On Civilisation (John Armstrong)

Armstrong's thoughts are very much in sync with my own on agents of change, love and art as bridging towards the truth. In this book, he brings in an extra dimension of civilisation as the societal life-support system in the environment of freedom in order to nurture high-quality relationships between people and their ideas and objects. He defines such high-quality relationships as enabling the flourishing of our human nature. Such relationships are beyond attachment and obsession and invoke a questioning of worth and value.

And so this adds onto my idea: that free agents come together/ act seperately in order to foster a society with a nurturing environment with the aim of developing human flourishing (freeing the others from the social realm of pain and thereby allowing them to look upon and explore concepts of value).

But this is no airy-fairy idealism for he acknowledges that material support must be present in order to allow for such flourishing to happen. Very importantly, he even goes on to defend worldy goods and that they are not the cause of us being spiritually/ innerly deficient. He posits that it is not material comfort that has beguiled us from the path but that we have not grown sufficiently in our inner world. And this is because we allow our attachment to material goods to be just that. We do not use them as conduits in which to explore and develop our concepts of value. To achieve this, we must go, "So I love having this/admiring this object, but why do I love it? What does my love for this object then tell me about myself?"

Another important point that Armstrong puts forth is the distinction between "happiness" and "flourishing" and that we should aim for the latter since happiness is a buoyant inner state but not grounded in action and character. This brings into emphasis the new maxim that I shall adopt for next year, "How can I be of help to others today?" We must help each other deal with the challenges of mortality in the outer realm where the tangible realities bite at us on the most immediate level. And when happiness can be achieved, we must guide others on to a flourishing state.

13. On War- The "Warrior's Vanity"

In this post, I shall combine lines of thought from Azar Gat and Leo Braudy and explore the significance of the "Warrior's Vanity" as a sub-cultural superstructure in sustaining the soldierly ethos. (as termed in my previous post, "On war- What makes an effective soldier?"

Azar Gat starts us off with his argument of the evolutionary strain on all facets of human civilization and their origins from the innate biological drives that derive from our reproductive and sustenance needs. Everything else that is to be (which Azar understands with a Marxist conceptual aid as the cultural super-structure) has its roots from these biological drives, whether directly or indirectly.

Similarly, the evolutionary strain runs it course and casts its effects on the sub-cultural super-structure of the warring class/ group as well. Leo Braudy termed this set of values as "Code of Honor" which many have used before him. However, I posit that my term, the "Warrior's Vanity", lends an extra dimension of conceptual appreciation to this set of values. Firstly as Braudy argues, the code of honor needs to be affirmed by an appropriate audience. This feeds the warrior's vanity for he wishes to be desired/ respected and admired for his displays of courage and skill in battle. It is both self-affirming and reinforcing of the expectations of soldierly conduct in battle.

The significance of this much prized and justified source of vanity is that it helps signal the boundaries of exclusive membership which is highly important to all sub-cultures. Secondly, as explained above, it serves to anchor membership. Lastly, it posits the individual to rise above personal interest and ensures the thriving of the warring group's endeavors.