Sympathy and the Legacy of Complacency

When the going is good, the corrupt, the corpulent, the anti-intellectual, and the gourmand get their day. If the going is good for a while, these guys get their feet well and truly under the table. It’s a mighty job to get a placeman to give up his place. If we live in an era devoid of political nous, in the midst of a dearth of brilliance and of the spluttering rhetoric of leaders who cannot lead, we are not the first:

In the courts of princes, in the drawing-rooms of the great, where success and preferment depend, not upon the esteem of intelligent and well-informed equals, but upon the fanciful and foolish favour of ignorant, presumptuous, and proud superiors; flattery and falsehood too often prevail over merit and abilities.

We have probably all slaved in environments of clientism and nepotism, where the face-fitting yes-men contort their mediocrities into pleasing shapes for the sake of scraps from the table. Now it is a pervasive Occidental malady. The cultivation of flattery endured for long enough that the cultivation of talent went begging for infrastructure. The man of vision thumps his fist on the table in frustration, but is swept along in a rushing torrent of ephemeral images, of passing fads, reality ‘stars’, and auto-tuned politics. He’s just another piece of noise.

In such societies the abilities to please, are more regarded than the abilities to serve. In quiet and peaceable times, when the storm is at a distance, the prince or great man, wishes only to be amused, and is even apt to fancy that he has scarce any occasion for the service of any body, or that those who amuse him are sufficiently able to serve him. The external graces, the frivolous accomplishments, of that impertinent and foolish thing called a man of fashion, are commonly more admired than the solid and masculine virtues of a warrior, a statesmen, a philosopher, or a legislator. All the great and awful virtues, all the virtues which can fit, either for the council, the senate, or the field, are, by the insolent and insignificant flatterers, who commonly figure the most in such corrupted societies, held in the utmost contempt and derision.

These are not peaceable times. Far from it. But when we long ago bet our solid virtues on a pyramid scheme we scarcely thought how we might retrieve them once the sun ceased to shine. The British notion of ‘service’ has been reduced to James Bond quips and glib citizenship tests demanding that ‘foreigners’ know how to glorify General Gordon. To get it back, we need to know that there is something to serve. Citizenship is about belonging, but also owning. It is about acknowledging a mutual set of responsibilities, from the State to the individual and vice versa. There isn’t a lot of that spirit about any more. The phrase ‘we’re all in this together’ has been appropriated for a political slogan, heightening our distrust, and making us all the more entrenched in our view that, actually, it’s every man for himself. If ever we needed leadership, it is now. But where to find him or her?

When the duke of Sully was called upon by Lewis the Thirteenth to give his advice in some great emergency, he observed the favourites and courtiers whispering to one another, and smiling at his unfashionable appearance. “Whenever your majesty’s father,” said the old warrior and statesmen, “did me the honour to consult me, he ordered the buffoons of the court to retire into the antechamber.”

It’s not exactly hopeless out there, but if we were to cast around for a latter-day duke of Sully we might have to wait a while to find him. Trouble these days is that the throne room’s been flogged for a porn set and we’ve been living in the antechamber for years. There’s a party going on and everyone’s been hammered for a decade. We are utterly self-absorbed, racing each other to the bottom of the sleaziest autobiography charts.

All the quoted passages here are from Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). Smith knew that the essential corollary of the selfish was the sympathetic. To share the joys, but also the sufferings of one’s fellow man was the basis of civilisation. It is in a man’s interests to sympathise with other men, to care for his needs, to feel his pain, for in solidarity he increases the likelihood that, in his own pain, he too will find the succour of others. The Golden Rule, with its archetypical architecture of altruism, depends first and foremost on self-knowledge of self-interest: Do as you would be done unto. In our clamouring for the top, or in our struggle to avoid the abyss, we trample the man underneath us. The more we trample, the more damage we do to ourselves.

It really were better that we pulled together. The leadership for which we yearn can be sourced in each other. No amount of charisma in a suit is going to do it for us. It’s time to turn a clenched fist into an open hand. Who will be first?

The Art of Manliness

I was the beneficiary this week of the kindness and manly spirit of Brett McKay, who presides, with his wife, over the writing and goings on at the Art of Manliness. Being Manly was featured in the Art of Manliness Trunk: a treasure-trove of ethereal delights from out there in internet land. The effect would have caused nose bleeds in lesser men: 2,200 page views in three days is new territory for these humble pages, and long may things continue in such a vein. I am most grateful for the exposure, and I’m especially happy to welcome newcomers, especially when they are sent from such reputable sources.

The Art of Manliness community is an amorphous place, filled with every kind of man one might imagine. Yet it is driven by a spirit of masculine depth that keeps it from being a mere locus of grunting and scratching. To be sure, look deeply into any community and you will find elements that you do not like. But such a discovery has an air of reality about it, and one better appreciates the prevailing decency of the majority for remaining hospitable to the rest. In this community, in which I’ve been active for a long time by now, are men driven by giving, by intellect, by enthusiasm, by sartorialism, by literature, by politics, by art, by sport, and by a willingness and a wish simply to understand what it is to be, and what it takes to improve, a man. It is neither self-help, nor men helping themselves (i.e. taking). It is a shared journey, the passage of which involves disagreement, requests for advice, the giving of advice, and the expression of opinion. The community regulates itself. Members call out each other for transgression. Moderation – two meanings, one a virtue, the other a duty – abounds here by nature.

If you’ve never been to the Art of Manliness, do go. If you like it here – and I do hope that you find my hearth equal in warmth to my hospitality – you will assuredly like it there. And do come back again and tell me what you found on your travels.

To the Art of Manliness: in being there, may we find out what it is.

Being Manly and the Question of Substance

One must draw a line between mere affect and substance; between appearance and character; between form and content; between words and deeds. As I circle the internet, buzzard-like, I notice many of the former categories in this list masquerading as the latter categories. For some reason many people seem to confuse what is essentially empty for that which is substantially meaningful. All kinds of assumed contiguities are employed so that, for example, clothes can stand in for the man. We all know the axiom ‘the clothes don’t make the man’, but the axiom exists only because it is so widely and indiscriminately ignored. In much the same way, most people judge books by their covers. It has been the principle of bookselling since Gutenberg.

Judge thee not

I’m troubled by this, just as you would expect. When we strive to be the best we can be, are we really content with reducing our betterment to cosmetics? If you were to search the great ethereal sea for what people have to say about being manly, for example, you will find all manner of ill-considered talk of flatulence and fire, power tools and automobiles, firearms and fisticuffs, and generally the treatment of women as sexual objects. The more discerning empty rhetoric you’ll find will talk about manners and pocket squares, but only a very few make any attempt to draw a line between show and substance. In both extremes you learn only how little men know about what is really important: a man’s virtues.

Does he have courage, or know how to define it? Does he understand that which he fears and has he faced it? Does he know when to rush in, and when to hold hard? Can he balance the problems around him and see his way through with wisdom? Is he temperate, hard-working, resilient and just? Does he understand his place, in his family, his nation, his world, and can he execute his role as a worthy citizen? He must understand these things, not as words but from within, if he is to be these things. And for this there are no short cuts; no sound-bite routes to glory; no quick fixes. I may talk of form, of affect, of appearance, and of words; but I want to arrive at content, at substance, at character, and at deeds. Sometimes, the surfaces serve as entry points to, or as analogues for, the depths; we must remember that it is for this reason, and for this reason alone, that we concern ourselves with the surface at all.

Being manly, or indeed womanly, is not something that can be achieved through the mere push of a button. It’s hard, but worthy, work.