You’re right to be dubious. When I said up that I had qualifications to the list, this was my primary issue. The feedback to this list has been enlightening. Maybe I’ll write that essay after all.
I can go with the intellectual six, but of the moral virtues I'm not sure that contentment and multi-tasking make it for me. Is multi-tasking a moral virtue??
Had to think through whether these worked for novel writing as well as scholarly writing. I think they do - for example, detachment to a scholarly writer means being able to let go of a hypothesis when the evidence doesn't reinforce it; for a writer of fiction, it means being able to look at a beloved story or character and realize the story isn't working or the character has to go.
One quality I don't see in either list but belongs in both is conviction. Conviction that one must write, whatever the result. Conviction that one must satisfy one's curiosity, wherever it leads.
I would include humility - you need to be open to others' perspectives and understand where they're coming from. I just finished reading Ken Follett's thriller, Never, and one of the characters is in charge of a Chinese intelligence agency. Follett does a great job of describing his motivations, and why he has very different understandings of issues like intellectual property rights, etc.
I'd add Love at the top of either list: Love of life, of learning, of exploring, of writing, of language,. Daring and risk-taking I'd add too. And play, the pure fun and joy of plating with ideas, with language. Is creativity on the list? I'd have to go back and see, but if it is I'd lift it to the top too.
I agree with starting with curiosity. I would say Desire for Truth, instead of respectin evidence. And I would include Desire for Beauty. Or as I think of it, a naive arrogance that expects all real things to fit together well.
Like others I find multi tasking as a moral virtue so misplaced I wonder if the author included it just because people are so prone to pick apart these lists. Give the reader a softball and move on. The moral virtue I would add that is missing is empathy. To act in a moral capacity not only requires an understanding of what action is moral in a given circumstance, but also the motivation to behave in a moral fashion. Quite often that motivation comes from a deep understanding of how an action will impact others. If ambition is a virtue, empathy almost has to be included to temper it.
I read his memoir last year, and I must say I was both enthralled and a bit frustrated at the end of it. On the one hand, Johnson's life and work were encapsulating. They hooked me in to the life of the scholar, the mind of one digging to learn. A faith seeking understanding, if you will. On the other hand, some of his final exhortations were quite idyllic. They were great in concept, but difficult to implore the scholarly masses in a realistic manner. The expectations he placed before his readers seemed like great aims, but I was left desiring a bit more heartfelt explanation of family-study balance within them. Alas, alack. I will say I nonetheless also recommend his memoir, and it continues to challenge me toward deeper study and intentional writing. Johnson's example from his life for #3 in intellectual and moral virtues—(a) subject mastery and (b) discipline—were astonishing. In a gist, I believe all of his listed virtues can be pursued, but they'll be pursued in fallible and limited ways. Humility must bring us to a balancing point. Thanks for sharing, Joel!
Courage and curiosity are prerequisites for all creative pursuits. It seems necessary that they are utilized combinatively as one without the other is incomplete. One needs the other to provide it with focus, direction, fire, and fuel. Ambition strikes me as something that needs to be qualified before it can be called a virtue. What it is that one wishes to achieve, why, and to what end? If it is in the service of courageous curiosity the virtue is easy to see. If for vain success for success' sake alone, I'm not so sure.
I read this with great interest. But I think that the problem for many writers, particularly scholars, is the need to conform to a pedagogical and ideological orthodoxy. Perhaps that is subsumed in his points about Courage and Detachment.
If there's something added that's needs to be removed as a moral virtue it's detachment. Detachment is the opposite of courage. It's the opposite of Curiosity. Detachment might be replaced by rationality but that still seems to me to be wrong.
If a person is to engage fully being detached makes no sense. I take umbrance at detachment as virtue because to be virtuous you must engage in the world. Although I'm sure it's just a poor word choice, the idea that disengaging is something to be sought after makes me bristle.
How can you write to stir the hearts of mankind if you can not yourself feel. Ridiculous.
I would love a one-sentence elaboration on each virtue. I may have a totally different idea of courage, but if I understood where he's coming from, I might agree with his ranking. To me, calling is number one. But he may call that courage.
-maybe he put "curiosity" and "courage" at the top because these two really need to be instilled and..how to say? fostered? in a very early age...others are more easily developed later by a person himself. still hard-yet more possible. I don't know where "imagination" falls though-maybe it's a trait that can be summoned but I'd still put it up top. Discipline, multitasking, mastery, reading-they all are lower because of the age when one can start tackling them. I might think about it differently in an hour-these are just first thoughts
PS that's why I'm not a writer-I have only curiosity and courage. Lol.
And reading-but reading makes me a reader, not necessarily a writer.
Actually, you do realize I think that one can write an essay as an answer to each of your questions. It'd make for a helluva long comment.
I am having a hard time buyig that multitasking is a moral virtue. I'm not even sure humans are physically capable of truly multitasking.
You’re right to be dubious. When I said up that I had qualifications to the list, this was my primary issue. The feedback to this list has been enlightening. Maybe I’ll write that essay after all.
I can go with the intellectual six, but of the moral virtues I'm not sure that contentment and multi-tasking make it for me. Is multi-tasking a moral virtue??
At best, multi-tasking would be an intellectual virtue, not a moral virtue.
Intellectually, I think multi-tasking is a hindrance as often as it is helpful.
Had to think through whether these worked for novel writing as well as scholarly writing. I think they do - for example, detachment to a scholarly writer means being able to let go of a hypothesis when the evidence doesn't reinforce it; for a writer of fiction, it means being able to look at a beloved story or character and realize the story isn't working or the character has to go.
One quality I don't see in either list but belongs in both is conviction. Conviction that one must write, whatever the result. Conviction that one must satisfy one's curiosity, wherever it leads.
I would include humility - you need to be open to others' perspectives and understand where they're coming from. I just finished reading Ken Follett's thriller, Never, and one of the characters is in charge of a Chinese intelligence agency. Follett does a great job of describing his motivations, and why he has very different understandings of issues like intellectual property rights, etc.
I would say if writers were to be really honest they would rank Selfish traits as being to the forefront. To write you have to be I suppose.
Wow. I’d love to hear you say more about that.
I'd add Love at the top of either list: Love of life, of learning, of exploring, of writing, of language,. Daring and risk-taking I'd add too. And play, the pure fun and joy of plating with ideas, with language. Is creativity on the list? I'd have to go back and see, but if it is I'd lift it to the top too.
I agree with starting with curiosity. I would say Desire for Truth, instead of respectin evidence. And I would include Desire for Beauty. Or as I think of it, a naive arrogance that expects all real things to fit together well.
Would probably add: the willingness to have one’s psyche semi-permanently Brilloed. Was trying but failed to find a single Greek word for.
LOL. That seems about right.
Like others I find multi tasking as a moral virtue so misplaced I wonder if the author included it just because people are so prone to pick apart these lists. Give the reader a softball and move on. The moral virtue I would add that is missing is empathy. To act in a moral capacity not only requires an understanding of what action is moral in a given circumstance, but also the motivation to behave in a moral fashion. Quite often that motivation comes from a deep understanding of how an action will impact others. If ambition is a virtue, empathy almost has to be included to temper it.
I read his memoir last year, and I must say I was both enthralled and a bit frustrated at the end of it. On the one hand, Johnson's life and work were encapsulating. They hooked me in to the life of the scholar, the mind of one digging to learn. A faith seeking understanding, if you will. On the other hand, some of his final exhortations were quite idyllic. They were great in concept, but difficult to implore the scholarly masses in a realistic manner. The expectations he placed before his readers seemed like great aims, but I was left desiring a bit more heartfelt explanation of family-study balance within them. Alas, alack. I will say I nonetheless also recommend his memoir, and it continues to challenge me toward deeper study and intentional writing. Johnson's example from his life for #3 in intellectual and moral virtues—(a) subject mastery and (b) discipline—were astonishing. In a gist, I believe all of his listed virtues can be pursued, but they'll be pursued in fallible and limited ways. Humility must bring us to a balancing point. Thanks for sharing, Joel!
I'll noodle on this but this list seems very earnest. Most of art is theft and covering your tracks. Larceny, maybe?
LOL. Dylan would be proud.
Courage and curiosity are prerequisites for all creative pursuits. It seems necessary that they are utilized combinatively as one without the other is incomplete. One needs the other to provide it with focus, direction, fire, and fuel. Ambition strikes me as something that needs to be qualified before it can be called a virtue. What it is that one wishes to achieve, why, and to what end? If it is in the service of courageous curiosity the virtue is easy to see. If for vain success for success' sake alone, I'm not so sure.
I read this with great interest. But I think that the problem for many writers, particularly scholars, is the need to conform to a pedagogical and ideological orthodoxy. Perhaps that is subsumed in his points about Courage and Detachment.
If there's something added that's needs to be removed as a moral virtue it's detachment. Detachment is the opposite of courage. It's the opposite of Curiosity. Detachment might be replaced by rationality but that still seems to me to be wrong.
If a person is to engage fully being detached makes no sense. I take umbrance at detachment as virtue because to be virtuous you must engage in the world. Although I'm sure it's just a poor word choice, the idea that disengaging is something to be sought after makes me bristle.
How can you write to stir the hearts of mankind if you can not yourself feel. Ridiculous.
I would love a one-sentence elaboration on each virtue. I may have a totally different idea of courage, but if I understood where he's coming from, I might agree with his ranking. To me, calling is number one. But he may call that courage.
-maybe he put "curiosity" and "courage" at the top because these two really need to be instilled and..how to say? fostered? in a very early age...others are more easily developed later by a person himself. still hard-yet more possible. I don't know where "imagination" falls though-maybe it's a trait that can be summoned but I'd still put it up top. Discipline, multitasking, mastery, reading-they all are lower because of the age when one can start tackling them. I might think about it differently in an hour-these are just first thoughts
PS that's why I'm not a writer-I have only curiosity and courage. Lol.
And reading-but reading makes me a reader, not necessarily a writer.
Actually, you do realize I think that one can write an essay as an answer to each of your questions. It'd make for a helluva long comment.
Thank you for the post!-I'll continue to think