The absence of accounts of moral courage in modern spirituality: how we meditate placidly on our yoga mats while Rome burns

Here, I am going to write a few things that I did not write in the my post on heroism and villainy, but have started to really stand out to me about the themes I wrote about there.

One of the things that is really starting to bother me is that none of the religious or philosophical traditions that I am aware of seem to provide an account of the heroic or on moral courage, focusing instead, as they do, on the curbing of excess, or on inner peace or serenity.

A core concept of Aristotle's moral philosophy is sophrosyne, or moderation, that is, of the moderation of excess along virtually every ethical dimension. Greco-Roman Stoicism is derivative of traditional Greek philosophy and is even more relentlessly organized around this theme.

But one of the striking characteristics of the great men of Athens and Roman is that they were men of great intensity. There is indeed something very paradoxical about the writings of Seneca, whose prose about moderation of the desires comes across with the force and urgency of a man yelling at us. Seneca is clearly a man of great emotion and desire, whose writing is all about how to curb great emotion and desire.

Seneca's outward messaging says one thing, but his character, which comes across with every word, says the completely opposite. I'm not the only one to notice this. Modern academic scholarship on Stoicism talks about this as well. But few popular writers ever seem to point this out.

This intensely bothers me personally, because there seems to be a contradiction at the very core of ancient moral philosophy. I doubt, even, that there would have been a Seneca--that great proponent of moderation--if he had been a personally moderate man by character. Thus, I think, it may have been through a certain characteristic immoderation that we have received a good part of the philosophy of moderation!

This leaves a lacunae in ancient thought, and that lacunae is the lacunae of what makes for courage and heroism, that is, of what makes for men who are willing to sacrifice everything for their beliefs.

Christianity is not unlike this either. Although love is at the center of Christianity, violence is also at the origin of that religion, too. It is only in throes of tremendous passion that Christians could have sacrificed themselves for their beliefs. These are not men of placid, inner peace. They are men of incredible courage, a courage that was so passionate that it was able to overcome the fear of death.

Now, one may say that they believed in their faith with such conviction that they felt only peace at their torture and death, but I strongly suspect that this is hagiography. No doubt they were filled with doubt at times and had to steel themselves. Everyone except Christ no doubt felt great turmoil during the course of their sacrifice, and by some accounts, even Christ himself did.

The saints were not the only ones who faced persecution. Socrates was tried, convicted, and murdered for his beliefs by a hysterical Athenian religious mob; Aristotle was exiled and died the next year. Anaxagoras, the world’s first true scientist and a close friend of the great statesman Pericles, living a generation before Socrates, was exiled and died the next year by suicide. Seneca was sentenced to death by the Roman senate; this was commuted to exile, where he wrote some of his most famous works. Later, Nero ordered Seneca to commit suicide, which he did. (The man couldn't catch a break!) Let us not forget Cicero, a neo-Stoic of sorts, who was executed by the Roman state, his severed hands and head publicly displayed on the platform on which speakers would address the Senate house.

And these accounts go on and on and on.

Beneath the philosophical core of moderation and of love, something constantly asserts itself--but is never spoken--which is the complete opposite of moderation and does not have much to do directly with love. It is an intensity of conviction and character.

The passion of the sages and saints has a lot in common with villainy, which is where this dovetails with the discussion of Batman and the Joker. Batman's origin story was that of trauma, and he sublimated this trauma ethically to become Batman. Joker had the same origin, but he acted out his pain and became a deranged villain. Both Batman and Joker were men of great passion, that passion taking a different form--again, one of heroism, and the other of villainy.

The ethics of the ancient moral systems, whether Christianity, Greek ethics, or Stoicism all acted to sublimate and refine that passion in an ethical form, to make it conducive to a society that would not destroy itself in the grip of this passion. These ethical systems sought to make men more like Batman and less like the Joker.

It did not seek to make these men passionless or to obtain some quietistic, secluded inner peace. Because if it had, none of these men would have written what they did, nor have written it in the way they did. They would not have continued to write in the face of incredible danger, which no doubt created great fear in these men--a fear they nobly almost never spoke of.

Passion, conviction, and courage were a given for these men, and thus they rarely provide an account about how to cultivate it or how to think about it. They simply never saw the need; the ancient world was lacking in moderation; it was not lacking in action! (This is true at least not in the Greco-Roman tradition with which I am familiar; Christians, please correct me if I am wrong.)

This is unfortunate, because the result is that moderns seem to have concluded that ancient thought and religion points to the cultivation of some ethereal inner peace. Yet such inner peace could only ever have been an ideal to coincide with action--but could have never been fully achieved in the face of the constant threat of violence and death. One does not receive a death sentence after a life of intense service with a sigh and an “oh well”. One does not pursue such a life with a sigh and an “oh well”. Seneca cultivated his famous coolness by confronting and defeating—over and over—a torrent of emotion. This is the true inner meaning of Stoicism.

As a result, the accounts of the thoughts of these men have been thoroughly sterilized, their words taken out of context of their lives. We are led to believe that spiritual greatness consists in placidity as we meditate on a yoga mat in our air conditioned apartments. I believe if these men knew that this would be the dominant interpretation of the ancient tradition, they would have winced and provided an account of the heroic for posterity, and of the pain required of heroic courage. They never would have anticipated the cowardice of later generations, who would have confused their teachings with the means of pursuing inner comfort, who would take these ancient spiritual traditions as justifications for silence and inaction.

Batman and the Joker are each in the grip of a very painful experience at seeing an unjust world. Each are motivated by that painful experience to do something about it, one to create injustice, the other to ensure justice. But neither are placid, sitting on yoga mats, doing guided meditations to work out their inner conflicts.

OK, Batman might have been, sometimes--but never for the purpose of "inner peace"--but rather, to understand and see how the ideals might be actualized with the mindful restraint that otherwise passionate aggressive ethical action--i.e., beating the living hell out of people, ethically--necessarily requires. The difference between Batman and a very good man was clear—Batman never sought to rid himself of his pain.

As moderns, we must synthesize a thoroughly modern account of the heroic, courageous, and indeed of the psychological pain with the ancient traditions to reach the full meaning of those traditions. These traditions only became "opiates of the masses" at a later date--but that is a frank misreading of their true meaning.

To avoid misreading the ancients, their doctrines must be thoroughly and constantly supplemented with modern accounts of vigor, inner power, and courage in the face of pain to counteract our pernicious modern bias of passivity.

Do we need more of an emphasis on the overcoming of fear, of what it takes to be courageous and a spiritually complete person of action, as a part of mainstream spiritual teachings? Do we need, in short, superhero psychodrama to be embedded into modern spiritual messaging? I believe so.

The predicament that we are in today--with such a widespread absence of moral courage--calls for a change. Without writing about, explaining, and promoting moral courage--explaining how to think about it and what exactly it means and entails--all of our spiritual knowledge and development will remain a purely private affair. We need to emphasize it, not as an afterthought, but as a centrality of an authentically moral and spiritual life.

Until that happens, we will continue meditating placidly on our yoga mats while Rome burns.