Created for Greatness: The Power of Magnanimity by Alexandre Havard

Author:Alexandre Havard [Havard, Alexandre]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scepter Publishers
Published: 2014-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Work on your character, more than on your manners

I recall a case I worked on as a young lawyer. It concerned a mother, a father, and their baby boy. One day, tired of the baby’s incessant screaming, they put him in the refrigerator. He died and the parents were condemned to prison. They were ordinary people: they had a house, a car, a television, a dog … and a baby.

Like the grossly negligent couple, we too may be attractive, well-spoken, and well-educated, and we would certainly never commit such a heinous crime. But are our hearts really purer, our moral sense more acute?

Many people strive to improve their looks and the way they present themselves, but neglect to work on their character, and fail to develop a moral sense. Catherine the Great, the German princess who became Empress of Russia (1762–1796), corresponds to this type. The eminent Russian historian Vasily Klyuchevsky paints this portrait:

Catherine developed in herself attributes of high, day-to-day value… . Frequent self-examination kept her in a constant state of mobilization… . She demonstrated an incomparable ability to listen patiently to all manner of twaddle, gingerly helping tongue-tied interlocutors find the right word. This won people over, got them to open up, inspired confidence… . To a high degree, she possessed an artful mastery of what may be called the power of suggestion—not having to give an order but to express a desire, which, in the impressionable mind, is imperceptibly reborn as its own idea and is carried out with enthusiasm… . But Catherine developed the habit of working on her manners, rather than on her feelings… . The insufficiency of her moral formation propelled her away from the correct path of development, on which she had been placed by her happy nature, … She perceived in herself weaknesses without any pangs of conscience, without any impulse to pity or remorse… . The tree of self-knowledge, if deprived of the moral sense, yields the unhealthy fruit of self-conceit… . A creature of the intellect who gave no quarter to the heart, Catherine’s actions had a surface brilliance, but rarely achieved greatness or demonstrated creativity.6

It is worth reflecting on this portrait of Catherine. It could serve as an examination of conscience for us. This is a portrait of mediocrity masquerading as “greatness.” It is also the portrait of all those who, because they lack a moral sense, are incapable of growing in virtue, and find themselves obliged to lead not by character (which they do not possess), but by human relations techniques that often degenerate into manipulation. And the result is always the same—lots of sound and fury, but little greatness and creativity. An absence of authentic leadership, one might say.

It is remarkable that Catherine, called “the Great,” had arrested, tortured, and sent into exile some of the genuinely great people of her generation, such as Nikolai Novikov and Alexander Radishchev, Russian writers and philanthropists who publicly criticized serfdom and aimed to improve the cultural and educational level of the Russian people.

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