specialist can have the same fundamental position on a question; it is the manner in which each presents his position that differs. In a democracy, the passions of the people must be understood so that they may be directed toward constructive ends and away from actions that violate the principles of individual liberty.

The Young Mr. Lincoln, released in 1939 and starring Henry Fonda in the title role, is concerned with these questions. The plot centers around a trial of two young men for murder and presents Lincoln as displaying his well-known characteristics of homely wisdom and wit, shrewd judgment of people, and quiet self-confidence of a man certain in the justice of his cause and of his own abilities to advance that cause. The accused are defended by Lincoln, who, in the scene immediately following that in which the murder occurs, prevents their lynching at the hands of a furious and drunken mob by appealing to the mob in language it can understand, successfully persuading it to disperse. Lincoln comes to get to know the young men’s family and his humanity and sympathy for the poor and helpless is distinctly felt throughout the course of these interactions. We are, perhaps, asked to perceive in this family – the mother of which cannot read or write – the antebellum slave population, which Lincoln would later do so much to defend and safeguard. It is the first act of Lincoln’s great drama – or, perhaps more appropriately, it is the education of Lincoln, a sort of Bildungsroman, in film, of the American statesman.

Much of the film, indeed, foreshadows Lincoln’s later life. He is acquainted with Mary Todd and, at the same time, shown to lack the social graces, which, even once in Washington society, he never acquired. He is portrayed as in competition with Stephen Douglas, who is portrayed, somewhat, as Lincoln’s dandified antithesis, even as Douglas has little actual role in the film’s plot. We are given some sense of Lincoln’s sympathetic position toward the South, which was later reflected in his efforts to restrain the more radical elements of the Republican Party, by his playing of ‘Dixie’ on the strange (to 21st century audiences) instrument known as a mouth organ. His political genius is manifest, but understood to be almost purely the result of natural ability – an intuition for what action, in a particular situation, is not only most effective, but most congruent to his character. It is doubtful that the film has exaggerated these themes beyond due proportion; Lincoln’s achievement, like that of Washington, was the natural outgrowth of who he was as opposed to what he learned to be.

Lincoln’s ultimately successful defense of the young men hinged on his exploitation of a contradiction in the testimony of the key witness. The witness alleged that he was able to observe the murder take place from a great distance because the moon was full and illuminated the struggle between the accused and the victim. A consensus begins to emerge among the trial’s observers – including Douglas, who even issues a statement to the press criticizing Lincoln’s handling of the case – that the men will be convicted and hanged. On the final day, Lincoln, who rejected an offer by the judge the previous night to use his influence to turn the case over to a more experienced lawyer, reveals that the witness’s testimony could not be true because, according to an almanac, the moon was nowhere near full at the time of the murder. The revelation of this fact, acquired by Lincoln through his knowledge of books, in this case an almanac, turns the trial around and enables Lincoln to demonstrate that the witness was, in fact, the murderer.

In a sense, democratic politics – especially in the particularly American system of government – is well-illustrated by the film, beyond the representation of Lincoln as a democratic statesman. The jury is populated by apparently ignorant and easily-impressionable individuals, who are effectively handled by Lincoln’s clever, homely jokes and salt-of-the-earth references. We get the sense that a real injustice was on the verge of being consummated, but for Lincoln; perhaps this suggests the indispensability of good leadership, even in systems which, due to their democratic basis and possession of institutions that check and balance each other, are presumed to not require exceptional leaders.

That Hamilton Woman

by M. M. Thomas on posted in ,

The saying that ‘history may not repeat but, at least, rhymes’ is well-illustrated by the four times since 1588 when England has stood essentially alone against a single power seeking to dominate – or which already had dominated – continental Europe. Against the Spanish Armada, against Louis XIV, against Napoleon, and against Hitler, England stood, for various lengths of time, completely, or almost completely, alone. It is a curiosity, in some sense, that this pattern has recurred with some regularity. Perhaps it is the result primarily of geography, which almost requires that a continental power first conquer most of the western portion of the continent before attempting to traverse the channel to subdue England. Crossing the channel in wartime, faced with the prospect of an engagement with the British fleet, has been justly considered a tremendous military undertaking in its own right, let alone if a would-be conqueror had not first consolidated control over those areas, such as France and the Low Countries, from which his cross-channel lines of supply would originate. It is for this simple reason why Antwerp had such strategic importance to the British since the 17th century onward.

Britain by the end of the 18th century had acquired a global empire, policed and defended by its navy. The British navy’s growth and development and the support it received from the public throughout most of modern British history were consequences of its economic importance to the Empire. A country can only justify the upkeep of a powerful navy if its economic well-being is primarily dependent on maritime trade. In historical terms, large commercial fleets usually precede, and, as in the case of the Dutch, often augment national navies. Even in countries where, for the most part, state policy – such as the decision to build a navy – is not dependent on popular political support, if the geographic conditions are not conducive to reliance on maritime trade, strategic and ideological concerns alone are unlikely to justify the upkeep of a navy over the long term. This was arguably the case with Imperial Germany. Germany’s economic well-being depended on the large industrial bases it was able to cultivate and not on control of the sea, or sea power. Wilhelm’s preoccupation with sea power, borne out of his reading of Mahan, admiration for the British navy, and desire to establish a colonial empire, was incongruent with Germany’s economic and strategic situation. By choosing to develop a navy, Wilhelm triggered an arms race with Britain – whose core interest was, as it had been for hundreds of years, the maintenance of sea power – and prompted a series of diplomatic arrangements, such as the Entente, that arrayed most of Europe against Germany in the lead up to WWI. For all of this, he acquired a navy that was practically unable to leave port for most of the war, bottled up in Wilhelmshaven by the Grand Fleet.

Had Britain not possessed a global empire, the prosperity of which depended on control of the sea, the British Navy would never have taken on the historical significance that it did. Ultimately, the struggle against the Armada excepted, Britain did eventually need to field an army on the continent to gain an acceptable peace in all of the wars where it stood alone for some period of time. The Navy, in truth, has always taken on a defensive character, in terms of its overall impact on any given war’s direction and outcome. The psychological significance of this is notable, insofar as the British Navy never supplied the means of direct victory over a continental foe, whose territories would eventually need to be captured and occupied – something a navy cannot do. The British Navy, instead, was the last line of defense, the only thing preventing the destruction of Britain – with its singularly free institutions – at the hands of a European despot. The British Navy, in this sense, symbolized freedom over tyranny rather than victory over defeat.

The theme of Britain standing alone to preserve free institutions reflected political realities more or less depending on the opponent. If not precisely as a struggle between freedom and tyranny, we at least view the defeat of the Armada as a triumph of Protestantism over Catholicism and, therefore, a wholly necessary preliminary step for England’s subsequent constitutional development toward possessing increasingly free institutions. Louis XIV was a despot, certainly, but the weakness of the French Navy challenged France’s ability to ever shift the theater of operations to the sea, where England would ultimately have needed to be overcome for Louis to outright win the conflict, away from the Low Countries and Germany, where Marlborough acquired his reputation. This struggle was less one of England alone, relying desperately on the success of the fleet, than a more traditional war for the rearrangement of territory on the continent, albeit one in which Britain rendered critical support on the battlefield by fielding an army and not just by funding allied governments.

Against Napoleon, Britain stood alone, but it was, by this period, already able to draw on its colonial resources to a significant extent, and its navy was preeminent. In part as a consequence of this, Napoleon found himself engaged in essentially endless war for the domination of the continent. The shortcomings of his diplomacy and the revolutionary nature of his regime prevented the monarchical states of Europe from accepting him as legitimate. He was therefore unable to fully direct his energies toward the conquest of England, rendering the British situation in some ways less precarious than its lack of allies at times might have suggested. Even when France found itself at peace, it must reasonably have expected the renewal of hostilities at any time by the ideologically antagonistic governments of Europe’s monarchs.

Finally, against Hitler, Britain was practically alone from June 1940, when France fell, to June 1941, when Germany invaded Russia. The Battle of Britain, in particular, represents the utter fragility in military terms of England’s posture in relation to the, by this point, almost hegemonic continental power that was Germany in late 1940. Yet, from a diplomatic standpoint, Britain might have reasonably anticipated significant American support, if not direct involvement in the war. If Britain had lost the Battle of Britain, the government would probably have retreated to Canada in an effort to continue the war. The strategic situation for America, in such a geopolitical environment, would probably have justified substantial military buildup to bring the US military at least to a point of reasonable size to cope with the German threat. It seems unlikely to me that a lasting accommodation between Germany and the US could have been reached in such circumstances, notwithstanding the non-interventionists and pro-German elements of American society. Britain could count on this in the last extreme and, I think, we must consider America as a sort of ally in 1940-41, even if its direct involvement in operations against Germany would have required a complete collapse and withdrawal of Britain to the Western Hemisphere.

In sum, overall, Britain’s situation in 1940-41 was not more perilous than it was at various times against Napoleon, particularly from the collapse of the Treaty of Amiens in 1803 until the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October, 1805. This was the critical period and Britain’s survival was in no small measure because of Horatio Nelson.

That Lady Hamilton, which was released in April 1941, begins with an elderly Lady Hamilton, played by Vivien Leigh, getting thrown into debtors’ jail in Calais, France. She meets another woman in her cell, who asks her name. The woman is skeptical on hearing the reply ‘Emma Lady Hamilton’, but nonetheless asks Emma to tell her story. She describes her arrival at the court of Naples in the early 1790s, where she meets the British ambassador there, William Hamilton, a middle-aged aficionado for antique sculptures and art. William’s appreciation for Emma’s beauty – an appreciation he is especially capable of rendering because of his artistic interests – prompts him to marry her, despite her past, which is suggested to have been that of a prostitute. She quickly takes to life at Naples and becomes a talented and effective hostess, until the story resumes approximate three years later.

It is at this point that we come to learn that the Kingdom of Naples is in danger, following the arrival of a British ship, the Agamemnon, and its captain, Horatio Nelson. Nelson meets with the ambassador and requests that he meet with the King to organize a company of a few thousand soldiers to defend the Kingdom from the French. Sir William assures Nelson that such a task will take time – at least several days; time, Nelson is convinced, Naples does not have to mount a defense. It is after this interview – at which Lady Hamilton was also present – that Nelson is approached by Emma and told that she will be able to get the troops he requested by talking with the Queen. After she successfully does raise the troops, Nelson appreciates her achievement as furthering the war effort against Bonaparte, whom, the film’s dialogue makes clear, Nelson is obsessed with defeating. It is, perhaps, illustrative that Emma succeeds by appealing to a woman, who has no actual power – the Queen – where the ambassador failed by appealing to a man who does have actual power – the King. The scene also demonstrates Emma’s decisiveness and bias for immediate action, characteristics shared by Nelson, but not her husband, who expected the raising of troops to require several days and subtle diplomacy.

The next significant scene, and the first time we are given a clear suggestion that the film has particular lessons to impart for the British public of early 1941, is where Emma entreats her husband to explain the causes of the war. The ambassador lays out the narrative that Britain had spent centuries constructing a commonwealth, in which all elements have their special role in maintaining peace and prosperity. Occasionally, to defend that commonwealth, the ambassador continues, Britain must send out ships to defeat those, who, ‘for the sake of their insane ambition, wish to destroy what other people build.’ This is clearly an attempt to draw parallels between Bonaparte and Hitler, while supplying the moral basis for Britain’s wars against both as being to ensure stability against unjust, revolutionary elements of the international system.

The elder Emma narrates that ‘then came five years of war. We fought alone with no allies’ and that ‘only a few ships and Nelson’ were what prevented Napoleon from conquering the world. Here, we see very clearly the theme discussed earlier of England fighting alone, despite tremendous odds. The length of time – five years – is notable insofar as it is an appeal to the British of 1941 to continue the struggle, as Churchill said, ‘if necessary for years, if necessary, alone’ by supplying an example from British history to emulate. We also understand this to be a summons to heroism for the individual, as well as for the entire people. The suggestion is that to defeat a powerful adversary – such as a Napoleon or a Hitler – it is necessary, but not sufficient, to muster the energies of the nation; leaders must emerge who show themselves equal to the tremendous moral, physical, and intellectual task of winning a war. Nelson was such a leader and war, in general, is the theater in which heroic personalities most obviously assert themselves.

The theme that begins to take on increasing importance from this point onward in the film is the growing affection and, eventually, love between Lady Hamilton and Nelson. Nelson, for his part, seems to be initially attracted by Emma’s determination and strong will; he is grateful to her for facilitating his efforts to prosecute the war, first by supplying the aforementioned troops, and, again, by nursing him back to health after his physical collapse following the campaign which culminated with his defeat of the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile. It is worth considering whether Emma’s effort to procure the troops can be viewed as the decisive step, without which Nelson’s subsequent achievements would have been impossible, in the same way we can view Bonaparte’s success at Toulon as key to his rise. The film’s dialogue suggests that Nelson felt this, even if this is probably dramatic license. Yet, if understood in this way, Emma’s help inextricably links her with Nelson’s glory – without her, there could have been no Nelson. Indeed, it reflects the adage that ‘behind every great man is a great woman.’

Emma is attracted to Nelson for his decisiveness and boldness, and, perhaps, for his apparent inexperience and discomfort around women. Their first private interaction is initiated by Emma, who was obviously intrigued by his demeanor in discussing the defense of Naples with her husband after his initial arrival there. Her husband, older, polished, lacking in vigor, perhaps, and frail – he walks with a limp and cane – is the social, intellectual, and physical opposite of Nelson. In his defense – he is the one whose role it is to explain the war’s aims to Emma, not Nelson. In this we see the traditional tension in political-military affairs between the old, who understand things in a grave, sober matter, giving them a firmer grasp of facts than the young, who, being more energetic than the old, have the capacity to command events. Wars require both the old and the young – the old define the war aims, the young prosecute the campaigns.

The love they share for each other soon generates an additional tension by drawing Nelson away from his military duty to be with Emma. We see numerous reflections of this in his decisionmaking; for example, his determination to save ‘his friends’ at Naples from the revolution, disobeying Admiralty orders to proceed to Malta. The tension is brought into relief by the reappearance at various times of the fleet’s silhouette, which seems to have an ultimately irresistible control over Nelson’s fate. The fleet beckons him whenever he seems close to breaking finally away from the service to be with Emma, such as during the scene on New Year’s Eve, 1800, where the two share a kiss, from which the camera is cut away to show us the fleet in the darkness, its crews singing ‘Danny Boy.’ We can understand this in many ways; perhaps, most simply, it is suggesting that the commitment which leads to great results must necessarily carry with it some sacrifice of even the dearest things.

Once the trio – Nelson, Emma, and William – return to London, Nelson is acclaimed a hero. His victories have electrified the British public but his relationship with his wife – whom he hadn’t seen in seven years – is immediately understood as passionless and frosty. His wife’s lack of vivacity in comparison with Emma is obvious and she is portrayed as a nagging, jealous, and generally unsympathetic character. She is hurt by Nelson’s infidelity but not so much as a woman than as a member of a society in which infidelity is unacceptable. That is to say, the love between Nelson and Emma is elevated above convention; it is implied that, because Nelson is a great man, the conventions that frown upon his actions should not apply to him. The film does not give us a definitive answer about whether certain individuals – because of their achievements and abilities in other pro-social areas (winning a war against an opponent who ostensibly sought to destroy the fabric of social life is a pro-social act) – are above the seemingly petty restrictions of convention. We are, however, given the distinct impression that Nelson is almost being persecuted unjustly and to the detriment of the country for something which, even if it be wrong from the standpoint of social norms, is sanctioned by more elemental laws of the human heart and soul.

Ultimately, the tension generated by society’s reaction to the illicit love becomes unbearable to the pair. An ultimate break is apparently inevitable. The renewal of war and the threat posed by Napoleon’s preparations to mount an invasion supply the crisis which pulls Nelson away once more and forever.

The Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October, 1805, is justly celebrated as one of the greatest victories in the annals of war. The immediate consequences of Nelson’s triumph over the combined French-Spanish fleet were Britain obtaining control of the sea for the rest of its struggle against Napoleon – another 10 years – and the creation of a symbol of sacrifice and devotion upon which the British could look back as a source of inspiration in subsequent dark times. The battle itself was the culminating moment of a dramatic and decisive naval campaign in which Nelson kept his opponent, Villeneuve, blockaded until the latter finally broke free, attempted to lure Nelson into a chase to the West Indies, from which, according to Napoleon’s conception, the French fleet would race back toward Europe, outstripping the British just long enough to control the channel straits to facilitate the crossing of the French army to England. Nelson did chase but ultimately Villeneuve was not fast enough to beat the British on the return journey, found himself in port again and soon thereafter sailed out to give battle near Trafalgar. Napoleon’s fleet was finished and he was prompted to thenceforth engage in the series of land wars which would ultimately culminate in the invasion of Russia in 1812 and the destruction of his empire.

The film’s depiction of the battle – its only scene of a military action – begins with Nelson on his flagship HMS Victory giving his famous signal to the fleet, ‘England expects that every man will do his duty.’ The dialogue of the scene is largely consistent with what was actually said, as reported by Pasco, the Victory’s signal officer, testifying to the dramatic nature of great political and military events. The technical aspects of the scene are impressive for a film from 1941; there really are not any moments in this scene – or in any other – that seem exceedingly unrealistic as a result of technical limitations. The model ships, because of the camera angles chosen, never betray their unreality.

The climax of the entire film is reached when Nelson is shot by a french sniper. He is mortally wounded and carried below deck. He receives the report that his fleet has won a great victory, laments what will become of Emma – whose husband had died and left her penniless – and utters his famous last words, ‘thank God I have done my duty.’ Whatever the scene may lack in pathos, I think, is the result of the fact that its details are probably known by the audience in advance. It is difficult for art to dramatize what is not only by nature but also in historical fact already high drama.

The film ends with Captain Hardy bringing the news of Nelson’s victory and death to Emma. It is a touching scene. Hardy is unable to maintain his composure and begins to sob when recounting the event; Emma remains stoic and says nothing. After Hardy departs, Emma closes the curtains and faints.

The Courtier

by M. M. Thomas on posted in ,

How do we begin to describe the historical phenomenon known as the Renaissance? No doubt, this word is immediately understood as referring to one of the most profound transformations in thought, culture, and politics of all time. In a simple way, the Renaissance marks the beginning of the modern world as distinguished from antiquity and, although the period is considered to have lasted several centuries, we detect a clear difference between the world view of those individuals who lived during the Renaissance and those who lived before it. One famous illustration that is often cited in defense of this point is Petrarch’s climbing of Mount Ventoux, representing a degree of curiosity about the world which the ancients apparently lacked.

I, for my part, think the difference is most obvious when we consider the ways in which the Renaissance thinkers needed to attempt to reconcile the apparently competing systems of Medieval, Christian thought and the philosophies of the ancients. The 15th century, in which most of the previously lost Greek and Roman writers were rediscovered or reintroduced into Italy, is, in my opinion, more critical than the previous centuries in characterizing the Renaissance. Dante, although he wrote in Italian and modeled his Divine Comedy on Virgil’s Aeneid, was the last and greatest of the Medieval thinkers. Petrarch and Boccaccio belonged, to be sure, to the Renaissance, but their works lacked the learning – because they lacked the texts – necessary to produce a reaction to antiquity which begins from a standpoint of nearly full understanding of what antiquity actually was.

How did this ‘full’ understanding ultimately come about? Ultimately through the reintroduction into Europe of Greek texts, which, unlike Roman texts, had almost entirely been lost during the Middle Ages, apart from imperfect Latin translations of certain works, most importantly those of Aristotle. The Greek world-view as reflected in the texts of Thucydides, the Greek orators, Xenophon, and, most importantly, Plato, was essentially unknown in the Middle Ages. The Greek view was known and understood only to the extent to which Roman authors, such as Cicero, had faithfully presented Greek thought in Latin texts, such as the Tusculan Disputations, in which Cicero presents the views, as he understood them, of the several Greek schools of philosophy. It cannot be understated how imperfect the understanding of the ancient – at any rate, the Greco-Roman – world was until Greek texts began being studied in the originals in the 15th century. It is at this point that the Renaissance acquires its primary historical significance as a tremendous effort to reconcile the ancient and Medieval systems of thought because it was only at this point that the ancient system began to be properly understood by means of the rediscovery of Greece.

Plato, I note above, was perhaps the most important of those Greek thinkers who were reintroduced. The forms, the conception of the wise man, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul were all deeply attractive elements of Platonic thought to men of the Renaissance. Renaissance art began to increasingly emphasize the beauty of the human form, which Socrates, of course, considered as important as the development of the mind and which, in general, was a very Greek value judgment rather than a Roman one. The philosophers, gathered around Lorenzo di Medici at Florence, extolled beauty as a good as great as wisdom and speculated that the great reconciliation of the ancients and Christianity was to be found in the Phaedo and the Republic, not, perhaps, in the Metaphysics of Aristotle.

It was in this context that Baldassare Castiglione understood his ideal courtier to have lived and been educated. The dialogue, published in 1528, takes place in 1507 at the court of Urbino, perhaps the most refined court in all of the Italian Renaissance. The characters, in choosing a topic for evening conversation, decide to attempt to determine which characteristics would constitute the perfect courtier. The importance of this topic was not merely as a starting point for a discussion that turned into a broader philosophical debate on questions such as the nature of love and about the best form of government – although the dialogue does address these themes – but as one of some practicality, given the centrality of the court as a political and cultural institution during the Italian Renaissance. All of the great artists and intellectuals sought patronage at court, including, as for example, Pietro Bembo, who is a character in the dialogue and was one of the preeminent scholars of the late 15th century. The court was also the milieu in which state policy was formed, a cabinet of advisors as much as a forum for theoretical discussion. To mold oneself into an ideal courtier was a valuable, practical aspiration for men living in this period and the work can be viewed as a sort of manual as well as a philosophical treatise, in the way we can understand, for example, Xenophon’s Cyropaedia as a manual for kings and statesmen.

The discussion is carried on over the course of four evenings and the first is dedicated primarily to describing the skills that a perfect courtier would possess. Much of this is almost simply a regurgitation of the four classical virtues – justice, temperance, prudence, and courage – as being necessary for the courtier to learn and acquire. There are certain elements of the discussion, however, that present the courtier as a distinctly Renaissance man. These include the preference that the courtier be of aristocratic lineage, even as this is deemed insufficient by itself to make a man good, and the emphasis on manners, which can be understood as a form of prudence. The courtier must appreciate what is the polite action in a given circumstance and, while this is necessarily situational, it is conceptually different than appreciating the right or good action in a given circumstance. We can probably ascribe this to the context in which the courtier would be operating – that of a court, where refinement, taste, judgment, and discretion are just as important and certainly more agreeable than the more aggressive self-assertive personality traits which might be understood to be the ancient ideal, as reflected in the magnanimous man of Aristotle, who is certainly overbearing and might struggle to succeed in court-life.

One other discussion, which was also understood as important to the ancients, is that of the distinction between seeming and being. On the one hand, we might suppose, based on what I just wrote about the context of a court emphasizing, in a sense, form as much as substance, that the characters in the dialogue would agree as to the ultimate preeminence of seeming over being. Or, perhaps, they might take a position similar to what I understand Machiavelli’s to be that seeming is entirely sufficient for success or attainment in this world – which is the world we should concern ourselves with – and the distinction is of little importance. As a practical matter, if we can seem to possess prudence, justice, etc, that is the same as actually being prudent, just, etc, because the consequences for possessing any particular trait are inevitably the result of others’ perceptions that we do or do not possess a particular trait and not our own self-understanding of whether we do.

The courtier, on the other hand, I think, is expected to be as well as to seem judiciously. This aspect of judiciousness – for example, being courageous but at times appearing to be less courageous than we actually are to avoid provoking jealously in others, especially in our superiors or our prince – is, I think, Castiglione’s answer to the question. There are innumerable instances in the modern, democratic world where we must display only part of our virtue, lest we set a target on our backs by appearing to pretend to some position of superiority over our fellows, who are equal with us and with each other. Castiglione’s position is like that of Gracian, who advises, ‘the truth, but not the whole truth.’

This notion of being prudent to avoid giving offense, especially in the case of our relationship with the political community, is quite a modern idea. Shakespeare’s Coriolanus comes to grief for his arrogance before the Roman people and, although no doubt Shakespeare did not fully invent this dynamic and it is reflected in the sources, I cannot help but suppose that this faux pas was exaggerated, perhaps because it transgressed so obviously the teaching of Castiglione, with whom Shakespeare was certainly familiar. In his answer to whether to seem or to be is better for the ideal courtier, Castiglione quietly announces the emerging, democratic age.

In relation to this, we might find it useful to explore whether Castiglione or Machiavelli was the more modern thinker. It has been argued that Machiavelli was the first modern political philosopher, in large part because his understanding of life is entirely or almost exclusively political and his ethics are empirical and focused on effectiveness, not on morality. Machiavelli is, in a sense, a composite of Aristotle, Darwin, and Nietzsche, because he connects the threads of political life, effectiveness in a way that suggests a rough understanding of natural selection, and amorality. There is no practical utility in discussing life after death because we should concern ourselves exclusively with achievement in this life; anxiety about what might happen to a prince after his death in penalty of his immoral deeds in this life is to be stamped out. In fact, the most seemingly moral acts, Machiavelli tells us, are often the most immoral in terms of their consequences. A summary, awe-inspiring execution of a political opponent, for example, can do more to prevent bloodshed throughout the community than leniency, which could be a stimulus to revolt. The ends justify the means, for Machiavelli, and modern governments, including – perhaps especially – the most ideological ones, have since adopted this as a maxim of state policy.

I think, from the standpoint of political science and philosophy, Machiavelli anticipates – and, as Mansfield judges, ultimately founds – modernity. The best argument to advance in support of Castiglione concerning the question of whether he or Machiavelli is the more modern thinker is, I think, that Castiglione understood key elements of human life apart from the pursuit of power in a way which a modern person would understand them. We now arrive at the concept of Sprezzatura.

Sprezzatura, which is coined by one of characters in the dialogue, can be roughly translated as ‘a certain nonchalance.’ In relation to the discussion about avoiding giving offense and presenting ourselves with graciousness and good manners in society, mastery of Sprezzatura is judged to be essential for the ideal courtier to possess. It is, in effect, being able to do excellent, difficult things while appearing as if doing such excellent, difficult things is effortless or nearly effortless. It is the key to advancing in the world while maintaining a degree of plausible deniability that we are not attempting to assert ourselves above others. It requires perfect understanding of what is, in fact, the right action in a given circumstance, and how to perform that action in a way that is most agreeable to onlookers. It requires our courtier to possess a profound knowledge of human psychology in general and also a personalized understanding of what will appeal to a particular audience. Sprezzatura is the basis of getting along effectively with others while nonetheless demonstrating high ability; it is more essential for the modern politician to grasp and master than anything in Machiavelli’s writings.

High ability is, importantly, not the same as perfection. Perfection is unattainable and, it might be argued, Machiavelli’s prince is expected to be too perfectly rational and amoral for him to serve as a practical model to emulate. The courtier, on the contrary, is expected to be good at nearly everything, best in one or two things, but deliberately inferior to the very best in certain things. For example, the courtier should understand and be able to play chess competently, but not be excellent at chess because becoming excellent at chess would require such an expenditure of time that others might suppose the courtier to have neglected other fields in order to become excellent at chess. The impressiveness of being able to play it well, while not so well as to create a diminished estimation of the courtier’s other skills, is Sprezzatura.

We will end this discussion with a question, regarding the implications of what has just been said. Is the modern world one of specialists or generalists? Or, perhaps, is the specialist – Machiavelli’s prince, I think, is a specialist at acquiring and retaining power – or the generalist – Castiglione’s courtier – a more useful ideal to which to aspire in the modern world? I think, at face value, the specialist seems to triumph. Specialization is characteristic of the modern economy, with its division of labor. It hardly matters, it would seem, if we can do innumerable things well but nothing at the highest level of excellence. We will be out-competed and starve.

On the other hand, is not the reconciliation – we might say synthesis – of different bodies of knowledge equally characteristic of the modern world, as given impulse and direction by the Renaissance? We all have access to – and might have to leverage – knowledge in more fields than were conceivable to the ancients and the Medievals, to say nothing of the fact that we live in society with people who have knowledge on different topics and, if we wish to be agreeable and not ostracized, we must be able to engage with them on their own terms. The generalist – the person who attempts to understand all things, attaining mastery or near mastery in only a few areas – probably has a distinct advantage over the specialist in the modern world because of the social element, which is undervalued by arguments that focus on the hyper-competitive nature of the modern economy. Maybe we should study The Courtier more closely, but not too closely, and always without an air of seeming to care too much either way.

My Vision for this Blog

by M. M. Thomas on posted in

About a year and a half ago, I created this blog with every intention of posting regularly. I figured it would be easy to crank out between 1,500 and 2,000 words every few days. I imagined that, within a year or so, I would have written a few dozen essays on various topics. Of course, our hopes are often dashed by reality. Despite my efforts – I nearly said ‘best efforts’ – I have not completed a single essay or made any posts, even of shorter length, on this blog. I started to write probably 7 or 8 different essays but, for one reason or another, they all remain far from completion.

I suppose this is a common problem. Many people have the desire to write – either as leisure or work – partly because it seems straightforward and can be done almost entirely independently. A writer does not need colleagues, a staff, managers, or, in practice, really any resources except a computer and an internet connection to begin. A would-be writer can start a blog – like the one you, dear reader(s), are currently reading – in about half an hour at no greater cost than $100. Possibly $150, if our would-be writer is an aesthete and wants a fine theme to improve the blog’s look.

More importantly, everyone has ideas and everyone believes that these ideas are especially worth sharing. To some degree, this is not an ironic comment, even if to some degree it is. Most people do, indeed, have interesting and unique perspectives on most topics which have broad appeal. Each individual’s experience is necessarily unique and this uniqueness can provide the basis for original work. The primary difficulties consist of an individual becoming fully conscious and attuned to this uniqueness and the practical challenge of translating what we understand to be unique in ourselves into language – such as via an essay – that is comprehensible to others.

The ‘practical challenge of translating…’ is, I think, the greater of the two difficulties. For one, it is difficult to clarify in language what might be fully appreciated in thought. I can think something – or know something – and not be capable of expressing my thoughts or knowledge into language. I can know, for example, that green differs from yellow, but not be able to explain precisely how or why this is the case. I could, perhaps, do so if I acquired additional knowledge about colors, light, and the human eye, for example, but the basic insight that green is different than yellow is, without additional knowledge which helps clarify the distinction, simply a vague, even if superficially true, insight. At least the insight is provisionally true enough to not be dismissed as ridiculous and therefore might justify the expenditure of time and effort to conduct additional research about it, if the question is important enough to me. This difficulty is all the more apparent when we attempt to advance opinions, based on insight, on more controversial topics such as history, philosophy, literary criticism, etc. There really is no general consensus on the answer to any important question regarding any of these topics. We can establish certain facts but the interpretation of any of those facts will always be subject to challenges from competing interpretations. In attempting to give our own interpretation, we are inviting criticism and exposing ourselves to the judgment of the public and, in many cases, members of the public who have much greater knowledge on the subject in question than ourselves.

On the one hand, this should not be a deterrent. In fact, we know that if we advance a view which is subsequently challenged and proven untenable, we benefit by thereby becoming more aware of the things we do not know. This process – a literary dialectic – is perhaps the best reason to write, especially on difficult topics which matter to us in our own lives. Moreover, our own standards of thought are elevated by having to prepare our analysis and position before the writing process even begins. Because we know that what we are going to say is going to be put before a critical audience, we are compelled to work hard to ensure there are no obvious defects in our presentation of the facts and our argument. This is a form of accountability. By making our opinions accountable to others, we raise our own standards of thought, if for no other reason than to avoid appearing as if we neglected to put any serious effort into developing our opinions.

The challenge, of course, is that this requires effort. That is the core of the entire issue. If we want to write – and write in a way that does not make us appear completely foolish to others – we need to work hard to not only express what it is we want to say but also to formulate and clarify our thinking beforehand.

Yet, strangely, this ‘beforehand’ may undervalue writing as a means to develop our thinking. As we write, we make concrete what had previously existed only in our minds. We evaluate what we have just written and see if it is true, or dubious, or outright false. We recognize, numerous times through the course of our writing, where we possess only a shaky understanding of the facts themselves. We perform additional research to ensure we understand, in the first place, what we are trying to discuss. The writing process is, therefore, one of the best ways to establish what we actually think, even before we have put something before the public and received feedback on it. Clear writing reflects clear thinking.

But we also must guard against being perfectionist in this. We can never be fully satisfied with what we have written or what we think. We must accept, at a certain point, that our position is ‘good enough’ to warrant publication. We should not be hasty in deciding that something is ‘good enough’ but we must eventually make this decision if we want to finish any of our work. This is not only true for writing but, really, for everything. One of the key traits, I think, of those who manage to consistently achieve their goals is a willingness to accept imperfections in their work. The desire to continue to refine something until we are completely satisfied is crippling. Nothing gets done. This not to imply that achievement is completely unconnected from quality – for something to be excellent, it is not enough for it to simply be finished – but that we spend more time thinking about whether what we have produced will do honor to us and adequately reflect our capabilities than we should.

Much of this, with writing as with everything, can be solved by the development of habits, goal setting, and by adopting a mindset that focuses on the process rather than on the results. Time pressure – i.e. deadlines – can be a useful tool to overcome the problem arising from perfectionism described above, but I think that having a clearly-defined, overarching objective, the achievement of which constitutes success, is the most important element contributing to ultimate success or failure. For example, I can plan, over the next several years, to publish 100 essays on this blog by writing daily to develop the habit of writing and to become increasingly comfortable with imperfect work. Presumably, after having written 100 essays, my abilities as a writer – and the quality of my thought and work – will have improved much more markedly than if I spent the next several years thinking about the best way(s) to write a blog until starting to do so. We learn most by doing and experience is the best teacher.

From a subject matter perspective, the original post I made here in April last year does, more or less, capture my intentions for this blog. I have always been fascinated by historical essays. My literary model, Thomas Macaulay, is the inspiration for my nom de plume. I think that the essay is an effective vehicle to convey analysis on a wide variety of topics. I doubt that I could sustain any effort to write consistently for very long if I did not allow myself to delve into a wide variety of topics. As a reader, I have always preferred works written in a clear style on topics of historical and literary significance rather than on potentially more challenging scientific and philosophical issues. I enjoy biographical sketches – such as those written by Will Durant, for example – on individuals who were primarily known as philosophers, as I feel this approach is a straightforward way to understand their thought through the context-rich prism of intellectual history. No thought or system can be considered wholly original; if we are to read any philosopher without some understanding of their intellectual pedigree and historical context, we will almost certainly fail to grasp key elements of their ideas.

One other important reason why I prefer such authors and works is, simply, that they are more readable. It may betray a degree of intellectual laziness on my part, but I do not particularly enjoy struggling through long, difficult texts, which present their authors’ meaning primarily with abstractions. I unsurprisingly, therefore, gravitate toward history, seeing as it is concerned with essentially concrete incidences, deployed either as elements of a continuous narrative or as the subject matter for analysis. Machiavelli, who is probably more of a philosopher than an historian, comes to mind as relying on the latter category to convey thought; Gibbon, for example, relies more on the former. The form of the Discorsi – which uses historical examples as the matter for a philosophical exegesis – are undoubtedly a model I will seek to adopt in some of my posts here. I will also eventually dedicate an essay to The Decline and Fall, which is among my favorite books.

All of which is to say, I intend to write here more frequently and consistently, if for no other reasons than to challenge myself to remain committed to a larger goal and to improve my own understanding of many of the topics that fascinate me.

First Post

by M. M. Thomas on posted in

Welcome!

This, hopefully, will be the first of many posts on this platform. I intend primarily to give my thoughts on books that I have read or am in the process of reading, along with posts of a more general nature about topics that interest me.

✕