reverence

Reverence begins in a deep understanding of human limitations;

from this grows the capacity to be in awe of whatever we believe lies

outside our control - God, truth, justice, nature, even death. The

capacity for awe, as it grows, brings with it the capacity for respecting

fellow human beings, flaws and all. This in turn fosters the ability to be

ashamed when we show moral flaws exceeding the normal human allotment. The

Greeks before Plato saw reverence as one of the bulwarks of society, and

the immediate followers of Confucius in China thought much the same. Both

groups wanted to see reverence in their leaders, because reverence is the

virtue that keeps leaders from trying to take tight control of other

people's lives. Simply put, reverence is the virtue that keeps human

beings from acting like gods.

To forget that you are only human, to think you can act like a

god - this is the opposite of reverence. Ancient Greeks thought that

tyranny was the height of irreverence, and they gave the famous name of

hubris to the crimes of tyrants. An irreverent soul is arrogant and

shameless, unable to feel respect for people it sees as lower than itself

- ordinary people, prisoners, children. The two failures go together, in

both Greek and Chinese traditions. If an emperor has a sense of awe, this

will remind him that Heaven is his superior - that he is, as they said in

ancient China, the son of Heaven. And any of us is better for remembering

that there is someone, or Someone, to whom we are children; in this frame

of mind we are more likely to treat all children with respect. And vice

versa: If you cannot bring yourself to respect children you are probably

deficient in the ability to feel that anyone or anything is higher than

you.

* * *

It is a natural mistake to think that reverence belongs to

religion. It belongs, rather to community. Wherever people try to act

together, they hedge themselves around with some form of ceremony or good

manners, and the observance of this can be an act of reverence. Reverence

lies behind civility and all of the graces that make life in society

bearable and pleasant. But in our time we hear more praise of irreverence

than we do of reverence, especially in the media. That is because we

naturally delight in mockery and we love making fun of solemn things. It

is not because, in our heart of hearts, we despise reverence. In my view,

the media are using the word 'irreverent' for qualities that are not

irreverent at all. A better way to say what they have in mind would be

"bold, boisterous, unrefined, unimpressed by pretension" - all good

things. Reverence is compatible with these and with almost every form of

mockery. The one great western philosopher who praises reverence is

Nietzsche, who is also the most given to mockery. Reverence and a keen

eye for the ridiculous are allies: both keep people from being pomopous or

stuck up.

* * *

Reverence compels me to confess that I do not know exactly what

reverence is. I can't do any better for justice or courage or wisdom,

though I have a pretty good idea in each case. I would say that courage is

a well-developed capacity for feeling confidence and fear in the right

places, at the right times, and in the right degrees of intensity; that

is, courage lies somewhere between fearlessness (which often looks like

courage) and timidity (which no one would mistake for courage). This

account of courage has a grand history -- it comes from Aristotle -- but

is hardly a complete definition. I would call it a definition-schema --

something like a form full of blanks that we need to fill in as best as we

can, after life experience and critical reflection. The schema for

courage tells us that we can't go wrong by being courageous, but it does

not tell us how to be courageous. It points to a distinction between

courage and fearlessness, but it does not spell out the difference between

them -- aside from the obvious point that one is always good while the

other can go too far. Before filling in the blanks in the schema we would

need to know the difference between right and wrong. That looks easy

enough in some cases, but seems to call for divine wisdom in others.

I cannot claim divine wisdom, and so I cannot give a full

account of any of the virtues, least of all reverence. My schema for

reverence looks like this: Reverence is the well-developed capacity to

have the feelings of awe, respect and shame when these are the right

feelings to have. This says that reverence is a good thing, but not much

more, except by pointing to further questions. Sometimes it is right to be

respectful and sometimes wrong; that's obvious. Sometimes our feelings

should rise to the level of awe, but not always. So when should we be

respectful, and how deep should our respect be in each case? Of what

should we be in awe? No capsule definition will tell you. Nor can any

human wisdom give you a complete and final answer. The best answer I can

give is this book.

* * *

The four amateur musicians in a pool of light have reached the

last note of Mozart's 'Dissonant' Quartet, and they have done so more or

less at the same time. They find contact with each other's eyes, all

looking to the first violin to see how long to draw out the note. Then

they fall silent for a moment, subdued by a sense of awe none of them

could fully explain. They find contact with each other's eyes, all looking

to the first violin to see how long to draw out the note. Then they fall

silent for a moment, subdued by a sense of awe none of them could fully

explain. They are not impressed by their own playing; all are conscious of

measures counted incorrectly, of pitches missed. They know the piece,

however, and they have been aware of harmonies they have not played or

heard: from one perfectly resolved dissonance they can extrapolate the

perfections of the piece.

Their egos as musicians were out of the picture. They have no

audience to make them self-conscious; each has for a time lost the sense

of being an individual with goals and values that might be at variance

with those of the others. They have followed the lead of the first violin

without feeling themselves to be followers, and she has led without

feeling herself to be a leader. She has not been annoyed at slowing down

for the barely competent cello during a hard passage, and the cello has

outdone himself, drawn by her musicianship to play better than usual.

There was ceremony at the start -- the chairs and music stands

arranged in a certain way, respectful discussion of what to play, decision

deferred to the first violin, no audible complaints about the viola's

first note, and so on. There is also, plainly, a hierarchy at work. The

first violin is the first violin and by happy coincidence the best

musician of the four. All know roughly where they stand in this pecking

order, but all are happy to be where they are, and they play without envy.

And tonight, for once, no one has apologized for missing a note; no one

has been conscious enough to take personal responsibility. And that is

good in the context of this group effort, in which every apology breaks

the spell.

What spell? They have felt awe. But at what? Not at Mozart; they

have not been thinking of him either. Not at the elegant counterpoint

Mozart has used; though conscious of the demands it makes on them, and the

beauty that emerges from it, they are not analyzing this music as they

play it. They would say, if asked, something like, "That Mozart!" or

"What a lovely piece!" But those remarks, which will soon break the

silence, also break the spell. They do not quite catch the mood or explain

it. There really is no saying what it is that they feel has brushed them

in their imperfect performance.

* * *

Any virtue can be abused. Tyrants can exploit the courage and

reverence and even the justice of theur peoples. We have seen this in our

own time; vicious rulers in both European and Confucian cultures have

taken advantage of their people's habits of respect, habits bread in

reverence. Savage commanders exploit the courage of their troops. Honesty

among friends is prohibitively dangerous when the friends are likely to be

reporting to the secret police. To say that virtues are always good, then,

is overly simple. They are never bad in themselves, but they can lead to

trouble in a bad context. People pay a high price for clinging to virtue

when they find themselves in a vicious system, and so one of the classical

goals of statecraft is to build a system in which virtue may safely

flourish -- so that one may call for virtue without demanding enormous

sacrifices. Also, most people's virtues are not complete, and partial

virtues may be very bad indeed. A soldier may follow a vicious leader into

danger and be party to a terrible crime. In doing this he may show some

measure of courage. But a soldier who had a full measure of courage would

not be party to a crime, he would instead join the resistance against the

vicious leader.

* * *

Reverence does not stop at any of the boundaries that human

beings make among themselves; reverence overlooks differences of culture,

social class, age and gender. Reverence is more democratic than Greek

democracy, which was limited by age and birth and gender. Reverence calls

us to be conscious of bare humanity, the humanity of our species. The

ancient Greeks were very clear about this: reverence is about just being

human, and not about a distinctly Greek or Persian way of being human.

* * *

Students should treat teachers loyally as people from whom they

have much to learn; teachers should treat students respectfully as

fellow-learners. Teachers must not pretend to omniscience, and from this

it follows that they must be open to the possibility of learning something

from their students. But what could an expert teacher possibly learn from

a student? Many things, but at least these: how much the student knows or

does not know about the subject, how fast the student is capable of

learning, why the student wants to learn in the first place, or what might

prevent the student from learning or wanting to learn.

When a teacher refuses to learn at least this much from

students, they will say that the teacher does not respect them - and

consequently they will withhold respect from the teacher. The virtue that

is missing in that case -- the virtue that would supply the respect that

is missing on both sides -- is reverence. In an ideal classroom everyone

treats what is to be learned with a reverence that generates mutual

respect among teacher and students.

* * *