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"hamartia" is a lovely word I stumbled on. "The hero of tragedy is not perfect, however. To witness a completely virtuous person fall from fortune to disaster would provoke moral outrage at such an injustice. Likewise, the downfall of a villainous person is seen as appropriate punishment and does not arouse pity or fear. The best type of tragic hero, according to Aristotle, exists "between these extremes . . . a person who is neither perfect in virtue and justice, nor one who falls into misfortune through vice and depravity, but rather, one who succumbs through some miscalculation." The term hamartia, which Golden translates as "miscalculation," literally means "missing the mark," taken from the practice of archery. Taken from http://larryavisbrown.homestead.com/Aristotle_Tragedy.html The whole thing is well worth reading.
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Carpal Tunnel
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There is an uncommon medical word with similar spelling, but I can't imagine
how it is related:
"Mesenchymal hamartoma is an uncommon benign lesion arising from the mesenchyme of
the portal tract. It consists of a mixture of mesenchymal tissue and bile ducts and is
considered a developmental anomaly rather than a true neoplasm [1]. It commonly
presents as a painless abdominal mass before the age of two years. Because
mesenchymal hamartoma is a benign lesion with excellent prognosis, distinguishing it
from other liver masses is important. "
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Let us think of some of the men who have fallen from hight place. For example,
Nixon. I always wondered why it was that Eisenhower never actively supported
him. Eisenhower had to have great talent for judging men - ;you don't get
four stars without that. But what did he see in Nixon that repelled him?
What was the "hamartia" that made Nixon break the law to try to suppress
Ellsberg, whom he really did not need to fear?
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what did he see in Nixon that repelled him?
I dunno, did association with Joe McCarthy have anything to do with it?
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A Checkersed past.
RMN is one of the great tragic figures of our times, one who, unlike Eisenhower, apparently did not have that talent for judging men, most likely because he seems to have had no moral sense at all. Incredible as it may seem, he once said in a speech to a bunch of voters of Irish extraction that his wife had been born on St. Patrick's Day when in fact she had not been. Of all of the trivia about the man, that is the one I find the most fascinating, that he would pander to a group of voters to that extent.
She was in fact born the day before St. Patrick's day, and got her name Pat from the following:
Born Thelma Catherine Ryan on March 16 in Ely, Nevada, "Pat" Nixon acquired her nickname within hours. Her father, William Ryan, called her his "St. Patrick's babe in the morn" when he came home from the mines before dawn.
Nixon aspired to greatness and always seemed to fall flat just before reaching it. If you have ever wondered about his flawed ego, you need look no further than the pictures of the uniforms he approved for the uniformed Secret Service officers who guarded the White House. He apparently wanted to impart an aura of imperialism to that noble place, and failed miserably. I'll see if I can dig up a URL for you.
As evidence of Nixon's lack of a moral sense, you could look up what he did with regard to the donation of his vice presidential papers to the National Archive. There had been enacted a statute which allowed a significant tax deduction to him for such a donation, but the law had expired prior to his signing the deed to give title to the Archives. So what did Dickie do? He backdated the deed by several months. And then this part you will never have heard before because it's a fact that no one's aware of: the day after he signed the deed he changed his withholding form for taxes from married with one dependent to married with 69 dependents. This had the effect of practically elminating all Federal withholding on his Presidential salary. I believe this was on the theory that it's better to have the money in your hands and make the IRS come after it than to have the money in the hands of the IRS and make you go after them to get it.
The foregoing paragraph is absolutely true as to the facts, because it was in my office that we paid the President's salary when I worked at GAO. The interpretations of motive are mine.
Ted
TEd
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Dear TEd: thanks for your information on Nixon. It reminds me that long before he got to power, he had earned soubriquet "Tricky Dickie". Can any of us think of a term that would characterize the them of The Bridge of San Luis Rey? Here is a URL comparing "hubris" with "hamartia". By drama students, but not as good as first URL http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/classics/Course_Materials/CLA205Rob/list/0113.htmlHere is a URL about "hamartia" afflicting CEO's http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1038/5_42/56750676/p1/article.jhtml?term=hubris+hamartiaexcerpt: "Incoherent thinking and untested assumptions that lead to ultimate failure are facilitated by our all-too-human tendency toward hubris, hamartia, and anagnosis - HH&A. All leaders are subject to these tendencies. Few understand them. Fewer still know how to manage them. According to Dorner (1996), identifying the opportunities in the failure experience requires both a knowledge of its roots and the techniques to change one's behavior and learn from it Failure can be beneficial to leaders only as long as they understand what role they play in it, and can apply the knowledge gained in new and better ways." As a small bonus, notice "anagnosis".
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I could never conceive of RMN as a tragic hero, in either the Aristotelian or Shakespearean sense. In both instances, the tragic protagonist has to be someone who falls from an exalted state to his own ruination, due to a tragic flaw in his own makeup (hubris), i.e. Oedipus's tendency toward rash behavior, Hamlet's indecisiveness, and so on. The mere fact that Nixon benefitted from a plurality of voters would not, to my mind, qualify him as coming from an exalted state. What deed or deeds did he ever perform that could possibly qualify him as heroic? Macbeth was ambitious, ultimately to the point of murdering his rivals and even innocent women and children. But it's well established that, before his tragic fall, he served with utmost distinction as a brave warrior, risking his life for a just cause. It's interesting to consider whether, in the present era, there can be such a thing as a tragic hero. The literary critics I've read seem to suggest not. Unless, that is, we alter the concept to encompass the common man. Then Willy Loman comes to mind, along with some of O'Neill's protagonists. (Care to comment, WO'N?)
Who is there, in our time, that could be viewed as a tragic hero? Pete Rose, perhaps? Some dot-com CEO?
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There was nothing tragic about RMN. He was a wheeler-dealer who used anything or anyone to further what he perceived to be his own self-interest. Interesting tid-bit about his tax dodges, though, Ted.
I think that any residual sympathy I may have felt for him being hounded out of office dissipated when I read All The President's Men. Not because of the "plot", which was sordid enough, but because of the transcriptions of the White House tapes which were quoted. Regardless of whether the snippets were taken in or out of context, the man's language and voiced thought processes suggest someone who has absolutely no day-to-day awareness of morality at all.
Contrast that with Clinton, who although he may not be a tragic hero is certainly tragi-comic. Love him or loathe him, in his day to day work as president he appears to have had a real sense of duty to the country. I actually completely dismiss the Monica Lewinsky incident and subsequent impeachment as a media witchhunt. JFK - and for all I know, many other presidents - had his bit on the side (and what a bit!). The media left them alone. Perhaps Bill thought that rule would also apply to him, which was poor judgement rather than a criminal action. But then, of cource, impeachment has damn-all to do with the law, does it?
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Slithy:
While I never said he was a hero, notwithstanding his policy towards SE Asia, Nixon was perhaps the best President of the second half of the 20th century vis-a-vis foreign policies.
No other president could have gone to China and begun a raprochement with that country. His strong anti-communist stance gave him the political clout at home to get away with it. Imagine what the country would have done if LBJ had tried a stunt like that.
Parenthetically, few people know that Nixon sent his Sedcretary of State to China three times on secret missions to bring about that thawing of relations. He traveled under an assumed name, and those in the know in the White House were heard singing, "I wonder who's Kissinger now."
Ted
PS See you about one tomorrow.
TR
TEd
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In reply to:
No other president could have gone to China and begun a raprochement with that country.
IMHO, this assertion is highly debatable, Ted.
Looking fwd...
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