The Tragic Mind: Fear, Fate, and the Burden of Power
Robert D. Kaplan (2023)
Yale University Press
The tragic mind refers a mental disposition first invented by the ancient Greeks that is now foreign to a majority of living Americans - it is the basis of self-awareness and loss of illusion, one that understands suffering and thus knowingly fears chaos to avoid tragedy.
Whereas the Founders had taken great risks during the American Revolution, modern generations lack any concept of a life without physical or financial stability. They take order for granted and lack the ability to think tragically.
Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq were all examples of the failure to heed this approach. By thinking tragically, one is made aware of their limitations, and thus can act with more effectiveness.
Accepting Chaos as Reality
The Greeks feared chaos.
And, they found fear as an effective way to achieve wisdom. Tragedy was born from the need to foster anxious foresight in order to protect themselves against this chaos.
For the ancient Greeks, it was simple: wise leaders are those who know that they must think tragically in order to avoid tragedy.
The world is full of constraints.
Therefore, self-awareness becomes an ideal because it helps the individual understand what is possible and what is not. If (one day) the individual comes into high office, the paradox is that, despite having authority, the options he or she may possess could be truly awful. A choice that may involve finding the least evil action.
History does not repeat.
History does not rhyme.
Human individuals are not just atoms in a test tube whose behavior simply follows the laws of chemistry and physics. In this sense, geopolitics is not a hard science that can be predicted using empirical models.
While proper historians understand that structuralist approaches do have degrees of determinism, (such as geography and demographics) these break down when the universalism of human agency eventually triumphs.
This is because individuals seek to determine their own fates.
Thus, among the grand, determinative patterns of history, it is impossible to predict the course of events. The reason being is that the chaos of human interactions - full of passion and agency - can whimsically turn a massive tide on the slightest of gestures or quietest of passing remarks.
Therefore, make a virtue of this disorder.
Thinking Tragically to Avoid Tragedy
We face a world of constraints.
Being unmistakably aware of the narrow choices we face however vast the landscape is to harness the protective power of tragedy. To understand the world of constraints, both human and physical, refines the consideration set further by helping to identify what is realistically possible and not possible in any given situation.
The earlier one can cultivate a greater sense of self-awareness, the better, since these realizations have a habit of coming too late in the process to affect outcomes. Therefore, routine self-reflection is helpful to capitalizing on strategic actions.
There are things we know. There are things we don't know. And, there are things we cannot know.
Our circumstances can always change dramatically - and for the worse.
This is why vain and arrogant people are also foolish people. Thinking tragically will help one discover risks before having to learn the hard truths from the inevitable crisis.
The ancient Greeks knew human greatness; this greatness becomes most apparent in times of disaster rather than triumph. And subsequently, many of their heroic ideals merged with tragedy.
The concept of tragedy is a fundamental invention of the West and critical to the development of individuality. Having first manifested in classical Greece, it could be argued to be a crucial component for the emergence of democracy.
Leaders Exemplifying the Tragic Mindset
In the end, it's tragic for all of us.
Without ambition, men and women cannot seek to improve the world. The art of the tragic mind strikes a balance between bravely trying to fix the world and "letting it be" knowing that many struggles are simply futile.
It prioritizes thinking ahead in order to avoid the worst outcomes for humanity. The quintessential tragic mind is Henry Kissinger who routinely railed against American elites for lacking any sense for the tragic.
Kissinger highlighted that they had no awareness that struggle is not only about seeking justice but about seeking the lesser evil in an intractable world; "there are many ways to fail, and some are better than others."
Of the realist international relations school, Hans Morgenthau wrote that to improve the world, "one must work with the basest forces of human nature, not against them."
Machiavelli had been the true pioneer of this concept during the Renaissance.
Leader examples of tragic mind behavior:
Abraham Lincoln | wrought suffering on civilians of the South to end the Civil War decisively |
Franklin D. Roosevelt | sent military aid to ruthless dictator Stalin to defeat another ruthless dictator Hitler |
There is more than a hint of moral relativism here. However, Kaplan does emphasize that these leaders did not desire these actions. Instead, he insists that the tragic mind is deeply humane, even as it is deeply realistic.
Begging the question for a cause and effect here; i.e. to abide suffering tends to produce more humane individuals. But, there is no elaboration where the sense of humaneness stems from. One could easily argue that Hitler suffered in the trenches.
At its core, the argument is simplified as: thinking tragically in order to avoid tragedy.
Our Innate Dionysian Drive
Life's most challenging exercise is to abide suffering.
The cultivation of insecurity requires modesty. When a leader lacks modesty, sooner or later modesty will be forced upon them by tragic failure. Therefore, it is better to adopt the the trait in advance of personal catastrophe by always fearing for the future rather than when the torment will be much greater.
The Greek god Dionysus represented the irrational life force - humanity's basest physiological instincts. In other words, the enemy of wisdom.
His fanatical forces could not be denied - instead only resisted. Instead, they must be respected for the vitality of their power as to be unrelentingly rational is to be unrealistic. It follows then that struggle requires a respect for a higher deity.
For the Greeks, the real revolutionary idea was that Dionysian chaos was reality. Calamity always lay over each horizon om the mountainous peninsula. Even the concept of beauty came in the form of this realism.
Metaphorically, Dionysus is never far.
He lurks in the shadows ready to conjure super-storms, plagues, potential thermonuclear exchanges, and other disasters. Adding to the closeness, this irrational barbarism lies within us.
Further, chaos is immortal.
21st century middle-class life in the West has produced the illusion of predictability and that of the pervasively benign. The result has been mass complacency which has atrophied the tragic mind.
While the end of the Cold War created an assured sense of the unstoppable march of democracy and globalization, the opposite has come to pass: several major countries of the Middle East have collapsed into chaos, the US, Russia, and China edge closer to outright war, and social media inflames every cultural divide.
Kaplan argues that postmodernity has superficially blinded our human nature. He writes, "humanity has not altered [its nature] much at all."
The foreign policy mistakes of recent generations can be attributed to this neglect of tragedy: Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
Character is everything in the end, even rising above knowledge and expertise.
Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld both had stellar resumes heading into 9/11; unfortunately, neither had any character.
Some Degree of Solace
Most people know disorder only through imagination.
Relatively few have experienced any form of existence beyond their predictable, regulated lives, except for war veterans, foreign correspondents, and migrant peoples.
Prior to the Baby Boomers, all previous generations in human history had been obsessed by order. Without order, there was no one to adjudicate right from wrong. There was no freedom, no justice.
Order comes before freedom.
Without order there can be no liberty for anybody. Necessarily, one year of anarchy can be worse than many more years of tyranny.
The example is highlighted through Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The US-led invasion in 2003 quickly toppled the Baathist government; however, "shock and awe" quickly gave way to chaos, insurgency, destruction, and death.
There had been no plan for nation building.
No one had thought tragically enough.
This is the classic problem highlighted by French philosopher Albert Camus, "when the throne of God is overturned, the revel realizes that it is now his own responsibility to create the justice, order and unity that he sought in vain within his own conditions and in this way to justify the fall of God."
It is a postmodern delusion that we are free to choose and decide on everything we do. We've lost humbleness as there are things we cannot be aware of; there is a certain level of baselessness in dogmatic adherence to hyper-individuality.
We become wise only in our awareness of our own incomplete knowledge.
For the tragic hero, the story is only complete when protagonist comprehends his own insignificance. Contrarily, this is not defeatism, quite the opposite.
No matter the result, it is the ultimate human grandeur - it is comprehension.
Kaplan argues that the best situation is one in which Washington policy makers is get the balance between fear and ambition just right. This would be a return to the foreign policy similar to that of long stretches during the Cold War.
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