Heros, speaking of, this is good: "The Spirit of Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Triumph of the Self "
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Joseph Campbell might have called this pattern "ego imperialism," "trying to impose your idea on the universe." "That's what's got to go," Campbell insisted in The Hero's Journey. "Your ego is [only] your embodiment and your self is your potentiality and that's what you listen to when you listen for the voice of inspiration and the voice of 'What am I here for? What can I possibly make of myself?'" The great task of the hero, Campbell tells us, is "not to eliminate ego, it's to turn ego and the judgment system of the moment into the servant of the self, not the dictator, but the vehicle for it to realize itself. It's a very nice balance, a very delicate one." It is also a lesson that every American citizen, of any station, would do well to heed.
As the 20th-century psychologist Carl Jung would tell us, the ego likes to fancy itself the center and totality of the personality, but such is not the case. "The personality as a total phenomenon," wrote Jung, "does not coincide with the ego, that is, with the conscious personality, but forms an entity that has to be distinguished from the ego. ... I have suggested calling the total personality which, though present, cannot be fully known, the self. The ego is, by definition, subordinate to the self and is related to it like a part to the whole." Using Judeo-Christian terminology, Jung referred to the "self" (a term he later capitalized) as a "God-image" in man which, though damaged by the Fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden, can be "reformed" with God's help. Jung reminds us of the words of Romans 12:2, which Washington may have had in mind: "And be not conformed to this world [that is, to the tyranny of the ego], but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is ... the will of God"
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A wax figure of General George Washington astride his horse at the Mount Vernon Educational Center.
Credit to the Mount Vernon Educational Center, Mount Vernon, VA.
"[He will be] the greatest man in the world."
-- Great Britain's King George III, on hearing of Washington's retirement from the Continental Army
It was May of 1782. The Continental Army of the United States, under the command of General George Washington, had emerged victorious in the War for Independence. The once-mighty British army, under Lord Cornwallis, had surrendered. In the ensuing euphoria, Washington had become a demi-god, and plots to crown him as King of America were openly discussed, even among Washington's own men.
General Washington received a letter from Colonel Lewis Nicola, proposing that the Continental Army could easily make him King of the newborn nation. Washington's response -- so atypical of heroes and conquerors throughout history -- was one of "great surprise and astonishment". "Be assured, Sir," Washington insisted to Nicola, "no occurrence in the course of the War, has given me more painful sensations than your information of there being such ideas existing in the Army as you have expressed, and I must view with abhorrence, and reprehend with severety
I am much at a loss to conceive what part of my conduct could have given encouragement to an address which to me seems big with the greatest mischiefs that can befall my Country. If I am not deceived in the knowledge of myself, you could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable ... Let me conjure you then, if you have any regard for your Country, concern for yourself or posterity, or respect for me, to banish these thoughts from your Mind, and never communicate, as from yourself, or any one else, a sentiment of the like Nature.
It is said that Nicola was so stung by Washington's rebuke that he wrote the General no less than three letters of apology.
George Washington is well known not just for being the Hero of the Revolution and America's first President, but also for what he didn't do. In 1783, Washington could have made himself King of America, but instead he resigned his commission as commander of the Continental Army; in 1797, he left the office of the Presidency even though he could easily have won a third term. He's become the American version of Cincinnatus, the Roman statesman who twice relinquished leadership of the Roman Empire to return to his farm.
It's become a quaint and puzzling story in our nihilistic age. Trying to see it through a cynical lens doesn't quite work. The typical bugaboos of human nature -- greed, power, pride -- just don't explain it. Why did George Washington do what he did? What was in the man's mind? What does it mean for us, and what can we learn from it? What does the American Cincinnatus have to say to us in 2010?
In His Excellency, his heralded biography of Washington, Joseph J. Ellis underscores "the truly exceptional character" of Washington's act. "Oliver Cromwell had not surrendered power after the English Revolution. Napoleon, Lenin, Mao, and Castro did not step aside to leave their respective revolutionary settlements to others in subsequent centuries. ... Whereas Cromwell and later Napoleon made themselves synonymous with the revolution in order to justify the assumption of dictatorial power, Washington made himself synonymous with the American Revolution in order to declare that it was incompatible with dictatorial power." Ellis thus reminds us that Washington, in relinquishing power -- not just once, but twice -- was bucking an imperialist pattern that stretched back to the days of the Roman and English republics, and which, sadly, continues to this day.
Joseph Campbell might have called this pattern "ego imperialism," "trying to impose your idea on the universe." "That's what's got to go," Campbell insisted in The Hero's Journey. "Your ego is [only] your embodiment and your self is your potentiality and that's what you listen to when you listen for the voice of inspiration and the voice of 'What am I here for? What can I possibly make of myself?'" The great task of the hero, Campbell tells us, is "not to eliminate ego, it's to turn ego and the judgment system of the moment into the servant of the self, not the dictator, but the vehicle for it to realize itself. It's a very nice balance, a very delicate one." It is also a lesson that every American citizen, of any station, would do well to heed.
And it was a lesson engraved in Washington's psyche by Masonic philosophy and ritual. Unfortunately, Ellis never mentions Washington's involvement in Freemasonry -- a lamentable omission, since Masonic beliefs provide deep insight into Washington's mind and heart. For example, in the Crata Repoa, an 18th-century work of Masonic philosophy, a ritual is described in which a king "meets [the initiate] graciously and offers the aspirant the royal crown of Egypt," as Masonic scholar Manly P. Hall recounts. "This pantomime suggests that part of the New Testament where Jesus, as the neophyte, is offered the kingdoms of the earth if he will give up his spiritual mission. ... The neophyte takes the crown and, throwing it upon the ground, tramples it under foot. This symbolizes the final conquest of pride, egotism, and the love of power. The initiate refuses the crown of the physical world because his kingdom is not of that world but of the hidden world of spirit."
As the 20th-century psychologist Carl Jung would tell us, the ego likes to fancy itself the center and totality of the personality, but such is not the case. "The personality as a total phenomenon," wrote Jung, "does not coincide with the ego, that is, with the conscious personality, but forms an entity that has to be distinguished from the ego. ... I have suggested calling the total personality which, though present, cannot be fully known, the self. The ego is, by definition, subordinate to the self and is related to it like a part to the whole." Using Judeo-Christian terminology, Jung referred to the "self" (a term he later capitalized) as a "God-image" in man which, though damaged by the Fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden, can be "reformed" with God's help. Jung reminds us of the words of Romans 12:2, which Washington may have had in mind: "And be not conformed to this world [that is, to the tyranny of the ego], but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is ... the will of God" (RSV).
This process of "transformation" Jung termed individuation. He further described it as "a 'renewal' of the mind ... not meant as an actual alteration of consciousness, but rather as the restoration of an original condition ... It brings about an integration, a bridging of the split in the personality caused by the instincts striving apart in different and mutually contradictory directions." In Masonic terms, individuation could be described as the rediscovery of "the hidden world of spirit."
Unfortunately, too many of us allow our egos unlimited rule. The tragic result, as Jung's colleague Alfred Adler once warned us, is a life within "a self-centered world, a world in which one will never find true courage, self-confidence, communal sense, or understanding of common values." This "ego imperialism" Washington saw, in his day, in the form of the "spirit of party." "The disorders and miseries which result," he warned us in his Farewell Address of 1797, "gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual. And, sooner or later, the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty."
In Jungian terms, if the ego is what we think we are in our materialism and physicality, then the "Self," the "God-image," is what we once were, and what we can become again. If rule by the ego is "tyranny", then "individuation" is "independence," in which all parts of our psyche function in integrated unity, free from venal, divisive passions and motives.
Washington could just as well have been speaking of this integration when he delivered his Farewell Address:
"The unity of government, which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence; the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. ... To the efficacy and permanency of your union a government of the whole is indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between the parts, can be an adequate substitute." [Recall, in Washington's phrase "a government of the whole," Jung's description of the Self as "the whole" or "total personality".]
In The American Soul, Jacob Needleman urges us to read Washington's words as "referring to the need for both the nation and the individual self to turn within for strength, not to the egoistic impulses of one or another self-serving part of human nature, but to the inner self that represents the fountainhead of inner unity." However flawed and human George Washington may have been, his words and actions in stepping down as commander of the army and as Commander in Chief show us the importance of taming our venal, egoistic ambitions, passions and prejudices in the service of a greater good.
[Sources: The Science of Living by Alfred Adler; The Hero's Journey -- Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work, edited by Phil Cousineau; His Excellency by Joseph J. Ellis; Freemasonry of the Ancient Egyptians by Manly P. Hall; Aion -- Phenomenology of the Self by Carl G. Jung; The American Soul by Jacob Needleman; and the writings of George Washington.]
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