Weakening Of Judgment & The Decline Of The Critical Spirit

When one turns from the creation of thought and knowledge to the manner in which knowledge is spread and thought is taken up and used, the aspect changes. The state of what may be called popular thinking is not only one of crisis but of a crisis full of decay and danger.

How naïve the glad and confident hope of a century ago, that the advance of science and the gen­ eral extension of education assured the progressive perfection of society, seems to us to-day ! Who can still seriously believe that the translation of scientific tri­ umphs into still more marvellous technical achieve­ ments is enough to save civilization, or that the eradication of illiteracy means the end of barbarism! Modern society, with its intensive development and mechanisation, indeed looks very different from the dream vision of Progress!

The social life of our time shows a multitude of disquieting symptoms which can best be grouped under the heading “Weakening of Judgment.” It is really rather disheartening. We live in a world which is infinitely better informed about itself, its nature and its possibilities than at any time in history. We know better than our ancestors what the universe is and how it functions, how the living organism oper­ ates, how the things of the spirit are related, how the historical sequence of events is to be understood.

The human subject has more knowledge of himself and his world than ever before. Man has become greatly more capable of judgment, intensively in so far as the mind penetrates deeper into the composi­tion and nature of things, extensively in so far as his knowledge extends over a very much wider range and especially in so far as a certain degree of knowl­ edge is spread over a much greater number of in­ dividuals. Society regarded in the abstract knows it­ self. To “know thyself” was ever thought the essence of wisdom. The conclusion would seem inescapable:
the world has grown wiser. Risum teneatis.

We know better. Folly in all its various forms, from the frivolous and ridiculous to the wicked and de­ structive, was never so manifest throughout the world. It is now no longer a theme for a clever and smiling dissertation of a high-minded and gravely concerned humanist like Erasmus. We must regard the infinite folly of our time as a disease of society, analyse its symptoms, and attempt soberly and realistically to determine its nature with a view to seeking the means of curing it.

The fallacy of the syllogism: “Self-knowledge is wisdom—the world knows itself better than before— ergo the world has grown wiser,” originates with the ambiguity of the terms. “The world” in the abstract has neither knowledge nor power of action; it mani­ fests itself solely through the thinking and action of individuals. The term “knowledge,” furthermore, is anything but interchangeable with wisdom, a point which hardly needs elaboration.

In a society characterised by universal popular edu­cation, extensive and immediate publicity of the day- to-day life, and advanced division of labour, the average person grows less and less dependent on his own faculties of thought and expression. On the sur­face this might seem paradoxical. For it is usually assumed that in a cultural environment of lesser in­ tellectual intensity and with a relatively smaller spread of knowledge, individual thought will be under greater limitations, confined as it is within a narrow range of contacts, than in a more highly de­ veloped society. One associates with this more re­stricted thinking the qualities of conformity to pat­tern and sameness. This should not blind us to the fact, however, that with its more limited equipment and within this narrower range, such thinking centred on the subject’s own sphere of life achieves a degree of independence which is lost in more in­ tensively organised periods. The peasant, the mariner or the artisan of earlier times had in the sum total of his knowledge the pattern in which to view the world and its life. He knew himself unqualified to judge what lay beyond his ken (unless he were one of the professional talkers common to all times). He accepted authority knowing his judgment to be de­ fective. In his acknowledged limitations lay his wis­dom. It was the very limitation of his power of expression which, leaning on the pillars of the Holy Book and proverbial lore, often gave him style and eloquence.The modern organisation of knowledge-distribution is only too destructive of the beneficial effects of such intellectual limitations. To-day the average inhabitant of the western hemisphere knows a little of every­ thing. He has the newspaper on his breakfast table and the wireless within reach. For the evening there is the film, cards, or a meeting to complete a day spent in the office or factory where nothing that is essential has been learnt. With slight variations this picture of a low cultural average holds good over the entire range, from factory-hand or clerk to manager or director. Only the personal will to culture, in what­ ever field and however pursued, raises modern man above this level. Observe that we speak here only of culture in the narrower sense of the possession of a certain treasure of beauty and wisdom. It is not im­ possible that the average person of limited culture nevertheless succeeds in raising his life to a higher level through his activity in other fields such as the religious or the social.

Even where there is a genuine desire for knowledge and beauty, the noisy obtrusiveness of the modern cultural apparatus still makes it very difficult for the average man to escape the danger of having his no­tions and values forced upon him. A knowledge which is as diversified as it is superficial and an in­tellectual horizon which is too wide for an eye un­ armed with critical equipment, must inevitably lead to a weakening of the power of judgment.

This forcible feeding and defenceless acceptance of notions and values are not peculiar to the things of the intellect alone. In his appreciation of beauty and sentiments also the modern man labours under the strong pressure of low-quality mass-production. An excessive offer of trivial illusions supplies him with a hollow and false pattern for his tastes and feelings.

In this connection one other alarming but in­ escapable fact obtrudes. In older and more restricted forms of society man made his own entertainment. People sang, danced or played together. In the civiization of today all this has largely made way for watching others sing, dance or play. Of course there have always been performers and audiences. But the significant thing is that in our time the passive ele­ment is constantly gaining on the active one. Even in the field of sport, that vastly important part of modern culture, there is a growing tendency for the masses to have others play for them. This withdrawal from active participation in cultural activities has been rendered even more complete through the film and the radio. The transition from theatre to cinema is the transition from watching a play to watching the re­flection of a play. Word and gesture are reduced from living action to mere reproduction. The voice carried through the ether is no more than an echo. Even the spectacle of sporting events comes to be replaced by the surrogates of ringside broadcasts and newspaper reports. All this contains an element of cultural enfeeblement and devitalisation. It is particularly ap­parent in one other important aspect of the cinematic art of to-day. Dramatic action itself is practically en­tirely expressed in the outwardly visible while the spoken word is relegated to a place of only secondary importance. The art of watching has become mere skill at rapid apperception and understanding of continuously changing visual images. The younger generation has acquired this cinematic perception to an amazing degree. This novel bent of mind, how­ ever, means the atrophy of a whole series of intel­lectual functions. To realise this one need only con­sider the difference between following a comedy of Molière and a film. Without claiming superiority of intellectual over visual understanding, one is never­theless bound to admit that the cinema allows a number of æsthetic-intellectual means of perception to remain unexercised which cannot but lead to a weakening of judgment.

The mechanism of modern mass-entertainment, furthermore, is inimical to concentration. Mechanical reproduction of sound and spectacle virtually pre­cludes the element of surrender and absorption: there is no awe, no stillness, no communing with the inner­ most self. Such stillness and communion with the soul, however, are the very things without which there can be no true culture.

The susceptibility of the average modern to pic­torial suggestion enables advertising to exploit his lessened power of judgment. We are thinking here of both commercial advertising and political propa­ganda. Through an arresting picture the advertise­ ment evokes the thought of gratifying a desire. The picture and the phrase are filled with as much senti­ment as possible. They serve to create a mood dispos­ing the mind towards formation of judgment at a passing glance. It is not easy to say how the advertise­ment works through in the individual brain and how it achieves its aim. Does the individual’s decision to buy spring direcdy from his seeing or reading the advertisement? Or does the latter merely plant a memory in the consciousness of the multitude to which it reacts mechanically ? Is there reason to speak of a certain intoxicating effect?—The operation of political propaganda is even more difficult to analyse. Has anyone on his way to the polls ever been moved in favour of a certain choice by the sight of the various swords, hatchets, hammers, cog-wheels, clenched fists, rising suns, bleeding hands and severe countenances which the political parties flourish before his eyes? We shall not try to answer the question. At any rate it is certain that the advertisement in all its forms speculates upon an enfeebled judgment and that through its inordinate extension the advertisement it­self contributes to this enfeeblement.

• • •

Our time, then, is faced by the discouraging fact that two highly vaunted achievements of civilization, universal education and modern publicity, instead of raising the level of culture, appear ultimately to produce certain symptoms of cultural devitalisation and degeneration. The masses are fed with an hitherto undreamt-of quantity of knowledge of all sorts, but there is something wrong with its assimilation. Un­digested knowledge hampers judgment and stands in the way of wisdom.

Has society no way of escape from this process of intellectual and spiritual cheapening? Is it to go on ever further? Or will it reach a point of all-pervading extension where it will work itself out? These are questions which must wait till we formulate the con­clusions of this study and which, even then, will find no definite answer. For the moment there are other signs of cultural degeneration which must first be considered.

THE DECLINE OF THE CRITICAL SPIRIT

Apart from the general weakening of judgment which we discussed in the foregoing, there is reason to speak also of a weakening of the critical spirit, a decline of the critical capacities, a diminishing regard for truth, this time not as a mass phenomenon of the consumers of knowledge but as an organic failing on the part of those who produce it. Related to this decadence-symptom there is still another which we may call the perversion of the function of science or the misuse of science as a means. Let us attempt to deal with this group of phenomena.

At the same moment that science began to reveal its formerly undreamt-of potentialities for dominating nature, vastly extending human power by virtue of its new depth of insight, its capacity to serve as a touchstone of pure knowledge and a guide rule for life declined. The proportion between its various functions changed.

These functions have long been threefold: acquisi­tion and extension of knowledge, education of society to higher and purer forms of civilization, and creation of means to adapt and control natural forces. During the rise of modern science in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the first two functions generally kept pace with one another while the third still lagged far behind. The advance of knowledge and the reces­sion of ignorance and superstition filled people with enthusiasm. There was not a soul to doubt the high educational and guidance value of science at that time.

More was built on it than its foundations could ever support. With every new discovery the world and its processes came to be better understood. A certain ethical gain was implied in this growing lucidity of the enquiring mind. Meanwhile, what we have called the third function of science, the creation of technical means, made relatively little progress. Electricity was a curiosity for the educated public. Up till the beginning of the nineteenth century the age-old forms of traction and transmission of power remained virtually unchallenged. For the eighteenth century one might express the relationship between the three functions of science, extension of knowledge, education, and creation of technical means, in the series 8:4:1.

If one desired to give numerical expression to their relationship in our time it might be 2 :16 :16, for in­stance. The proportion between the three functions has become an entirely different one. Perhaps this low estimate of the educational value of science rela­tive to its knowledge and application values will arouse a storm of protest. And yet, could anyone maintain that the marvellous discoveries of modern science, inaccessible to the minds of any but the initi­ated few, as they necessarily must be, still continue to contribute materially to the general level of cul­ture? Even the best teaching at universities and in­ferior educational institutions cannot alter the fact that, while the acquisition of knowledge and its tech­nical application are still daily progressing at an astounding pace, the educational value of science is now no greater than it was a century ago.
The human being of to-day seldom, if ever, looks to science [Translator’s Note: The word “science” is used throughout in its wider meaning of the pursuit of knowledge in general— the German Wissenschaft.] for his philosophy of life. It is not science itself which is to blame. There is a strong tendency away from science. People no longer believe in its capacity for guidance, and not altogether without reason; there has been a time when science claimed too large a share of the world’s mastery. But there is also something else besides natural reaction: deterio­ration of the intellectual conscience. The impulse to achieve a maximum of objectivity and exactness in thinking on the rationally comprehensible, and to apply the test of criticism to such thinking, is weaken­ing. A vast and murky twilight seems to have spread over numberless minds. All the delimitations between the logical, the aesthetic and the emotive functions are purposely ignored. Sentiment is allowed to play a part in forming judgment regardless of the object of judgment and in direct negation of the claims of the critical intellect. Intuition is called upon to justify a choice which in reality is based on emotional pre­disposition. Interest and desire are confused with consciousness of truth. And to justify all this, what actually is the abandonment of the logical principle itself is paraded as the necessary revolt against the supreme rule of reason.

We have all long since outgrown the belief in a tyrannically consistent rationalism. We realise that not everything can be measured by reason. The ad­vance of thought itself has brought us this realisa­tion. A richer and deeper understanding than the solely rational has given greater meaning to our knowledge. But where the wise man, through freer and ampler judgment, finds a deeper sense in things and life, the fool finds in this freedom only licence for greater nonsense. It is a truly tragic consequence: in the process of realising the limitations of reason the modern mind has become susceptible to absurdi­ties to which it had long been immune. The neglect of the veto of criticism can best be illustrated with a few words about racial theories.

Anthropology is an important branch of natural his­tory. It is a biological science with a strong historical element like geology and palaeontology. Through exact methodical research based on principles of heredity, it has constructed a system of race differenti­ation whose utility yields only to that of other biological constructions, inasmuch as the criterion of skull measurement on which its conclusions are based leaves a relatively wide margin of doubt. The physical characteristics by which anthropology with varying degrees of positivity distinguishes races seem in gen­eral to be correlated with certain intellectual and spiritual features. The Chinese differ from the Eng­lish not only in appearance but in spirit also. To make this statement, however, means that in the consideration of the phenomenon of race one has unwittingly included that of culture. For the Chinese and the English are products of race plus culture.

In other words, the ascertainment of intellectual and spiritual race qualities is only possible after adding to the object under investigation (race) the anthro­pologically immeasurable element of culture. To as­sume an exclusively biological determination of spiritual race qualities is an obvious fallacy. For it is incontestable that at least some of the spiritual fea­tures of a race owe their development to the condi­tions and environment in which the particular race has grown up. A scientific separation of this extrane­ous element from the supposedly indigenous one is not possible. Nor can any research establish specific correlations connecting the physical peculiarities of a race with their intellectual counterparts (assum­ing that such intellectual characteristics could be shown to be common to anentire race at all). As long as anthropology suffers from these inabilities the belief that character is determined by race must con­tinue to lack scientific support. Even when sur­rounded with the necessary reservations it remains uncertain and indefinite knowledge. But if one ac­cepts the reservation that the concept of race cannot be handled without qualifying it with that of culture, one thereby virtually abandons the claim to a scientifi­cally formulated principle of race, in which case one will do well not to build any conclusions on it.

For instance, if intellectual genius could be traced to race, then it would seem evident that, conversely, similarity of race ought to follow from similarity of genius. The Jews and the Germans have a striking genius for philosophy and music. Conclusion: there must be a strong racial affinity between the Ger­mans and the Jews. The conclusion is absurd, but no more absurd than those which nowadays enjoy popularity with vast numbers of educated people.

The current vogue for racial theories in their political and cultural application is not due to any particu­lar obtrusion of the science of anthropology. It is rather an instance of the vindication of a popular doctrine which for a long time and until recently had never been able to pass the tests necessary to gain admittance to the domain of critically verified knowl­edge. From the outset rejected as untenable by genu­ine science, the doctrine of racial superiority had carried on its existence for half a century in a sphere of romantic fancy and sham erudition until political circumstances suddenly placed it on a pedestal from which it now dares to dictate scientific truths. This doctrine of superiority based on alleged racial purity has always exercised a strong attraction for the popular mind, because it is essentially cheap and be­ cause it appeals to a romantic spirit uncontrolled by the critical impulse and preoccupied with a desire for self-glorification. It was the fumes of a stale ro­manticism which clouded the spirits of men like H. S. Chamberlain, Schemann and Woltmann. The success of the views propounded by Madison Grant and Lothrop Stoddard, who branded the labourer as belonging to an inferior race, was of a malodorous political flavour.

The argument of race in cultural conflicts is always self-praise. Has a race-theorist ever made the starding and shaming discovery that the race to which he deemed himself to belong is inferior? The motive is always exaltation of self and kin over others and at the expense of others. The racial thesis is always hostile, always anti, a bad sign for a doctrine which claims to be scientific. The racially inspired attitude is anti-Asiatic, anti-African, anti-proletarian, anti-Semitic.

It must be clearly understood that we are not deny­ing the existence of serious problems and conflicts of a social, economic, or political nature arising from the contiguity of two races within one state or region. Nor do we deny that the feelings of one race for another may be in the nature of instinctive aversion. In both cases, however, the dividing element is ir­rational and it is not the task of science to present this irrational moment as a critically established rule of conduct. The existence of these racial aversions renders the quasi-scientific nature of applied theories of race all the more evident.

If an instinctive racial aversion is indeed biologi­cally determined (as would seem to be the case with those to whom the odour of the negro is decidedly offensive), the civilized person of only a short time ago would have considered it his duty to render him­ self account of the animal quality of this reaction and to control it as much as possible instead of fostering it and priding himself on it. A society built on Chris­tian foundations has never had room for a policy planned on “a zoological basis,” as the Ôsservatore Romano so apdy called it. In a society which leaves free play to racial hostility and even encourages it, the condition “culture is control over nature” re­mains unfulfilled.

In the condemnation of politically applied race theories one must make two reservations. First, there must be no confusion with a well-considered policy of practical eugenics. What the latter may still do for the public weal need not be considered here. Secondly, the self-exaltation of one people over an­ other need not necessarily be rooted in racial pre­tensions. The Latin peoples’ feeling of superiority has always been based on cultural qualities rather than on race. The French la race has never acquired that pure anthropological ring. Pride and self-exaltation in cultural nobility may sometimes be slightly more rational and even somewhat more legitimate than racial pride; they are forms of in­ tellectual vanity none the less.

From whichever angle one looks at it, the applica­tion of racial theories remains a striking proof of the lowered demands of public opinion upon the purity of critical judgment. The brakes of criticism are slipping.

The brakes are failing in other respects as well. It is undeniable that with the renewed desire for syn­thesis in the social sciences, in itself a healthy and beneficial reaction against the excessive analysis of a preceding period, the “hunch” has come to play a growing part in scientific production. There is an unending succession of bold syntheses, often con­structed with great skill and erudition, in which the “originality” of the author enjoys greater triumphs than would seem compatible with sober-minded science. The social philosopher sometimes assumes the rôle of the bel esprit of former ages, but it is often not quite clear whether in so doing he takes himself seriously, though he certainly intends to be taken seriously by his readers. The result is something which stands in between cultural philosophy and cultural fantasy. A strong tendency towards aesthetic forms of expression often adds still more to the con­fused character of the product.

The natural sciences are not plagued with afflic­tions of this type. They have in the mathematical formula the immediate test of the veracity, not of the validity, of their products. In their domain there is no place for the bel esprit and the charlatan is im­mediately expelled. It is both the privilege and the danger of the humanities that for expressing their ideas they need notions lying beyond the sphere of pure reason in the domain of aesthetic perception.

Over the entire range of the non-exact sciences judgment has become less definite, in contrast with the natural sciences which are able to demand ever greater accuracy of statement. The thoroughly ra­tional is no longer the unchallenged instrument it used to be. Judgment is less tempered by formula and tradition than before. How popular and indis­pensable have words like “vision,” “conception” or “introspection” become to indicate the process of forming knowledge! All this has brought a large measure of indefiniteness to judgment. This indefi­niteness may be beneficial. But it carries with it the danger of intellectual vacillation between steady con­viction and an easy toying with ideas. In view of the antinomic quality of thinking in general, already commented upon, the decision: “This I really think” has become greatly more difficult for the rigorously self-critical mind. For the shallow or prejudiced mind it has become all the more easy.

The lowering of the standards of critical judgment has, I think, been promoted in no small degree by the trend of thought which may be called the Freud­ian. Freudian psychiatry discovered significant data whose interpretation led research from the field of psychology on to that of sociology and culture. Then the not unusual phenomenon occurred that the mind trained in exact observation and analysis, when faced with the task of sociological, that is, inexact inter­pretation, shows itself completely lacking in norms by which to judge and evaluate scientific evidence.

And thus in this unfamiliar field it is led to jump from any “hunch” to the most far-reaching con­clusions which would crumble into nothingness the moment they were subjected to the test of the philosophical-historical method. If, then, the constructions so arrived at are furthermore accepted in wide circles as recognised truths, and their technical terms passed about as ready-made instruments of thought, large groups of a low critical average are accordingly given a welcome opportunity to play at science to their hearts’ content. Think only of the pitiful exhibitions of the authors of popular disserta­tions who explain everything about man and his world in psycho-analytical terms, building their spacious theories and conclusions on “symbols,” “complexes” and “phases of infantile psychic life”!

From:

IN THE SHADOW OF TOMORROW BY J. HUIZINGA

Spartan Education

Sparta, being a special example of the Greek archaic culture, naturally forms the second stage of our history. There we can see how Homer’s chivalric type of education persisted even when it was developing into something new. Sparta was essentially a military and aristocratic city, and it was never to go very far along the road towards what I have called “scribe-education.” On the contrary, it made it a point of honour to remain semi-illiterate. Even when its meticulous legislation covered nearly everything, including marital relationships, its spelling, by a curious exception, was never made uniform. In this field, as inscriptions show, there was the most remarkably smug anarchy. ( 1 ) With Crete, which was conservative, aristocratic and military like itself (2 ), Sparta has a special place in the history of Greek education, and Greek culture generally. It enables us to see the old Greek civilization in its archaic state and in an advanced state of development, at a time when Athens, for instance, has practically nothing to teach us. Even as far back as the eighth century, art was flourishing in Laconia, and the seventh was Sparta’s great age, reaching, in my opinion, its highest point — in about 600. ( 3) For this sudden development was subsequently abruptly checked. After leading the march of progress, Sparta reversed its role and became the supreme example of a conservative city grimly holding on to the old customs that everyone else had abandoned. It became in the eyes of Greece itself a country of paradox, dismissed as scandalous, or passionately admired by Utopian theorists. The archaic “peplos,” for instance, the robe open on the right side that was worn by the Lacedaemonian women, gave rise to malicious jibes from the more dirty-minded of the Athenians against “the women with the bare thighs.”

In fact what the Greeks themselves regarded as the originality of Laconian (and Cretan) institutions and customs seems to have been simply a result of the fact that in classical times these countries still retained certain features of the old civilization which had everywhere else been lost. It was not the result of any special spirit, any particular Dorian genius, as Müller tried to make out with his racial theories, that have been so popular in Germany for over a century. (4)

Unfortunately, the sources we have to rely on for any description of Spartan education are comparatively late. Xenophon and Plato only take us back to the fourth century, and their evidence is less explicit than Plutarch’s and that supplied by the inscriptions, most of which only date from the first and second centuries A.D. Now Sparta was not only conserva- tive but reactionary: in its determination to resist any natural development, to go against the current, to re-establish Lycur- gus* “traditional customs,” it was forced, from the fourth century onwards, into continual efforts at adjustment and restoration; and this led it to make many restorations of dubious validity, many false, pseudo-archaeological “integrations.” (5)

It would be necessary to probe beneath the surface of these later changes to obtain any real idea of the old Spartan education as it existed between the eighth and sixth centuries, and especially as it appeared in the splendid period that followed upon the final submission of Messenia, after the stubborn revolt of 640 610 ־had been crushed. But we know very little about the education of this golden age, compared with what we know of its culture.

THE CULTURE OF SPARTA IN THE ARCHAIC ERA

We know something about its culture from two sorts of evidence— fragments from the great lyrical poets Tyrtaeus and Aleman, and the astonishing results of the excavations conducted by the British School at Athens, particularly at the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia (1906-1910). When we put these two complementary pictures together we see a Sparta that is very different from the usual picture of a harsh, barbarous city petrified in an attitude of morose distrust. On the contrary, in archaic times Sparta was a great cultural centre open to strangers, to the arts, to beauty, to everything it would later pretend to reject. It was then what Athens was not to become until the fifth century— the centre of Hellenic civilization.

ITS MILITARY AND CIVIC CULTURE

It is true that between the eighth and the sixth centuries Sparta was primarily a military state. By power of arms it had conquered and held a stretch of territory which after the annexation of Messenia (735-716) made it one of the largest states in Greece. Its military prowess gave it a prestige that remained unchallenged until the Athenian victories in the Persian wars. The importance of the military ideal in its culture appears in Tyrtaeus’ elegies on war, which were beautifully illustrated in contemporary works of art— all glorifying the fighting hero. (6)

We can therefore assume that in this archaic period Spartan education was already— or rather still— essentially military, and consisted of a practical and theoretical apprenticeship in the art of war.

But it must be realized that things had changed, technically and ethically, since the feudal days described by Homer. The Spartans were not brought up to be knights, but soldiers; the atmosphere was that of the city-state, not the castle.

Behind this transformation lay a technical revolution: battles were no longer won by single-handed encounters, as had been the case particularly in the old heroes’ duels, but as a result of the clash of two lines of close infantry. Heavy infantry— made up of “hoplites”— now decided the result of battle. (Sparta certainly had a special cavalry corps— but it seems to have been a kind of State secret police.) This tactical revolution, as Aristotle realized with extraordinary insight,1 had profound moral and social consequences. (7)

Whereas the old Homeric ideal of the knight as one of the king’s troop had been profoundly personal, the new ideal was collective— devotion to the State— the polis — which became something it had never been in earlier ages, the focus of all human life, of all man’s spiritual activity. It was the totalitarian idea: the polis was everything, turning citizens into men. Hence the profound feeling of solidarity between them, hence the enthusiasm with which they could devote themselves to the interests of their common land, ready to sacrifice themselves, who were mortal, for their city which was immortal. “It is a noble thing to be in the front of the battle and die bravely fighting for one’s country,” 2 said Tyrtaeus, the finest spokesman of the new ethic. (8)

It was a moral revolution, in fact, giving rise to a new con-ception of “virtue,” of spiritual perfection, an arete  very different from the Homeric quality of the same name. Tyrtaeus very consciously compares the new ideal with the old. “I should not consider a man worthy to be remembered, nor think highly of him, merely because he was a good runner or wrestler— even though he was as big and strong as the Cyclops, swifter than Boreus the Thracian, more handsome than Titho, richer than Midas or Cinyras, stronger than King Pelops, son of Tantalus; though his speech were softer than Adrastus’ and he enjoyed every kind of fame— unless he was also valorous in arms, unless he could stand fast in battle.3 . . . That is the true valour— apex —ל ו׳the highest reward that a man can obtain from his feflows. It is a good common to all, a service to the city and the people as a whole, when every man can stand firm on his two feet in the front line and rid his heart of all idea of flight.”4 (9)

It will be seen how energetically the new ideal subordinated the human person to the political collectivity. From now on the aim of Spartan education, as Jager so happily put it, was to produce, not individual heroes, but an entire city of heroes— soldiers who were ready to give their lives for their country.

SPORTING FEATURES OF THE SPARTAN CULTURE

Spartan culture was not merely a matter of physical training, however. Although it was not very “lettered’] (12) it was not unacquainted with the arts. As in Homeric education, there was the essential Homeric element of music, which was central to the whole culture and acted as a link between its various parts, connected with gymnastics through dancing and through singing with poetry, the only form of literature known to archaic times.

Plutarch,7 in his inquiry into the origins of Greek music— for much of which he seems to have depended on Glaucus of Rhegion (13)— tells us that Sparta was the real musical capital of Greece in the seventh and early sixth centuries.

The first two schools— mentioned in his history are Spartan. The first, which produced Terpander, was noted for its vocal and instrumental solos and was in existence for the first two-thirds of the seventh century. The second “catastasis,” which existed at the end of the seventh and the beginning of the sixth century, specialized more in choral lyrics and produced musicians like Thaletas of Gortyna, Xenodamus of Cythera, Xenocrites of Locres, Polymnestus of Colophon and Sacadas of Argos. These are now hardly more than names to us, but in their day they were quite famous.

Better known are poets like Tyrtaeus and Aleman, who, being lyrical poets, were musicians as well. The fragments of their work that have come down to us show them to have been full of talent, and, indeed, genius.

The fact that most of these artists were foreign— for though it seems unlikely that Tyrtaeus was an Athenian, Aleman certainly seems to have come from Sardis— does not mean that Sparta had no original creative power in the arts but that she had considerable powers of attraction (as London attracted Handel and Paris Gluck). If creative artists and virtuosos flocked to Sparta, it was because they knew they would get the right audience there and have a chance of becoming famous. And here again we come across the new role being played by the polis Sparta’s artistic life— and its sporting life too— were given corporate expression in displays that were State institutions— the great religious festivals.

Early Sparta had a wonderful series of festivities through- out the year. (14) When sacrifices were made to the city’s tutelary deities there were solemn processions— like those of the Hyacinthia, in which girls in chariots and boys on horseback paraded to the accompaniment of singing. And there were all kinds of athletic and musical competitions. At the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, for instance, boys of ten or twelve years of age took part in two musical competitions and Spartan a “hunting ״game. A race was always a feature at the banquets held at the national Dorian festival, the Carnea. The Gymnopediae, organized by Thaletas, in- eluded recitals by two choirs, one of boys and the other of married men. Some of these displays take one by surprise. In the dances— in honour of Artemis, for instance, the performers wore queer, horrible old women’s faces: the style of these masks is in certain respects reminiscent of Maori art. (15)

Generally speaking, the festivals seem to have reached a high artistic level. There is a marvellous atmosphere of grace, poetry, youth, of playfulness and indeed roguishness (16) in the fragments which have been preserved of Aleman’s Partheneion, incomplete though they are,8 in which a chorus of girls describes in the most glowing terms the beauty of their chieftainesses, Agido and Hagesichora. And there is another frag-ment9 in which their old teacher— such technical perfection needed a great deal of teaching, with trainers and masters— appears in a very tender and moving relationship with the young choir-girls. He laments the fact that his limbs are too old for dancing any more, and longs to become a bird, the male halcyon, which the female birds carry on their wings.

This is clearly something very different from the Laconian severity of classical times, from that Sparta whose one interest was war, which was a barracks for “men who were musketeers and Carthusians rolled into one,” as Barrès said, quoting the Maréchal de Bassompière; very different, too, from the current idea of Sparta as the home of a barbarous utilitarianism in things in general, and a harsh, savage attitude to education.

THE GREAT REFUSAL

But this wonderful early spring was followed by a disappointing summer. Most historians agree that Sparta’s steady development came to an abrupt halt in about 550. (17) It began with a political and social revolution in which the aristocracy, perhaps led by the ephor Chilon, destroyed the popular risings that may have been caused by the second Messertian war, and at once set about the business of finding suitable means to maintain its power. Thus began the divorce between Sparta and the other Greek cities, which, on the whole, far from returning to any kind of aristocracy, were tending towards a more or less advanced form of democracy which was helped on decisively at this stage by the incidence of tyranny.

Sparta voluntarily petrified herself at the stage of development which had made her the leader of progress. After the annexation of Thyreatis (c. 550) she ceased to be a conquering nation. Politically, the ephors dominated the kings and the aristocracy dominated the people. There was an oppressive atmosphere of secrecy and police tyranny that weighed upon the citizens— and of course on foreigners too, who had previously been welcomed so hospitably. Now they became suspect, and lived under the continual threat of expulsion.

With this went a gradual decline of culture. Sparta renounced the arts and even athletics— because they were too disinterested, because they tended to develop strong personalities. No more Laconian champions appeared in the Olympic Games. (18) Sparta became an out-and-out military barracks, a city in the hands of a closed military caste that was kept permanently mobilized, entirely absorbed in its threefold task of defence— national, political and social.
As a result of this new situation there developed the classical form of Spartan education, traditionally ascribed to Lycurgus, though in fact we only get our first glimpse of it with its own special organization and methods from Xenophon at the beginning of the fourth century. Already the conservative spirit was beginning to react too far. This was especially marked in Xenophon’s own circle, the “old Spartans” centring round Agesilaus, who fought against the moral laxity that always follows victory. This laxity had spread through Sparta after its defeat of Athens in 404, which brought to an end the dreadful tension of the Peloponnesian war. Claiming to represent the old traditional discipline symbolized in the person of Lycurgus, these “old Spartans” opposed the new spirit as exemplified for instance in Lysander.

Their influence went on increasing throughout the days of fourth-century decadence, of utter collapse in the Hellenistic period, and in the lowly municipal status to which Sparta was reduced in imperial times. The greatness of Lacedaemon became no more than a memory, and Spartan education grew petrified, exaggerating its peculiarities with an increasing despairing violence as its sense of its own futility increased.

(...)

A TOTALITARIAN MORALITY
But soldiering demanded morale as well as technical skill, and education took this into account. In fact, the point is particularly emphasized in all our sources. The whole purpose of Spartan education was to build up character according to a clearly defined ideal— an ideal that has reappeared in all its savage and inhuman grandeur in the totalitarian states of twentieth-century Europe.

Everything was sacrificed to the safety and interest of the national community. The ideal was an absolute patriotism, devotion to the State carried to the supreme limit of death. The only standard of goodness was what served the interest of the city; whatever helped to increase the greatness of Sparta was right. Consequently, in relationships with foreign powers Machiavellianism was the rule, and in the fourth century there were to be some shocking examples of Machiavellianism from Spartan generals. (26) The result of all this was that the young men who were being educated were taught to be crafty, to tell lies and to thieve.6

As far as internal affairs were concerned the aim was to develop a community sense and a sense of discipline. “Lycurgus,” says Plutarch,7 “trained citizens so that they had no wish to live alone and had lost even the capacity for doing so; like bees they were always united behind their leaders for the public good.” In fact the citizen’s fundamental and almost only virtue was obedience. The child was trained to obey in the most minute detail. He was never left to himself without someone over him. He owed obedience to all who were ranged above him, from the little... to the “paidonomos” (who by law had “whipcarriers”— by his side ready to carry out his sentences).8 The child was also obliged to obey any adult citizen he met on the road.9

This kind of public morality, which was a mixture of devotion to one’s country and obedience to the laws, developed in an austere, ascetic atmosphere that was as typical of Sparta as it is of the modern States that have tried to imitate her. As Mussolini used to say, Spartan virtue demanded a “severe climate.” Sparta was intentionally puritanical, consciously opposed to the refinements of civilization. Spartan educators aimed at teaching their pupils how to endure pain from the time they were twelve onwards the children had to learn how to live hard, and the barbaric harshness of their way of life increased as they got older.

They went around in poor clothes, hatless, with shaven heads and bare feet, and slept on a litter of reeds from the Eurotas, lined in winter with a padding of thistle-flock.2 And they got very little to eat: if they wanted more, they were told to go and steal it.3 Manliness and fighting spirit were developed by way of beatings: hence the fights between gangs of boys at the Platanistas or in front of the sanctuary to Orthia,5 in which the educational value of Discord so much praised by the old knightly ethic was taken very literally, not to say brutally. Hence too the krypteia, which in the beginning seems to have been not so much a terrorist expedition against the helots as a campaign exercise designed to accustom the future combatant to the harsh life of ambushes and war. (27)

THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS

So far we have been concerned with the boys. The girls too were brought up to be Spartans. Their education was rigidly controlled, with music, dancing (28) and singing occupying a less important place than gymnastics and sport.6 The grace they had had in the archaic era was sacrificed to a crude utilitarianism. Like the women under Fascism, their first duty was to produce as many bouncing babies as possible, and all their education was subordinated to this one end. They had to learn “to put aside all delicacy and womanish tenderness” by hardening their bodies and appearing naked at feasts and ceremonies. The idea was to turn virgins into strapping viragos with no illusions about sentiment, who would mate in the best interests of the race.7

THE SPARTAN MIRAGE

This, then, is the famous education that so many moderns, and ancients too, have so much admired. It is difficult for a French historian, writing in 1945, to speak of it with complete detachment. From K. O. Müller (1824) to W. Jàger (1932), German scholarship lauded it to the skies as a product of the Nordic spirit possessed by the Dorians— the conscious embodiment of a racial, militarist, totalitarian policy— a model, miraculously before its time, of the ideal which from the time of Frederick II, Scharnhorst and Bismarck to the Nazi Third Reich, never ceased to inspire the German soul. Barrès was prevailed upon to follow their example and admire Sparta for being “a magnificent stud-farm.” He described Greece as a “group of small societies concerned with the improvement of the Hellenic race.” “Those Spartans had as the source of their vitality the surpassing excellence of their system of breeding” (Le Voyage de Sparte, pp. 199, 239).

This enthusiasm had had its precursors amongst the ancients (29); in fact we know Sparta primarily through the romantic, idealized picture of her presented by fanatical partisans, especially those who were to be found amongst her old enemies in Athens. Towards the end of the fifth century and throughout the fourth, the triumph of democratic tendencies became more pronounced and their hold more secure, and the party of old Right Wing aristocrats or oligarchs fell back into a surly, sterile opposition, the victims of a veritable neurotic introversion, projecting onto Sparta their own frustrated ideals. The modern historian finds it difficult to get at the truth about this “Spartan mirage.” The Spartan bias prevalent in reactionary circles in Athens such as those in which Socrates moved was as strong as the French middle-class bias of “Popular Front” days in favour of the order and power of Mussolini’s Italy.

LOST ILLUSIONS

When the historical truth has been so distorted by passion am I supposed to remain unmoved? Or shall I too allow myself to be carried away, and denounce the moral obliquity involved in this glorification of the Spartan educational system against all the teaching of sound history? To invert one of Barrès’ phrases, can easily dismiss the eulogies that Spartan education has received by saying that they “smack of the subaltern’s outlook.” The Spartan ideal was the ideal of a barrack-room sergeant-major.

I believe I am as conscious of Sparta’s true greatness as most people, but I observe that she was great when she was beautiful and just, in those golden days when, in Terpander’s words,8 she nurtured “the valour of young men, the muse of harmony and that mistress of all that is great— justice with her generous ways”; when civic virtue and military might were perfectly balanced and there was a smile of humanity in the mischievous grace of its maidens and elegance in their ivory brooches. Sparta only began to grow hard when she began to decline.

Sparta’s tragedy was that she matured too soon. She tried to make the first blessed moment of an early eternal, and grew rigid, glorifying in the fact that she was no longer subject to change— as though life were not essentially a matter of change, and death alone immutable! Everything in classical Sparta began from a refusal of life. In the first place, as we have seen, there was the aristocracy’s egoistic reaction in refusing to extend civic rights to the combatants in the Messenian wars. As regards external affairs, Sparta was jealous of the growth of States or cultures more recent than her own.

Petrified in an attitude of refusal and defence, she was henceforth only capable of a sterile cult of her incommuni- cable difference from all others; hence her perverted desire— again repeated in modern Fascism— to set herself up against all the generally accepted customs and cut herself off from the rest of the world.

All the attempts to whitewash her have simply tried to camouflage a decadence that became more irremediable with each generation. Sparta conquered Athens in 404, but only at the cost of an inordinate effort that destroyed all her elasticity and exhausted her spiritual riches. The following centuries merely witnessed a gradual decline.

And, I repeat, it was as she declined that her education became increasingly and explicitly totalitarian. I do not regard ... as a sure way to greatness, I denounce it as a sign of the radical impotence of a conquered people reduced to living on illusions about itself. Its inhuman eugenics go hand in hand with the increasing oliganthropy of a city with a declining birth-rate and a self-engrossed ruling class. All the unnatural efforts to produce hardy women produced in fact high-class adulteresses like Timaia, Alcibiades’ mistress, or women of affairs like those who appeared in the third century, whose one interest was their own personal fortune and their property. (30) And the military training! It grew progressively harsher and more brutal— and all the time it was losing its efficiency and its real purpose.

Careful analysis of the sources shows that Spartan severity was not a legacy from the beginning; its severity was always on the increase. In the sixth century the Gymnopediae were accompanied by musical ceremonies; later, the nudity demanded of the children lost all its original ritual value and led to competitions to see who could best resist the terrible summer sun. In the beginning the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia had been the centre of harmless battles between two bands of children fighting for cheeses piled on the altar— no more than the sort of rag that takes place in French grandes écoles and English public schools. In Roman times— and not until Roman times— the same ceremony became the tragic ordeal of the ..., in which boys were submitted to a savage whipping, competing against each other sometimes to the death, before crowds of people who flocked sadistically to see them (31)— to such an extent that it became necessary to put a semicircular theatre up in front of the temple for all the “tourists” who came along. And when was this? It was in the Early Empire, when the Roman peace covered the civilized world, when a small professional army was all that was needed to keep the barbarians back beyond the strong Roman frontiers, when there flourished a civilization whose one ideal was a civilized, unified mankind, and when Sparta faded into oblivion, a peaceful little municipality in the disarmed province of Achaia!

A History of Education in Antiquity
Henri-Irénée Marrou

War Crimes Against Southern Civilians

An Introduction to 

 Lincoln's War

In the midst of his 1863 invasion of the United States, Gen. Robert E. Lee issued a proclamation to his men. After suffering for two years innumerable depredations by their enemies, some Southerners, soldiers and civilians, thought at last the time had come for retaliation. Lee would have none of that. He reminded his troops that "the duties exacted of us by civilization and Christianity are not less obligatory in the country of the enemy than in our own."

The commanding general considers that no greater disgrace could befall the army, and through it our whole people, than the perpetration of the barbarous outrages upon the unarmed and defenseless and the wanton destruction of private property, that have marked the course of the enemy in our own country...

It must be remembered that we make war only upon armed men, and that we cannot take vengeance for the wrongs our people have suffered without lowering ourselves in the eyes of all whose abhorrence has been excited by the atrocities of our enemies, and offending against Him to whom vengeance belongeth, without whose favor and support our efforts must all prove in vain.'

Accustomed as we are in our own time to war's unmitigated horrors, the injunction of Lee seems anachronistic if not quixotic, yet is a measure and reminder of how much has been lost.

Through the centuries, by common consent within what used to be called Christendom, there arose a code of civilized warfare. Though other issues are covered by the term, and despite lapses, it came to be understood that war would be confined to combatants. Thus limited, said historian F. J. P. Veale, "it necessarily followed that an enemy civilian did not forfeit his rights as a human being merely because the armed forces of his country were unable to defend him."' According to Veale, the amelioration of war's barbarism did not come as a direct result of Christianity, or even from the rise of European chivalry, but "as the product of belated common sense." As early as the eighteenth century, Swiss jurist Emeric de Vattel, author of The Law of Nations, expressed what should be obvious to any student of history: breaking the code on one side encourages violations by the other, multiplying hatred and bitterness that can only increase the likelihood and intensity of future wars.' "There is today," concluded Vattel in 1758, "no Nation in any degree civilized which does not observe this rule of justice and humanity."4

Yet warring against noncombatants came to be the stated policy and deliberate practice of the United States in its subjugation of the Confederacy. Shelling and burning of cities, systematic destruction of entire districts, mass arrests, forced expulsions, wholesale plundering of personal property, even murder all became routine. The development of Federal policy during the war is difficult to neatly categorize. Abraham Lincoln, the commander in chief with a reputation as micromanager, well knew what was going on and approved. Commanders seemed always inclined to turn a blind eye to their soldiers' proclivity for theft and violence against the defenseless. And though the attitude of Federal authorities in waging war on Southern civilians became increasingly harsh over time, there was from the beginning a widespread conviction that the crushing of secession justified the severest of measures. Malice, not charity, is the theme most often encountered.

Lincoln's embracing of "hard war" may have had consequences more far-reaching even than defeat of the South. Union general Philip Sheridan, in Germany to observe that empire's conquest of France in 1870, told Otto von Bismarck that defeated civilians "must be left nothing but their eyes to weep with over the war." The chancellor was said to have been shocked by the unsolicited advice. But the kind of warfare practiced by the Federal military during 1861-65 turned America-and arguably the whole world-back to a darker age. "It scarcely needs pointing out," wrote Richard M. Weaver, "that from the military policies of [William T.] Sherman and Sheridan there lies but an easy step to the total war of the Nazis, the greatest affront to Western civilization since its founding."'

"In war, as in peace," observed Weaver, "people remain civilized by acknowledging bounds beyond which they must not go." Echoing the words of Lee, Weaver understood no necessary contradiction in the term "Christian" as applied to the profession of arms. "The Christian soldier must seek the verdict of battle always remembering that there is a higher law by which he and his opponent will be judged, and which enjoins against fighting as the barbarian."'

Some assume that as long as there are wars, there will be widespread excesses. Telford Taylor noted that the attitude of Americans when informed of the massacre of South Vietnamese civilians at My Lai was to discount it by saying that such things are bound to happen. "So, too," Taylor pointed out, "are murders and robberies `bound to happen' in our streets, and they are likely to happen much more often if we cease to regard them as reprehensible."7 Others justify war on civilians as necessary to achieve victory. They applaud the depredations of Sherman, hail him as a man ahead of his time, and smile as they repeat his "war is hell" mantra, not hearing the totalitarian echo in their words.

Historian James M. McPherson estimated that fifty thousand Southern civilians perished in war-related deaths.' Others place the figure far higher. Despite such numbers apologists for Lincoln's "hard war" then and now downplay the suffering endured and damage done, lay much to "mistakes" or "accidents," or even try to place blame on victims themselves. Little attention is paid to the poor who were plundered or to brutalized African-Americans. Many cling to the Lincolnian myth that only by the most horrendous of wars could the slaves be freed, ignoring the fact that the rest of the Western world managed to bring an end to the institution without bloodshed.

But one conviction remains an American article of faith: the war on Southern civilians was justified-the war itself was just-because it resulted in saving the union.

Abolitionist Lysander Spooner spent a lifetime battling slavery, but surprisingly found little to rejoice in over the outcome of Lincoln's war.

The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals.

No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self-evidently false than this; or more self-evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established. If it really be established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased; for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave.'

**

Chapter 20

"They Took Everything That Was Not 

 Red-Hot or Nailed Down "

March to the Sea

"Can we whip the South?" wrote William T. Sherman to Henry W. Halleck in 1863. "If we can, our numerical majority has both the natural and constitutional right to govern. If we cannot whip them, they contend for the natural right to select their own government." To keep that from happening-to insure that Southerners not have the right to select their own government-"we will remove and destroy every obstacle-if need be, take every life, every acre of land, every particle of property, everything that to us seems proper."' A year later, on the eve of his march through Georgia, Sherman boasted, "I am going into the very bowels of the Confederacy, and propose to leave a trail that will be recognized fifty years hence." It would be, he assured Halleck, "a track of desolation."'

Even before launching his March to the Sea, Sherman had begun making his mark on the people of Georgia. "We are drawing full rations, besides preying off the country," wrote a Union officer from Summerville, Georgia, in October.` Another remarked that same month how raiding parties returned with all manner of food taken from civilians. "The men lived high off the country and brought back lots of plunder."' Ike Derricotte, a black man living in Athens, remembered that "Yankees just went around takin' whatever they wanted . . . and laughed about it like they hadn't been stealin'."5 Though troops were officially prohibited from robbing civilians, officers almost always turned a blind eye when it happened. The men in the ranks well knew what "Uncle Billy" expected of them.

Troops marched out of burning Atlanta, heading to Covington by way of Lithonia and Stone Mountain.' When they left Covington for Macon, wrote local resident Dolly Lunt Burge,

They robbed every house on their road of provisions, sometimes taking every piece of meat, blankets, & wearing apparel, silver & arms of every description. They would take silk dresses and put them under their saddles & things for which they had no use. Is this the way to make us love them & their union? Let the poor people answer whom they have deprived of every mouthful of meat & of their stock to make any. Our mills, too, they have burned, destroying an immense amount of property.'

In Madison the railroad depot, tracks, cotton, and public property quickly went up in flames. Businesses were plundered, but of course soldiers were unable to transport much property with them. Instead, they destroyed all they could and amused themselves by such pranks as wearing women's hats taken from milliners' shops. Troops entered homes to continue their work of vandalism. Anything portable-china, silverware, small items of furniture-was thrown from windows. Pianos and wall mirrors were simply smashed where they were.'

In Henry County, southeast of Atlanta, when soldiers came to the plantation home of Jim Smith they were not content merely to steal and destroy. A former slave, Charlie Tye Smith, recalled how "Ole Marse Jim" was made to

pull off his boots and run bare-footed through a cane brake with half a bushel of potatoes tied around his neck; then they made him put his boots back on and carried him down to the mill and tied him to the water post. They were getting ready to break his neck when one of Master's slaves, "Ole Peter Smith," asked them if they intended to kill Marse Jim, and when they said "Yes," Peter choked up and said, "Well, please, suh, let me die with old Marse!"

With that, the Yankees ended their fun and left.'

At the Monroe County plantation of Cal Robinson, the invaders "ransacked the place, took all the victuals from the white folks and give 'em to the slaves," remembered one little girl. After the soldiers left the food was returned "'cause they was our own white folks and they always done give us plenty of everything.""' That was the experience, too, of Emma Hurley, a slave who lived in Lexington. After stealing anything they found of value, Yankees threw meat from the smokehouse to the slaves, but after they left, most was returned. "The Yankees poured out all the syrup and destroyed everything they could," remembered Emma." "They took everything that was not red-hot or nailed down," said Marshal Butler, a slave in Wilkes County.''

At the Glenn plantation south of Lexington, soldiers harassed Mrs. Glenn, pulling and jerking her long hair, trying to make her tell them where valuables might be hidden. The Yankees invited slaves to help themselves to meat from the smokehouse. Black children were crying and upset, remembered former slave Martha Colquitt,

because we loved Mistress and didn't want nobody to bother her. They made out like they were goin' to kill her if she didn't tell 'em what they wanted to know, but after a while they let her alone.... After the Yankees was done gone off Grandma began to fuss, "Now, them soldiers was tellin' us what ain't so, 'cause ain't nobody got no right to take what belongs to Master and 

At the nearby Echols plantation troops invited slaves to take all they wanted from the smokehouse as well as personal property from the master's home and then go where they wanted. Former slave Robert Shepherd recounted that none took them up on their offer of appropriating what was not theirs. When the invaders had gone, Mr. Echols called all of his bondsmen together. He was overcome with emotion and could barely speak, recalled Robert. "Master said he never knowed before how good we loved him. He told us he had done tried to be good to us and had done the best he could for us and that he was mighty proud of the way every one of us had done behaved ourselves."'"

"Madam, I have orders to burn this house," said one Federal to a resident on the road from Madison to Milledgeville. She replied that she hoped they would not burn the home of defenseless women.

"I'll insure it for fifty dollars," he replied. "I've got no fifty dollars to pay for insuring it; and if it depends upon that, it must burn."

An offer to "insure" property was one way Federals found to extort cash from their victims. "Soon as he saw he couldn't frighten me into giving him anything, he went to plundering," she said.15

Louise Caroline Cornwell watched as troops took "every living thing on the farm-took every bushel of corn and fodder, oats and wheat-every bee gum." They then put the torch to the gin house, blacksmith shop, and stored cotton. "Gen. [Oliver 0.] Howard and staff officers came at tea time," remembered Mrs. Cornwell. Howard was known for his supposed piety. "We managed to have something to eat for that meal, which was the last for several days, and while Gen. Howard sat at the table and asked God's blessings, the sky was red from flames of burning houses."16

Kate Latimer Nichols, twenty-seven, was sick and bedridden when the Yankees arrived at her farm home near Milledgeville. Two soldiers forced their way past a servant who guarded the door to her room and raped her. "Poor woman," wrote a neighbor in her diary, "I fear that she has been driven crazy." Indeed, the victim never recovered from the ordeal, dying in a mental institution.'

At Milledgeville, Georgia's capital until shortly after the Civil War, soldiers wrecked the library and destroyed priceless artifacts housed in the museum there. A bridge leading to the town had been burned to slow the advance of the Federal army, and when Sherman learned of this he ordered that some nearby house be randomly chosen for destruction.

At Sandersville, Confederates destroyed a supply of fodder before retreating. On Sherman's orders several houses in the neighborhood were torched in retaliation as his men ransacked the town. "In war," said Sherman when questioned about it, "everything is right which prevents anything. If bridges are burned, I have a right to burn all houses near it." This was in accordance with his orders, issued back on November 9. He then made it clear that "should guerillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or other wise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless."'"

Maj. James Austin Connolly agreed wholeheartedly with his commander. Any civilians who would dare destroy food or fodder before Federals could confiscate it for their own use would be severely punished.

Let them do it if they dare. We'll burn every house, barn, church, and everything else we come to; we'll leave their families houseless and without food; their towns will all be destroyed, and nothing but the most complete desolation will be found in our track. This army will not be trifled with. If citizens raise their hands against us to retard our march or play the guerrilla against us, neither youth nor age nor sex will be respected. Everything must be destroyed. . . . We have gone so far now in our triumphal march that we will not be balked."

"We have Sherman's word that it is his wish to conduct the war on civilized principles," mocked Henry Timrod, assistant editor of the Columbia Daily South Carolinian.

The inhabitants of an invaded district have no right to annoy an invading army in any way. To plant a single obstacle in the path of the beneficent power which comes to take care of their property and to relieve them of the "weight of too much liberty," is a crime justly provocative of the bitterest retaliation.... This is the Yankee version of the laws of civilized war. It is a piece with Sherman's mode of thinking and writing on every subject."

Mrs. Nora Canning and her elderly husband certainly offered no resistance when Federal troops arrived at their home near Louisville. The soldiers insisted that Mr. Canning show them where a quantity of syrup had been hidden in the swamp. The old gentleman told them he was unable to walk that far, so they brought a mule for him to ride. While he was gone troops fired the gin house, granary, and a large quantity of cloth. "The Negroes went out and begged for the cloth," wrote Mrs. Canning, "saying that it was to make their winter clothes. The cruel destroyers refused to let the Negroes have a single piece." "Well, madam," sneered one of the soldiers, "how do you like the looks of our little fire. We have seen a great many such, within the last few weeks."

Meanwhile, Mr. Canning's interrogators got down to business in the swamp, two miles from the house. "Now, old man, you have to tell us where your gold is hidden." When he replied that his money was in the bank, they cursed and led him to a tree over the path, tied a rope around his neck, threw it over a branch, and lifted him up until his feet were off the ground. Just before he lost consciousness, he was asked again, "now where is your gold?" Another denial led to another jerking off the ground until he nearly suffocated. Lowering him again, they shouted, "now tell us where that gold is or we will kill you, and your wife will never know what has become of you."

"I have told you the truth-I have no gold," he insisted. "I am an old man and at your mercy. If you want to kill me you have the power to do it, but I cannot die with a lie on my lips. I have no gold. I have a gold watch at the house, but nothing else."

"Swing the old Rebel up again!" shouted the leader. This time Mr. Canning heard a sound like rushing water, followed by blindness, before losing consciousness. Finally convinced that he must be telling the truth, the blue-clad gang poured water on his face and brought him back to the house, where they stole his gold watch.

"Oh! the horrors of that night!" wrote Nora Canning. "There my husband lay with scorching fever, his tongue parched and swollen and his throat dry and sore. He begged for water and there was not a drop to be had. The Yankees had cut all the well ropes and stolen the buckets." Mr. Canning continued to suffer for days. "His nose would bleed, and bloody water would ooze from his ears. His eyes were bloodshot and pained him greatly. His tongue was swollen.""

At the farm of Sam Hart and his wife, Yankees burned every building except the detached kitchen. The elderly Mrs. Hart was forced to cook for them, after which the soldiers knocked over the table, smashed everything in sight, stole the silver, burned their carriage, and took their horse.t'

"Missus, for God's sake come out here, and see what you can do about these here devils," said Cornelia Screven's cook, Nancy. Yankee troops had arrived at their Liberty County home and were forcing Nancy to prepare food for them, devouring all she had, and demanding ground cornmeal for their horses.

"Please don't take that meal," said Mrs. Screven, "my children are very hungry, and we have nothing else to eat."

"Damn you," one shouted, "I don't care if you all starve; get out of my way or I'll push you out the door."''

James Morgan, a little boy in the village of Sunbury, was ordered by a Federal trooper to bring a burning coal from his fireplace. He watched as they rode to the local church. "I wondered where they were going to build the fire. I knew the church had no chimney. I followed them to the church. They took rails from a fence nearby and built the fire under the stair steps. Soon the church was blazing."24

War Crimes Against Southern Civilians

Walter Brian Cisco

Artemisia

 Of the rest of the officers I make no mention by the way (since I am not bound to do so), but only of Artemisia, at whom I marvel most that she joined the expedition against Hellas, being a woman;for after her husband died, she holding the power herself, although she had a son who was a young man, went on the expedition impelled by high spirit and manly courage, no necessity being laid upon her. Artemisia was the daughter of Lygdamis, and by descent she was of Halicarnassos on the side of her father, but of Crete by her mother. She was ruler of the men of Halicarnassos and Cos and Nisyros and Calydna, furnishing five ships; and she furnished ships which were of all the fleet reputed the best after those of the Sidonians, and of all his allies she set forth the best counsels to the king. Of the States of which I said that she was leader I declare the people to be all of Dorian race, those of Halicarnassos being Troizenians, and the rest Epidaurians. So far then I have spoken of the naval force.

(...)

67. So then, when all these had come to Athens except the Parians, (now the Parians had remained behind at Kythnos waiting to see how the war would turn out),—when all the rest, I say, had come to Phaleron, then Xerxes himself came down to the ships desiring to visit them and to learn the opinions of those who sailed in them: and when he had come and was set in a conspicuous place, then those who were despots of their own nations or commanders of divisions being sent for came before him from their ships, and took their seats as the king had assigned rank to each one, first the king of Sidon, then he of Tyre, and after them the rest: and when they were seated in due order, Xerxes sent Mardonios and inquired, making trial of each one, whether he should fight a battle by sea. 68. So when Mardonios went round asking them, beginning with the king of Sidon, the others gave their opinions all to the same effect, advising him to fight a battle by sea, but Artemisia spoke these words:—(a) “Tell the king for me, Mardonios, that I, who have proved myself to be not the worst in the sea-fights which have been fought near Eubœa, and have displayed deeds not inferior to those of others, speak to him thus: Master, it is right that I set forth the opinion which I really have, and say that which I happen to think best for your cause: and this I say,—spare your ships and do not make a sea-fight; for the men are as much stronger than your men by sea, as men are stronger than women. And why do you need to run the risk of sea-battles? have you not Athens in your possession, for the sake of which you did set forth on your march, and also the rest of Hellas? and no man stands in your way to resist, but those who did stand against you came off as it was fitting that they should. (b) Now the manner in which I think the affairs of your adversaries will have their issue, I will declare. If you do not hasten to make a sea-fight, but keep your ships here by the land, either remaining here yourself or even advancing on to the Peloponnese, that which you have come to do, 0 master, will easily be effected; for the Hellenes are not able to hold out against you for any long time, but you will soon disperse them and they will take flight to their several cities: since neither have they provisions with them in this island, as I am informed, nor is it probable that if you shall march your land-army against the Peloponnese, they who have come from thence will remain still; for these will have no care to fight a battle in defence of Athens. (c) If however you hasten to fight soon, I fear that damage done to the fleet may ruin the land-army also. Moreover, O king, consider also this, that the servants of good men are apt to grow bad, but those of bad men good; and you, who are of all men the best, have bad servants, namely those who are reckoned as allies, Egyptians and Cyprians and Kilikians and Pamphylians, in whom there is no profit.” 69. When she thus spoke to Mardonios, those who were friendly to Artemisia were grieved at her words, supposing that she would suffer some evil from the king because she urged him not to fight at sea; while those who had envy and jealousy of her, because she had been honoured above all the allies, rejoiced at the opposition, supposing that she would now be ruined. When however the opinions were reported to Xerxes, he was greatly pleased with the opinion of Artemisia; and whereas even before this he thought her excellent, he commended her now yet more. Nevertheless he gave orders to follow the advice of the greater number, thinking that when they fought by Euboea they were purposely slack, because he was not himself present with them, whereas now he had made himself ready to look on while they fought a sea-battle.

(...)

87. As regards the rest I cannot speak of them separately, or say precisely how the Barbarians or the Hellenes individually contended in the fight; but with regard to Artemisia this happened, whence she gained yet more esteem than before from the king.—When the affairs of the king had come to great confusion, at this crisis the ship of Artemisia was being pursued by an Athenian ship; and as she was not able to escape, for in front of her were other ships of her own side, while her ship, as it chanced, was furthest advanced towards the enemy, she resolved what she would do, and it proved also much to her advantage to have done so. While she was being pursued by the Athenian ship she charged in full career against a ship of her own side manned by Calyndians and in which the king of the Calyndians Damasithymos was embarked. Now, even though it be true that she had had some strife with him before, while they were still about the Hellespont, yet I am not able to say whether she did this by intention, or whether the Calyndian ship by chance fell in her way. Having charged against it however and sunk it, she enjoyed good fortune and got for herself good in two ways; for first the captain of the Athenian ship, when he saw her charge against a ship manned by Barbarians, turned away and went after others, supposing that the ship of Artemisia was either a Hellenic ship or was deserting from the Barbarians and fighting for the Hellenes, 88,—first,! I say, it was her fortune to escape and not suffer destruction; and then secondly it happened that though she had done mischief, she yet gained great reputation by this thing with Xerxes. For it is said that the king looking on at the fight perceived that her ship had charged the other; and one of those present said: “Master, do you see Artemisia, how well she is fighting and how she sank even now a ship of the enemy?” He asked whether this was in truth the deed of Artemisia, and they said that it was; for (they declared) they knew very well the sign of her ship: and that which was destroyed they thought surely was one of the enemy; for besides other things which happened fortunately for her, as I have said, there was this also, namely that not one of the crew of the Calyndian ship survived to become her accuser. And Xerxes in answer to that which was said to him is reported to have uttered these words: “My men have become women, and my women men.”

(...)

93. In this sea-fight the Eginetans were of all the Hellenes the best reported of, and next to them the Athenians; and of the individual men the Eginetan Polycritos and the Athenians Eumenes of Anagyrus and Ameinias of Pallene, the man who had pursued Artemisia. Now if he had known that Artemisia was sailing in this ship, he would not have ceased until either he had taken her or had been taken himself; for orders had been given to the Athenian captains, and moreover a prize was offered of ten thousand drachmas for the man who should take her alive; since they thought it intolerable that a woman should make an expedition against Athens. She then, as has been said before, had made her escape; and the others also, whose ships had escaped destruction, were at Phaleron.

(...)

101. Hearing this Xerxes was rejoiced and delighted so far as he might be after his misfortunes, and to Mardonios he said that when he had taken counsel he would reply and say which of these two things he would do. So when he was taking counsel with those of the Persians who were called to be his advisers, it seemed good to him to send for Artemisia also to give him counsel, because at the former time she alone had showed herself to have perception of that which ought to be done. So when Artemisia had come, Xerxes removed all the rest, both the Persian councillors and also the spearmen of the guard and spoke to her thus: “Mardonios bids me stay here and make an attempt on the Peloponnese, saying that the Persians and the land-army are not guilty of any share in my calamity, and that they would gladly give me proof of this. He bids me therefore either do this or, if not, he desires himself to choose three hundred thousand men from the army and to deliver over to me Hellas reduced to subjection; and he bids me withdraw with the rest of the army to my own abode. As you did well advise about the sea-fight which was fought, urging that we should not bring it on, so also now advise me which of these things I shall do, that I may succeed in determining well.” 102. He thus consulted her, and she spoke these words: “O king, it is hard for me to succeed in saying the best things when one asks me for counsel; yet it seems good to me at the present that you should retire back and leave Mardonios here, if he desires it and undertakes to do this, together with those whom he desires to have: for on the one hand if he subdue those whom he says that he desires to subdue, and if those matters succeed well which he has in his mind when he thus speaks, the deed will after all be yours, master, seeing that your slaves achieved it: and on the other hand if the opposite shall come to pass of that which Mardonios intends, it will be no great misfortune, seeing that you will yourself remain safe, and also the power in those parts, Asia, which concerns your house: for if you shall remain safe with your house, many contests many times over repeated will the Hellenes have to pass through for their own existence. Of Mardonios however, if he suffer any disaster, no account will be made; and if the Hellenes conquer they gain a victory which is no victory, having destroyed one who is but your slave. You however will retire having done that for which you made your march, that is to say, having delivered Athens to the fire.”

103. With this advice Xerxes was greatly delighted, since she succeeded in saying that very thing which he himself was meaning to do: for not even if all the men and all the women in the world had been counselling him to remain, would he have done so, as I think, so much had he been struck with terror. He commended Artemisia therefore and sent her away to conduct his sons to Ephesos, for there were certain bastard sons of his which accompanied him.104.

Herodotus 

The Histories 

Macaulay’s translation

It was in that time of suffering that the Greek spirit first began to turn inwards

IN 404 B.C., after almost thirty years of war between the Greek states, Athens fell. The most glorious century of Greek achieve­ 'ment ended in the darkest tragedy known to history. The Periclean empire had been the greatest political structure ever built on Hellenic soil ; indeed, it had for a time seemed to be the destined home for Greek culture throughout all ages to come. 

In the funeral speech over the dead Athenian soldiers, which Thucydides wrote soon after the end of the war and put in Pericles'. mouth, he still saw Athens as lit by the last beams of that radiance. Through his words there still glows something of the ardour of that brief but brilliant dream, well worthy of the Athenian genius-the dream of building a state so skilfully that it might keep strength and spirit in perpetual equipoise.

When he composed that speech, he already knew the paradoxical truth which all his generation had to learn: that even the most solid of earthly powers must vanish into air, and that only the seemingly brittle splendour of the spirit can long endure. It seemed as if the development of Athens had been suddenly re­versed. She was thrown back a hundred years, to the epoch of isolated city-states. The victory over Persia, in which she had been the leader and the champion of tht Greeks, had allowed her to aspire to hegemony over them. Now, just before she could secure it, it was snatched from her grasp.

The Greek world was convulsed by her disastrous fall. It left a great gap among the Hellenic states, which it proved impossi­ ble to fill. The moral and political repercussions of the defeat were felt as long as the state, as such, continued to have any real existence and meaning for the Greeks. From the very first, Greek civilization had been inseparably connected with the life of the city-state; and the connexion was closest of all in Athens.

Therefore the effects of the catastrophe were, inevitably, far more than merely political. It shook all moral laws ; it struck at the roots of religion. If the disaster was to be repaired, the process must start with religion and ethics. This realization entered both the theorizing of philosophers and the day-to-day life of the average man; because of it, the fourth century was an age of constant endeavours at internal and external reconstruc­ tion. But the blow had struck so deep that, from this distance, it seems doubtful from the very start whether the innate Greek belief in the value of this world, their confidence that they could bring 'the best state', 'the best life', into being here and now, could ever have survived such an experience to be re-created in its original purity and vigour. It was in that time of suffering that the Greek spirit first began to turn inwards upon itself-as it was to do more and more throughout the succeeding centuries.

But the men of that age, even Plato, still believed that their task was a practical one. They had to change the world, this world-even although they might not manage to do it com­ pletely at the moment. And (although in a rather clifferent sense) that is how even the practical statesmen now envisaged their mission.

The speed of the external recovery made by the Athenian stace, and the vast amount of material and spiritual resources which it called into play, were truly astounding. This supreme crisis showed, more clearly than any other occasion in the history of Athens, that her true strength-even as a state-was the strength of the spirit. It was her spiritual culture which guided her upwards on the path to recovery, which in the time of her gravest need won back the hearts of the Greeks who had turned away from her, and which proved to all Hellas that she had a right ro survive, even when she lacked the power to assert it.

Thereiore the intellectual movement which took place in Athens during the first decades of the fourth century must occupy the centre of our interest, even from the political point of view.
When Thucydides looked back to the greatest era of Athenian power, under Pericles, and saw that the heart and soul of that power was the spirit of man, he saw truly. Now, as ever-indeed much more than ever-Athens was the cultural centre of Greece, its paideusis. But all its energies were concentrated upon the heavy task set by history to the new generation: the reconstruc­ tion of the state and of all life, upon a firm and lasting basis.

During the war, and even before its outbreak, changes in the structure of life had initiated this process, by which all the ener­gies of the higher intellect were focused upon the state. It was not only the new educational theories and experiments of the sophists which pointed in that direction. Poets, orators, and his­ torians too were drawn, ever more irresistibly, into the general current. At the end of the great war, the younger generation had been schooled by the frightful experiences of its last decade to throw all their strength into the task of the moment. If the existing state gave them no worthy social or political work to do, it was inevitable for their energies to seek some intellectual outlet. We have already traced the growth in educational em­phasis throughout the art and thought of the fifth century, as far as the great History of Thucydides, which drew the appro­priate moral from the political developments of the entire cen­tury. The same current of ideas now flows into the great stream of reconstruction. The immediate political and social crisis, with all the suffering it entailed, vastly increased the stress on education, strengthened its importance, enriched its meaning.

Thus, the concept of paideia became the real expression of the rising generation's spiritual purpose. The fourth century is the classical epoch in the history of paideia, if we take that to mean the development of a conscious ideal of education and culture. There was good reason for it to fall in that critical century. It is that very awareness of its problems that distinguishes the Greek spirit most clearly from other nations. It was simply be­ cause the Greeks were fully alive to every problem, every diffi­culty confronting them in the general intellectual and moral col­lapse of the brilliant fifth century, that they were able to under­stand the meaning of their own education and culture so clearly as ·to become the teachers of all succeeding nations. Greece is the school of the western world.

Paideia The Ideals of Greek Culture - Volume II In Search of the Divine Centre
Werner Jaeger

What is remarkable is that our selfishness never really disappears

 We Are What We Own

THE EXTENDED SELF

Nusrat Durrani looks like a rock star. When I met him in 2017, he was a senior executive at MTV, but even if you did not know that, you probably would have guessed he came from the media world just by looking at him. He wears designer clothes, most often black or leather, over his slight frame, has an abundance of jet-black long hair and wears tinted glasses – an Indian Joey Ramone. Even among the colourful gathering of fashionistas, futurists, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs at the Kinnernet gathering in Venice where we met, you could tell that Nusrat was super cool. Except that, when we met, he was far from cool.

Nusrat had just arrived from Rome where, the evening before, he had been robbed in a restaurant by opportunistic thieves who had taken his bag of personal items. With around 40 per cent unemployment in Rome, petty crime and theft from tourists has become a main source of income for the poor. It was an inconvenience but Nusrat is a relatively wealthy man. He has the luxury of time and resources to travel the world. These possessions could be easily replaced. At first, he was relaxed about the incident and seemed calm and collected. But over the next few days of the meeting, he became increasingly agitated about it. Like many unwelcomed intrusions in life, theft generates initial bewilderment followed by a growing sense of rage.

Nusrat’s reaction is common. We are often surprised by how much theft upsets us, no matter how well off we are or how cool and calm we would wish to remain. This is because possessions are an extension of our selves. When they are taken without permission, it is equivalent to a violation of our person. Household burglary is particularly distressing as it includes an invasion of our territory where we usually feel most safe. Almost two-thirds of those burgled in the UK are extremely upset, experiencing a variety of symptoms including nausea, anxiety, crying, shaking and ruminating well after the event. Insurance companies report that it takes around eight months to feel safe again, and one in eight never recover emotionally.1 It is not just the financial loss that distresses us; rather, it is more an intense sense of infringement. Someone has come into our world uninvited and undermined our control.

Loss can also be upsetting when we are forced to give up possessions that we would rather keep. It is this reluctance to let go which is one of the more revealing aspects about humans and their relationship with possessions. Consider the storage unit industry that took off in the late 1960s, after the decades of post-war consumerism. Every year more of us are putting our stuff in storage rather than getting rid of it. Currently, there are more self-storage facilities in the US than there are branches of McDonald’s, even though 65 per cent of storage users also have garages.2 Many garages no longer contain cars but rather the overspill of possessions that we can no longer keep in the house. Why are we reluctant to relinquish our things, and why do we keep lock-ups full of personal possessions that are of little value? Why do we have this peculiar emotional dependency on our possessions?

The reason is that we are what we own. In 1890, the father of North American psychology, William James, wrote how the self was defined by what we can claim ownership over:

In its widest possible sense, however, a man’s Self is the sum total of all that he CAN call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands, and yacht and bank-account. All these things give him the same emotions. If they wax and prosper, he feels triumphant; if they dwindle and die away, he feels cast down, – not necessarily in the same degree for each thing, but in much the same way for all.3James is describing what psychologists call ‘self-construal’, the way we think about who we are as well as the emotional consequences of loss, which reveals the special relationship we have with our possessions. It is not particularly surprising that we consider our bodies and minds as part of our self. After all, who else can claim them? However, many material things on the list are not unique to us and could be owned by another. Houses, lands and yachts are properties that we acquire. It is striking then that losing them can affect us so personally.

Many thinkers have considered the intrinsic link we have to our material possessions. Plato famously had little regard for the material world and thought we should aspire to higher, immaterial notions. He argued that collective ownership was necessary to promote pursuit of the common interest, and to avoid the social divisiveness of private property that leads to inequality and theft. His student Aristotle, always one to argue with his mentor, was a little more grounded, and emphasized the importance of studying the material world. He thought private ownership promoted prudence and responsibility but noted how we tend to envy and be jealous of others because of ownership. Two thousand years later, the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre maintained that the only reason we want to own is to enhance our sense of self, and the only way we can know who we are is to observe what we have – almost as if we need to externalize our self through our possessions. Our acquisitions are tangible markers of our success. Like the study of wealth in the US, we may not get much happier after reaching an income of $75,000 a year, but we are more self-assured that we are successful if we can see our possessions. Not only do we signal our self to others through our possessions, our possessions signal back to us who we are.

Sartre, in his book Being and Nothingness, realized the extent to which humans are defined by what they own: ‘the totality of my possessions reflects the totality of my being … I am what I have … What is mine is myself.’4 He proposed a number of ways in which this arises. First, by exerting exclusive control over something, one is claiming it for the self – something that we saw evidenced early in infants. Secondly, and in line with the views of John Locke, creating something from scratch means you own it. Finally, Sartre thought that possessions evoke passions.

One way that people express their passion for possession is through accumulating stuff. In 1769, another French philosopher, Denis Diderot, wrote about how possessions can shape behaviour. Diderot bought a new luxury dressing-gown that he thought would make him happy, but he was surprised how miserable this purchase made him and how this item changed his life. Rather than enriching his life, the luxury gown stood in stark contrast to the shabbier items he already possessed. Soon, he found himself buying new items to match the quality of the dressing-gown. But Diderot was not a rich man so this escalation in spending made him even more unhappy. In comparison to his old dressing-gown, in which he had felt comfortable cleaning the house, his luxury purchase meant that he no longer wore his gown to do household chores. As he wrote, ‘I was absolute master of my old dressing-gown, but I have become a slave to my new one.’ The ‘Diderot effect’, a term coined by the anthropologist Grant McCracken, describes the influence that individual items can have on subsequent purchases.5 For example, if you buy one luxury item, you are tempted to aspire to more such items even though you may not need them. Many retailers capitalize on the Diderot effect by advertising to us items that complement our initial purchase. This is also part of the appeal of Apple products. The purchase of the iPhone was for many, according to McCracken, a ‘departure good’ which exerted a new pressure to acquire other Apple products because they reflect identity. Even though a different purchase may be good value, if it sends the wrong signal about identity then the purchaser will be less likely to buy it.

Probably the most excessive form of emotional attachment to objects is found among collectors. Collectors are emotionally invested in their collections. It is not simply the monetary value associated with their things but rather the effort and pursuit that collectors expend when amassing their desirable possessions. Sometimes, the prospect of losing them can be unbearable. In 2012, the German authorities discovered that Cornelius Gurlitt, a recluse living in Munich, had amassed a huge collection of art masterpieces estimated to be worth around $1 billion. The art had been stolen from Jewish owners by the Nazis and sold to Cornelius’s father for a fraction of their true value during the war. Cornelius had come to regard the hoard as his personal responsibility to protect. He described the experience of watching the police confiscate his prized collection as hitting him harder than the loss of his parents or his sister, who had died of cancer that same year. Cornelius told the authorities that protecting the collection was his duty to the extent that he had become ‘intense, obsessed, isolated, and increasingly out of touch with reality’.6One of the earliest studies to test James’s claims regarding self-construal was conducted by the Yale psychoanalyst Ernst Prelinger in 1959.7 He asked adults to categorize 160 items on a scale from non-self to self and found that minds and bodies were considered more relevant to the sense of self than personal possessions. However, possessions were considered more relevant to the self than other people (though, as we shall shortly discover, this is a very Western perspective). When children were asked to rank the same items, they followed much the same pattern as adults except that, with age, there was an increasing emphasis on the importance of possessions that reflect our relationships with others, which makes perfect sense as we grow up into cohabiting adults.8The Canadian marketing guru Russell Belk has also written about the relationship between the self and what we own in a series of influential papers championing the concept known as ‘the extended self’.9 Building on the work of James and Sartre, Belk proposed four developmental stages in the emergence of the extended self. First, the infant distinguishes self from the environment. Second, the child distinguishes self from others. Third, possessions help adolescents and adults manage their identities, and finally, possessions help the old achieve a sense of continuity and preparation for death. As we age, we shift in our valuation more to those possessions that remind us of our relationships over the years such as mementoes, heirlooms and photographs – the sorts of things that people often say they would save from a burning house. Sometimes this is literally true. The legendary blues musician B. B. King was famous for his guitar he called ‘Lucille’, which went with him everywhere. He named it after the time when he was playing a gig in Arkansas in 1949, and a fight broke out between two men and a heater was kicked over that set the hall on fire, forcing everyone to evacuate. Once outside, King realized he had left his $30 guitar onstage, so he re-entered the burning building to retrieve it. The next day he learned that the two men were fighting over a woman called Lucille, so King gave his guitar – and every subsequent guitar he owned – the same name to remind him never to run into a burning building again for a guitar, or to fight over a woman.

(...)

SELFISH ME

Sometimes we give our stuff away as a measure of who we are. The reason self-construal is so relevant to ownership is not only that it reflects our attitudes towards our possessions, but also what we do with them. Ownership entitles you to share your resources with others. You can’t share what you don’t own, nor can you share that which belongs to others. If our possessions are part of our self-construal, then the cultural differences in individualist and collectivist processing style can explain the differences observed in sharing behaviour around the world. Someone who is self-focused is less likely to be generous to others compared to someone who thinks more about other people.

As every parent knows, children have to be constantly reminded to share with others, as we all start out fairly self-centred. Jean Piaget described the mental world of the young child as egocentric and demonstrated this in his perspective-taking games. In one classic study,45 young children were seated directly opposite an adult. On the table in front of them was a papier mâché model of a mountain range with three differently coloured peaks of different sizes that were readily distinguishable. Some had conspicuous landmarks such as a building or cross on top. Children were then shown photographs of the mountain range taken from different angles and asked to select which picture matched what they could see. They were also asked to choose the picture that corresponded to what the adult could see. Below four years of age, children typically selected the photograph that corresponded to their own view, irrespective of where the adult was sitting. Piaget argued that this revealed they could not easily take another’s perspective because they were so egocentric. This is one reason why it is unusual to see spontaneous sharing behaviour at this age. However, from an early age, children from the East are encouraged to be less egocentric and, as a consequence, share more than their Western counterparts, which reflects their collectivist upbringing.

What is remarkable is that our selfishness never really disappears. Both children and adults donate less to charity when they are not being watched, indicating that, privately, we still retain selfish motivation.46 When they look to others, children in both urban America and rural India will reduce their sharing if stingy behaviour is modelled by an adult, but only Indian children increase their giving when generous behaviour is provided as a role model. One reason is that Eastern collectivist societies are more focused on reputation, whereas this is less of a concern for children from individualist societies.47 But again, this can be easily manipulated. In her studies of Indian and British children, Sandra Weltzien showed that both groups become more selfish simply by being asked to talk about themselves just before they are asked to share. Again, the power of priming reveals that we can be shifted in our attitudes to what we own. Sharing is flexible and context specific but strongly influenced by others’ expectations if we are reminded of them.

One of the reasons we are less likely to share our possessions is not so much that we do not think about other people, but rather we think too much about what we have. When we think about our self we are more task-focused, paying particular attention to things that are relevant to us. In a supermarket-sweep study,48 participants were asked to sort a series of images of grocery and household items into a red or blue shopping basket, based on a colour cue on the item image. They were then asked to imagine that they had won all the items in one of the baskets, so all the items pictured in it belonged to them. After the sorting was over, participants were tested to see how many items they could remember. Both adults and children as young as four remember significantly more items they are told they have won compared to the items in the other basket.49 This is known as the ‘self-reference effect’ whereby information encoded with reference to the self is more likely to be subsequently remembered than similar information encoded with reference to other people.50The advantage for processing self-referential information registers in the brain as activity in the medial prefrontal cortex – where your temples are – but when associated with ownership also triggers corresponding activation in the lateral parietal cortex, an area further back just above your ears, which is usually active during object processing.51 In other words, as objects are processed, they are given the additional ownership tag that registers in regions of the brain that are active when we think about ourselves. This explains why activation of this self-referential and object processing network is stronger in Western compared to Eastern subjects.52 In contrast, when it comes to thinking about others, activation in Eastern subjects is stronger in brain regions that respond when reflecting about one’s relationships with others.

If Eastern ways of perceiving the world are collectivist, does that mean they are less obsessed with social status and, if so, less likely to pursue status symbols? On the contrary, Asia is one of the strongest markets for luxury goods. How can competition to be seen to be successful through conspicuous consumption square with traditional collectivist values that emphasize group identity? How can an Indian farmer spend extravagantly on a helicopter ride, if Indian society is supposedly collectivist and other-focused?

Marketing expert Sharon Shavitt argues that in addition to the individualistic–collectivist dimension, there is also a critical vertical–horizontal dimension within cultures that explains the apparent contradiction.53 Individualistic cultures with a vertical structure include countries such as the US, UK and France, where people distinguish themselves through competition, achievement and power. They are likely to endorse statements such as ‘winning is everything’ and ‘it is important that I do my job better than others’. However, individualistic cultures with a horizontal structure include such countries as Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Australia, where people view themselves as self-reliant and equal in standing to others. They are more likely to agree with statements such as ‘I’d rather depend on myself than others’, and ‘my personal identity, independent of others, is very important to me’. In contrast, collectivist cultures with a vertical social hierarchy include countries such as Japan, India and Korea, where people focus on complying with authority and enhancing the cohesion and status of their in-groups, even when that entails sacrificing their own personal goals. They are more likely to say, ‘it is my duty to take care of my family, even when I have to sacrifice what I want’, and ‘it is important to me that I respect the decisions made by my group’. Finally, collectivist cultures with a horizontal structure, such as Brazil and other South American countries, are characterized by sociability and egalitarian arrangements of assumed equality. They are more likely to endorse statements such as ‘to me, pleasure is spending time with others’, and ‘the well-being of my co-workers is important to me’.

When cultures have vertical structures, members are still going to aspire to social status through conspicuous consumption, irrespective of whether their self-construal is independent or collectivist. Cultures with horizontal structures will have more aversion to conspicuous consumption, bragging and showing off, and are more likely to promote modesty or engage in tall-poppying. These dimensions also explain why marketeers need to be sensitive to the cultural structures of countries. In Denmark, advertising appeals to individual identity and self-expression, whereas in the US, another individualistic society but with a vertical structure, advertisements are more likely to emphasize status and prestige.54At birth, one human brain is much the same as another, but the emerging body of neuroscience research indicates that cultural self-construal manifests in different brain activation. These variations reflect historical, political and philosophical perspectives indicating that our brains are shaped by biocultural influences during development rather than through some evolutionary hard-wiring. If ownership is a major component of our self-construal, then it’s how we raise our children that determines their attitudes towards possessions.

Bruce Hood

POSSESSED

Why We Want More Than We Need