Paul Woodruff - Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue

REVERENCE

Renewing a Forgotten Virtue

SECOND EDITION

Paul Woodruff

Foreword by Betty Sue Flowers

Oxford University Press is a department of the
University of Oxford. It furthers the Universitys objective
of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide.

Oxford New York
AucklandCape TownDar es SalaamHong KongKarachi
Kuala LumpurMadridMelbourneMexico CityNairobi
New DelhiShanghaiTaipeiToronto

With offices in
ArgentinaAustriaBrazilChileCzech RepublicFranceGreece
GuatemalaHungaryItalyJapanPolandPortugalSingapore
South KoreaSwitzerlandThailandTurkeyUkraineVietnam

Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press
in the UK and certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by
Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

Oxford University Press 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.

You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Woodruff, Paul, 1943

Reverence : renewing a forgotten virtue / Paul Woodruff.Second Edition.

pagescm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 9780199350803 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Honor. 2. Respect. I. Title.

BJ1533.H8W66 2014

179.9dc232013035307

135798642

Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper

For Lucia,
with whom I am learning these things
and many more

Remember this, when you

Lay waste the land of Troy: Be reverent to the gods.

Nothing matters more, as Zeus the father knows.

Reverence is not subject to the deaths of men;

They live, they die, but reverence shall not perish.

Heracles, speaking to leaders of the Greeks,
in Sophocles Philoctetes (lines 143944)

Reverence is a topic we dont discuss or even think about. And yet this book makes us care deeply about the subject, leading us to examine assumptions and become utterly convinced of what, in retrospect, are astonishing, bold conclusionsfor example, that Leaders are responsible for the compassion of the groups that follow them.

While the practices of reverence differ from culture to culture, Woodruff shows that reverence itself is a virtue that can be detached from particular beliefs and rituals. One of the many ways he demonstrates this is by exploring reverence in two very different cultures: China and ancient Greece. From the Greeks we learn that the opposite of reverence is not irreverence but hubrisforgetting, in the pride of power or glory, that you, too, are human, with human limitations, and must respect the humanity of others. Reverence, says Woodruff, is the source of the capacity for respect. But it lies deeper than respect, because it is not simply a behavior; it is aligned with truth. Reverence is the capacity to have feelings of awe, respect, and shame when these are the right feelings to have.

This rare thoughtfulness about feelingsand a profound respect for themis a signature feature of the book, highlighted most vividly in an exploration of the experience of playing in a string quartet, even without mastery, when one becomes connected to something larger, something that can elicit awe. We think of awe and respect in relation to the sacred, but in one of his many fine distinctions, Woodruff says that while we owe respect to all sacred things, even those of other cultures or religions, we do not owe reverence to anything that is merely sacred. In a closely argued explanation, Woodruff shows that reverence is incompatible with relativism.

This argument raises the issue of the ethics courses so often taught in professional schools, which students almost uniformly find a waste of time. Figuring out what the rules are and being able to follow them in a difficult situation is a slender bulwark when compared to the development of the capacity cultivated by experience and training, to have emotions that make you feel like doing good things. The capacity for awe, respect, and shame would have been far more likely than training in ethics to have prevented the abuses at Abu Ghraib, as Woodruff convincingly shows us.

Like the Abu Ghraib discussion, some of the most telling explorations of reverence in this very illuminating book are based on military examples, where reverence can literally save lives. Woodruff shows, for example, that the idea that mutual respect flows from good opinions people have of each other is exactly backwards. The ceremony and ritual of the military is, in part, designed to support the giving of respect before the opportunity for opinion can even arise. Respect is given, not earned, and to think otherwise would tear any hierarchy apart.

Far more powerful than mere civility, reverence is necessary for community. An ancient Greek story tells how Prometheus stole fire from the gods, in the hope that this superior technology would help the human species survive. But the highest god saw that technology alone, without virtue, is no defense against mutual destructionand so humans were given reverence and justice as means for their survival, which depended on their ability to live in society. When we look at our own society, we often speak of justiceor the lack of it. Reverence provides the other half of a very necessary conversation.

Betty Sue Flowers

In 1999, I wrote that reverence is our best defense against hubris. Without reverence, I wrote, religions can show their nasty side and plunge their believers into religious wars. And without reverence, hubris will lead powerful people to make terrible mistakes. They will protect their ignorance from criticism and try to punish those who know better. Then they will fall, and they will take many of us with them. Without reverence, I wrote, a great power will stumble. All that was in the first edition of the book you now have in your hands. I had learned most of it from reading ancient Greek plays and history, but I am sorry to say I have had to learn it again from current events.

The first edition of Reverence was released in September 2001during the very week of 9/11. I had composed the manuscript well before the events of that day shook the United States into war. Since then I have had the sad experience of seeing my predictions come true. Without reverence, religiosity has indeed fed the flames of war. And without reverence, a great powerthe United Stateshas stumbled badly. The nations leaders have blundered into two wars, both long and ineffective. The decision-makers chose to go to war in a state of ignorance, which they protected with a wall of boasts, while they did their best to stifle disagreement. The result has been great loss of life, and little progress in the countries where they brought war. Further bad decisions shattered the United States reputation for justice, as the world learned how this nationfounded on the premise of human rightsthrew rights to the winds in its new prisons.