The Forgotten Vice

Rejecting Pusillanimity

If you look up a definition of pusillanimous, it will probably say something like “cowardly.” If you look farther back, it’s used much differently. Aristotle probably holds the oldest definition.

When Aristotle talked about virtues and vices, like pusillanimity, he graded on a scale. In Nichomachean Ethics, he describes how every virtue is a mean between two vices. The vices are either an “excess” or “deficiency” of the virtue. For example, the vice of rashness is an excess of courage, and the vice of cowardice is a deficiency of courage. Courage itself is a mean between the two. Pusillanimity, particularly, is the deficiency of magnanimity. Unlike the vague definition of cowardice, Aristotle defines the pusillanimous man as someone who

“Though deserving, deprives himself of the advantages he deserves, and through not claiming his deserts conveys the impression of having some defect, and even of not knowing his own quality…[the pusillanimous] hold back from fine actions and pursuits and similarly from external goods, because they feel unworthy of them.”

In other words, when a person lacks the fortitude to use whatever good qualities they possess, they commit a kind of sin of omission. By refusing to put oneself forward and give the world one’s best, a pusillanimous person denies posterity the good they’re capable of achieving. To avoid this, the trick is not to overestimate or underestimate one’s character. A person ought to know thyself correctly. In practice, this is admittedly a very difficult thing to do. Knowing oneself accurately, however, is a part of being a magnanimous man.

Aquinas differed slightly from Aristotle’s definition of magnanimity. To Aristotle, the magnanimous man “[enters into] popular contests…where the honour or feat is a great one. The tasks he undertakes are few, but grand and celebrated.” Aristotle’s magnanimous man is a person who is externally honored by all. Conversely, Aquinas says a truly magnanimous man doesn’t care about the honor he gets from other people, but the true honorableness of his actions, as God defines them. “Magnanimity is about honors,” writes Aquinas, “in the sense that a man strives to do what is deserving of honor, yet not so as to think much of the honor accorded by man.”

If we can jump now to the modern world, I recently browsed an article by Rod Dreher, where he talks about the sad fact that 48 percent of British inhabitants were born outside of Britain. Also, 28 percent of Britons were not even born in Europe, and, by 2060, the distinctly British people will cease to exist as a majority in their own country. Dreher identifies a lack of heart on the part of the British to fight back against this tide. He says,

“There is something about these English people that cannot conceive of being undutiful, whatever the cost to their own happiness…During and after the Second World War, the famed stoicism and taciturnity of the British people came to be valorized by the rest of us…Could it be that that same virtue has now been weaponized against them, such that they are all marching, ungrumbling, out of history?”

Another interesting factoid I learned this week has been the steady downturn in U.S. incarceration rates. 2009 was considered America’s moment of peak mass incarceration when 1.6 million people were being held in state and federal prisons throughout the country. From that peak to the present time, incarceration in America has declined by 22%. Young people, apparently, are just not committing the crimes they used to. I discovered this on Facebook, where the video references this Atlantic article. The guy in the video says, “There’s advances in mental health medication [and] there’s the fact that people just don’t leave the house as much anymore. A couple of young people getting into an argument at a bowling alley may result in a violent crime, but that is not going to happen if that argument occurs over a multiplayer video game.”

Unlike Europe, America has pushed back sharply against cultural suicide by cracking down on illegal immigration, but that doesn’t mean, across the pond, we’re immune to the spiritual and philosophical malaise that’s causing it. Fewer people in prison is a good thing, but the statistic, I think, points to something worse than high incarceration: anesthetization. Crime, I believe, isn’t as bad as the listless sluggishness and general lack of willpower to be or do anything that hovers around our collective consciousness. In other words, the West hasn’t suddenly become more virtuous—the West has lost its vitality. We haven’t stopped committing crimes of nature; we’ve stopped committing the more punishable crimes of passion.

It’s good to be humble, if that means a person doesn’t overestimate their own value, character, and abilities. It’s a crime, however, to neuter oneself through zealous self-effacement. “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise,” C.S. Lewis wrote, “We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.” You see, we’ve forgotten pusillanimity as a vice. We forget how the servant who buried his coin was cast into the outer darkness. This passage in scripture is often read as a warning against failing to undertake productive activity, but it’s also an indictment against our culture’s subtle ability to satiate our capacity for productive achievement with social media, video games, and over-medication.

So, what does it mean to be magnanimous? Or, in other words, what does it mean to be Great? For me, to be honest, being great feels more and more like cultivating the capacity to go for a long walk or sit by a softly-flowing river, contemplating God’s word or meditating on life. This, of course, might be different for others. God defines the greatest among us as being the last and least, and, in my own reflections, magnanimity seems to include those actions that look really small. It doesn’t, however, exclude the activities the world classically defines as big, ambitious pursuits. An ambitious pursuit—like running for governor, or something on a similar level—comes with strong temptations, but, if it’s navigated in a way that’s moral, virtuous, and obedient to God, then it can truly be magnanimous.

There are ways to be magnanimous that are not honored by others. There are ways to be magnanimous that may make you despised or hated. There are magnanimous activities that are both truly great and win you external honor from others, and, when this happens, I believe it’s indicative of the health of one’s society. In the little and big ways, being Great means pleasing God, but each man differs in capacity. To reference the parable of the talents again, God doesn’t give everyone equal talents, but some are inherently gifted with more. Some people, as Aristotle would conceptualize it, are born with greatness of soul.

Are you great? Maybe. Either way, wouldn’t you like to find out? If a person is pusillanimous, they never will. In the modern world, a great person will need to navigate today’s murky waters, where non-intentional and unfocused productivity, or the satiation of reels, video games, porn, and over-the-counter pot tempt us all to greater effect than any Lotus flower. Those who are great in soul push against this almost overwhelming tide. The great in soul break the mold by striving greatly. They reject languishing in the forgotten vice of pusillanimity.