There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity.

“He is a man who is worthy neither of the great censure nor the great praise presently attached to his name. Nonetheless, there is little disagreement on what he has actually said and done. There is only disagreement on what it all means. The very same qualities of his personality which drive his admirers to hail him prompt his detractors to damn him.   

He is the rare sort of man whose detractors are rabid and obsessed with the project of taking him down and seem to wake every morning with nothing else on their minds. In fact, he governs the lives of his enemies far more minutely than he governs the lives of his followers, who supposedly hang on his every word. The people who despise him do not understand how reasonable he appears in comparison with themselves, whereas he understands this all quite well. He understands how to vex his enemies far better than they understand how to vex him. After several decades of trying, no one has even come close to taking him down, though many have been wrecked by their own efforts while he simply stands by and watches.  

He is definitely a clever man, but like all clever men (except Oscar Wilde), he appreciates his own cleverness a bit too deeply, much like the beautiful woman whose gaze lingers too long on every mirror she passes. When it’s all said and done, several distinct phases of his career will be named and measured, and his most brilliant years will be those which fell in the middle, even though his fame wasn’t achieved until later. Some will say his brilliance declined as his fame rose. It is my opinion that these people are quite right. 

In the later phases of his career, he has maintained a high opinion of his own prowess that is no longer warranted, and this sometimes leads him to embarrass himself. These embarrassments are either quite apart from his knowledge, or else he ‘wisely does not notice’ his own blunders, like the adoring young wife who never seems to hear the incorrect things her husband says. Still, he is nobody’s fool but his own, and then only very occasionally. His talents are yet considerable, and evidently come directly from God, for there also seems to be between himself and God certain arrangements that preclude the possibility of him ever going senile, or displaying decrepitude, or failing spectacularly at anything—all of which are impossible to imagine of him, even by such an objective viewer as myself, who am persuaded neither of his great righteousness nor his great wickedness. He is persuasive enough that even when he seems to fail, his own rollicking self-contentment alone is sufficient to make a skeptical reader second guess his skepticism.  

The rareness of his intellect means that his closest friend, and perhaps his only real friend, is his son—a fact that everyone is free to interpret however they choose. He has heroes, to be sure, but they have all died long ago. In fact, his favorite companion is himself, not only because he is good at keeping himself amused, but because all real friendships are based on a mutually perceived equality, and it is difficult to imagine him bearing his soul to anyone. By this point, though, his character is so established in strength, or the projection of strength, I find it grotesque to imagine him freely pouring out his feelings to another. It is easier to imagine him vomiting than to imagine him weeping, though I have seen neither. He smiles often, and while his smile is unfeigned, it is never spontaneous.    

While he is not what anyone would call ‘an intensely private person,’ it is nonetheless difficult to imagine him doing mundane activities like watching a film, cracking an egg, or absent-mindedly saying aloud the unusual words on a billboard as he drives past. When he speaks about the normal, humdrum activities of life, he is always talking about someone else doing them. At the same time, having long ago gotten to know him, he is the sort of man who comes to mind often. As I’ve said, I don’t think him worthy of the extreme adulation or blame he’s come to receive, and I haven’t spoken to the man more than once or twice in the last decade—and yet several times a week, I read a poignant line from a book and think, ‘Oh, I wonder what so-and-so would make of this?’ or when an especially stupid commercial comes on the television, ‘Well, I wonder what so-and-so would say about this if he were watching it with me?’ Like all self-assured men, even immodestly self-assured men, you can’t help but wonder what the world looks like to him.” 

The day my son Laurie started kindergarten he renounced corduroy overalls with bibs and began wearing blue jeans with a belt; I watched him go off the first morning with the older girl next door, seeing clearly that an era of my life was ended, my sweet-voiced nursery-school tot replaced by a long-trousered, swaggering character who forgot to stop at the corner and wave good-bye to me. 

He came home the same way, the front door slamming open, his cap on the floor, and the voice suddenly become raucous shouting, “Isn’t anybody here?” 

At lunch he spoke insolently to his father, spilled his baby sister’s milk, and remarked that his teacher said we were not to take the name of the Lord in vain. 

“How was school today?” I asked, elaborately casual. “All right,” he said. 

“Did you learn anything?” his father asked. 

Laurie regarded his father coldly. “I didn’t learn nothing,” he said. 

“Anything,” I said. “Didn’t learn anything” 

“The teacher spanked a boy, though,” Laurie said, addressing his bread and butter. “For being fresh,” he added, with his mouth full. 

“What did he do?” I asked. “Who was it?” 

Laurie thought. “It was Charles,” he said. “He was fresh. The teacher spanked him and made him stand in a corner. He was awfully fresh.” 

“What did he do?” I asked again, but Laurie slid off his chair, took a cookie, and left, while his father was still saying, “See here, young man.” 

The next day Laurie remarked at lunch, as soon as he sat down, “Well, Charles was bad again today.” He grinned enormously and said, “Today Charles hit the teacher.” 

“Good heavens,” I said, mindful of the Lord’s name, “I suppose he got spanked again?” 

“He sure did,” Laurie said. “Look up,” he said to his father. “What?” his father said, looking up. 

“Look down,” Laurie said. “Look at my thumb. Gee, you’re dumb.” He began to laugh insanely. 

“Why did Charles hit the teacher?” I asked quickly. “Because she tried to make him color with red crayons,” 

Laurie said. “Charles wanted to color with green crayons so he hit the teacher and she spanked him and said nobody play with Charles but everybody did.” 

The third day—it was Wednesday of the first week—Charles bounced a see-saw on to the head of a little girl and made her bleed, and the teacher made him stay inside all during recess. Thursday Charles had to stand in a corner during storytime because he kept pounding his feet on the floor. Friday Charles was deprived of blackboard privileges because he threw chalk. 

On Saturday I remarked to my husband, “Do you think kindergarten is too unsettling for Laurie? All this toughness, and bad grammar, and this Charles boy sounds like such a bad influence.” 

“It’ll be all right,” my husband said reassuringly. “Bound to be people like Charles in the world. Might as well meet them now as later.” 

On Monday Laurie came home late, full of news. “Charles,” he shouted as he came up the hill; I was waiting anxiously on the front steps. “Charles,” Laurie yelled all the way up the hill, “Charles was bad again.” 

“Come right in,” I said, as soon as he came close enough. “Lunch is waiting.” 

“You know what Charles did?” he demanded, following me through the door. “Charles yelled so in school they sent a boy in from first grade to tell the teacher she had to make Charles keep quiet, and so Charles had to stay after school. And so all the children stayed to watch him.” 

“What did he do?” I asked. 

“He just sat there,” Laurie said, climbing into his chair at the table. “Hi, Pop, y’old dust mop.” 

“Charles had to stay after school today,” I told my husband. “Everyone stayed with him.” 

“What does this Charles look like?” my husband asked Laurie. “What’s his other name?” 

“He’s bigger than me,” Laurie said. “And he doesn’t have any rubbers and he doesn’t ever wear a jacket.” 

Monday night was the first Parent-Teachers meeting, and only the fact that the baby had a cold kept me from going; I wanted passionately to meet Charles’s mother. On Tuesday Laurie remarked suddenly, “Our teacher had a friend come to see her in school today.” 

“Charles’s mother?” my husband and I asked simultaneously. “Naaah,” Laurie said scornfully. “It was a man who came and made us do exercises, we had to touch our toes. Look.” He climbed down from his chair and squatted down and touched his toes. “Like this,” he said. He got solemnly back into his chair and said, picking up his fork, “Charles didn’t even do exercises.” 

“That’s fine,” I said heartily. “Didn’t Charles want to do exercises?” 

“Naaah,” Laurie said. “Charles was so fresh to the teacher’s friend he wasn’t let do exercises.” 

“Fresh again?” I said. 

“He kicked the teacher’s friend,” Laurie said. “The teacher’s friend told Charles to touch his toes like I just did and Charles kicked him.” 

“What are they going to do about Charles, do you suppose?” Laurie’s father asked him. 

Laurie shrugged elaborately. “Throw him out of school, I guess,” he said. 

Wednesday and Thursday were routine; Charles yelled during story hour and hit a boy in the stomach and made him cry. On Friday Charles stayed after school again and so did all the other children. 

With the third week of kindergarten Charles was an institution in our family; the baby was being a Charles when she cried all afternoon; Laurie did a Charles when he filled his wagon full of mud and pulled it through the kitchen; even my husband, when he caught his elbow in the telephone cord and pulled telephone, ashtray, and a bowl of flowers off the table, said, after the first minute, “Looks like Charles.” 

During the third and fourth weeks it looked like a reformation in Charles; Laurie reported grimly at lunch on Thursday of the third week, “Charles was so good today the teacher gave him an apple.” 

“What?” I said, and my husband added warily, “You mean Charles?” 

“Charles,” Laurie said. “He gave the crayons around and he picked up the books afterward and the teacher said he was her helper.” 

“What happened?” I asked incredulously. 

“He was her helper, that’s all,” Laurie said, and shrugged. “Can this be true, about Charles?” I asked my husband that 

night. “Can something like this happen?” 

“Wait and see,” my husband said cynically. “When you’ve got a Charles to deal with, this may mean he’s only plotting.” He seemed to be wrong. For over a week Charles was the teacher’s helper; each day he handed things out and he picked things up; no one had to stay after school. 

“The P.T.A. meeting’s next week again,” I told my husband one evening. “I’m going to find Charles’s mother there.” 

“Ask her what happened to Charles,” my husband said. “I’d like to know.” 

“I’d like to know myself,” I said. 

On Friday of that week things were back to normal. “You know what Charles did today?” Laurie demanded at the lunch table, in a voice slightly awed. “He told a little girl to say a word and she said it and the teacher washed her mouth out with soap and Charles laughed.” 

“What word?” his father asked unwisely, and Laurie said, “I’ll have to whisper it to you, it’s so bad.” He got down off his chair and went around to his father. His father bent his head down and Laurie whispered joyfully. His father’s eyes widened. 

“Did Charles tell the little girl to say that?” he asked respectfully. 

“She said it twice,” Laurie said. “Charles told her to say it twice.” 

“What happened to Charles?” my husband asked. “Nothing,” Laurie said. “He was passing out the crayons.” 

Monday morning Charles abandoned the little girl and said the evil word himself three or four times, getting his mouth washed out with soap each time. He also threw chalk. 

My husband came to the door with me that evening as I set out for the P.T.A. meeting. “Invite her over for a cup of tea after the meeting,” he said. “I want to get a look at her.” 

“If only she’s there,” I said prayerfully. 

“She’ll be there,” my husband said. “I don’t see how they could hold a P.T.A. meeting without Charles’s mother.” 

At the meeting I sat restlessly, scanning each comfortable matronly face, trying to determine which one hid the secret of Charles. None of them looked to me haggard enough. No one stood up in the meeting and apologized for the way her son had been acting. No one mentioned Charles. 

After the meeting I identified and sought out Laurie’s kindergarten teacher. She had a plate with a cup of tea and a piece of chocolate cake; I had a plate with a cup of tea and a piece of marshmallow cake. We maneuvered up to one another cautiously, and smiled. 

“I’ve been so anxious to meet you,” I said. “I’m Laurie’s mother.” 

“We’re all so interested in Laurie,” she said. 

“Well, he certainly likes kindergarten,” I said. “He talks about it all the time.” 

“We had a little trouble adjusting, the first week or so,” she said primly, “but now he’s a fine little helper. With occasional lapses, of course.” 

“Laurie usually adjusts very quickly,” I said. “I suppose this time it’s Charles’s influence.” 

“Charles?” 

“Yes,” I said, laughing, “you must have your hands full in that kindergarten, with Charles.” 

“Charles?” she said. “We don’t have any Charles in the kindergarten.” 

From “Act of God,” the fourth episode of Season One of The Crown.

Of all the vices, none is easier to hide than cowardice.  

In a prosperous society like ours, vices like lust, greed, envy, and gluttony are provoked constantly, but cowardice is a vice that can go unpracticed and unnoticed for years.  

When his luck is good, the average man has no need of courage. He can go to work in the morning, complete his duties, collect his ducats, then it’s home for dinner, TV, bath, talc, and pajamas, all without any need to conquer his fears. Granted, he may suffer a little tension here, a little anxiety there—rising property taxes, a funny feeling in his flank—but provided he can tamp down his frustrations and keep his mouth shut for long enough, most of his problems will blow over without much fanfare. So, a year passes, then another, and none of the people with whom the fellow works or worships have any idea that he’s as yellow as a freshly painted school bus.  

Unlike other vices, cowardice produces very few outward signs from one day to the next. The glutton announces himself silently and obviously. Envy outs itself in the breakroom on a quarterly basis—can you believe that slob got my promotion? And the lech can’t quite conceal the glances he steals of every short skirt in the office. But cowardice is generally dormant, no more active than a fat cicada, which is to say that a coward may only perform his cowardice once every several years.    

In the meantime, though, dormant cowardice often takes precautionary pains to present itself otherwise. The coward boldly denounces any threat that is a safe distance off, even though this is where threats usually hang out. A coward is not necessarily a timid, hen-pecked man who winces at every loud noise. In fact, most cowards make decent bridge partners. They’re chatty and they can hold their liquor. In the movies, cowards are knock-kneed milquetoasts whose desertion “in the face of battle” is telegraphed from the moment they appear on screen. In real life, the revelation of a coward often comes as a surprise.   

This is because most cowards talk a good game. You have heard the coward say he’d “teach that guy a thing or two if only he had the chance.” However, when the time to be courageous presents itself, the coward coolly dissembles. Cowards are forever dismissing the concerns of others and lampooning men of action for being worry-warts, overly passionate, reckless, and hot-headed. While the lech excuses his actions by insisting that he’s “just having a little fun,” the coward wants his cowardice to pass as real virtue. Cowards are forever counseling patience, prudence, longsuffering, circumspection—all of which are genuine virtues, except when the need of the moment is for courage and immediate, risky action.  

The coward’s favorite proverb is, “Choose your battles carefully,” and he tells those on the cusp of action that he will not personally take action today because he is biding his time, waiting for the right moment. But the coward never chooses a battle. He merely defers the choice of battle for some hypothetical future that never comes. “Choose your battles carefully” is only sound advice from a man who has a few battle scars – the coward has none. When he is feeling pious, the coward may point to St. James’s injunction that Christians be “Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger.” Nonetheless, cowards are quick to speak against the brave when they fear getting lumped in with them. If listening might make the coward look complicit in the risky maneuvers of the brave, nothing will keep him from blabbing to the “proper” authorities.  

Anyone looking for cowards will often find them hiding behind the shield of bureaucracy and propriety. The coward insists the time for action is later. The place for action is elsewhere. The people for action are not us. Action is someone else’s responsibility, and it would be arrogant for us to assume their role. “The real work of courage here,” says the coward, “is to do nothing.” As cowards see it, taking action always means violating the chain-of-command. Action always means doing harm to the employee manual, the handbook, or the org chart—the precious and life-giving org chart! 

When the time for action arises, the coward styles himself as someone who is calm and rational, unlike everyone else. The coward can’t see what all the fuss is over, the hysteria. Cowards regularly insist, with a roll of their eyes, “Everything is fine.” Cowards are cool. They don’t see what the big deal is. They can imagine everything being much worse. Cowards keep a long catalogue of “worse situations” at their beck and call and trot them out whenever brave men insist things are bad enough that “we ought to do something.” Besides, everything would get better if the people “itching for a fight” could just chill out and behave like adults, and not like horny, war-mongering teenage boys. It is the false virtue of cowards that has turned “slow down” into the wisest advice possible, regardless of the situation, and “hurry up” into the height of presumption.  

Real men know that diplomacy is sometimes the answer. Cowards believe in no other way. For the coward, “moderation” always demands something less than whatever men of action are calling for.  The coward knows that he has found the moderate way whenever he discovers a plan that will eliminate any risk to himself. For the coward, every genuine risk is reckless.  

Cowards are divided, though, on whether they’d be better off if more men were like themselves. On the one hand, gutlessness seems all-the-more reasonable when committed en masse. Cowards hate standing out. The coward knows that nothing (bad) happens to those who say nothing and do nothing—at least, nothing bad happens to such people today, and cowards would much rather slowly and safely lose later than gamble anything on a win today.  

On the other hand, the coward may also have something to gain from the courage of others, in which case he condescendingly accepts the trickledown benefits that come from their accomplishments, all the while protesting their methods. In retrospect, he feels justified in refraining from action. Yes, the men of action changed things for the better, and yes, the conscientious objector will certainly enjoy the fruits of their labor—but had the men of action simply followed the coward’s principles, they “might have accomplished so much more,” and done so with less harm to the vanquished.  

The coward understands that the average man (the man of modest courage) is often on-the-fence about whether the time for action has come. A man who has decided only this morning that, “The time for action is now,” is generally still so unsure of himself that he could easily be persuaded otherwise any time before the first metaphorical shot is fired. Cowards know this and are very good at winning unwitting converts. Just when a few men have become convinced that action is now justified, along comes the coward to obfuscate the rationale of their resolve and settle them back into complacency. 

The coward is given to recast his cowardice as patience, forbearance, and the extension of grace. The validity of coward’s views is often proved with pious quotations from Church Fathers who commend “mercy at all times,” even though such passages are often but a few lines away from counsel that children and novices be beaten only after they receive two warnings.    

When pressed on the need for action, the coward loves comparing himself to some passive figure who was abused for decades by everyone he knew and then obtained validation as a saint or hero by an intervening authority at the end of his life, or after. While the suffering of the saints is not to be dismissed, their lives are nothing like the coward, who says nothing and does nothing not because he has the self-control to endure his blows silently, but because he’d rather suffer for fear than for whatever punishment will come from an unsuccessful act of courage. Like the lech and the glutton, the coward is a hedonist, but not a very good one.  

Nonetheless, it must be admitted that courageous men of action rarely accomplish their goals without committing a few sins. This is not to say that they sin in order to accomplish their goals, though. The sins are not what make their accomplishment possible but are extraneous to it. The rightness of the Revolutionary War isn’t invalidated simply because a few soldiers lost their tempers during the battle of Saratoga. Granted, no sin can be swept under the rug simply because it was committed in the midst of a broader, better project with fine outcomes. However, the coward who refuses to fight can have no role in addressing such sins. He has recused himself from playing any legitimate role in their call to repentance.  

Obviously, the coward does not see things this way. In fact, cowards have a tendency to seize the vacant positions of power formerly occupied by the incompetent and wicked men whom courageous men have ousted. Cowards often persuasively argue that the few small sins committed by courageous men during their action disqualify them from positions of authority, whereas the coward has done nothing incorrect (because he has done nothing).  Cowards always have plenty of notes to offer on the actions that they stood by and idly watched. Besides, everyone knows that “action” is the work of commoners, whereas men “truly qualified” for positions of authority keep free of the filth that comes with getting things done. While the men of action did a good thing, their time is past. “The adults can take things from here,” says the coward, contentedly.   

As you will have noticed, a great many things the coward says and does are, in fact, virtuous when set in their proper contexts. Indeed, sometimes a man should wait, say nothing, do nothing, cool off, think again, and all the rest. Sometimes the mob is animated by a demonic frenzy. Sometimes the aggrieved are a bunch of sniveling losers who want nothing more than to exact petty revenge—and the godly man will not sully his fingers on such tawdry foolishness. Sometimes following the org chart will actually make everything much better. Sometimes.   

But the coward refuses to “discern the time,” as the Lord once put it. “Discerning the time” is not simply a difficult thing to do, it is even difficult to describe. It means seeing the way things have gone, recognizing the grooves in reality and the direction in which the world is headed. It means deciding that enough is known to render judgement—and then rendering that judgement. Given the interconnectedness of human existence, any criminal trial could conceivably go on forever as more evidence, more witnesses, and more facts continually piled up. How does the jury know they know enough to give a verdict? How does a woman know she knows a man well enough to agree to marry him? How does anyone know they know enough to make any decision whatsoever? And yet we’re all required to discern the time. We’re required to give a final “yes,” a final “no,” and to stand by it.  

Cowards understand better than most men just how difficult it is to “discern the time” and they hide behind that difficulty. In our world, time is nearly meaningless. We can buy whatever we want, whenever we want it. We can have heat in the winter, cool in the summer, applies in and out of season. Credit cards mean there’s nothing we can’t afford. Rites of passage no longer exist, so kids can have all the adult things as soon as they’re old enough to want them. There’s no waiting. There’s no time left to discern, and so cowardice abounds to such an extent that it’s nearly invisible. When did you last hear anyone condemn cowardice? When did you last hear a sermon on it? Or hear a father tell his son not to be a coward? The word is nearly obsolete, a technical term born of the ancient battlefield—sort of like phalanx or trebuchet—which no longer has any bearing on the network of offices and online platforms that constitute our world. When every deadline can be deferred for a few more days, what need is there for courage? 

And yet, for men, the term “coward” still carries weight. Most men can easily brush aside accusations of foolishness, laziness, sloppiness, even stupidity… These are the critiques common to the comments section. But if you call a man a “coward,” it will stick in his craw. While I wouldn’t recommend casually throwing around allegations of cowardice, the modern office-dweller would do well to consider the possibility far more often than he does.  

We’re screwed.

Or “profound imagery.”

I swear, the same people who pour over music videos looking for Easter eggs will tell me I’m “reading too much into” the twentieth canto of the Paradiso.

In Class, Paul Fussell notes off-handedly that sports favored by the aristocracy tend to be played with small balls, whereas proletarian sports are played with large balls. Thus, tennis and golf and polo for the rich; basketball and soccer and football for everyone else.

While he doesn’t explain this, I would note that in sports played with small balls, the ball is rarely touched directly. The ball is hit, rather, with a racket or a club. When the ball is large, it is held directly.

When the ball is held directly, the players tend to touch each other. When the ball isn’t held directly, the players usually don’t touch.

Sports wherein there is direct contact are mainly the domain of the young. Old people can play sports with small balls because they are less violent, exhausting.

Sports that are dominated by the young never accrue the dignity of sports played by the elderly.

Baseball fits a little awkwardly into the middle of this argument. While a baseball is small, and the sport itself is common (and not favored by aristocrats), baseball involves very little direct contact and can thus be played (professionally) for far longer than basketball, football, hockey, or soccer.