​Virtues are not forever. As societies encounter new challenges or new opportunities they invent new virtues  - ne expectations, really - for their members. You can see that happening before your very eyes by using Google Ngram.
This site makes it possible to track the frequency, year by year, of words in books printed in English from early printing press days to the present.  So enter fortitude ,endurance, resilience  for the period 1800 to 2019 (the most recent year available). 

​The result will resemble the crude screen shot above.
 On the right,  in descending order you will see resilience, endurance, and fortitude. Around 2000 “resilience” takes off, outpacing old favorites. It’s a true millennial.
    It’s best not to rely too much on an Ngram, but this one helps explain why in an earlier posting on this blog  we found it so difficult to identify an equivalent in ancient Greek. There are good approximations for fortitude and endurance, but nothing  quite like resilience.  How could there be? The word and the concept behind it are almost brand new.   
Sometimes ordinary language senses and responds to change more promptly than pundits and scholars.  It’s worth paying attention, then, to shifts like the one shown in the Ngram.
    Resilience is a millennial word, a new name for a new virtue. It resonates in a time when the economy has a bipolar disorder, when racism seems here to stay, when climate change delivers punch after punch, when relationships have a hard time blossoming into love.  When stalemate, failure, rejection seem the norm, you have to learn to bounce back and learn from past setbacks.  Resilience  becomes the name of the game.
    Some of the momentum for talking so much about resilience comes, I suspect, from pop-psych.  But Harry Kavros has pointed out to me  in an email that it is now a favorite term in discussions of business management, for example Diane L. Coutu’s article “How Resiience Works” in the Harvard Business Review. for May 2002.  In such settings Thomas Edison becomes a paradigm – year after year trying different ways of developing a workable electric light bulb.  Fizzle. Try again. Fizzle. Try again. He had resilience even though he didn’t have a word for it.
    Edison may be a useful role model for millennials trying to escape from wage slavery, but is there anything in all this resilience talk of interest to the classicist or the historian? Here’s one line of inquiry – a route worth exploring:  So far most of the resilience-talk has been about individuals, as if it   applied only at the personal level.  Can the term also be useful in the study of institutions, communities, whole societies? Are there, for example, truly resilient  states, ones that  bounce back from defeat or disaster, and end up stronger than before, while others can’t pick themselves off the ground after a war or a revolution?
    What do you think?
May 29, 2021

Several friends have replied to my question whether there was an ancient Greek equivalent to “resilience”.  Some, like Gary Pence looked closely at Greek vocabulary:
 
 
“…  Among synonyms or near synonyms are strength, doggedness, perseverance, fortitude, grit, self-reliance. If resilience is nowhere to be found in LSJ, how about some of these synonyms? 
 
“There are words for perseverance like καρτερία, λιπαρία, μακροθυμία. When I look for fortitude I find εὐχέρεια, which combines “tolerance of or indifference to evil, danger, or hardship” combined with “ease, agreeableness, comfort” and “dexterity, skill (tho citation may be εὐχειρία).” Pretty close to resilience, but I wish I could find something more active, like πολύτροπος Odysseus, who could figure out how to manage any turn of events. Maybe the Greeks would encapsulate resilience in ἀνδρεία, brave manliness.
 
“Modern Greek for resilience is αντοχή, which in classical Greek meant adhesion or attachment, better ascribed to scotch tape than to people. But its related verb, ἀντέχω means “hold out against, withstand, endure, hold one’s ground.” It’s the same in modern Greek: be resistant, be hard-wearing, hold out, withstand.  Modern αντοχή is akin to υπομονή, “endurance,” which may be the closest we can get to resilience in NT Greek.
 
“ … And how about πολυτλήμων Odysseus in the Odyssey?”
 
Dan Caner thinks along similar lines:
”…  I know that several later texts (Christian Greek, but probably based on earlier Stoic tradition) use the combination "karteria kai hypomenē" - hard perseverence? which may come close.”
 
Comment: That reminded me of the modern Greek saying hypomone kai epimone Persistence and insistence.   That’s close to what I have trying to get  at – resilience not as a return  to the status quo ante, but as coming back stronger as the result of a setback.


 
Charles Pazdernik also turned to the Odyssey:
 

“My first thoughts, too, went to the Homeric polutlas Odysseus as well as to Achilles' speech on Zeus and the two jars. But the Iliadic emphasis is on the enduring heart, tlêtos thumos, isn't it, and I guess endurance. (Archilochus' tlêmosunê as pharmakon is a flintier quality than resilience.. …. Isn't Odysseus received by Cynics and esp. Stoics as an archetype of resourcefulness and resilience?”
Andrew Ford agrees:
 
“This is indeed a fun question. Chuck is right, of course. Where ‘we’ speak of resilience, the Greeks would speak of endurance and adaptability to ever changing circumstances in a world in constant motion. The difference seems to be that ‘resilience’ implies the ability to bounce back and regain control of one’s life, whereas the ability to endure and adapt is required in a world gripped by dark and destructive forces beyond one’s control and beyond one’s understanding. In texts like Archil. fr. 130 W., there is also no suggestion that the person, upended by the gods’ blow, could get back on their feet again by themselves; it is the gods who could one day raise them up again from the misery they plunged them into. In the meantime, one has to adapt and endure."
 
So we segue from lexical to mythological and to Greek tragedy:
 
James McCaughey asks from Melbourne
 “Can I suggest the closing sequences of the Heracles Mainomenos in answer to your question?”
This is a really important point and raises powerful questions about tragedy more generally: How often do these dramas depict strong resilience? But  for the moment Homer keeps stealing the show -  but which Homer?   I think we find two distinct types of resilience in these epics: Odysseus toughing it out , one. challenge after another, and pretty boy Achilles, sulking in. his tent, until  the one real devastation hits hin,  the loss of Patroclus. Odysseus’ long suffering (and delights along the way) ends in a blood bath, into which  the SOB drags his son.  He has endured, but he has not grown.  I hate that ending; no wonder some ancient  critics objected to it.
    What a contrast to Achilles, who finally, belatedly,  grows up and in the meeting with Priam becomes a real Mensch.  To me that is real resilience , more than endurance, the capacity to  come out on the other side of loss a better human being.
    I know, I know , there are other ways of  reading those endings, but when I think of resilience this rings true to me.
 
Michael Lurie writes with some reservations:  
 
 “Very much like your reading of both endings, but whatever happens to Achilles in Iliad 24 has, in my view, nothing to do with the English word, and the concept of, resilience, which implies resistance to change. Do we need the notion of resilience to understand Achilles and the ending of the Iliad? Achilles changes because he understands that you are not in control of your life, that unbroken happiness is not possible, and that suffering is the defining feature of human existence. This insight does make him a better human being, and a pessimist, but is it resilience?”

 Comment:
A lot depends,  I guess, on whether we think of resilience  as resistance to change or as the ability to learn from and adapt to setbacks; maybe I should call that “strong” resilience to distinguish it from endurance or  toughing it out.  It’s a rare quality, and a  crucial one, I think. I wonder if it can be learned.
--
I better stop here, for the time being, but I can’t stop probing into resilience (and perhaps thereby into “tragic optimism”).  If you have thoughts on these concepts please let me hear from you.
 
May 22, 2021
 
 
 

​      I’m not so naïf as to think that the ancient Greeks paved the road to happiness for the rest of us by the concepts they developed and expounded.  But when I encounter a term or concept among modern thinkers that seems to me potentially helpful, I make myself ask how the Greeks would talk about it - what words, images or myths might apply in their culture.  The contrast of cultures, I often find, is revealing about both the Greeks and us.
      But when the work of Viktor Frankl and others on “tragic optimism’ (see last blog post) led me to think about resilience, I was stumped. I could find no close analogy to resilience in the strong sense of the word – not endurance or the like, but that elusive ability to pick yourself up when you’ve been knocked down, and turn out better for the experience.
      I don’t find a word that is quite right for it in ancient Greek, nor passage that explore resilience in this sense.  Yet, surely that highly competitive culture; had a discourse for  exploring it. What am I missing?
May 17, 2021

“Tragic Optimism”:
       The phrase “tragic optimism,” has gained currency of late. Is it just trendy pop psych or does it point to something really important and lasting?
As a Google NGram shows, the phrase came into use in the early twentieth century but only gained significant circulation after the Second World War, perhaps largely through the works of the Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl, who used it to refer to  the “ability to maintain hope and find meaning in life despite its pain, loss, and suffering.”  This cast of mind, Frankl believed, produces resilience, and resilience helps a person survive even the worst of things.   Don’t try to tell a Holocaust survivor that the phrase is just pop psych.
After September 11th the term helped focus attention on the question why some people who had lost loved ones or had in other ways been damaged by the attacks showed more resilience than others.  Those who recovered best, it seems, didn’t deny the loss and misery they had experienced but found in it, somehow, something that made life worth hanging on to.  Anecdotes from survivors have now been backed up by empirical studies as Emily Esfahani Smith has pointed out in guest essays in the New York Times.
       “Optimism” may not be the right word, but  the contrast to despondent pessimism is crucial. The Covid-19 pandemic has again shown how important resilience is, and the crucial fact that it derives not from denial of loss and suffering – just the opposite: it comes about when one accepts the reality of suffering and loss and hangs on despite it all.
       Individuals vary greatly in tragic optimism.  Some people seem to have it full measure from the start; for others a good shrink can help develop this capacity. 
But what about whole cultures? Do they too vary in this respect?  Are some more resilient than others? If so, why and how?  Are there cultural practices that help members of a society achieve tragic optimism?
I’ll be thinking about these questions and welcome the thoughts and suggestions of readers of this blog. You can reach me at:
Wrconnor1@gmail.com
Note: Viktor Frankl’s approach may be gleaned from his essay "The Case for Tragic Optimism." a postscript to his book Man’s Search for Meaning (1984).  Recently the  phrase has been used to good advantage in Emily Esfahani Smith’s work, especially “On Coronavirus Lockdown?  Look for Meaning not Happiness“ in the New York Times for April 7, 2020.  
May 6, 2021

​ Thanks for checking this blog about ancient Greek and trying to think about it intenseky. I try to post every week, as long as I think I have something worth arguing about. If you’d like to receive an email when a new post goes up, or want to comment, write me at
wrconnor1@gmail.com
Bob Connor

Do I hear champagne corks popping in the ivied halls where Dan-el Padilla and others who doubt whether Classics deserves to survive hang out? These Classics Abolitionists have much to celebrate, having argued that Classics as a department, major or field should be abolished. Now Howard University is doing just that. Let the champagne flow.

This is no minor victory. Howard is the flagship among historically black colleges and universities. Since it is, I believe, the only HBCU with a Classics department, that entire sector of American higher education will now be liberated from a discipline that has sometimes been embraced by the far-right, racists and old fogies enamored of Western Civilization.

There’s more to celebrate: While untenured faculty in the department will now once again be able to experience the excitement of the academic job market, tenured faculty members will likely complete their careers as refugees in benevolent departments elsewhere at Howard.  These refugees should be, if the Abolitionists are correct, the leaven in the loaf, part of a new, more nourishing environment as classics are infused throughout the university. 
​
Do not be misled by the rumors that the abolition of Classics is just the first step towards phasing down (or out) other humanistic fields in favor of a more vocational education. Lots of mostly white institutions have done that in recent years; why shouldn’t a historically black one do so, too?

In the midst of all this good news, well-known public intellectual Cornel West and his associate Jeremy Tate crash the party and publish an op-ed in the Washington Post calling Howard’s decision “a spiritual catastrophe.”  As if that hyperbole weren’t devastating enough, they cite two figures who claim to have benefitted from their study of the classics - Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr. Thank heavens they didn’t bring along with them the whole cast in the award winning book African American Writers and Classical Tradition by James Tatum and William Cook. It includes Phillis Wheatley, Ralph Ellison and Rita Dove. And, oh yes, Toni Morrison once told me about the important role classics played in her undergraduate education, so she might have been invoked, too.
​
Pay no attention to these names. Empirical evidence will soon be at hand. Howard’s decision provides a perfect opportunity to test the theories of the Classical Abolitionists. If they are right, some of Howard’s departments of literature, history, philosophy, will provide a supportive environment for classical studies, encourage their best students to include the classical world in their course selections, and over time appoint additional scholars studying aspects of the Greco-Roman world. Students’ education will be enriched. If the Abolitionists are wrong, education at Howard will be impoverished, and as a university it will be Howard’s end.

PS I’ll come back to the phrase “spiritual catastrophe” in another post.  Stay tuned.

April 22, 2021