Thought

The Positive And Negative Power Of Humiliation

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In our perpetual quest for mastery over ourselves and our environment, we are often reminded that life can deal us hardships.  The Chinese peasant has been wont to say that he must get used to “eating bitterness.” But what if there were a way to turn this to our advantage? What if there were a way to harness the power of humiliation, so to speak, and channel this negative energy into something good?

Humiliations for some people serve as impetus to higher achievement.  For others, they can undermine confidence and erode a positive outlook.  This truism is illustrated in the life and career of the Arabic grammarian Sibawayhi (c. 760-796).  He is considered the first, and some say the greatest, of the medieval scholars of the Arabic language.

When Arabic spread out over a wide geographic area after the seventh century, it came to be adopted by a large number of cultures and nations who had had no exposure to it.  There was a pressing need for a proper understanding of how to read texts, since Arabic—like other Semitic languages, such as Hebrew—is normally written without letters for vowels.  Proper care for the nuances of the classical language plays a large role in Arabic linguistics.

His full name was Abu Bishr Amr ibn Uthman ibn Qanbar, but this mouthful was mercifully shortened by the nickname of Sibawayhi.  He was an ethnic Persian, born in the city of Hamadan, and not an Arab; his father had been a convert to Islam.  Some historians say he was given the nickname “Sibawayhi” (which means “smell of apples” in Persian) because his breath had a pleasant odor.  His native language was Persian, and he always spoke Arabic with a heavy Persian accent.

This fact was later to play a significant role in his life, as we will see.

Sibawayhi’s original intention had been to study jurisprudence in Basra.  But a humiliating event occurred there that changed the course of his life.  We are told that he was conversing with a group of Arabs, and they began to make fun of his accent.  Angered and humiliated, he responded by telling them that “one day, I will teach you Arabic.”

So he switched the focus of his studies from law to grammar.  The humiliation that he had suffered at the hands of his peers spurred him on to greater achievement.  He eventually went on to produce the first compendium of Arabic linguistics, which tradition has simply given the name “the book” or الكتاب .

So Sibawayhi was able to turn his humiliation into something productive.  His compendium of grammar deals with a vast amount of linguistic detail:  verbal objects, infinitives, topics of sentences, cases and case endings, particles, broken plurals, morphology, syntax, and various recondite phonetic matters.   But it is also a book of literature, in the sense that it is filled with anecdotes and quotations from other authorities.

But, like so many things in life, what had been the source of his elevation also was a factor in his undoing.  While he permitted humiliation to motivate him to great effort, he allowed it to upset his serenity.  The story may be apocryphal, but we cannot be sure.

Around 793, at the court of the caliph in Baghdad, a rival grammarian named al-Kisa’i challenged Sibawayhi to a contest of knowledge involving an abstruse proposition in grammar.  The issue was the correct construction of the last few words of this sentence:

قالت العرب: قد كُنْتُ أَظُنُّ أنَّ الْعَقْرَبَ أَشَدُّ لَسْعَةَ من الزُّنْبُوْرِ فَإِذَا هُوَ هِيَ أو فَإِذَا هُوَ إِيَاهَا

I translate this sentence as:  “The Arabs say:  I used to think that a scorpion’s sting hurts more than a hornet’s, but they were the same.”

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The question that al-Kisa’i put to Sibawayhi was this:  should the last three words of the sentence above (فَإِذَا هُوَ إِيَاهَا) be written as it is written above, or should it read: فَإذَا هُوَ هِيَ ?

Or, if we transliterate into English, should the last three words be “fa’idha huwwa iyaha” or “fa’idha huwwa hiyya?”  Or are both constructions correct?

Sibawayhi’s answer was that the first construction listed above was the only correct one.  When some Bedouin Arabs (who were considered the finest of native speakers) in the audience heard this, they contradicted Sibawayhi.  Tradition tells us, however, that they had actually been bribed by al-Kisa’i to contradict Sibawayhi, and that both formations are equally valid.

Regardless, Sibawayhi was again humiliated, and this time it embittered him.  For all his intellectual abilities and commanding mastery of the Arabic language, he had been unable to exert mastery over himself.  He left Baghdad for Persia, and died in Shiraz around 796, apparently of some ailment.  His tomb can still be seen in Shiraz today.

Humiliations can both make us, or break us.  It is up to us to decide which of these outcomes will have the most lasting effect on our consciences.  With proper control of the passions and emotions, it is possible to turn the negative experience of humiliation into something that is a benefit.

 

Read More:  Making Mead The Roman Way

Talent Applied Consistently Is Never Wasted

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The following parable is found in Aulus Gellius (XVI.19), who himself takes it from Herodotus (I.23).  It reminds us that effort and talent, if applied consistently, will eventually reap rewards.

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Arousing The Fighting Spirit In Your Men

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The historian Sextus Julius Frontinus (c. 40-103 A.D.) wrote an interesting book called Stratagems (Strategamaton) which provides historical examples of various military ruses.  It is actually a vast digest of historical examples that was meant to serve as a commander’s handbook of military advice.  One of the chapters I was reading recently I wanted to share with readers here.  It is called “How An Army Should Be Aroused To Battle (Quemadmodum incitandus sit ad proelium exercitus).

Frontinus gives us a series of examples on this topic.  He teaches by way of illustration, not by explanation.  The reader is expected to draw his own conclusions on the wider principles involved.  Here are his examples (taken from I.11 et seq.) of how armies and men can be inspired to do battle.

1.  Fulvius Nobilior was fighting against the Samnites with a small force.  He was losing.  So he pretended that one legion of his enemy had been bribed by him to turn traitor, even though this was not true.  Fulvius had his men set aside a large sum of money in furtherance of this assertion.  He promised his men that when victory had been achieved, he would amply reward those who had contributed gold and silver for the alleged “payoff.”  Fired by this promise, the Romans attacked with ferocity and won a great victory.  Sometimes it is necessary to deceive even your own men.

2.  Caesar was fighting against the Germans and their king, Ariovistus.  He called his men together and told them that he was especially selecting one of his units–the Tenth Legion–to attack the enemy alone.  He praised the unique qualities and heroism of unit to his other units.  By doing this, he inspired in the other units a healthy feeling of competition and envy.  In this way, he raised the fighting morale of all his units.

3.  Agesilaus, a Spartan general, had pitched his camp near the city of Orchomenos.  He learned that many of his soldiers were storing their possessions within the safety of the town.  So he told the townspeople not to accept any of his soldiers’ belongings.  He reasoned that his men would fight better knowing that they were fighting for their worldly goods, and that there was no safe place for such things except through combat.

4.  Epaminondas once lied to his men about the intentions of the Spartans.  He told his men–falsely–that if they were to lose to the Spartans, that the Spartans would slay all males and destroy the city of Thebes.  Inspired by courage born of desperation, the Thebans attacked the Spartans with ferocity and overwhelmed them.

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5.  Pericles, on one occasion before battle, had one of his troops actually dress up as a “god” and appear partially obscured in a grove of trees and announce that the Athenians had been divinely selected for victory.  When his men heard things, they were filled with ardor.

6.  The commander Quintus Sertorius was once using barbarian troops who were known to be superstitious.  So he brought around his camp a perfectly white deer, and took it around with him.  He used this animal as a talisman and a good-luck charm, and claimed that it had come to him by way of the gods.  His men were inspired by this spectacle.  (This incident is mentioned in Aulus Gellius, XV.22).

7.  Alexander the Great was known to manipulate the entrails of animals so that it appeared that the livers of the sacrificial victims were imprinted with his initials.  By using such hocus-pocus, he would convince his men that the gods were on their side.

8.  Gelo, the tyrant of Syracuse, knew his men were fearful of their enemies the Carthaginians.  To dispel this feeling, he had some captured Carthaginians stripped naked and paraded, so that his men could see that they were fragile mortals like all other men.

9.  Cyrus, king of the Persians, liked to keep his men busy and occupied.  He ordered them to cut down a forest on one day.  On the next day, he gave them a feast.  When he asked them which even they liked better, they told him, “the feast.”  He responded by saying that a feast has no taste unless it has been won by labor.  This was how he motivated them for battle against his foes.

10.  Lucius Sulla used the same tactic as Cyrus.  He wore out his men with tedious and exhausting tasks, so that eventually they came to prefer battle to having to fulfill his manual labor assignments.

These, then, are some of the ways that ancient commanders inspired their men to enter battle with enthusiasm.  The methods use a mix of trickery, shame, and psychological insight into the motivations of men.  Here is illustrated a principle:  appeals to altruistic goals are often not enough.  To get men moving, something more is often needed.  This is not an absolute principle; in history, men have often been inspired by religious, ideological, or patriotic motivations.  But other incentives certainly do help.

Read More:  Invective Has A Distinguished Lineage

Quintilian’s Guidelines For Boys’ Reading

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The Roman rhetorician and teacher Quintilian (c. A.D. 35-100) is a rich source of tutelage for the student of proper speaking and writing.  His Institutio Oratoria explores hundreds of subjects related to rhetoric and educational techniques.  He remains a master of melioration.  One section of his treatise (I.8) discusses guidelines related to reading habits for boys.

1.  Reading, says Quintilian, should in the first place be “manly and dignified” and should “show a certain seriousness” (virilis et cum sanctitate quadam gravis).

2.  The boy should be able to understand the basics of the text.  That is, it should not be on such an advanced level that it leaves him bewildered.  He might not know everything, but he should have enough to keep his attention.

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3.  Young minds are very impressionable.  Care should be taken regarding what is put in front of them.  Reading material must, therefore, be morally improving.  I’ve written about this before in various places (i.e., in my book Thirty-Seven), and will say it again:  the formation of character in young men is where the modern educational system shows itself to be woefully deficient.

4.  Quintilian recommends the epic poets Homer and Virgil as good places to start.  Of course, the youth will not be able to process all that is happening, but at least he will be exposed to the very best right from the beginning:

Ideoque optime institutum est ut ab Homero atque Vergilio lectio inciperet, quamquam ad intellegendas eorum virtutes firmiore iudicio opus est; sed huic rei superest tempus, neque enim semel legentur. [I.8.5].

(“Therefore it is the best method that one begin with reading from Homer and Virgil, even though a more experienced judgment is needed for comprehending the virtues of these books; but there will be time enough for this, since these books are not read only once.”)

The point here is to expose the young mind to good things at a time when they will be able to shape consciousness.

5.   Tragedy and lyric poetry is very good and can be used for instruction, but care must be used in its selection.  There is much licentious material in these Greek poets, and in Horace also, our strict schoolmaster Quintilian cautions (Nam et Graeci licenter multa e Horatium nolim in quibusdam interpretari).

6.  Overt erotic poetry should be reserved only for later years.  Young boys have no business being exposed to such material.

7.  Comedy is very good for instruction, as it teaches boys to stay on their toes and cultivate their rhetorical abilities.

8.  In all things, the texts selected should be those that “nourish the mind and character (quae maxime ingenium alant atque animum augeant praelegenda).”  Academic scholarship must take a distinct back seat to the shaping of character.  Character first, everything else second.

9.  Very often, the older material is better than the newer literature, since the older material has stood the test of time.  Older writers took greater care in stylistic formation and precision.

10.  Quintilian valued “a high moral tone” and “manliness” in his writers for young men.  Has anyone ever given us better guidance than this, in our modern era of complete neglect of these virtues?  He says:  Sanctitas certe et, ut sic dicam, virilitas ab iis petenda est, quando nos in omnia delicarum vitia dicendi quoque ratione defluximus.  And this means the following:

Truly, a dignity and, if I may say, a manliness, must be sought from them [writers], since we have degenerated into moral vices even in our way of speaking.

12.   We should also read the speeches of the great orators, and use their verbal agility as a guide in forming our own writing and speaking skills.

All in all, this is admirable advice.  If I had a son, this is the kind of general guidance I would want to see applied in his studies.  Character first, knowledge second.  Unfortunately, it is wisdom that has been nearly forgotten.

 

Read More:  The Wisdom Of Thomas a Kempis

 

Where History, Biology, And Religion Intersect

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Some recent articles I’ve read have made me reflect on the interrelationship between religion, science, and history. How do they intersect, and how has one influenced the other?

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Behind Everything Is The Unknowable

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The never-ending debate between faith and reason, and between science and religion, leaves us more perplexed than ever.  Explanations generate more questions than they answer.  Behind every apparent certainty lies an inscrutable unknown.  If we see science and religion as opposite poles, then perhaps we can begin to see the wisdom in Herbert Spencer’s assertion in his Autobiography that “Truth generally lies in the coordination of antagonistic principles.”  That is, Aristotle’s conception of the “golden mean” seems to be the best determiner of truth.  So, for example, courage can be seen as the median between the extremes of rashness and cowardice.

Neither science nor religion can answer all questions.  The atheist rashly believes that science contains all the answers that matter.  But we find just as many absurdities in science as we do in religion.  Do we really even know what matter is?  As we divide and subdivide the atom, we get a nearly infinite plethora of particles, strings, waves, and vibrations, all existing (we think!) in an uneasy cacaphony.  Space, time, and motion all seem to be (so we are told) relative to everything else, a fact that leaves us feeling more helpless and bewildered than ever.  Grand theories that purport to explain everything are replaced every few decades by ever more grand theories.  We are left to scratch our heads.

The theologian hardly fares better.  He constructs intricate cobwebs of metaphysics to convince himself and others of the eternal truths that, with the passage of a few centuries, appear to be neither eternal nor true.  Perhaps the problem lies in the limitations of thinking itself, in the very process of cognition.  If we choose to think one way, we are steered towards “rational” explanations; if we choose to think another way, we are steered towards “spiritual” explanations.  Viewed in this way, it is not difficult to reconcile religion and science.  Both of them are different ways of approaching the Unknowable.  Our very act of thinking helps determine the outcome of the thought.

What is evolution?  Spencer defined it as “an integration of matter and a concomitant dissipation of motion; during which the matter passes from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity…”  That is, systems move from a state of chaos to something that looks more ordered and “coherent.”  But things do not “evolve” upwardly forever.  At some point, what was once evolution begins to disintegrate back into disorder and simplicity.  Empires collapse; societies disintegrate; and genius reduces itself to absurdity.  Disorder evolves from order, and then the process begins again.  Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence is a reality.  All things will repeat themselves, as prophesied in Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue when he says (IV.31):

A second Typhys will then arise, and a second Argo to carry
Chosen heroes; a second war will be fought, and great Achilles be sent again to Troy.

With regard to biology, Nature cares more about groups of organisms than about individual organisms.  It is the perpetuation of the species that matters for Nature; she cares little for the virtue of the individual, only the fecundity of the race.  In fact, intelligence and fertility seem to be inversely related:  as intelligence grows, so is lessened the desire to breed.  On average, scientists and philosophers are not known for their procreative abilities.  The more highly developed a group or an individual is, the less fertile the group or individual seems to be.  It is as if all of the energy normally devoted to procreation is channeled into the refinements of civilization.

Organisms adapt themselves to their environments by the processes of natural selection; those traits that help ensure the survival of the species are passed on, and those that contribute little or nothing are marginalized.  The individual organism has little or no say in this grand process.  The process is random, uncontrolled, and imperceptible.

Is there a role for the individual in this seemingly impersonal process?  Apparently not.  At least this has been the rule historically; but it appears that humans are approaching some sort of tipping point where they will finally be able to “influence” the process of evolution.  Nanotechnology, genetic engineering, and robotics are poised to change the very definition of what it means to be human.  We are creating our replacements.  They are right before our eyes.

And this is precisely the point.  Once we begin to control the natural process of evolution–by using these new technologies–we have taken an evolutionary detour from which there will be no return.  We will have taken, perhaps, the first steps towards the development of a new species:  homo mechanicus.

We are evolving ourselves right into oblivion.

Read More:  Samuel Griffith:  Warrior And Scholar

 

The Rise And Fall Of Empires: Ibn Khaldun’s Theory Of Social Development

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The most remarkable figure in medieval historiography was Abd al-Rahman Ibn Khaldun; his name in Arabic is أبو زيد عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي‎, but this is mercifully shortened to us simply as Ibn Khaldun.  He was an urbane and well-traveled figure, whose life experiences taught him intimate lessons on both rulers and ruled.  He was born in Tunis, North Africa, in 1332 and received the best education of his day; his absorption of knowledge was made easier, he tells us, by his zealous devotion to travel and study.

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On Whether It Is Better To Criticize, Or To Remain Silent

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The great Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla (1406-1457) took great pride in his constant need to attack his forebearers, as well as his contemporaries.  Few escaped the wrathful attentions of his pen.  Yet Valla saw himself as an upholder of the classical virtues, and for him, criticism was a form of moral duty.  He said in 1440 in one letter to Joan Serra:

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The Practical Wisdom Of Thomas A Kempis

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One of the most enlightening yet now underappreciated books of “personal improvement” is a small volume entitled The Imitation of Christ.  It was written by an obscure cleric named Thomas a Kempis in the late medieval period in Germany.  His name has various spellings, among them Thomas Von Kempen and Thomas Haemerkken.

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Invective Has A Distinguished Lineage

Quintus Curtius Thought ,

Acquaintance with the ancient art of invective reminds us just how hypersensitive today’s reading audience can be.  We often hear tiresome complaints from some quarters about how some article or other on the internet “triggered” someone, or how some author is a “horrible person” for upsetting someone’s serenity.  It was not always so.  Invective and personal attack have a long and distinguished history.

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