A Man’s Character is His Fate
I will be in Ephesus on the Western Coast of Turkey in five days. Ephesus is famous in world history for many things I expect to learn more about during that visit. As I sit here today, waiting to travel to Istanbul for this trip, I am trying to get my fill of impeachment news since I imagine I will be getting it all on some degree of time delay when not watching MSNBC continuously. The concept of the destiny of character is a hot topic, which is hard to avoid when talking about Donald Trump. The man who is credited for most of the thoughts on character as destiny is Heraclitus of Ephesus. Good timing for me I would say.
Heraclitus, who lived at about 500 B.C., pre-dates Socrates and was a self-taught philosopher who gained a great deal of traction in Ancient Greece despite his somewhat solitary lifestyle. That may have been due to the fact that for some unknown reason, Heraclitus abdicated his throne as king of that area of Asia Minor surrounding Ephesus in favor of his brother. At any time in history, a man who eschews power, is a public obsession since few of us can fathom what would cause one to run from fame. That strangely has the effect of perhaps making the man even more famous than he would have been as a ruler.
In the movie The Emperor’s Club, Mr. Hundert (Kevin Kline) says, “Great ambition and conquest without contribution is without significance.” Who wants to be Shutruk-Nahhunte, who gained eternally infamy in that film as the unknown ruler who had to state in a written monument tablet (a stele) that:
“I am Shutruk-Nahhunte, son of Hallutush-Inshushinak,
beloved servant of the god Inshushinak, king of Anshan and Susa,
who has enlarged the kingdom, who takes care of the lands of Elam,
the lord of the land of Elam. When the god Inshushinak
gave me the order, I defeated Sippar. I took the stele of Naram-Sin
and carried it off, bringing it to the land of Elam.
For Inshushinak, my god, I set it as an offering.”
This was the historical equivalent of howling at the moon. Fame and respect cannot be summoned with might, they can only be gained through deeds of contribution.
Heraclitus either figured this out and chose to abdicate or rationalized his abdication (who knows, maybe his brother was stronger and simply beat him up to force the issue) after the fact. But for whatever reason, Heraclitus is quoted and remembered where his brother (What’s-His-Name? Even Wikipedia can’t tell me) is not. Heraclitus, from what I can glean, was a bit of a fruitcake. He says that he started knowing nothing and through teaching himself, came to know everything. That is not a good sign of mental stability or humility. Diogenes wrote a fair bit about Heraclitus, so the man did create an impression. He says Heraclitus “had a poor opinion of human affairs.” That sounds a lot like he was considered anti-social. I guess a guy who wanders the mountains eating grass could get that sort of rap. He also was the Original Gangsta of liberalism by virtue of his curse that the people of Ephesus should gain great wealth and thus find their own demise. I wish I could have met this dude, he sounds awesome in a wild-haired way.
I came to think about Heraclitus today due to the fact that the single most widely-held view of President Donald Trump, both long before he became president and certainly by his every action, comment or tweet since becoming president, is that he is a man of very low character. Everything about his personal history, his business history and his political history has reeked of “fraud and failure”, as Tom Steyer likes to say on his infomercials. Even people who support Trump mostly agree that he is a man of questionable character. For many of us, this has been the defining issue about Trump when all else is stripped away. Even if he, like that infamous blind squirrel, happens upon the acorn of a good policy or deed, we can almost always find that his intentions in pursuing it are flawed and driven by less than noble reasons. Some of us who find him deplorable on many levels might even admit that he is less racist or evil than his deeds because they less reflect the leanings of his soul (what soul?) and more reflect the exigencies of the political or profitability moment.
Trump is almost too easy to trash on the standard of character, but what of his acolytes? Here are my personal views:
– Mike Pence – here is a man made of wood, who clings to the simplest religious dogmas and prays each night for what he knows are wrong-doings by his Commander-in-Chief. His character, while ramrod straight, is brittle and long-since shattered.
– Steve Bannon – truly the Rasputin of 2016 with a dark, dark heart.
– Steven Miller – the closest thing to a misshapen Igor the White House has ever seen.
– WIlliam Barr – a lonely lawyer whose faded glory has driven him to the spotlight once again, but is starting to understand the cost and is quickly distancing himself.
– Rudy Giuliani – victim of the same disease as Barr only infused with New York craziness. He will go down as the greatest court jester of all time.
– Sarah Huckabee Sanders – an angry woman with mock-Christian stuffing, who was smart enough to get out early and go hide in Arkansas.
– Lindsey Graham – Unclothed as the top chameleon since Boy George. He will last forever, flip-flopping without concern.
– Mitch McConnell – Too old, too despised by his own constituents, too turtle-like and too corrupt to gain acceptance into Hell since the Grim Reaper will see him as serious competition.
Perhaps the most famous quote attributed to Heraclitus is about change. He said, “Change is the only constant in life.” It’s finally a moment when Washington is gearing up for a big, bold change and that was never in doubt, just a matter of time, and the time is now at hand.