Changes VII: Chivalry, not quite dead.

I recently have had the opportunity to spend time with woodsman John. John often gets poked fun at for his being a woodsman and all. He lives in the wilderness, carries a knife, has a truck, owns guns, wears suspenders and looks like an offspring of Paul Bunyan. This is why I call him Woodsman John. The interesting thing, though, is his“old fashioned” sense of chivalry. I know enough of the redneck variety, who would live up to their stereotypes of creepily asking girls to go 4x4ing with them, bragging about how many guns they have or talking about killing animals like its something they savour. John, however- I don't think I've even heard him swear, certainly not in front of a girl. He calls senior men and woman as Maam and Sir and saves his words so they don't run off. Staring into the face of the wild he not become wild. And the funny thing is that when he is spending time in the “civilization” of the city he is the one who stands out as being the most collected character- the disciplined type. If you wanted someone you could trust to get your kids home safe from a party, or think straight in a dangerous situation, I think he'd be your man. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I like the romanticism of positivism: the idea that we can better ourselves and are on a vector towards self-made perfection- that is, in as far as it means surrounding myself with fine art and quality workmanship and bowler hats or fedoras. I like fedoras. But the problem remains that we are animals as well as humans- a fact which gets in the way of our humanity. Christians often point to the doctrine of “the fall” to explain our corrupted nature- the part of us that might go wild without checks and balances. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There might be some value, I am led to think, in a disciplined life, but the belief that we can perfect ourselves is historically a recipe for fundamental ideologies and painful falls off big and well trained horses. Chivalry is dead they say. Its true that things have changed. Chivalry was a social construction, existing in a time of dragons or something. Maybe we don't need it anymore. I don't think, however, that the fact that it was only a social construction means that its necessarily destined for death. Does chivalry reflect an ideal which degraded humans, or a discipline which gave them value? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The way i figure is that civilization has always been protected by a “thin red line” somewhere. On that front the animality of men, through barbarous failure to compromise have kept civilians far within cities and borders enjoying peace. In the age of the roman empire, the armies weren't even allowed inside Rome. They were a threat to society. Presently, many don't even like the police officers in their cities- and yet they are the forces which keep a healthy democracy from adopting anarchical violence on the fringes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When we think about chivalry we think about knights. It was the social construct that took the animal barbarity of a warrior, removed his helmet, replaced it with a hat and had that hat throw down his jacket before a woman lest she should step in a puddle. It allowed the animal to become a human. Couldn't she have figured out a way to go around the puddle? Not the point. The point is the act of discipline which kept the inherent animal an identity of human decency which could contribute to a healthy society of not just men, but woman and children too. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I wonder if some social constructs like this, though unpopular now, have been crucial to what have kept humans “civil”, although even that word has fallen from popularity also. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My point here is that, although I enjoy the romanticism that I can become a better man, making a list of times in the day that i screwed up like Ben Franklin did, believing that by wearing a a bowler cap I might take on an upper class lilt and treat my fellow men with instantaneous Christian benevolence, the case is that I am at once an animal- a fallen human. It is a balancing game of being the best I can, but also being aware of my limitations. I walk like a toddler, doing his best to put one foot in front of another, but with hands above his head, guided and balanced by his father. Only here loosing the fear of stumbling. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In this season when I seek a structure wherewith to interpret what it is to be a good and decent and respectful man, the ethic of chivalry has regained some of its lost popularity, at least to me. Humility balanced with discipline. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Being a good man, perhaps, is not natural at all. From a civilization perspective it is a construct designed so that more of us can live here. From a Judeo-Christian perspective, it is a discipline which resists our fallen nature and brings us closer to what God wants us to be. Good things have been corrupted by selfishness. Fear replaces trust. Lust replaces admiration. Cash value replaces beauty. Materialism makes everything and everyone into an exploitable resource. The spiritual mentality of religion can foster a discipline and, to some extent, a worldview which supports something much better. While realizing the rightly placed criticisms upon both chivalry and religion as social constructs, I nonetheless see elements of both in my life which help me become who I believe I am destined for- an objective which I hope I am collectively becoming. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- An old friend of mine used to be a pastor, and I used to listen to him preach a lot. As it goes, I don't remember very many of the topics he preached about now. The one I remember best, however, was about the will: Will vs. Heart. Follow your heart, everyone says. Rob said don't. Your heart can be lead you good places as well as bad. It is fickle. The will is something grounded in predetermined and thought out convictions which serve as a countercheck against what the heart might be saying. Take control of yourself Rob seemed to advocate: follow your will, not just your heart. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ... and then when that truly true and really real good good comes along and the will agrees, you give heart soul and strength to get it.