I came across these great videos - the C.S. Lewis Doodles. This one on Chivalry was of great interest, and a reminder that in victory, the gentleman does not gloat. Also, there were some finer points here that I had not considered in quite the way Lewis does here, and I found it profound, add to that the talent and skill of the doodle artist, and it's quite nice. Enjoy-
This is excellent, Douglas. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteOne of the more difficult things Tim Larkin and his TFT instructors had to teach wasn't physical agility or techniques, it was the concept that you cannot use what they teach you for bar room brawls or social conflict fight resolutions.
ReplyDeleteBut isn't that what most people are afraid of, if they grew up in certain male dominated hierarchies? Fighting a serial killer or mountain lion for survival is rare, even for the people who train for such scenarios. Somebody pushing you on the streets or bar, is far more likely. So why would anyone choose to learn to use a method that cannot be used in such scenarios?
They have to adopt meekness or even the behavior of a coward (run away from danger), else otherwise the law would designate them as a fighter not a victim of battery or assault. Some martial artists, especially the young ones, can never quite make that mental bridge. They are too contested or invested in learning to acquire physical mastery in order to master the world and change the world or overpower their opponents in the world. Much as the Jews demanded of their Messiah, which led them to reject Jesus Christ as the Holy One of Israel.
What the Gospel and the ancient martial orders taught wasn't mastery of the world or domination of other humans to change the world. It was the mastery of the self, to kill one's own emotions, desires, or weaknesses. Not to destroy one's external enemies, but to defeat one's greatest enemy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=TYi3xYoT8rs
On that note HEMA instructor teaches how to fight like a Witcher from Poland. What does that have to do with mastery of the self? Nothing or everything.
I hadn't thought of it that way, but it makes a great deal of sense.
ReplyDeleteGrim, I saw this, and of course knew it must be seen here.
ReplyDeleteTom, yes, the bit about 'it is not a compromise...he is meek to the Nth and fierce to the Nth.' was quite the clarification for me. Also the bit about 'the man who combines both characters, the knight, is not a work of nature, but of art, an art that has human beings rather than canvas or marble for it's medium.' really struck me.
I shall have to have my son of fourteen watch this quite soon.
That's a point Chesterton makes, too, in several places. He suggests that aspect of chivalry was explicitly Christian:
ReplyDeleteThis is knowing that a man's heart is to the left and not in the middle. This is knowing not only that the earth is round, but knowing exactly where it is flat. Christian doctrine detected the oddities of life. It not only discovered the law, but it foresaw the exceptions. Those underrate Christianity who say that it discovered mercy; any one might discover mercy. In fact every one did. But to discover a plan for being merciful and also severe-- THAT was to anticipate a strange need of human nature. For no one wants to be forgiven for a big sin as if it were a little one. Any one might say that we should be neither quite miserable nor quite happy. But to find out how far one MAY be quite miserable without making it impossible to be quite happy--that was a discovery in psychology. Any one might say, "Neither swagger nor grovel"; and it would have been a limit. But to say, "Here you can swagger and there you can grovel"--that was an emancipation.