Ghob

ghob tIvnISbe’lu’.
--Klingon traditional saying, translated: “One need not enjoy virtue.”

Well, my friends, I had planned for today’s entry to tell of Dominique Pire, a French Catholic priest who saved many refugees after WWII, and of the Jewish middah of Lomed al Manat La'asot (Studying in Order to Do Good Deeds), but I will save that for another time. In a fit of what is probably fatigue-fueled Whimsy, I have decided instead to talk about ethics from the vantage of the Klingons, and the principle of Ghob (Virtue/Waging War).

For those who do not know, Klingons are a humanoid species hailing from Qo'noS, an M-class planet located about 90 light-years from Earth in the Beta Quadrant. Humans first visited Qo'noS in 2151. Klingon culture has a strict code of Honor; like the Spartans of Ancient Greece, Klingons consider themselves a race of warriors, preferring to die in combat than to live as captives. To the Klingon, life is an eternal struggle for dominance and victory.

Legends claim the first Klingon, Kortar, killed the gods who created him. Their religious traditions center around Kahless, a messianic figure who lived around the time of Earth’s 9th century. Kahless founded the honor tradition that united the species into a Klingon Empire. At death, a Klingon’s compatriots howl to the spirits of the dead, announcing a new arrival. They happily describe the afterlife as the Eternal Battle:


Below are some Klingon aphorisms, with translations, which will give you a sense of the meaning of Ghob:

bogh tlhInganpu’, SuvwI’pu’ moj, Hegh. (Klingons are born, live as warriors, then die.)

qa’ wIje’meH maSuv. (We fight to enrich the spirit.)

lumbe’ tlhInganpu’. (Klingons do not procrastinate.)

Worf, a Klingon with ghob.

Dubotchugh yIpummoH. (If it’s in your way, knock it down.)

tIqDaq HoSna’ tu’lu’. (Real power is in the heart.)

pujwI’ HIvlu’chugh quvbe’lu’. (There is no honor in attacking the weak.)

bItuHlaHbe’chugh bIquvlaHbe’. (If you cannot be shamed, you cannot be honored.)

nIteb Qob qaD jup ‘e’ chaw’be’ Suvwl’. (A warrior does not let a friend face danger alone.)

yIn DayajmeH ‘oy’ yISIQ. (To understand life, endure pain.)

QaghmeylIj tIchID, yIyoH. (Have the courage to admit your mistakes.)

reH ‘eb tu’lu’. (There is always a chance.)

pop ‘oH ghob’e’. (Virtue is the reward.)

batIh bIHeghjaj. (May you die well.)
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Despite my Whimsy, or perhaps because of it, I do find serious merit in the addages. “To understand life, endure pain” sure sounds suspiciously like the First Noble Truth. (Although one commentator has insisted that if they embraced a human religion, Klingons would in fact embrace Christianity.) I said in the earlier essay about Honor that one could not reach it without standing on Courage. It occurred to me tonight that, in the realm of the two Ultimate Virtues, Self-Knowledge and Self-Possession, fear must necessarily melt away. Something about the Klingon insistence for absolute Rigor, for an unabashed Acceptance that Life is Struggle, appeals to me. It’s honest. Every true warrior knows that his or her greatest enemy is the hardest to face: Oneself.   
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May we see the gates of Ghob, and perhaps make a home there. 
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Aphorisms from Marc Okrand’s Star Trek ©:The KlingonTM Way--A Warriors Guide, and quoted with grateful acknowledgement.

σωφροσύνη /Sôphrosunê

Cease to be a slave to self, and no man will have the power to enslave you.
--James Allen

Happy birthday, Proclus! This Greek philosopher, poet, and scientist, also known as Diadochus (“The Successor”), served as the last great light in Plato’s philosophic tradition. As the final major Neo-Platonist of late antiquity, Proclus had wide influence on thinkers of the later Byzantine, Arab, and Roman worlds. Various scholars credit him with laying the groundwork for such diverse movements as medieval Christian Mysticism, Renaissance Platonism, Jewish Kabbalah, and Western Hermeticism. His passionate pursuit of philosophical knowledge and temperate habits have led many to cite Proclus as an example of the hard-to-translate Greek virtue σωφροσύνη or Sôphrosunê (Self-mastery). (Say it: "so-FROSS-uh-knee.")

The exact meaning of Sôphrosunê (sometimes spelled Sôphrosynê) has eluded not just generations of Western thinkers--it stumped the ancient Greeks, too. In fact, an entire dialogue written by Plato, the Charmides, posits a conversation between Socrates and a local youth about the exact meaning of the word. Meanings like “Quietude” and “Modesty” get tried on, and thrown out by Socrates as missing the mark. Charmides then suggests notions like “Moderation” and “Self-Knowledge,” and on this latter Socrates feels he may have hit upon some truth. (Since Self-Knowledge and Self-Possession are considered the Ultimate Virtues here on TTV, I welcome Sôphrosunê as a possible combination of the two.)

I swear we’re not having a Blue Light Special on Aristotle this week, but he comes up again today. Author Michael Pakaluk in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics: An Introduction notes the trouble in pinning down the meaning of the ineffable Sôphrosunê:

The term is sometimes rendered “Temperance” or “Self-control.” But “temperance” is no longer an ordinary English word, and if it suggests anything definite, it means the resolve of not drinking alcohol. “Self-control” is misleading, because the term wrongly suggests a division in the agent: he wants something, but he controls himself and abstains from it... “Self-mastery” perhaps avoids these problems, since it can be taken to suggest someone who is completely at ease with what he does. [Caps  mine.]

A concise account of the life of Proclus and his many accomplishments can be found here. In addition to his important intellectual contributions, I appreciate his passionate embrace of Universalism. He was an ardent defender of Paganism and eschewed Christianity for its apparent belief in an end to Creation, an idea he abhorred. He was a vegetarian, and, being consumed by his pursuit of knowledge, never married.

What in the story of Proclus suggests Self-Mastery? Again, like the translation of the word, the life of Proclus seems ineffable. His passionate pursuit of knowledge shows the virtue of Philomathy, yes, and he considered all realms of wisdom, of both the inner and outer worlds, fair game, including the esoteric (such as his pursuit of theurgy) and the practical and applied (with his tutoring of young politicians). His biographer, in trying to describe him, states:

Proclus was very attractive to see; for not only had he a symmetry of appearance but also the beauty of his soul bloomed on his body and, like a living light, shone wonderfully in a manner that is hard to put into words.

I wonder if Sôphrosunê has so much to do with the inner state, that we cannot really know it through the mere acts of a person? Pakaluk suggests that the virtue implies a “tranquility, ease, and serenity” that speaks in all likelihood to a person’s connection to the Divine as it then manifests in their outer behavior.  

For these reasons, and since we have no paintings or sculptures of him (the bust traditionally described as his countenance is now felt by modern scholars probably to depict a contemporary, Iamblichus), I have chosen to illustrate this post with an image of the crater Proclus, on the Moon, bursting with blue light.

So there's a true blue light special! Proclus, thank you for all your intellectual gifts. Through the pursuit of Knowing, of both inner and outer worlds, may our light shine through.

May we see the gates of Sôphrosunê, and perhaps make a home there. 

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Final image gratefully credited to Kerry McDonnell, kerrymcdonnell.com.

不敢為天下先/Bugan wei tianxia xian

I am the very model of a modern Major-General,/ I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral/...I'm very well acquainted too with matters mathematical,/ I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical....
--Major General Stanley, in Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta The Pirates of Penzance

If you have ever flown in an airplane, used a mobile phone, played a DVD, or listened to the radio, you have benefited from a special form of mathematical magic called the quadratic equation. Today marks the 546th birthday of the man whose work ultimately led us to the quadratic. Yet, due to his own reticence, Scipione del Ferro received no recognition during his lifetime and very little to this day. His story brings to my mind one of the “Three Jewels of Taoism,” that of Bugan wei tianxia xian (Modesty).

Bugan wei tianxia xian appears in the Tao Te Ching in chapter 67, where Lao Tzu lays out his “Three Treasures,” the virtue teachings he felt had the most practical application to political life:

Here are my three treasures. Guard and keep them! The first is pity; the second, frugality; the third, refusal to be 'foremost of all things under heaven'.

For only he that pities is truly able to be brave;

Only he that is frugal is able to be profuse.

Only he that refuses to be foremost of all things

Is truly able to become chief of all Ministers.

At present your bravery is not based on pity, nor your profusion on frugality, nor your vanguard on your rear; and this is death. But pity cannot fight without conquering or guard without saving. Heaven arms with pity those whom it would not see destroyed.

I find it interesting that while the first virtue (Ci/Compassion) and the second (Jian/Moderation) appear as single, pithy words, the third virtue appears as this lengthy, hard-to-translate phrase. Various scholars have rendered this idea into English as “not presuming to be at the forefront in the world” (Henricks) or “not daring to put myself ahead of everybody” (Muller); others have suggested simpler expressions, such as Modesty (Balfour) or Humility (Wieger).

A modern translator of the Tao Te Ching, Ellen M. Chen, gives a more detailed explanation of this virtue:

The third treasure, daring not to be at the world’s front, is the Taoist way to avoid premature death. To be at the world’s front is to expose oneself, to render oneself vulnerable to the world’s destructive forces, while to remain behind and to be humble is to allow oneself time to fully ripen and bear fruit. This is a treasure whose secret spring is the fear of losing one’s life before one’s time. This fear of death, out of a love for life, is indeed the key to Taoist wisdom.

del Ferro

So, at its root, this virtue has less to do with avoiding the delusions of self-aggrandisement, than with avoiding the material risks that come with Daring. This recalls our discussion of Passion--i.e. one culture’s virtue makes another’s vice. Bugan wei tianxia xian, the pragmatic policy of avoiding needless risk, represents the diametrical opposite of the Asatru virtue of Mannaz (Daring), which we discussed last autumn. Such juicy paradoxes come up from time to time in virtue scholarship, and force us to consider the very nature of virtue.

So: Bugan wei tianxia xian. Does it represent Prudence and appropriate Deference as to one’s place in the world, or cowardice and paralysis? One can say the Taoist sees wisdom in “living to fight another day,” but then again, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

The Greek philosopher Aristotle again may offer us a solution in the Nicomachean Ethics, where he exalts a Middle Way of Andreia (Courage), lying somewhere between inappropriate overconfidence (thrasus) and deficient self-confidence (deilos). Bugan wei tianxia xian may represent the Andreia that avoids overconfidence, while Mannaz the aspect that avoids meekness. Two faces, but one root virtue.

This brings us to del Ferro, whose story raises the question of confidence. The son of a papermaker, del Ferro probably studied at the University of Bologna. I say “probably” because none of del Ferro’s writings survive. We know he lectured at the University in arithmetic and geometry, because others have described his work. His son-in-law Hannibal Nave inherited a famed notebook from del Ferro, which, like Leonardo DaVinci’s, recorded the wondrous workings of del Ferro’s mind. The only reason he received credit for solving the cubic equation, forerunner of the quadratic, is because two later mathematicians, Gerolano Cardano and Ludivico Ferrari, visited Nave and read the notebook.

Apparently del Ferro preferred to share his work with only a few close friends and associates. Did a lack of Confidence drive this? Or Wiliness?

Much like the magicians in R.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, the mathe-magicians of medieval Italy would challenge each other to public duels, in which one math wizard would pose a math problem to the other. If the opponent could not solve it, the instigator would win, and the loser might lose their funding and university tenure. (Tough bunch, these mathematicians!) Thus, historians suspect del Ferro kept the solution of the cubic equation as a sort of “secret weapon,” in case he ever faced a challenge.  

So, it seems del Ferro indeed may have shown the Savvy the Taoist Masters praised in the principle of never going first, Bugan wei tianxia xian. Many lament that the loss of his notebook of secrets relegated him to even greater obscurity than might have been true. But, he lived out his days as he wished, secure in his station--just as the wisdom of the Tao would have it.

What talents or gifts might you be holding secret? Are you, as a Taoist master might say, waiting to let yourself ripen? How do you pick your time to shine forth? Does the talent you hold latent raise your Confidence?

May we see the gates of Bugan wei tianxia xian, and perhaps make a home there.

حرية/Horiya (Freedom)

Fear paralyzes us, and we need to get moving.
--Tawakkul Karman, Yemeni activist

Today, a short but timely entry on a brave activist being swept up in the tides of the Arab Spring. Her name, poetically enough, is Tawakkul (“Trust”) Karman. The virtue is حرية, transliterated as Horiya (Freedom). (Say it: “hoo-REE-yah.”)

Yemen is just one of the many nations currently seeing an uprising of “people’s power”  against entrenched autocracies since Tunisia erupted last month. A 20,000 person mostly-peaceful protest today, the “Day of Rage,” called for an end to President Ali Abdallah Saleh’s reign.

Blogger Kimberly Latta has been following the story in Yemen, including Tawakkul Karman’s role in the protests. She notes that the protests in Yemen have been slowly building ever since the formerly separate nations of North and South Yemen unified in 1990:

In 2007  disgruntled former civil servants who had been forcibly retired after unification, lawyers, academics, students, and journalists, began to organize broad demonstrations to demand greater economic opportunities, greater freedom of the press, an end to corruption, and a fairer share of the country’s oil resources between the North and the South.  By 2009 more traditional community leaders, including tribal sheiks, had joined the Southern movement.

Among the members of this Southern Movement is Karman: a journalist, an activist, a freedom fighter, a wife and a mother of three. In 2005, she founded a group called Women Journalists Without Chains to fight for freedom of the press in Yemen, later expanding its mission to fight for all human rights. Since 2007, Karman has led weekly demonstrations in front of Yemen’s Cabinet headquarters. In March 2010, she was one of 10 recipients of the International Women of Courage award, in recognition of “her exceptional leadership and courage in the area of women’s rights and equality.”  

On January 22, inspired by similar rallies across the Middle East, Tawakkul Karman led a protest crying out for basic freedoms in Yemen, and the authorities arrested her. After worldwide outcry, they released her 2 days later. She told crowds of supporters, “We will continue our struggle until regime change happens in our happy country. We will defend order in our country, we will defend the system, the constitution, the law. The Jasmine Revolution will continue until the entire regime goes.”

I cannot fathom the Temerity, the Equanimity, the Nerve it must take for a woman living in a conservative Muslim country simply to flout the veil--much less for a mother of three to risk arrest and torture for the sake of giving Voice. True Horiya, true Freedom, only starts when we free ourselves from fear. Perhaps Karman’s great Trust in the Divine--whence comes her very name--gives her this Courage; Isabella Jagiellon said as much when telling us the secret of Wolność.

The sirocco of Horiya is blowing, across the sands of not just Tunisia and Egypt, but also of Yemen, Jordan, Algeria, Morroco, Libya, Syria. Let us hope it scatters the seeds of Wisdom and Prosperity for the many peoples of the Middle East.

May we see the gates of Horiya, and perhaps make a home there.

Leadership

That night, I thanked God for seeing me through that day of days and prayed I would make it through D plus 1. I also promised that if some way I could get home again, I would find a nice peaceful town and spend the rest of my life in peace.
--Major Dick Winters, as quoted in the film Band of Brothers


[Last month, we lost one more star from the heavens, with the passage of Major Richard “Dick” Winters, commander of “Easy Company,” whose fate during the invasion of Normandy served as a basis for the film Band of Brothers. In Dick Winters one found a moving combination of Humility, Strength, and Humor, but tonight we will honor him as an avatar of Leadership.
Winters was an exemplary man from an exemplary generation. From the first time I worked with the WWII vets on the medicine service at Fort Miley in San Francisco, I was struck by their Graciousness, Grit, and Affability. Tom Brokaw is right to call them The Greatest Generation. In this time of crisis in our nation’s history, we would do well to turn to these venerables, so few of whom are still with us.

Otis "Sam" Sampson

I had the good fortune recently to get to know a living survivor of the Parachute Infantry, Otis “Sam” Sampson, who celebrated his 100th birthday on January 19th at a local Italian restaurant. Even at 100 years of age, Sam is lucid and kind and funny. He wrote a book about his own experiences in the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, called Time Out for Combat. Visiting with him at my hospital’s tent at the Palm Springs weekly Village Fest, I was reminded of the nobility of his generation. They really do show the best of what this country has to offer, and they make me proud to be American.
My twin Kael has a fondness for WWII stories, and it was he who suggested we honor Dick Winters in Ten Thousand Virtues. I'd had another topic planned for today, but I’ll save it in favor of “the Winters’ Tale.” His story recalls that of Cincinnatus, the hero of Rome, who went from farmer, to soldier, to reluctant dictator, to humble farmer once again. Both men show us Auctoritas... Jen... Self-Possession. A consistent theme among those who served under Winters was his ability to inspire his men. He never asked anything of anyone that he didn't ask from himself. And like most true heroes, he didn't take himself too seriously, and was all too happy to pass along the mantle of Leadership. What follows is an obituary of Winters from his hometown paper:]


Dick Winters, who inspired 'Band of Brothers,' remembered as an American hero
By Lara Brenckle, The Patriot-News


His life story was writ large, a hero ready-made for Hollywood who helped save the nation during its darkest hour.


But that, Dick Winters’ friends said, was Hollywood.
   
In real life, Winters, whose leadership in Easy Company, 506th regiment of the 101st Airborne Division was commemorated in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, based on the Stephen Ambrose book, shied from the spotlight.
   
And when Winters died Jan. 2 at an assisted-living facility in Campbelltown, his final wish — a totally private funeral — befit a man who lived through extraordinary circumstances but never considered himself anything more than a man doing his duty, his longtime friend William S. Jackson said Sunday night...


Filmmaker Brian Kreider of Derry Township met Winters through his job in the Pennsylvania Film Office.
   
Winters was pushing for some of Band of Brothers to be filmed in Pennsylvania, and Kreider helped scout locations. The two later worked on a documentary and lecture series in which Winters discussed his experiences between clips from Band of Brothers.
   
A born leader
   
Winters was a natural leader, Kreider said.
   
“There’s no question you would follow him,” he said.
   
His Warmth and Strength were augmented by a wonderful sense of Humor, Kreider said...
   
State House of Representative’s Democratic leader Frank Dermody called Winters “a real-life American hero.”
   
“He led hundreds of young men through some of the toughest fighting the world has known, but at his core he was a peaceful man,” Dermody said. “In everything he did, he served honorably.”
   
Born in Ephrata on Jan. 21, 1918, to Richard and Edith Winters, Winters moved to nearby Lancaster when he was 8, according to his biography. He graduated from Lancaster Boys High School in 1937 and from Franklin & Marshall College in 1941.
   
Winters and his troops from Easy Company parachuted behind enemy lines to take on a German artillery nest on Utah Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944. His company fought through the Battle of the Bulge, the liberation of a death camp at Dachau and to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest at Berchtesgaden.
   
The war described in Band of Brothers is ugly, but the young men developed character under fire, Winters said in interviews. He was glad the miniseries showed war realistically, not glorified or demonized as in so many movies.
   
He wanted people to understand that success in war depends not on heroics but on Bonding, character, getting the job done and “Hanging Tough,” his lifelong motto. In combat, he wrote 50 years after the war, “Your reward for a good job done is that you get the next tough mission.”
   
Home from the war
   
After the war, he fulfilled the pledge he made to himself in the midst of the D-Day chaos: If he survived the war, he would find a nice, quiet place and live in peace.


He married Ethel, bought a bucolic farm in Fredericksburg, raised two children and worked in the agricultural feed business. He didn’t talk about the war until Ambrose wanted to put Easy Company’s exploits on paper.
   
“When the book [Band of Brothers] came out, he sent it to me at the paper with a note, saying, ‘I don’t know if this is worth writing about,’" Jackson recalled with a laugh.
   
Following the miniseries, Winters turned down most requests for interviews because he said he didn’t want to appear as if he was bragging. But he did feel the story of Easy Company was an important one, especially for young people.
   
He was more likely to accept invitations by local school groups and spent time with students at Cedar Crest High School, among others. A talk he gave at Palmyra Middle School drew hundreds of spectators...

Originally published: Monday, January 10, 2011, 12:10 AM. Staff writers Liam Migdail-Smith, Monica von Dobeneck, Jan Murphy and Mary Klaus contributed to this report.

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May we see the gates of Leadership, and perhaps make a home there.