Commencement and Ambition -- Lessons from the Classics

"You say that you don't need anybody for anything, since your own qualities...are so great there is nothing you lack.... You want your reputation and your influence to saturate all mankind, so to speak."

-Plato, Alcibiades I, 104a-105c.

This past weekend, many of us were lucky enough to experience a university commencement. It is a beautiful event, a rare mix of both nostalgia and excitement. I have always preferred the former to the latter.

Many graduates are "excited" to go out in the world and "make a difference." Commencement speakers are paid $40,000 to vomit prosaic aphorisms, and no one really listens. Or do they? "Change the world." I would be excited at the prospect of changing the world--to be sure--but I also suspect there is something more sinister in this ambition. We are taught to respect those with high ambitions, but I have always been suspicious. As always, we must look to the classics.

Lucan tells of a General Julius Caesar (not yet ruler) sighing wistfully at the Sphinx, lamenting that he, at the same age as the immortalized Pharoah, had not yet ruled an empire. There is a famous painting of Napoleon staring longingly at the same scene. I attach it here. Ambition to change the world, but all a projection of their own egos. I always wondered why Dante placed Caesar in Limbo and not in Hell...

I never trust ambitious people -- they are the most disordered people that you can meet. They would gladly sacrifice both you or I to get ahead, and to them the world is nothing more than an arena for them to play out the dramas of their own glories and shames. Remember Nero.

I could not end without recalling the lessons of Plato. Socrates was once mentor (lover, even) of the most ambitious youth in Athens: Alcibiades. Alcibiades was the most handsome, the richest, the noblest of blood, and the most naturally talented of all the youths. It seemed only naturally that he was "born to rule." And he knew it... Plato's Alcibiades showcases the venerable Socrates in an attempt to humble Alcibiades. Through his methods, he forces him to admit that no one can rule without first improving and ordering themselves, and that Alcibiades' constant reliance on his natural abilities and the unearned trappings of his social position would never be enough. However, pride seldom admits of discipline, and Alcibiades abandoned the task Socrates set for him, instead preferring to follow the reckless path of his own ambition, untempered by any training in virtue or philosophy. Everyone in the classical world knew how Alcibiades ended up. In a major naval battle during which he was serving as admiral, he was defeated and forced to retreat. In doing so, he violated the law of Athens that dictated the bodies of the dead be picked up. This was not the first religious violation for Alcibiades--as a young man he was charged with desecrating statutes of the gods. No surprise that impiety and pride go hand in hand (think of Milton's famous depiction of Lucifer, "Better to reign in Hell..."). Alcibiades was banished, and defected to the enemy's side. He lived out the rest of his life in obscurity, cast out from the nation he was expected to have ruled. The message is this: in neglecting to pursue discipline and reach for higher goals than his ego, Alcibiades ultimately lost everything. 

In setting out on very beginning of "the road of their lives," college graduates ought to remember the arrogance  of Alcibiades and his unhappy result. Even if he were successful in his ambitions, would he have been happy? Of course not, as even the accomplished tyrant is said to be filled with constant anxiety and despair, and he has no real friends. Republic VIII. (One could recall Kierkegaard's vivid depiction of Nero and the desperate attempts he makes to inject brief amounts of amusement into his empty existence). 

What are our ambitions? If they are fame, power, or influence, then we are pursuing a phantom. 

An Unsavory Libertarian Motivation

VISITOR: Would you be willing to judge which of the two is more fortunate?
YOUNG SOCRATES: Not at all.
VISITOR: Well then, if…the nurslings of Cronus used all [their] advantages to do philosophy…the judgment is easy, that those who lived then were far, far more fortunate than those who live now. But if they spent their time gorging themselves with food and drink…this too…is a matter that is easily judged.
-Politicus

One gets the sense that contemporary American politics is undergoing a phenomenon historically analogous, perhaps, to the rise of Newt Gingrich and the “Contract With America” in ’92, or the “Reagan Revolution” that took place earlier. In our times, the populist, anti-government movement is known as the Tea Party. The Tea Party, while possessing those two qualities already mentioned, has yet another similarity—this one, most troubling—with its forerunners: It is philosophically superficial and perhaps even schizophrenic…or is it? Vague pleas for “free markets,” “individuality,” and “liberty” are uttered by its leaders, but one wonders what the Tea Party’s deeper motivations for that “freedom” really are. In many ways, the destiny of the libertarian movement stands or falls with this decision. There are two major sources of libertarian motivations, each one incompatible with the other: selfishness and grandeur. Here, I highlight the problems with the former.

The philosophy of selfishness traces its intellectual genealogy back to the Old Immoralists of Greece, the champions of unbridled pleonexia. Today, it finds its most robust proponent in the Objectivism of Ayn Rand. It is the simplest of ideas, but also (insidiously so) one of the most attractive—it is the proposition that the meaning of life is the maximization of one’s own “happiness,” irrespective of other people. Politically, this weltanschauung easily lends itself to a theory of libertarianism. If human social life is “nothing but a life of conquest over others” (Laws X), with tangible and intangible goods distributed in a zero-sum fashion, then law and government ought interfere with this struggle only in the least invasive way. In fact, it ought to structure a system whereby the competition can be most efficiently and “fairly” played out. Enter Rand.

Rand creates a new hierarchy of the sciences:

“1. Metaphysics Objective Reality
2. Epistemology Reason
3. Ethics Self-interest
4. Politics Capitalism”

All but the most committed Cartesians and existentialists can accept the first two. What is not obvious to me is the leap from (2) to (3). If we think of what it means to be a “rational actor,” I suppose this seems to make some sense. Someone acts “rationally” when they choose what is best for them. But this self-interest reveals its undertones when Rand notes its political implication: laissez-faire capitalism. She hopes that a legal and political framework will arise to enforce the rules of her game, ensuring that the battles between selfish individuals are somewhat ordered. The role of government and law is to preserve an arena for selfish competition.

Of course, this order is little solace to those who starve as a result of the plutocrats’ excesses. Somehow, for Rand, this is better than the literal bellum omnium contra omnes that we might see in contemporary zombie movies. Her politics recognizes that the results are the same (people die), but extols one setting over the other because of its order. This is the perverted thinking that condemns the murders of Columbine for their chaotic waste, but eulogizes the structured gore-fest of the Coliseum. A libertarianism that undergirds itself with selfishness creates a coliseum society, a structured war of all against all. If freedom means nothing more than the unfettered opportunity to become rich, libertarianism may attract short-term popularity, but will ultimately fail in the end, because it is irrational. There can be no return to the anarcho-capitalism of the Gilded Age.

Has the Tea Party and its leaders chosen this philosophy to buttress their politics? All indications are “yes.” Arguing with Georgetown’s Michael Dyson, libertarian blogger Andrew Breitbart chortled with delight after noting that Atlas Shrugged is one of the best selling “novels” of all time. He used this to shore up his larger point: the American people—through their true representative, the Tea Party—have embraced a philosophy of limited government. However, in shoring up the limited government movement with Rand’s philosophy of selfishness, popular libertarianism has made a decision of the greatest moment, but has chosen the “dark side” of selfishness. An unsavory motivation indeed.

Encomium of Emile Perreau-Saussine

“It looks as if we need some intrepid mortal, who values frankness above all, to specify the policy he believes best for the states and its citizens…. There will be no one to back him up. He’ll walk alone, with reason alone to guide him.”

-Plato, Laws

Plato knew that it takes courage to stand up to prevailing opinions; to speak out for the Truth in a hostile environment is, perhaps, the most dangerous thing one can do. Both Socrates and Christ paid for it with their lives. When I read of this “intrepid mortal,” I think of my erstwhile mentor (and friend) Emile Perreau-Saussine. Intrepid, frank; these all fit him quite well. However, in the end, I think Plato gets it only half right for Emile—Emile had both reason and faith as his guides.

Nearly a year ago, Fr. James Schall told me that if I was headed to Cambridge for graduate school, it was imperative that I meet up with this “hyphenated Frenchman.” I had no idea what I was getting into. Emile epitomized all that was the very best about Cambridge. He challenged me more than I’d ever been before. We always used to joke that one never walks out of his office feeling “satisfied” with one’s work. There was always more to read, always another angle to think about, always a different way of posing the question. The road to perfection is laborious. Sometimes Emile’s advice would even seem contradictory, but such is often the case with brilliant men. It was up to us to see how it cohered.

As much as Emile demanded, though, he returned with interest. He met with a group of us every week to read interesting books, giving up his valuable time for our benefit. These will be my fondest memories of him: the long, rainy walk up to Fitzwilliam College, mulling over the points I was hoping to make, preparing myself for the intellectual rapier that was Emile. As we came in each day, he’d always insist that we shift our chairs into a circle so as to indicate our equality in the discussion. I was always so shocked by his modesty (he insisted I call him by his first name). He made us feel like colleagues, although the truth is we were nothing of the sort; we were in the presence of a truly great and brilliant man. “And yet it is clear that this is not due to anything they have learned from me,” Socrates tells us in Theatetus, but “it is that they discover within themselves a multitude of beautiful things, which they bring forth into the light…[and] it is I, with God’s help, who deliver them of this offspring.” By Emile’s example—through his serious and pure love of ideas—he brought out the very best in us all.

He was even more than just a professor, though. He truly cared about what happened to us after Cambridge. He and I spent one rainy morning discussing life and the future, and I will remember his advice as long as I live. “We can be so limited by our imaginations,” he told me. Often we think of the imagination as a liberating faculty, but Emile reminded me that, to some extent, we can only imagine by piecing together things we have already experienced. The future is truly unimaginable. Perhaps, he said, unimaginably better than we could’ve imagined. I asked for an example. “I am very smitten with my wife,” he replied, “and to be honest, I never imagined I’d have found such an amazing woman.” I am sure there are other things that Emile would not have imagined—certainly not his untimely death.

While he probably never imagined it, I am sure he was ready for it. One day, we were picking out the next book the group was to read. Emile suggested Ockham’s political writings. I spoke up: “Why not his metaphysical works? These are probably more consequential.” At this, he laughed that characteristic laugh, saying, “Oh, perhaps… Perhaps, if there were not such a thing as the “good life” and a limited time to live it, perhaps then I would read such things.” Maybe just a superficial jab at a boring book, but maybe something more. The “good life.” A “limited amount of time to live it.” Emile knew, deeply, that everything—the world, our lives, our friends, our lovers, and each day we awaken—all these are gifts from God. We humans do not exist out of necessity; it is only because of a Sacred Love, the highest Love—pure gratuity. Emile lived with this faith: he exuded it from the interior of his very being.

I return to this idea of the “intrepid mortal.” As Plato says, “There will be no one to back him up. He’ll walk alone.” Anyone who knew Emile knew that his life, his writings, and his spoken words all opposed the trend of secular modernity. And Emile, like any witness, took his knocks for the Truth: at times ridiculed, at times ignored. Such responses to a Catholic intellectual—to a defender of the Faith—are, unfortunately, nothing new under the sun. He fought a lonely battle in a world dominated by what he called “the positivists”: those who, denying God, create a religion of man in its place. What fortitude! Beyond this, what elegance! To see him in debate was to watch a master. I can say of Emile what Alcibiades once said of his mentor: “in the midst of battle he was making his way exactly as he does around town, ‘…with swagg’ring gait and roving eye.’” Yet even in the thickest of fights, he retained his joy—how, we aren’t sure. Perhaps grace. He made a choice; he chose to go against the grain in the name of the Truth he knew and felt. He knew this would be hard going, but he did it anyway, knowing that this was the only life worth living. I am sure that he read the following lines from Spe Salvi: “It is when we attempt to avoid suffering by withdrawing from anything that might involve hurt, when we try to spare ourselves the effort and pain of pursuing truth, love, and goodness, that we drift into a life of emptiness, in which there may be almost no pain, but the dark sensation of meaninglessness and abandonment is all the greater.” How lucky I was to encounter this “intrepid mortal, who values frankness above all.” I hope that I can in a small way live up to his high example.

In thinking about Emile’s death, we ought to take his own advice, and not be “limited by our imaginations.” Who knows where he is now or what he is doing? At his own condemnation, Socrates told of how he was excited at the prospect of death, as through it he would join the company of all the greatest minds that ever lived, and could engage in an eternal conversation. I wonder if Emile is philosophizing with Socrates right now. For a thinker of Emile’s depth, I know such a chance would be the greatest thrill. Indeed, many of us have an even higher hope and faith. We hope and believe that Emile now basks in Wisdom itself, with all the complex questions he pondered over in life, answered. There is no more uncertainty for Emile—his faith is confirmed, and his pursuit of wisdom has reached fulfillment. If each day is a gift, then so was Emile. Thank you, God, for letting us know this man, however brief it was.

In Memoriam: Parallels in the Life and Death of Thomas M. King SJ

In Memoriam: Parallels in the Life and Death of Thomas M. King SJ.

“Remember man that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shall return.” These were the words spoken by Father King every year on Ash Wednesday as he traced his characteristically tiny “crosses” on people’s foreheads -- crosses that looked more like dots. What was really important was not the ash marks, though, but the words and the reality these represent: death. Every year on that Wednesday, Fr. King spoke to us of death and its inevitability. For this reason, amongst many others, I know that he was not surprised or afraid when death eventually came for him.

I first saw the name of Thomas King on an electronic pre-registration box before coming to Georgetown. I was signing up for Problem of God, and had no predisposition to one professor or any other. “Thomas King SJ” seemed like an interesting name, and I chose it. How could I have known the importance of the mouse click? How could I have known that the man with the interesting name would become my pastor and my professor, a symbol of Georgetown itself. Over 100 masses and 180 class lectures later, his name no longer brings interest, but awe.

He was a theologian, a man who spent his entire life plumbing the "same great depths" that the philosophers long had plumbed, a man who dealt constantly with those who doubted God's existence and yet maintained his strong faith. Now, this true lover of wisdom—this true philosopher—is united with wisdom itself, and his faith is confirmed. Knowing how Father King loved Teilhard's thought, I am sure that he viewed death as the ultimate communion, a privileged moment of man surmounting himself. Who could forget those memorable passages in Divine Milieu, passages King had ingrained in his own heart and mind. I wonder if he thought of them during those last moments.

I remember walking by him in the commencement procession and waving. He did not take part in all the pomp: he was just standing alone, watching from the main gates, a sincere smile on his face (one that we all remember well). Uncommon humility for Georgetown's "Man of the Millenium." The next day was the Baccalaureate mass, and Father King was just concelebrating on this occasion. Watching him walk down from the stage, the words of Ubi Caritas resounded in the background: "Where true love abides, God Himself is there."

A few days later, I had lunch with Father King at the Jesuit Residence. During most of the lunch, we discussed Plato and his own interpretations—Plato was, next to Teilhard, King’s favorite. As I turned to say goodbye at the door, he handed me a prayer card he had made up for his 40th anniversary at Georgetown. I said to him, “I hope to see you again,” and that was the last time I saw him alive (about one month ago). Father King always recognized the significance of the present moment, and I have no doubt that he viewed those words as much more than a mundane expression one might vomit out unthinkingly as he says goodbye. Hope. Resurrection. All these subconsciously permeated such words. I hope to see you again.

After Father King passed, I began to recognize the significance in almost all of the events that surrounded his funeral ceremonies. Showing up to the wake, I found the same image of Fr. King on the prayer cards at the entrance, identical to the ones he had given to me while standing in that same spot one month before, save one change: his death date was added. Leaving the wake, a severe thunderstorm passed over Georgetown, and a lightning bolt struck one of the ancient Southern Magnolias that had long stood on the front lawn, cleaving it in two and charring the ground below. Nature herself was providing an allegory. I grabbed one of the waxy leaves to save.

The most touching moment of the funeral was the opening procession. The entire chapel was busy with their heads down in the hymnal book, singing “Lord of All Hopefulness.” I looked up, and noticed that only one head was not turned down and busy: that of Rev. William King, Fr. King’s brother. As the coffin slowly wheeled in with the body of his lifelong companion and closest friend, William King did not sing. His eyes were riveted on the coffin as it came forward, fixed upon the sight of his brother inching toward the altar he had loved so much. As the coffin slowly came to a stop and William King gazed silently at the sight, everyone else finished the hymn: “Be there at our sleeping and give us we pray, your peace in our hearts Lord, at the end of the day.”

Turning to my left, I discovered my faculty advisor and longtime professor of government, George Carey, along with his wife, former dean of Georgetown College. Far in the back was Dean Gillis of the college, and two rows up sat President DeGioia, alone with King’s sisters, none of his usual handlers haranguing him. I watched the President throughout the ceremony, and I must say I have much more respect for him after the experience (he flew back from London for the funeral). For most of it, he had his eyes closed in deep thought and prayer. For one hour, the façade had been lifted, and the real man was present. Sitting behind the altar was Father Spitzer, President of Gonzaga. Many important people were there for the funeral, but there was no ostentation and no posturing in Dahlgren on that morning. That was the tone of the ceremony: real, genuine, sincere. All of us were together as humans and as Georgetown. Everyone, even if just for that moment, was imbued with King’s humility. I have never before felt as strong a sense of community at this university as I did on that morning.

Whenever Fr. King would finish a mass, he would walk slowly back to the front entrance of Dahlgren, smiling at each row as he made his way out. I remember watching him do this countless times while alive. Now, at the end of the funeral, his body was wheeled down that same aisle towards the doors and out of the church, all our eyes upon it as Father King left Dahlgren for the last time. Immediately thereafter, he was buried in the Jesuit cemetery in a plot that looks into the ICC’s ground entrance—the same door that he entered before beginning the thousands of classes and lectures over his long career. He will continue to watch over students as they proceed into that building, admonishing them to view their academic labors not as sophistic pursuits of honor or wealth, but as immediately relevant to their moral and spiritual growth.


Father King lived a full and holy life, and this was mirrored by his dignified death and sincere funeral. As we set forth from this university and ask what it is that we really want for ourselves, we ought to remember the witness of Thomas King. It is sure to stop us in our tracks.