THE latest of Rory Stewart’s entertaining The Long History of. . . series explores heroism.
The second episode (Radio 4, Monday) starts with his telling us about acting heroically, as deputy governor of two provinces in Iraq, “in a landscape in which Alexander the Great had died” . Yet, as the occupation ground on, Stewart and his colleagues started wondering whether they were, in fact, heroes bringing democracy to Iraq or, instead, acting dangerously for themselves and Iraqis — and, worst of all, being “old-fashioned”.
At the root of the problem, it seems, was the traditional version of heroism, which is too generous towards conventionally courageous upper-class men of action, like Stewart, who told us: “I’m brave in a kind of boring way, so that when people shoot at me I don’t get scared. And I notice that people get very impressed by this.”
The 19th century eroded this version of heroism through the triple forces of gunpowder, the complexity of government needed for modern states, and the rise of the lower classes. Kierkegaard leading the charge, bravery started to be associated less with physical than with moral courage. A Kierkegaardian hero was someone willing to be ignored or even unpopular for the sake of taking morally correct stands.
Victorian England still venerated the traditional form of heroism, but created its own accessible form, grounded in professional competence and moral purpose. Examplars ranged from Thomas Telford to Florence Nightingale. This is was what survived when, Mr Stewart tells us, the First World War blew the old heroism apart; and yet enough of the traditional form survived to inspire him in 2000s Iraq.
The arc of the series runs “from Achilles to Zelensky”. We are fortunate that many Ukrainians chose to be traditionally heroic, or Putin’s goons would be washing their boots in the Dniester.
Kenneth Wilson, “a former vicar who’s lost his faith”, displayed a different sort of heroism by cycling 2000 miles around all 42 Anglican cathedrals in England with his beloved carbon-fibre cello, named Libre, strapped to to the front of his heavy cargo bike (News, 16 May). He told Sunday (Radio 4) that the bike, fully loaded, weighed 50kg and is very slow going up hills.
A few years ago, Mr Wilson embarked on a cello-accompanied cycling trip from Hadrian’s Wall to Rome in search of the Roman Empire, but was emotionally “hijacked” by the idea of Christian pilgrimage while playing in Canterbury Cathedral.
Mr Wilson says that he lost his faith by doing a research degree on religious language, and being convinced by Wittgenstein that it was about inhabiting a web of meaning with nothing real behind it. Yet, after listening to him interviewed, I can’t help thinking that the language of music speaks to our souls at a higher level than mere words.
