Perhaps the greatest tragedy of effective officeholders is that they create prestige and attract people to an office, people who do not necessarily wish to adopt the duties of the office to discharge effectively, but rather who wish the prestige and power coming with the office.
This leads to one of the great failures of formal rank: the longer an office goes on successfully and with good officeholders, the more prestigious it becomes – which then attracts people who wish prestige rather than discharging duties.
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THE FOSSILIZATION OF PRESTIGE
It’s a strange thing – it’s counterintuitive – but all the prestige of an office is almost always out of date relative to actual power.
As we have said,
-- The origin of rank is in the discharge of duties. Societies and organizations that need cohesion and coordination (all militaries, most businesses, etc) either centralize enough rank in the relevant office for coordination and cohesion, or are defeated and overthrown by adversaries with a better organizational structure.
-- Rank can be formal – an office like Dictator in Rome – or informal and based on one’s skill and ability to discharge duties being accepted, personal prestige, and a lack of adversaries.
-- Rank formalized into an office benefits from the association with past personal prestige of those who formerly held the office. Likewise, successful officeholders generally result in an office getting endowed with more power, both from prestige and from people happily allowing the successful officeholder to increase their power and duties when they are already discharging their duties well.
And thus, formalized offices always have prestige and power that are backwards-looking… it is often true that an occupation, organization, or office at the height of its seeming prestige and power has already passed into (often unseen) decline.
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FORMAL RANK OVER TIME: SAINT PETER AND LEO X
Saint Peter is regarded as the first Pope of the Catholic Church, but you must remember that the Christians were a very small minority sect in Rome at the time.
One of the Pope’s modern titles is Pontifex Maximus. This was an ancient Roman office for high priest which only (much later) became part of the papal titles when Christianity became the official religion of Rome.
Both Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar had served as Pontifex Maximus in Pagan Rome.
Our minds tend to naturally fill in the blanks of Peter’s role as Bishop of Rome and as Pope with what would happen later, but this is of course inaccurate. There were no great Christian basilicas, palaces, or regalia at this time. It would have been a very humble office, with a lot of work to be done, and very little formal mainstream prestige attached to it.
You can see this in quoted sayings of Peter –
“Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation.”
“Let your beauty be not just the outward adorning of braiding the hair, and of wearing jewels of gold, or of putting on fine clothing, but in the hidden person of the heart, in the incorruptible adornment of a gentle and quiet spirit…”
Read this next quote carefully and slowly. When Peter was executed in Rome, here is what he’s recorded as saying –
“But it is time for you, Peter, to surrender your body to those who are taking it. Take it, then, you whose duty it is. I must request you therefore, executioners, to crucify me head-downwards in this way and no other.”
You see in the first officeholder of the Bishop of Rome, the first Papa of the Church, a celebration of duty.
He is not abusive to those who execute him – he sees it as their duty to do so; their commission as executioners. Likewise, he understands it as his duty and commission to be executed. He asks to be crucified upside-down in a display of piety. (It would be a much more painful and awkward way to die, and the type of thing a Roman executioner might just grant a prisoner – you want to die awkwardly and more painfully? Okay.)
Contrast this against the words of Pope Leo X, who we first discussed in Dubious Battle #1: Faith vs Works, the Pope who Martin Luther rebelled against.
As we have said, Pope Leo X was not born Pope Leo X; he was born Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici, the second son of the wealthiest man in the world, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Whereas Peter was born as a fisherman in the poor village of Bethsaida, Leo X was raised as a merchant prince in Florence.
While Leo X is famed for saying, “Since God has given us the papacy, let us enjoy it,” that quote is disputed.
But certainly, you can see a very different type of character and orientation in Leo X than Peter in non-disputed writings of Leo X.
In June 1520, he published a papal bull – a formal and official communication bearing the Pope’s seal, which of course did not exist in Peter’s time. The first papal bull proclamations only originated some 500 years after Peter, and didn’t become commonplace until 1000 years later.
In “Exsurge Domine: Condemning the Errors of Martin Luther,” Leo X began –
“Arise, O Lord, and judge your own cause. Remember your reproaches to those who are filled with foolishness all through the day. Listen to our prayers, for foxes have arisen seeking to destroy the vineyard whose winepress you alone have trod.”
Leo X’s core metaphor against the rise of heresy is a vineyard being destroyed. The core metaphor is about the destruction of resources and wealth.
Leo X then lists 41 errors that are destructive to the Church. Leo X writes,
“In virtue of our pastoral office committed to us by the divine favor we can under no circumstances tolerate or overlook any longer the pernicious poison of the above errors without disgrace to the Christian religion and injury to orthodox faith. Some of these errors we have decided to include in the present document; their substance is as follows:”
And a selection of the 41 errors –
Error #10: “Sins are not forgiven to anyone, unless when the priest forgives them he believes they are forgiven; on the contrary the sin would remain unless he believed it was forgiven; for indeed the remission of sin and the granting of grace does not suffice, but it is necessary also to believe that there has been forgiveness.”
Error #23: “Excommunications are only external penalties and they do not deprive man of the common spiritual prayers of the Church.”
Error #25: “The Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter, is not the vicar of Christ over all the churches of the entire world, instituted by Christ Himself in blessed Peter.”
Error #27: “It is certain that it is not in the power of the Church or the pope to decide upon the articles of faith, and much less concerning the laws for morals or for good works.”
Error #29: “A way has been made for us for weakening the authority of councils, and for freely contradicting their actions, and judging their decrees, and boldly confessing whatever seems true, whether it has been approved or disapproved by any council whatsoever.”
Error #33: “That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.”
Error #34: “To go to war against the Turks is to resist God who punishes our iniquities through them.”
Error #41: “Ecclesiastical prelates and secular princes would not act badly if they destroyed all of the money bags of beggary.”
He follows up by saying,
“No one of sound mind is ignorant how destructive, pernicious, scandalous, and seductive to pious and simple minds these various errors are, how opposed they are to all charity and reverence for the holy Roman Church who is the mother of all the faithful and teacher of the faith; how destructive they are of the vigor of ecclesiastical discipline, namely obedience.”
Note well! Leo X does not write about his duties in this papal bull.
When Peter went to his execution, he said:
“But it is time for you, Peter, to surrender your body to those who are taking it."
When Leo X was challenged by Luther, he rebuked it thusly,
“In virtue
of our pastoral office committed to us by the divine favor…”
To clarify, that’s the “royal we” that Leo X is using – he means “my” when he says “our” and “me” when he says “us.”
“In virtue of [my] pastoral office committed to [me] by the divine favor…”
A radical departure from Peter, no?
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FROM RANK’S ORIGINATION IN COMMISSIONS TO RANK-AS-A-RESOURCE
The first Papas of the Church were signing up for a set of roles and duties that were incredibly unpleasant on earth. They would be hated by many in authority, and perhaps crucified, decapitated, thrown to wild beasts, or drowned alive.
These duties and commissions they discharged with a certain stoicism and a certain type of nobility and dignity, which over time won over many converts, eventually becoming the official Roman state religion in 380 AD.
When Leo X became Pope one thousand years later, the office had inherited all the prestige, legal authority, and informal authority that had been built by past officeholders.
Indeed, he ranked one of Luther’s errors as saying that –
“The Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter, is not the vicar of Christ over all the churches of the entire world, instituted by Christ Himself in blessed Peter.”
Note how Leo X simply invokes Peter and even “Christ Himself” in explaining his authority.
“In virtue of [my] pastoral office committed to [me] by the divine favor…”– indeed.
This is, unfortunately, a common pattern – a pattern that I believe is largely inevitable. Rank begins in commissioned duties, but eventually becomes formalized. When anyone who holds an office with formal rank does an excellent job in that office, the office gains prestige and power.
Over time, the commissioned duties of the office start to pale in comparison to the resource of that rank. The Papacy in 1513 commanded great formal legal authority and great informal authority, and immense amounts of wealth.
Over time, any role that requires coordination and cohesion will tend to get formalized into an office; if initial officeholders do an excellent job discharging their duties and commissions, it becomes prestigious and gain in power; eventually, people begin to seek that office for the power and prestige rather than the now-fading-in-importance duties and commissions that the role was once based upon.
“Since God has given us the papacy, let us enjoy it” – indeed, alas, yes.
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GUIDANCE
We are exploring the long-running conflicts across all of history. These dubious battles have less “right answers” and more tradeoffs.
When looking at rank that’s being used only as a resource, and not to discharge duties, it becomes very possible to become hateful towards rank.
This risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Some guidance, then –
1. Recognize the origins of rank and trace the genealogy of formally-ranked offices. You can gain in wisdom by not looking hatefully at people abusing rank, but instead starting with a neutral position and examining why the office was formalized in the first person, and then tracing the history of the people who held the office, how well they discharged their duties, and how formal and informal powers and prestige accrued over time. In this way, you can make more rational assessments of what the office used to do, what perhaps it could be doing, and how it got here from there. Hatred, in general, is a foolish thing – even towards one’s enemies. It blinds you towards effectiveness. If you see foolish and abusive uses of rank, it’s of course very easy to become blindly hateful – but this is not the path to wisdom. Instead, diligent study why the rank and office came to be in the first place; look for the coordination and cohesion problems that the office was formalized to solve, and study the history of the rank or office to understand how it got to its current state.
2. If you have immense natural talent and effectiveness, it’s very likely you underestimate the importance and necessity of formal rank. Men like George Washington are a rarity – if they were commonplace and we could find and select such people for commissioned duties every generation, there would perhaps not be need for formalized rank and offices. But as organizations and societies grow larger and more complex, they simultaneously become harder to manage and it becomes harder to discern the motives of those who would seek to hold the offices of management and authority. Naturally talented and consistently effective people tend to underestimate the importance of formal rank, not realizing how rare they themselves are.
3. If you come to hold informal rank, consider succession thoroughly. Informal rank – due only to effectiveness and thorough discharging of one’s duties – is harder to pass along to one’s successor. If you’re young and not currently holding any rank or commissioned on any significant duties, you might not need to think of succession yet. But if you do come into those roles, you might want to begin to formalize your rank into an office intentionally. George Washington did so with the Presidency, which is one of the reasons the office survived and thrived even despite many with lesser talent and less duty-orientation than him holding it. When you formalize an office, of course, you can also (at least for a time) both define and limit its authority.
4. Become aware of your natural inclinations towards prestige, and then think through those positions carefully. We all have natural feelings towards prestige – either being attracted to it, hating or, or being indifferent to it to a greater or lesser extent. Prestige is both very real and very important; you should sit and think about how you feel about it. Prestige is dangerous in that it’s always backwards-looking – in any given moment, the bottom might just be about to fall out on any given form of prestige. But likewise, prestige smooths the path to coordination without constant conflict and politicking; it has very real value. Everyone has different natural inclinations towards prestige; you should introspect on your natural inclinations, and then through those positions through carefully.
5. Adopt an instrumental view towards rank and prestige; seek duties. Finally – and I admit I’m biased – I believe that you’re best-served by looking at rank and prestige instrumentally. Meaning, you ask, “What do I want to do?” and then cultivate the appropriate mix of formal and informal rank, offices, and prestige that you need to get those things done. Prestige is shiny; often, people are attracted to it and want it – but they cannot articulate clearly why. This is like that old yarn about the poor dog chasing the car – it doesn’t know what to do if it catches it. A much more solid ground to build upon is seeking duties – looking for what commissions you want to discharge, what work you want to get done – and then only instrumentally seeking the rank and prestige needed to get that work done.
Dubious Battle #5: Aristocracy
LAUDABLE ENOUGH: THE SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI
“With the war drawing to a close, Henry Knox spearheaded the formation of a fraternal order of army officers called the Society of the Cincinnati. Its aims seemed laudable enough: to succor the families of needy officers, to preserve the union and liberties for which they had fought, and to maintain a social network among the officers. Its very name paid homage to George Washington: Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was a Roman consul who had rescued Rome in war, then relinquished power. Little dreaming how controversial the organization would become, Washington agreed to serve as president and was duly elected on June 19, 1783. Something of an honorary president, he was fuzzy about his actual duties and asked Knox that September to tell him “in precise terms what is expected from the President of the Cincinnati previous to the general meeting in May next. As I never was present at any of your meetings and have never seen the proceedings of the last, I may, for want of information . . . neglect some essential duty.”
-- “Washingon: A Life” by Ron Chernow
“Laudable enough” seems a good way to lay out the intentions of Major General Henry Knox, one of Washington’s most loyal and effective officers during the Revolutionary War. His mix of jovia
l personality with strong sense of duty made him loved by his soldiers and fellow officers; later, he’d be America’s first Secretary of War and have Fort Knox named after him.
Throughout history, soldiers are often neglected after wars end – and the American Continental Army were certainly a group that suffered intense deprivations and made immense sacrifices.
With the war coming to a close in 1783, Knox and some other members decided to set up a relief organization for the families of killed-in-action American soldiers, along with some basic fraternal order stuff – friendship, meetings, commemoration type stuff. American and French who met certain criteria were eligible to join.
They named it “The Society of the Cincinnati” – a homage to George Washington, who was already being lauded as the “American Cincinnatus” – after the famously modest Roman who took supreme command of the Roman Republic in crisis, won the war, and then laid down all his arms and honors to go back to his farm.
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