According to the legend, Cupid was
playing with Apollo's bow and arrows, and Apollo, elated by his recent
victory above the dragon Python, mocked the child, suggesting him to
find some more child-like game. Cupid didn't like the mocking and took
his revenge: "Your arrows may strike all things else, Apollo, but mine
shall strike you."And he struck Apollo with a golden arrow so that the god immediately fell in love for the nimph Daphne, the daughter of the river god Peneus. The nimph however he struck with a lead arrow, which made her abhorre the thought of loving.
One day Apollo met the nimph while she was hunting. He told her about his love and promised her every sort of delights. But she didnt listen to him and fleed away. Inflamed Apollo run after her, and although she was an excellent runner, she could not outrun the god. She was already feeling his breath on the back of her neck when she reached her father's domain. Frightened she implored her father to resque her from her too ardent lover. And Peneus, listening to her words, turned her into a laurel tree. Apollo sadly watched the transformation as he held her in his arms. "Oh, lovely tree," he mourned, "you will always be mine. I will give you the gift of eternal life. Your leaves will always be green and I will wear you for my crown, I will decorate with you my harp and my quiver and victors and poets will wear your leaves as wreathes upon their brows."
The campaign for the patron saint to be celebrated
has gathered more steam - quite right too, says Englishman Adam
Edwards, while Irishwoman Judith Woods suggests the English might even
learn to have a good time
It is not often that the Church's house journal and the
publicans' bible is of one voice but this week the two disparate lobbies
have agreed that the time has come to honour our most famous
dragon-slayer.
"The patron saint of England should be rebranded and St
George's Day should become a national day to celebrate the tradition of
dissent," says a report in the Church of England newspaper. "Licensees
are asked to ring their bell at 10.45pm on April 23 and ask customers to
raise their glasses in a grand toast to St George," reports the Morning
Advertiser.
The enthusiasm for Englishmen to proclaim St George's Day a
national holiday is building. A ground swell of patriotism is returning
after years of paying no heed to our avenging paragon while tolerating
our Celtic neighbours' over-enthusiasm for nailing up griffins, wearing
tartan and the lauding of little green men.
"It is time that St George was reclaimed from the dragon, from past associations with racism and the far Right,"
says Simon Barrow, one of the authors of the report. He claims the
original St George dates from the 4th century and was celebrated for
defending the marginalised and challenging the persecution policy of the
then Emperor, Constantine. He suggests George should become the
"people's saint''. Certainly it is "the people'' who kicked off this
renewed interest in St George.
It was during the Euro '96 competition, held in England,
that English football fans first decided to replace the Union flag with
the flag of St George, a flag that had until then been reduced to the
status of fluttering above the occasional country church or advertising a
fast-food van hidden in a lay-by. For unlike the Union flag it hadn't
represented "swinging London" or "cool Britannia''. In fact it was so
disliked by some councils, which considered it racist, that they refused
to fly it. Rugby Borough Council thought the proposal to fly the flag
of St George all year round would "send out the wrong messages''.
But football reclaimed it - and white van man followed, as did taxi drivers, pubs and producers of English comestibles (such as Bombardier Beer).
It was Richard the Lionheart who officially claimed St George as England's patron saint in the 12th century. (During the Crusades an apparition of St George reportedly appeared on the walls of Jerusalem waving his sword and encouraging the English onto a victorious assault on the Holy city.) Two centuries later, following the creation of the noble order of St George and the Standard of St George, which was always carried into battle, the rallying cry of the English army was "God for England, Harry and St George''. And after victory at Agincourt, St George's Day was, according to H P Maskell in his book The Taverns of Old England, "made a double feast and ordered to be observed with the same dignity as Christmas Day''.
However after conquering half the known world in the following centuries the English became reluctant to make a fuss about their patron saint - it is very un-English to show off - and so it is some hundreds of years since anyone had a double St George's Day feast.
In fact the situation had got so bad that, three years ago, a Norwich magistrate refused to extend a licence to The Otter pub on April 23 because he said, in the eyes of the law, "St George's Day is not a special day''. (The same court allowed an extension to mark Chinese New Year.)
The law was out of touch. The following year half a million people signed a petition, delivered to Downing Street by cricketing legend Ian Botham, to demand extra recognition for St George's Day. Last year a Private Member's Bill was tabled in Parliament seeking legislation to ensure that everyone in England is given a holiday on April 23. And this year Kentish businessman Tim Allard is giving his workforce the day off - hoping that others will follow suit.
So far this century the Scots the Welsh, the Northern Irish and the city of London have got their own parliaments or assemblies. There are calls for Cornish independence. And in the elections on May 3 it is predicted that the Scottish National Party could win enough seats to form the next government of Scotland.
It is therefore no surprise that the most recent British Social Attitudes survey, which tracks public views on key issues, found that the proportion of the English who describe themselves as British has declined from 52 per cent to 44 per cent since 1996. So what is it that over half of England wishes to claim as its own? According to George Orwell, "Englishness stretches into the future and the past, there is something in it that persists as in a living creature''.
It's high time we raised this creature from its slumber. AE
So St George's Day once again looms darkly on the horizon, hovering menacingly like a guilty conscience. In any other country on the planet, there would parades, piñatas, and the Chicago River would be dyed green. Even the Welsh, barely three million strong, can drum up enough daffodils and choirs to bring a tear to the eye of a prop forward.
Not the English. Your interminable hand-wringing about whether or not to celebrate your patron saint's day presents further proof (if proof were needed) that England's self-esteem is on a long, drawn out slow puncture.
Admittedly, every so often there's a flurry of patriotism - say, when England wins a cricket match. But the Ashes victory was two years ago and you've just been booted out of the cricket world cup, so little wonder the supermarket St George's tat has been consigned to the recycling bin.
And so, come April 23, instead of merriment and camaraderie and bewildered little children waving flags, there will be middle-class embarrassment, punctured only by peevish irritation that the day has been hijacked by swaggering chavs and meatheads stripping down to their tattoos and getting legless on a potent mix of beer and Britannia. But why not claim it back from them?
As an Irishwoman, I fully take on board the author Elizabeth Bowen's dry observation: "Where would the Irish be without someone to be Irish at?"
Yes, we can be a little brash, a little intemperate when it comes to St Patrick's Day, but we and our diaspora are, by and large, such charming drunks that there's a very good reason why March 17 is a national holiday in places as far flung as Montserrat and Newfoundland. Poor old St George will be lucky if he gets more than a stale Eccles cake and an open-air showing of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
It's something of a truism that even pressed nose to armpit in a crowded Tube carriage, the average Englishman will desperately pretend he is alone. You English may do queues very well, but crowds less so. En masse, you tend either to bray (and possibly cry "doors to manual!") or to riot, depending on whether you're tanked up on Krug or Carlsberg. Either way, it's an unedifying spectacle, which perhaps explains why you prefer sitting at home, watching Gardeners' World.
Yet England is a fine country - why else would we Irish have colonised it in droves for hundreds of years? It is a tolerant country, a country steeped in tradition and robustly egalitarian values. Whether or not he agreed with the government of the day, or its policies, an Englishman was always proud to be English. But no more, it seems, which is truly lamentable.
Perhaps the weight of history is too much to bear and, once you've cravenly apologised for the slave trade, the Irish famine, weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist and for sailing into Iranian waters that weren't actually Iranian, it seems a little, well, bumptious to throw a party. After all, what would people think?
Believe it or not, people - or, in this case, other countries - probably wouldn't notice. And if they did, they would merely observe, with some surprise and pleasure, that the English are more than a peculiar, uptight, island race raised on understatement and stodgy pudding; they are a steadfast nation quietly brimming with self-confidence.
And who knows, you English might even learn how to have a good time. JW
I found a very interesting story the other day that highlights moral courage in an unusual way. Animal fables typically offer the lion and the fox as examples of physical courage and intellectual courage,
brawn vs. brains. Here we have a story from the very old Gypsy
tradition, a story which demonstrates a different way an outcast group
manages to survive. I found The Lion, the Fox, and the Bird in The Fish
Bride and Other Gypsy Tales, retold by Jean Russel Larson. This is
book well worth reading if you can find it. I'll just summarize this
story briefly.
For
nearly a year now we've been talking about the nature of courage and
courage development in children, and talking about courage as the
mechanism for activating other values or qualities (some might like the
word "virtues.") Today, here are my thoughts about one of those
values, qualities or virtues: patience.
Patience can be activated by physical courage if it requires sitting still or restraining an impulse; it might be supported by emotional courage if it requires a belief in a loved one's ability to fulfill a promise; it might be activated by spiritual courage if it requires willingness to live in uncertainty about purpose or meaning during chaotic times. I'm sure by now our faithful readers can extrapolate their own examples for the six types of courage as they relate to patience.
We know that fear is inspired by uncertainty and lack of control. While we are waiting for something we are uncertain: will it happen at all? will I like it? will it be what I imagine? will I get a piece with blue frosting or yellow frosting? On top of that is the uncertainty of how we will manage our disappointment if IT doesn't fulfill our expectations. While we are waiting for something we usually have no control, since we can't speed up time or manipulate events. Thus, the ability to tolerate this uncertainty and lack of control requires courage, which then allows for patience.
Secondly,
we can see that extremely domineering law/justice systems (autocratic
kingly dynasties, strict or wrathful theologies and political dogmas)
can enforce good or "moral" behavior, or at least constrain immoral behavior,
but primarily by threat of punishment (in this life or after), rather
than by promoting empathy. This suggests a tendency to rigidly adhere
to the letter of the law, ignoring the spirit behind it. Just as
toddlers obey rules because they fear punishment, rather than because
they have internalized the "spirit of the law" or the values behind the
rules (fairness, accountability, cooperative flourishing, etc.),
societies held in check by a totalitarian or despotic state or ideology
can easily devolve into anarchy when that system collapses. (Remember
Yugoslavia, to cite just one example from recent history?) A breakdown
in empathy, or concern for others, which is prompted by disruption,
upheaval and fear (on the family level or the societal level) may thus
compel the parent or the state to lay down stricter and stronger
rules/laws and punishments. This is a downward spiral that takes
significant moral courage to reverse.
In
the West, we frequently use dragons as a metaphor for evils, wrongs, or
unnamed fears that must be conquered. In China, however, dragons are
benevolent. Powerful, yes, but benevolent. One beautiful legend from
ancient China speaks of the Four Dragons: Black Dragon, Yellow Dragon,
Long Dragon and Pearl Dragon. Here it is, as I retold it to my
daughter:
A very long time ago, there were no rivers in China. No lakes, no ponds, no streams or springs or waterfalls, either. There was only the great ocean in the east. Fortunately, the land was watered by rain, sent by the Jade Emperor, who ruled in Heaven. A time came, however, when the Jade Emperor stopped paying attention to the earth, and forgot to send the rains for a very long time. The earth began to dry out, and crops withered.
One day, as the Black Dragon, the Yellow Dragon, the Long Dragon and the Pearl Dragon were gliding through the air, they noticed an old woman kneeling in the dust below, her face streaked with tears as she prayed. Then they noticed that the earth was cracked and brown. "Why has the Jade Emperor sent no rain?" the Pearl Dragon wondered. "Let us go to him in Heaven and ask."
When they arrived at the throne of the Jade Emperor, he was annoyed that they had come to him, pointing out his failure. "I'll send the rain, now go away," he snapped.
The dragons left, relieved that all would be well again on earth. Yet when ten days passed with no rain falling, they knew the Jade Emperor had forgotten about the people on earth again. "Let us help them," said the dragons to one another. "We can fill our bellies with water from the great ocean and spray it onto the earth, can't we?" And so this is what they did. The moment the water touched the dry soil the wilting rice and wheat stood tall again, and the people rushed to catch the water in bowls.
Up in Heaven, the Jade Emperor caught sight of what the dragons were doing, and shouted with anger that they had taken it upon themselves to help the earth. "Bring mountains!" he roared to the Mountain God. "Crush those dragons!"
Faster than wind over rice paddies, four mountains came and bore down upon the dragons, pinning them to the earth. Yet the dragons were still full of water, and continued to pour it out, even as they were crushed. And so the four great rivers of China were formed, the Yellow River, the Long River, the Black River and the Pearl River, bringing water to the people forever.
I asked my daughter how many kind of courage she thought were involved in this story. "It took courage to show the emperor he had forgotten his job," she said. "And it took courage to go ahead and do the job themselves." "Do you think it also takes courage sometimes to pray for help?" I asked. She shrugged. "Maybe."
Compare this story of self-sacrifice to the story of Fenrir the Wolf, from Viking mythology, and The Legend of the Banyan Deer, from the Buddhist tradition. In all of these stories, the powerful put themselves at risk to help the weak. Endurance, love, charity, compassion, stewardship, responsibility and leadership are values that parents can model in their own behavior toward their children as examples of all six types of courage. Of course, it's often much easier said than done!
I know that, for myself, explaining to my daughter why I'm making a sacrifice is key. The sacrifice might be giving my money, or my mental time, or my physical effort to something other than my myself and my own immediate needs. Because fear is correlated to lack of control, we can infer that the opposite is true: courage is correlated to taking control. When I see something in the world that grieves me (poverty, injustice, hunger, etc.) I could allow feelings of helplessness overwhelm me. I could begin to fear that the world is a hopeless place. On the other hand, if I take even a small step, make a small sacrifice of money or time or effort to help alleviate that problem, I gain a measure of control. As a result, my feelings of futility diminish, and my fear subsides. Dr. Lisa has explained this eloquently in her posts about an internal v. external locus of control.
But football reclaimed it - and white van man followed, as did taxi drivers, pubs and producers of English comestibles (such as Bombardier Beer).
It was Richard the Lionheart who officially claimed St George as England's patron saint in the 12th century. (During the Crusades an apparition of St George reportedly appeared on the walls of Jerusalem waving his sword and encouraging the English onto a victorious assault on the Holy city.) Two centuries later, following the creation of the noble order of St George and the Standard of St George, which was always carried into battle, the rallying cry of the English army was "God for England, Harry and St George''. And after victory at Agincourt, St George's Day was, according to H P Maskell in his book The Taverns of Old England, "made a double feast and ordered to be observed with the same dignity as Christmas Day''.
However after conquering half the known world in the following centuries the English became reluctant to make a fuss about their patron saint - it is very un-English to show off - and so it is some hundreds of years since anyone had a double St George's Day feast.
In fact the situation had got so bad that, three years ago, a Norwich magistrate refused to extend a licence to The Otter pub on April 23 because he said, in the eyes of the law, "St George's Day is not a special day''. (The same court allowed an extension to mark Chinese New Year.)
The law was out of touch. The following year half a million people signed a petition, delivered to Downing Street by cricketing legend Ian Botham, to demand extra recognition for St George's Day. Last year a Private Member's Bill was tabled in Parliament seeking legislation to ensure that everyone in England is given a holiday on April 23. And this year Kentish businessman Tim Allard is giving his workforce the day off - hoping that others will follow suit.
So far this century the Scots the Welsh, the Northern Irish and the city of London have got their own parliaments or assemblies. There are calls for Cornish independence. And in the elections on May 3 it is predicted that the Scottish National Party could win enough seats to form the next government of Scotland.
It is therefore no surprise that the most recent British Social Attitudes survey, which tracks public views on key issues, found that the proportion of the English who describe themselves as British has declined from 52 per cent to 44 per cent since 1996. So what is it that over half of England wishes to claim as its own? According to George Orwell, "Englishness stretches into the future and the past, there is something in it that persists as in a living creature''.
It's high time we raised this creature from its slumber. AE
Take a leaf out of the Celtic book and have a party
What's with you English? When did self-flagellation officially become the national pastime? And why can't you all just - please excuse my Celtic vernacular - catch a hold of yourselves?So St George's Day once again looms darkly on the horizon, hovering menacingly like a guilty conscience. In any other country on the planet, there would parades, piñatas, and the Chicago River would be dyed green. Even the Welsh, barely three million strong, can drum up enough daffodils and choirs to bring a tear to the eye of a prop forward.
Not the English. Your interminable hand-wringing about whether or not to celebrate your patron saint's day presents further proof (if proof were needed) that England's self-esteem is on a long, drawn out slow puncture.
Admittedly, every so often there's a flurry of patriotism - say, when England wins a cricket match. But the Ashes victory was two years ago and you've just been booted out of the cricket world cup, so little wonder the supermarket St George's tat has been consigned to the recycling bin.
And so, come April 23, instead of merriment and camaraderie and bewildered little children waving flags, there will be middle-class embarrassment, punctured only by peevish irritation that the day has been hijacked by swaggering chavs and meatheads stripping down to their tattoos and getting legless on a potent mix of beer and Britannia. But why not claim it back from them?
As an Irishwoman, I fully take on board the author Elizabeth Bowen's dry observation: "Where would the Irish be without someone to be Irish at?"
Yes, we can be a little brash, a little intemperate when it comes to St Patrick's Day, but we and our diaspora are, by and large, such charming drunks that there's a very good reason why March 17 is a national holiday in places as far flung as Montserrat and Newfoundland. Poor old St George will be lucky if he gets more than a stale Eccles cake and an open-air showing of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
It's something of a truism that even pressed nose to armpit in a crowded Tube carriage, the average Englishman will desperately pretend he is alone. You English may do queues very well, but crowds less so. En masse, you tend either to bray (and possibly cry "doors to manual!") or to riot, depending on whether you're tanked up on Krug or Carlsberg. Either way, it's an unedifying spectacle, which perhaps explains why you prefer sitting at home, watching Gardeners' World.
Yet England is a fine country - why else would we Irish have colonised it in droves for hundreds of years? It is a tolerant country, a country steeped in tradition and robustly egalitarian values. Whether or not he agreed with the government of the day, or its policies, an Englishman was always proud to be English. But no more, it seems, which is truly lamentable.
Perhaps the weight of history is too much to bear and, once you've cravenly apologised for the slave trade, the Irish famine, weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist and for sailing into Iranian waters that weren't actually Iranian, it seems a little, well, bumptious to throw a party. After all, what would people think?
Believe it or not, people - or, in this case, other countries - probably wouldn't notice. And if they did, they would merely observe, with some surprise and pleasure, that the English are more than a peculiar, uptight, island race raised on understatement and stodgy pudding; they are a steadfast nation quietly brimming with self-confidence.
And who knows, you English might even learn how to have a good time. JW
Surviving the Lion AND the Fox!
I found a very interesting story the other day that highlights moral courage in an unusual way. Animal fables typically offer the lion and the fox as examples of physical courage and intellectual courage,
brawn vs. brains. Here we have a story from the very old Gypsy
tradition, a story which demonstrates a different way an outcast group
manages to survive. I found The Lion, the Fox, and the Bird in The Fish
Bride and Other Gypsy Tales, retold by Jean Russel Larson. This is
book well worth reading if you can find it. I'll just summarize this
story briefly.
In this story, a new bird
arrives in a part of the forest that is home to a lion and a fox. Not
being a fast flyer, the bird is warned by everyone to leave. "I'll have
to get the lion and the fox to leave," the bird replies. "It's really
too dangerous to have them here." While the lion and the fox are both
contemplating the nice meal they'll make of the bird, the bird turns the
tables on them both by appealing for help.
The bird asks the lion to perform an act of physical strength (moving
some fallen trees to reveal the berry bushes) and the fox to figure out
how to get reeds from the pond for building a nest (he tells the herons
that the fishing will be better if they pull out the reeds). Both lion
and fox are stymied by this appeal to their generosity, as they cannot
eat someone they've helped, and they must help when someone weaker asks
for assistance. Once they have taken responsibility for the bird by
helping, they must do the right thing and leave it be. Hungry, and
rather baffled at having chosen not to eat the bird, the lion and the fox leave that part of the forest and search for somebody else to eat.
Jean Labadie's Big Black Dog and Shivering in the Bath
Here is an old Quebecois story I ran across recently in Kevin Crossley Holland's The Young Oxford Book of Folk Tales.
It's an easy story to tell with your own details, and it is just
begging for exaggeration. This is my retelling, but you can easily
put it into your own words.
So, this farmer,
Jean Labadie, he had his suspicions about his neighbor, Pierre Martin.
Yes, two weeks running Jean was missing chickens, and he was pretty sure
Pierre was stealing them. Weasels would have left a path of
destruction, but no, this was just one chicken at a time. But he could
not bring himself to say, "Hey Pierre Martin are you stealing my
chickens one by one?" With this on his mind he was helping Pierre
Martin pull some stumps and he said, "Something has been stealing my
chickens, sure, so I went to the Huron village and got me a big black
dog. See him? - there he is at just over there."
Pierre Martin squinted up his eyes to look across the field. "Where?"
"That big black dog, with his red tongue dripping, and those big black paws, you see him there?"
"Oh!" Pierre Martin went back to work.
Sure enough, no more chickens went missing from Jean's yard. But one
day he ran into Pierre Martin in town. "Hey, Jean, you should chain up
your big black dog, he chased me down the road," said Pierre.
"No, he's at my farm guarding the chickens," Jean replied, very surprised.
"Looked like the same dog," Pierre said. "Big black paws, red dripping tongue. Keep him on a chain."
A few days later, Jean again met Pierre in the town, and this time
Madame Sasson was with him. "Was that your big black dog chasing my
sheep?" she demanded to know. "That dog is dangerous."
Jean Labadie raised both hands. This was getting complicated. "No,
no, my dog is chained up in my yard. That is a different dog chasing
your sheep."
"No,
your dog broke the chain," Pierre Martin said. "You should take him
back to the Huron village. That's a mean dog."
Well, for sure this was getting to be ridiculous, but the next day Jean
Labadie hitched up his wagon and drove past Pierre Martin's house,
shouting, "I'm taking this dog back!" And he made a pretense of patting
something down inside the wagon until he was out of sight. He spent
the day with his Huron friends, and then came home.
Pierre Martin was waiting for him. "Your crazy dog came back! Chased
some children and scared them right into church. You can't keep a
dangerous dog like that! You should shoot him!"
Now what could Jean Labadie do? He could not at this point admit he
had made up the dog, and although he was sure Pierre Martin was raking
him over the coals, he was sure stuck. "I'll shoot him," Jean Labadie
replied. "Satisfied?"
There was a little small smile on Pierre Martin's face when he said, "Oh, I suppose I am."
At home, Jean Labadie got out shotgun and whistled loud. "Here you,
dog!" he shouted. Then he fired into the ground, and then dug a grave
and filled it back in. And he hoped that would be last he heard about
his big black dog.
I don't know about
you, but usually when I've been afraid to ask a question, say what I
think, or speak up, the problem only gets worse. I have a personal
story that I've told many times to the Lovely K. with much laughter.
This story features me in the bathtub while answering a phone call from a
new business acquaintance. There was a moment at the start of the call
that would have been the appropriate time to say, "This is not a good
time to speak - I know it's 11 a.m. on a business day but I was thrown
from a horse this morning and now I'm soaking in the tub, so can I call
you later?" That moment slipped by, and I found myself trying to avoid
any splishy, splashy, watery sounds that would give me away (So
unprofessional! I was very concerned at that stage of my career about
seeming very very professional!) The call went on and on much longer
than I expected, while the water cooled and I began to shiver. Somehow I
couldn't summon the social courage
to say, "You know, all this time we've been talking I've been in the
bath." And when this editor began giving me information to write down
(clearly assuming I was sitting fully dressed at a desk) I pretended to
write, making suitable "mmhmms" to indicate I was ready for the next bit
of dictation. My daughter howls at this last bit as I pantomime
writing with a wet finger on the rim on the bathtub, nodding and
shivering, wondering how I would explain this to my agent.
Now, at the age of 50, I have long since let go (I think) a
majority of the social fears that kept me quiet. I don't like shivering
in the tub, and I don't want to shoot any imaginary dogs.
Wait for it... Wait for it!
Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount. ~ Clare Booth Luce
Patience can be activated by physical courage if it requires sitting still or restraining an impulse; it might be supported by emotional courage if it requires a belief in a loved one's ability to fulfill a promise; it might be activated by spiritual courage if it requires willingness to live in uncertainty about purpose or meaning during chaotic times. I'm sure by now our faithful readers can extrapolate their own examples for the six types of courage as they relate to patience.
We know that fear is inspired by uncertainty and lack of control. While we are waiting for something we are uncertain: will it happen at all? will I like it? will it be what I imagine? will I get a piece with blue frosting or yellow frosting? On top of that is the uncertainty of how we will manage our disappointment if IT doesn't fulfill our expectations. While we are waiting for something we usually have no control, since we can't speed up time or manipulate events. Thus, the ability to tolerate this uncertainty and lack of control requires courage, which then allows for patience.
Flourishing or Withering on the Vine
Lisa's recent post describing how moral courage has its roots in empathy had me thinking. What about those times when empathy is blighted or stunted? What becomes of moral courage then? We can look back into history to find periods of what we might call “low empathy” – times when public torture and execution were carnival attractions, when heavy-handed corporal punishment of children or slaves/serfs/servants was commonplace, when mockery and abuse of the disabled was the stuff of fun and games, when might made right, life was cheap, and persecution of selected out-groups was sanctioned by law. Under these conditions, how did “moral action” occur? How did the “family” of humanity uphold mostly positive behavior and tend toward care and flourishing rather than harm? In other words, how did the family make enough “right” or “good” decisions to survive in these times? We are born hard-wired for empathy, but someone has to teach us how to turn it on. As a gardener, I think of it in gardening terms, and so I see empathy as a seedling that must be nurtured and cultivated, or the flower can wither on the vine. How did this plant stay alive under some of the harsh conditions history has witnessed?
We might infer at least two things about this from a quick glance back at history. First, it is clear that there were often eras when civilizations did not flourish, but declined into darkness or anarchy.
Historically, periods of chaos were often precipitated by
environmental assaults (famines, plagues, extreme climate events such
as prolonged droughts) or social upheavals (invasions, wars, and
revolutions political, ideological, or technological). Often
the social catastrophes followed hard on the heels of the environmental
ones, magnifying the disruptive effect of both, and the chaos prompted
by these crises sometimes took many generations to recover from.
Scarcity of resources can
narrow the scope of our empathy from concern for all others, to concern
just for those most like us, to those closest to us, and finally, to
ourselves alone.
Four Dragons
A very long time ago, there were no rivers in China. No lakes, no ponds, no streams or springs or waterfalls, either. There was only the great ocean in the east. Fortunately, the land was watered by rain, sent by the Jade Emperor, who ruled in Heaven. A time came, however, when the Jade Emperor stopped paying attention to the earth, and forgot to send the rains for a very long time. The earth began to dry out, and crops withered.
One day, as the Black Dragon, the Yellow Dragon, the Long Dragon and the Pearl Dragon were gliding through the air, they noticed an old woman kneeling in the dust below, her face streaked with tears as she prayed. Then they noticed that the earth was cracked and brown. "Why has the Jade Emperor sent no rain?" the Pearl Dragon wondered. "Let us go to him in Heaven and ask."
When they arrived at the throne of the Jade Emperor, he was annoyed that they had come to him, pointing out his failure. "I'll send the rain, now go away," he snapped.
The dragons left, relieved that all would be well again on earth. Yet when ten days passed with no rain falling, they knew the Jade Emperor had forgotten about the people on earth again. "Let us help them," said the dragons to one another. "We can fill our bellies with water from the great ocean and spray it onto the earth, can't we?" And so this is what they did. The moment the water touched the dry soil the wilting rice and wheat stood tall again, and the people rushed to catch the water in bowls.
Up in Heaven, the Jade Emperor caught sight of what the dragons were doing, and shouted with anger that they had taken it upon themselves to help the earth. "Bring mountains!" he roared to the Mountain God. "Crush those dragons!"
Faster than wind over rice paddies, four mountains came and bore down upon the dragons, pinning them to the earth. Yet the dragons were still full of water, and continued to pour it out, even as they were crushed. And so the four great rivers of China were formed, the Yellow River, the Long River, the Black River and the Pearl River, bringing water to the people forever.
I asked my daughter how many kind of courage she thought were involved in this story. "It took courage to show the emperor he had forgotten his job," she said. "And it took courage to go ahead and do the job themselves." "Do you think it also takes courage sometimes to pray for help?" I asked. She shrugged. "Maybe."
Compare this story of self-sacrifice to the story of Fenrir the Wolf, from Viking mythology, and The Legend of the Banyan Deer, from the Buddhist tradition. In all of these stories, the powerful put themselves at risk to help the weak. Endurance, love, charity, compassion, stewardship, responsibility and leadership are values that parents can model in their own behavior toward their children as examples of all six types of courage. Of course, it's often much easier said than done!
I know that, for myself, explaining to my daughter why I'm making a sacrifice is key. The sacrifice might be giving my money, or my mental time, or my physical effort to something other than my myself and my own immediate needs. Because fear is correlated to lack of control, we can infer that the opposite is true: courage is correlated to taking control. When I see something in the world that grieves me (poverty, injustice, hunger, etc.) I could allow feelings of helplessness overwhelm me. I could begin to fear that the world is a hopeless place. On the other hand, if I take even a small step, make a small sacrifice of money or time or effort to help alleviate that problem, I gain a measure of control. As a result, my feelings of futility diminish, and my fear subsides. Dr. Lisa has explained this eloquently in her posts about an internal v. external locus of control.
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