Their use of masculine pronouns is suitable to Aristotle's context, because there is no doubt that Aristotle thought he was writing for men citizens. In the famous experiment in participatory democracy in ancient Athens, women and slaves were not citizens. But we Americans today should see Aristotle's views in his Nicomachean Ethics as extending to women citizens as well as to men citizens.
In his most recent book, mentioned above, Bradshaw invokes Aristotle's challenging standard for expressing anger. Aristotle famously works with the idea of the mean between the extremes. The mean is desirable; the extremes, undesirable. Regarding anger, one extreme is extreme deficiency in feeling and expressing anger appropriately. The other extreme involves over-doing it to one degree or another. In the new translation titled Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (2011), translated by Bartlett and Collins, mentioned above, Aristotle says, "The person who gets angry at the things and with whom he ought, then, and, further, in the way, when and for as much time as he ought, is praised" (page 81). Later on, he says, "But this much at least is clear: the middle characteristic [between the extremes] is praiseworthy, in accord with which we are angry with whom we ought to be, at the things we ought, in the way we ought, and everything of this sort; whereas the excesses and deficiencies are blameworthy -- slightly so if they are small in degree, more so if in greater degree, and extremely so if in great degree" (page 83).
We should pause and reflect on Aristotle's challenging standard regarding anger. Aristotle and everybody in his audience were familiar with the Iliad. From the invocation of the muses onward, the central story is about King Achilles' anger at being dishonored by King Agamemnon, the commander-in-chief of the thousand-ship fleet that set sail to retrieve Helen from Troy. Agamemnon first dishonors the priest of Apollo, and then he dishonors Achilles. Achilles being the most powerful warrior around starts to draw his sword to dispatch Agamemnon. But the goddess Athena intervenes and forcibly stops Achilles from dispatching Agamemnon. She instructs Achilles to give Agamemnon a good tongue lashing instead, which Achilles proceeds to do. But Agamemnon remains unrepentant and gets his way. We should note that Athena does not tell Achilles that he is in the wrong. When Achilles subsequently recounts what happened to his goddess-mother Thetis, she also does not tell Achilles that he is in the wrong. Nor does the omniscient narrator tell us that Achilles is in the wrong. Achilles is not in the wrong. Agamemnon is. Nevertheless, we may wonder if Achilles carries his anger at Agamemnon too far. Later on, Agamemnon repents. He sends a delegation of representatives to offer Achilles great gifts in restitution. But Achilles does not accepts the gifts that Agamemnon offers him in restitution. Only later after Patroclus has been killed in battle by Hector does Achilles decide to re-enter the war. By that time, he has been told by his goddess-mother Thetis that he has two possible fates: (1) leave Troy and go home and live a long life, or (2) re-enter the war and die eventually in battle. Knowing that certain death will be his fate, Achilles re-enters the war. Presumably his anger at being dishonored by Agamemnon has abated enough for Achilles to re-enter the war. But his anger over the death of Patroclus moves Achilles to want to revenge the death of Patroclus by killing Hector in battle, just as Hector had killed Patroclus in battle.
Because I was curious about what Bradshaw refers to as abandonment feelings, I figured that perhaps some other authors may have written about abandon feelings, so I did a Google search. That is how I came across Susan Anderson's book The Journey from Abandonment to Healing (2000).
When I read her book, I was deeply impressed by her discussion of abandonment feelings. It strikes me that her account of mourning abandonment feelings can be understood as an account of mourning all kinds of abandonment feelings, not just mourning abandonment feelings occasioned when one is abandoned by a loved one. How many among us have not experienced abandonment feelings? Probably very few. As a result, Anderson's book The Journey from Abandonment to Healing is one of the most important books published thus far in the twenty-first century.
I used to admire the ever-resourceful Odysseus in the Homeric epic the Odyssey. But after learning about Anderson's life and work, I have demoted him. He's only an imaginary character. But she's a real-life resourceful person. If all other Americans were as admirably resourceful as she has been, this would be a very different country to live in. But most of us probably have to wonder where her inner resourcefulness comes from. Her inner resourcefulness has been of epic proportions.
As Joseph Campbell understood, the epic hero's journey through life is the journey of ego-consciousness. The famous epic stories of the hero's journey were composed and listened to because ego-consciousness does indeed develop in the course of life. Thus the famous epic stories of the hero's journey were designed to prepare the listeners for their own journeys through life.
For example, the famous Homeric epic the Iliad is about the hero's justified outrage at being dishonored by King Agamemnon. How many among us have not been dishonored by somebody important to us? From the standpoint of Achilles, being dishonored by Agamemnon involved intense and strong abandonment feelings of the kind that Anderson writes about in The Journey from Abandonment to Healing. Before Hector killed Patroclus in battle, Achilles had been nursing his justified outrage at being dishonored by Agamemnon. However, after Hector kills Patroclus in battle, Achilles is experiencing not only the mourning of abandonment feelings due to Agamemnon's dishonoring him, but also the mourning of bereavement dues to Patroclus' death.
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
