Desert Temptations, Beowulf, Cardinal Virtues, and Ethical Crises

    A professional association – for which I am a pro bono contributor – is developing an ethical code. The code in draft form is an excellent aid to practicing the cardinal virtue of prudence, defined as taking the right action at the right time. However, sometimes having a code and identifying the right action, however, are not enough. The virtue of fortitude is also required.

    Temptations to avoid the next right action can be overwhelming. As those of us who work in large corporations or government agencies know, the temptations come in form of the "three P's - power, pleasure and possessions. These are the three basic temptations presented to Jesus in Luke 4:1-13.

    Poet and corporate consultant David Whyte gives a vivid account of how these temptations undermine right decision in his book The Heart Aroused : Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America. On pages 42-46 Whyte quotes from Burton Raffel’s translation of Beowulf. 

"A deer.

Hunted through the woods by packs of Hounds,

A stag with great horns, though driven through the forest

From faraway places, prefers to die on those shores, refuses to save its life

In that water. It isn’t far, nor is it a pleasant spot!"

When the story teller says that “it isn’t far,” he knows we may be tempted to think this lake exists only in story, and, catching the listener, says, “don’t fool yourself; this very moment is the edge of the lake; this very intuition of possibility, the edge of our fear.”

    There are many ways in which we refuse, like the fearful stag, to save our life in that water. A friend of mine, Joel Henning loves to recount the moment he preferred to die on that shore rather than enter the lake. Early on in his career, as he was first making history as a consultant in the world, he was surprised to receive a call as if from on high, from his own equivalent of King Hrothgar in the form of George Armstrong, the president of the company he had been helping for some time. Joel was amazed and gratified that he would be called by the CEO personally. Could he comedown to the office right away? Joel remembered dropping everything, including he meeting he was chairing that very moment. As he left his office in Berkeley and sped across the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, he remembers how his hands gripped the steering wheel, thinking that here at last was his one chance to influence things in a substantial way. His possibility for an audience in the throne room of the palace. His first real face-to-face with that center of power and mystery, the chief executive officer.

    As Joel entered the CEO’s office directly from the elevator on the top floor, he noticed immediately that the entire office was white from floor to ceiling—white furnishings, white curtains and white floors, even the artwork was white. This royal aerie was in fact a kind of mythical ice palace. In the far corner his desk at a forty-five-degree angle to Joel, sat the man himself. The desk was placed below a backlit alcove that, as Joel says, George seemed to glow a little, as if the recipient of some mysterious but continued benefaction.

    The interview began with George royally thanking Joel for all the good work he had done with the company. This thank-you was a little undermined by the fact that George couldn’t quite recall his loyal subject’s name and insisted on calling Joel Jack. Joel didn’t correct him; that day Jack seemed fine to him; he could live with it. Under these privileged circumstances why quibble over a small matter of his personal identity?

    Then George got down to business. He realized that Joel had become good friends with one if his vice presidents, Robert. George wanted Robert to take a job with the overseas division of the company. Robert didn’t want to go. “You know him Jack, I’d like you to take him aside and tell him that this move is in his best interest.”

    Joel hesitated, recalling the standards of truth-telling and open, aboveboard honesty he had been recommending for the company to shake off its legacy of distrust. He put one toe in the dark water, saying, “You know, George, with all I’ve been recommending for the company, it might be better for you to tell Robert yourself.” At that moment a large, hideous beast reared out of the lake. It said, using George as its fearsome mouthpiece, “Jack, I don’t find that remark helpful for my purposes, or for your future with this company.”

    Joel hesitated for one moment more before this terrifying apparition, withdrew his foot from the water, and now, totally reincarnated as jack, found that he suddenly agreed. All these years later, Joel says that the irrational vision that flashed before his eyes as he sat in the CEO’s ice palace was of himself, his career totally finished because of the bad press from the sudden termination of this contract, wandering the streets of Berkeley as a bag lady. The fear was so palpable to Joel that, as if in a dream, the small matter of changing sex in order to become a bag lady was of little account. Whatever Joel’s image of complete destitution was, he was sure to become it if he disagreed with George Armstrong.

    In training classes Joel stands before the participants as he gets to the moment of truth in the story and almost bellows, “What did I say to him, what did I say to George?”

    “You told him you weren’t going to compromise your ideals” “You refused,” they call back.

    “No, no, no,” says Joel almost in triumph. “I said, George, now I understand what you wanted me to do. I’ll talk to Robert over lunch, today!”

    The point is, says Joel, that all of us at one time or another refuse that water. Not that this is an excuse for cowardice, but we must not think that only other people refuse to enter the darker side of their own psyche.

Since all of us will face that darker side of our own psyches we need to prepare ourselves. Learning ethical code is part of this preparation. By itself this will be insufficient. With grace, we can develop in the cardinal and theological virtues. By doing so, we can hope that we will be able to make ethical decisions when required.