"The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer"

[ixion]

DH Lawrence said this in 1923.

When I googled this quote, 77 hits returned. The quote has been used in many contexts over the years -- through world wars and police actions and school shooting rampages, and so on. Contemporary American history provides us with many 'text book' examples demonstrating the truth of this appraisal.

I first used this quote in a novella I wrote in 1995. It's one of those I've never been able to shake. If knowledge can be expressed as a unit of energy, then ideas or concepts have a valence, just as physical entities have a valence. A concept or idea's staying power is equal to the amount of energy it encompasses. Omniscience is defined as the sum of all knowledge. Therefore: the more truth contained within a notion, the more persistent it remains.

That's a complicated way of saying this: there's a great deal of truth in Lawrence's expression.

I've always considered myself to be a stoic, despite the fact that many critical theorists will tell you it's a dead philosophy. I took a stab at defining the concept of a 'sensitive stoic' in a novel I wrote over a decade ago.

How did I become a stoic? It was a learned behavior. As an intelligent, hyper-sensitive pacifist, I was beaten daily by my peers. Years of this kind of abuse led to the emergence of this belief system.

Today, I'm an intelligent, hyper-sensitive, pacifist stoic.

My question to the reader is this:

How is it that a nation can call itself 'civilized' when these barbaric traits comprise the core facets of American life? You could argue that there are other facets: compassion, tolerance, enlightenment -- and I would agree that there certainly are those types of people here in the US. The collective nature, however, remains true to Lawrence's sentiment.

How is it that a nation can speak of 'moral values' and a 'culture of life' as they simultaneously amass the largest stockpile of weapons on the planet?



:rant:

[Jesus Saves]

1. It's not just America pal

It's human nature.

That's one side of the human soul - the other side is generous and giving.

[GreenArrow]

2. human nature allows for general patterns of behaviour,

character allows for particular patterns of behaviour. Lawrence was right on

[Dhalgren]

4. But a people can, as a group choose to advance

the side of human nature that is generous and giving. There are many examples in recent history of people choosing the "better angels" of their natures, as groups. Many countries are very egalitarian, non-militaristic, fair and even-handed in their social systems. We do not have to be blood-thirsty brutes, killing for sport and pleasure - and as an expression of our national polity; we choose to be that way.

[Bellamia]

5. Stoicism lives........

in the hearts of many of us, otherwise, how would you get thru any day, let alone the War, etc?

[bloom]

3. a pacifist stoic

At first glance - with my idea of stoicism - I thought I might be able to relate... but maybe not - I'm not really apathetic or "seemingly indifferent". Compared to some people - I might appear to be less affected emotionally by events.



Stoic \Sto"ic\, n.

1. A disciple of the philosopher Zeno; one of a Greek sect which held that men should be free from passion, unmoved by joy or grief, and should submit without complaint to unavoidable necessity, by which all things are governed. <1913 Webster>


2. Hence, a person not easily excited; an apathetic person; one who is apparently or professedly indifferent to pleasure or pain. <1913 Webster>


A Stoic of the woods, a man without a tear. --Campbell. <1913 Webster>


School of Stoics. See The Porch, under Porch. <1913 Webster>


Source: The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44

---

Stoic \Sto"ic\, Stoical \Sto"ic*al\, a. que. See Stoic, n.]

1. Of or pertaining to the Stoics; resembling the Stoics or their doctrines.


2. Not affected by passion; manifesting indifference to pleasure or pain. -- Sto"ic*al*ly, adv. -- Sto"ic*al*ness, n.


Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 
---
 
stoic adj
1: seeming unaffected by pleasure or pain; impassive; "stoic courage"; "stoic patience"; "a stoical sufferer"
2: pertaining to Stoicism or its followers

noun

1: a member of the ancient Greek school of philosophy founded by Zeno; "a Stoic achieves happiness by submission to destiny"
2: someone who is seemingly indifferent to emotions


Source: WordNet (r) 1.7
 
http://www.dictionary.net/stoic

[bloom]

6. "The collective nature, however, remains true to Lawrence's sentiment." "

I know people who are very emotional who believe everything they hear on FOX. That doesn't really help move people in the direction of "compassion, tolerance, enlightenment..."

[patrice]

7. Perhaps the answer is in a quote from Conrad's Heart of Darkness

Somewhere near the end of the book Mr. Kurtz addresses Marlow in regard to Marlow's assumption that Western European culture is better than Kurtz's embrace of African Culture, and Kurtz says something to the effect "Your culture, __________, __________, God-obssessed, and dead."

I'm frantically looking for my copy of the book, so I can fill in those blanks, but the "God-obssessed and dead" part always stuck with me, because it fits with how I understand what Nietzsche has to say about killing god with our ideas about God that limit God and result in God's, and thus our, death.

The nuns always used to tell us that blasphemy is the most dangerous sin.