The Man With Melted Wings

Pride is the most dangerous of all the virtues. For the young man, it is also the most seductive.

“To him [Hannibal], with his honest cause and unconquerable purpose, there must be a way. It is, indeed, when such a hero looks the all but impossible in the face that he is at his greatest. It is here that he shines forth, clad in all his virtue. Be it that the palm of the victor awaits him, be it that he is destined to sink beneath the weight of his herculean task, at such a time he is no longer man. He is a demigod!”

My last column for the Steel Age Gentleman (now Men With Chests, for those who missed the rebrand) ended with this quotation from Theodore Ayrault Dodge’s “Hannibal.” The focus of that column was the struggle to fight insiderism. All the vices are hard to struggle against–especially for the young man. Of them, however, there are none as seductive or as dangerous as pride. 

In “Mere Christianity” C.S. Lewis wrote this of pride: 

 Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind. 

I do not think he was exaggerating. Pride is perhaps the most mythologized of the vices, and for good reason; it is the most destructive. The story of Icarus aptly depicts this, especially where it concerns the young man: the young, prideful son is literally brought back down to earth by the gods as punishment for his arrogance. For millennia the story of Icarus has survived for its succinct delivery of a timeless message. 

History, too, is littered with the tombstones of those brought to bear as a result of their hubris. Julius Caesar thought himself better than the Roman Senate and suffered fatally at their hands. Napoleon, the man who brought Europe to its knees, was himself taken down a notch as a result of his ambition and arrogance. In American politics, Richard Nixon’s story is as much one of a man too proud to admit he was wrong as it is a story of the president’s paranoia. 

Entire nations have collapsed due to their pride (or the pride of their leaders). The pride of Solomon brought forth calamity for the Israelites. The great German and Austro-Hungarian empires of 19th century Europe dissolved as a direct result of the pride of their leaders. Emperor Franz Joseph is remarked to have recognized the futility of war (and that the empire’s dissolution likely would result) and committed to the fight because his and his people’s pride were on the line. 

In everyday life pride plagues us as well. When Yuval Levin writes that our institutions have become performative rather than formative, the symptom of this is a collapse of personal humility in the face of institutional obligations. Whether it is a comms person speaking out against her boss, professors using their pulpit to attack their universities and push a political cause, or a congressman yelling for the camera during a congressional hearing, humble submission to the institutional mission has been replaced with personal expressions of self-pride. We see this often–and ask it often–of our presidents. I wrote these passages two years ago: 

Calvin Coolidge, though not seen as a “great” president, is another example of this, especially in contrast to the men who came before and after him. A humble man, he did not seek to impose his image on the office itself. He did not see himself as some great man destined for the history books; as he said himself, “It is a great advantage to a President…to know he is not a great man.” He was humble in his role and let the office speak for itself.

Contrast this to some of the other men who have held the office. Theodore Roosevelt, as great an individual as we consider him, saw the greatness of the office as a tool to be used. His talk of the presidency as a “bully pulpit” reflects that (fun fact; the word ‘bully’ in this case means excellent). Woodrow Wilson is another man who reflected this view; he saw the presidency as all-powerful and believed the reach of the president was only restrained by the greatness of the man who held the office. These men cloaked themselves in the majesty of the office itself and used that majesty to further their ends. They believed they had to be great men to be great presidents.

This is as true for the average man as it is for our presidents. Too often we are the men with melted wings; we push our limits because we believe them to be nonexistent. Just as we must fortify ourselves, as Dodge’s quote implores us to, against dread or insiderism, so must we fortify ourselves against the dangers of pride. Just as we should ask our presidents to be Coolidge, rather than Roosevelt–to humbly submit themselves to the formative properties of the Presidency, rather than make the Presidency form to them–in our everyday lives we (young men in particular) should make an effort to temper ourselves. The gentleman recognizes the restraints placed on him by the world around him; he does not attempt to fly higher than the sun. Challenging as this is, it is worth striving for.

Scott Howard is an alumnus of the University of Florida and executive editor for The Freemen News-Letter.