GRAVITAS (Seriousness)

[WHEELER]

This thread was spun from another thread.Titus 2:2 Bid the older men be temperate, serious, sensible, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. (The Greek is semnous.)

 

Titus 2:7 Show yourself in all respects a model of good deeds and in your teaching show integrity, gravity (semnous), (8) and sound speech that cannot be censured, so that an opponent may be put to shame, have nothing evil to say of us.

 

1 Timothy 3.4 He must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful (semnous) in every way (KJV 1 Timothy 2:4 One that ruleth his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity.)

 

Gravity comes from the Latin word gravitas. This one virtue is especially tied to Roman culture. Gravitas was central to the achievements of the Roman Republic. It is also the breakdown of this virtue that led to its demise and the rise to the Roman Imperialism. Gravitas means solemnity or dignity of manner. Other characteristics of it are being down to earth, appreciative, holy appearance, straight, humility, respect, bearing, and no joking. People who portray this virtue are called squares. The Southern Baptists and other fundamentalist Christian faiths exhibit this and are ridiculed for it. All warrior cultures manifest this virtue. Agrarian people and persons who have a fear of God naturally attain this. Notice that the old Cub Scout oath had the word "square" in it but the new does not.

 

Henry Lee delivered the funeral oration for George Washington and describes his character thus:

 

Pious, just, humane, temperate and sincereuniform, dignified and commandinghis example was as edifying to all around him as ere the effects of that example lasting (1)

 

George Washington had the virtue of gravitas.

 

Aristotle defines it thus: Dignity (Semnous) is a middle state between Self-Will and Obsequiousness. A man who in his conduct pays no regard at all to another but is contemptuous is self-willed; he who regards another in everything and is inferior to everybody is obsequious; he who regards another in some things but not in others, and regardful of persons worthy of regard, is dignified. (2)

 

Its opposite characteristics are flamboyant, outspoken, talks a lot, buffoonery, superstitious, sloppy in dress, and frivolous. When in college I observed that a good percentage of male students who hung around women, lose their gravitas and act like children, laughing and giggling to keep the attention of the opposite sex. The college party scene is not conducive to this virtue. In the French Foreign Legion anthem, it says that this is for the Swiss and people of other mountainous regions but there is no place in the legion for the Belgian. Why because they had no bearing and they were constantly joking.

 

The effect of this is significant on education. This is one reason that education is failing. The lack of seriousness on the part of parents and students alike affects their educational performances. Aristotle observed But it has come about that men make amusements an end. (3)

 

This also has political ramifications. A slavish people exhibit poor behavior. Urban societies become more puerile. A free people like the Ancient Greek, Romans, and the founding American generations had gravitas. Gravitas exemplified Victorian England and her Empire. Look at any old picture of American people and Gravitas shines on their demeanor. The principle is Culture defines Politics.

 

 

 

 

 

(1) Magills Quotations in Context, edited by Frank Magill, Harper & Row Publishers, Pg 251.

 

(2) Eudemian Ethics, Aristotle, Loeb Classical Library, Vol 285, 1233b 35; pg 351

 

(3) Politics, Aristotle, Loeb Classical Library, Vol 264, 1339b 30; pg 655

 

(This message has been edited by WHEELER)

[NJCubScouter]

Wheeler says:

 

Notice that the old Cub Scout oath had the word "square" in it but the new does not.

 

I think this is an example of a concept that I and others have pointed out to you a number of times, but that you refuse to accept. That is, over time, words acquire new common meanings, sometimes in addition to the old meanings and sometimes instead of them. When a new meaning becomes more popular than the old, and you "interpret" someone's words according to the old meaning, it is a better than 50-50 shot that you will misinterpret what the person is saying. I think that is why many of the discussions that you start become so convoluted, because you insist on using particular definitions that are either no longer the sole accepted meanings of the word (like "democracy" or "republic"), or never were the sole accepted meaning (like "socialist," which you interpret to include almost everyone on Earth besides yourself.)

 

In the case of "to be square," which I recited (along with millions of other Cub Scouts from 1930 until 1971), you are correct, "square" basically meant honest, forthright, dependable -- all aspects of "gravitas." This meaning probably lives on in phrases such as "squared away," which is somewhat out-of-date but I got it from my father and most people still understand what I mean or can figure it out. (Maybe it is used in the military?) But, somewhere in the 50's and/or 60's, "square" as applied to a person started to take on an exclusively negative meaning, that is one who refuses to change or to accept anything new, one who is uncool, un-hip, not "with it," etc. Now, one might see this (as Wheeler apparently does) as just being a ridiculing of "gravitas", but I don't think so. "Gravitas" does not necessarily reject all change. In any event, by the time I became aware of things, "square" (in its negative sense) had itself become outmoded, and using meant you were probably, well, "square." It happens all the time. Somewhere between the time I was, say 10 (1968) and the time I was in high school, words like "cool" and "groovy" went from being cool and groovy, to being, well, square, though by that time nobody would have called it that. In all of this, the original meaning of "square" (honest, forthright etc.) was lost. By the end of the 60s nobody would have understood it to mean that, and so the BSA took it out of the Cub Scout promise. It wasn't that the BSA was making fun of "gravitas," after all the rest of the Cub Scout promise, the Scout Oath and Law still contain the same meanings as "square" once did. It was just a recognition that 8 year old boys of the day, and an ever-increasing proportion of their parents, would not really know what the word was supposed to mean.

 

Other than that, Wheeler, I actually was surprised to find little in your post to disagree with. I would just say that your use of George Washington as an example of "gravitas" almost "proves too much," because you have chosen someone who has been inflated to mythic proportions both by his contemporaries and especially by popular history. (I was going to say "almost mythic" but in Washington's case, it goes all the way to mythic.) When you read some more detailed political histories of Washington and his times, you find that while he was indeed a great man, he was in fact just a man, and a politician at that, although he was very clever in creating the impression that the politics were always being practiced by others on his behalf. I am reminded of a scene from one of my favorite movies, 1776, and luckily enough I found a web site

 

http://www.bard.org/SectionEducate/Justice1776.html

 

that not only tells the story, but indicates that it is a mostly-true story:

 

"Some months after the stirring events in Philadelphia, Adams wrote with understandable jealousy, The whole history of this Revolution will be a lie, from beginning to end. He knew that Benjamin Franklin and George Washington would become figures of legend, and that the histories would say Franklin did this, Franklin did that, Franklin did some other damned thing. . . . Franklin smote the ground and out sprang George Washington, full grown and on his horse. . . . Franklin then electrified him with his miraculous lightning rod and the three of them--Franklin, Washington, and the horse--conducted the entire Revolution by themselves. Stone found those lines among Adamss personal papers and let his character speak them verbatim and with some irritation in 1776. The Franklin of the play listens to him contentedly for a moment, contemplates this portrait of himself for posterity, and smilingly responds I like it."

 

So I guess my point is, history is great, history is important, I love reading history -- just be careful of making too much of it all the time.

 

 

[Fat Old Guy]

" Other characteristics of it are being down to earth, appreciative, holy appearance, straight, humility, respect, bearing, and no joking."

 

-- snip --

 

" All warrior cultures manifest this virtue."

 

Is there documentation that the Vikings didn't tell jokes, "Olaf, did you hear the one about the . . ." What about the Spartans, when they weren't fondling little boys did they not sing songs and tell jokes?

 

(This message has been edited by Fat Old Guy)

[NJCubScouter]

I didn't notice the part about "no joking" before. When it comes to George Washington, I think Wheeler is once again buying into historical myth rather than reality. It is true that G.W. (Washington that is, not Bush) tried to cultivate a serious image and pretty much succeeded. However, do you really think that when he was staying at Ye Olde Inne while traveling from place to place, and hoisting a few brews in the back room with his officers, fellow Congressional delegates, etc., that the occasional joke did not get told, or laughed at by our Founding Father? (I looked on the Internet and found several references to biographies that discuss his sense of humor and suggest that he had one, though not displayed in public; but there is no detail on the Web sites.)

 

Washington was not a marble statue. He was not always posed as he is in the famous Gilbert Stuart painting. I'm not saying he was Robin Williams or anything, but he was a man (meaning a real person, not just a male.) Hopefully he had some sense of humor. For that matter, I'll bet that Socrates liked to tell the occasional joke or two, though probably not over a cup of hemlock.

 

[evmori]

I have never seen anyone with so much knowledge at their fingertips not have a clue how to use it! Very few (if any) of his post actually have anything to do with the the real world! And if it wasn't for ancient orators & the ilk, Wheeler wouldn't even have an opinion!

Mental institutions are filled with Wheelers! Wonder which one he is in & if they know he has internet access!

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[firstpusk]

WHEELER posting on gravitas? Now that is funny. You are the Miller Lite of intellectual content - definitely less filling.

[Bob White]

Luke 17:11-19 "and Jesus laughed"

[purcelce]

"I have never seen anyone with so much knowledge at their fingertips not have a clue how to use it!"

 

Thanks Ed...had to clean my monitor due to spitting diet coke all over it after reading your remarks!!!!! That's a good one

 

E Pluribus Unum!

Villa est villa Romani.

[NWScouter]

On that December night in 1776, George might have told himself that this raid on an enemy camp in Trenton, New Jersey, better work. Or else he might be ordering his last meal before the British strung him up. But the general rallied his ragged, barefoot troops across the icy Delaware stepping into his boat, Washington the plainspoken frontiersman, not the marbleized demigod nudged the 280-pound General Henry Ox Knox with the tip of his boot and said, Shift that fat ass, Harry. But slowly, or youll swamp the damned boat.

(Dont Know Much About History by Kenneth C. Davis he is quoting Knoxs own story)

Washington had presence, yes-even gravitas, but we sometimes forget he was man of his time.

On changing words in the King James translation of the 1 Corinthians 13 we have the word charity it is now in the more recent translations, love, which now more correctly translates the Greek word agape for our time understanding. The Englishman of Shakespeares time one word worked but now another makes the modern reader understand.

 

[NJCubScouter]

NW,

 

YES! Thank you! I have heard that story but had forgotten it.