Week 9 Journal

Thursday: October 15, 2020

As usual, we began class with a little conversation that led to the completion of our quiz. Once we completed the quiz and went over it, we continued our discussion on “The Education of Cyrus.” Two Greek words we began our discussion with were phthonos — meaning a violation of physical space, envy, jealousy — and aphthonos — meaning lack of resentment. An example of phthonos can be something as simple as people reaching for your food when they didn’t ask, invading your personal space. Aphthonos can be very well applied to Cyrus being that he didn’t envy or resent others, rather lacked these characteristics toward others. An example of this which we’ve already spoken about is when Cyrus and his friends went hunting; Cyrus was happy to cheer them on as they successfully hunted, as opposed to feeling jealous when his friends succeeded and he didn’t. He simply wanted to have a good time with them and see everyone happy and proud, he wasn’t worried about proving himself to them or one-upping them. Cyrus’ aphthonos is part of what made him such a good leader; because he didn’t see others as competition, he was able to lead them fairly.

Another scene from the story that we’ve already spoken about was when Cyrus went horseback riding with some of the other boys. I bring this up again because we’ve been introduced with an additional word that complements this scene, praotes. Praotes means gentleness and willingness to be challenged or rivaled, which is exactly what Cyrus presented in this scene. Cyrus didn’t want to challenge those he knew he would beat, because to him there was no reason to gloat and he also wanted to be challenged (praotes). When Cyrus lost he wasn’t upset, rather he laughed with everyone else; he was always able to congratulate his “competition,” without feeling envy. Another aspect of being a great leader is being able to challenge and push yourself, without pushing down others and acting like a sore loser.

The last thing I would like to mention about Cyrus was his willingness to give. Question 9 on the quiz we took asks the following: “What does Cyrus ultimately do with the meats that Astyages serves him at a banquet?” What he did was distribute them among Astyages servants; Cyrus was willing to give. If he felt that someone was being mistreated he would compensate, in this case by giving the servants his goods. And in a time where he was given back his goods, he ordered that they be redistributed to who he had originally given to. He was often so selfless, continuing to make him such a great leader.

We ended our class period by taking a look at the results from the survey we took last week. It was cool to see where the class stood (in this case percentage wise) at this point in the semester and to see some of the responses other people had to the open ended questions.

Sunday: October 18, 2020 & Monday: October 19 2020

On Sunday I simply read the Kallion Chapter 9 overview, including the introduction and the assignment. On Monday I read “The Requisites of True Leadership” by Ida B. Wells; She was an African American journalist and activist. Her most famous contributions were her reports on lynching in the South during the Jim Crow era. In this speech, Wells discusses her desired social changes and calls leadership to the community. The first requisite of leadership she mentions is devotion to principle or courage of conviction; a leader must be devoted to their leadership. When a leader is fully immersed in their leadership they better themselves and their community. They must be willing to sacrifice their own needs in order to provide for others. She then mentions perseverance as “the next great element entering into true leadership” (Wells 40). To be a good leader you must be persistent; you can’t just give up or lose hope when things get tough. Perseverance benefits you as well as the community in which you lead, no matter how simple the situation. If someone is struggling with something and they come to you for help, they are hoping that you will guide them and give then insight on what can be done, as well as also supporting them; but if you decide to give up on them because times are tough and you don’t want to deal with the issue, you aren’t only hurting yourself, but the person who came to you. The absence of perseverance, hope, and positivity in a leader can affect the entire group they lead, causing issues that started off small to become larger and larger, essentially plaguing everyone. If you want to be a good leader, be willing to push through tough times. With perseverance, Wells also mentions patience; the 2 often go hand and hand. You must be willing to spend time on certain things and not give up when results don’t come quick enough. This can be related to the scenario just mentioned; you have to have patience with your group and community and let them know that you are there to help them, not just to get quick results. Wells goes on to mention self-control as another key requisite of true leadership. Now, it’s important to do things for yourself and take care of yourself, but when in a leadership position it’s important to know when to do things for yourself or for others. Often, when in such a position, it’s better to do things for others because you are leading them; putting your personal gains in front of others can be dangerous if granted such a position. When you are in a leadership role you are no longer doing things solely for yourself, so you must think as so. Do what will benefit others, which goes along with the idea of sacrifice; you must be willing to sacrifice the needs of yourself for the needs of others. The last requisite of true leadership, as Wells deems as above the rest, is a deep and abiding love for humanity. Above all, you must genuinely want to see humanity succeed and you must genuinely want what is best for humanity to succeed. Loving humanity is a reward in and of itself, it just makes you feel good. This is an interesting idea because I’m sure many would refute this claim: “Well so and so was a great leader and they didn’t have a love for humanity!” Yes, you can even be a great leader without a love for humanity, in that you can successfully control those under your power and get them to where they need or want to be, but that isn’t morally rewarding. Not everyone cares about morals, but when a great leader has a love for humanity the outcome can be drastic, it can create an entirely different world. We can have a world where everyone wants the best for each other and cares for the needs of others, and this can all be started with a morally abiding leader who truly values humanity.

One last thing I would like to point out from Ida B. Wells is when she said that “The greatest test of character is the ability to stand prosperity” (Wells 40). I wanted to point this out because I just really enjoyed reading that part, and it’s true! I would even relate this to having self-control in that you must not fall victim to materialism. If you are able to recognize that material goods aren’t as important as human connection, you already have a decent character. To be a good leader, you have to look out for others rather than choose materialistic goods over others. Being able to do this allows you to further deepen your connection to humanity and your love for it, which is a great thing, especially if you are a leader to/for others.

Tuesday: October 20, 2020

We started class with our usual small talk before we went into breakout rooms to discuss what it means to love humanity. In these groups we were asked to discuss specifically the following 4 questions: (1) How can you recognize if someone has a love for humanity?, (2) What percentage of the world do you believe has a strong and frequent love for humanity?, (3) Is love for humanity a choice? How do you know?, and (4) What is more important for leadership than love for humanity? My group — Nyeema, Chase, Ethan, and I — came up with the following: (1) If they put others before themselves, demonstrate leadership, and lack envy. Of the 3, I would argue that putting others before themselves is the most important, but this doesn’t mean that that person cannot show love to themselves. I feel that putting others before yourself is showing a love for humanity, you want to help others and see them succeed. (2) I believe that less than 2% of the world has a natural love for humanity. There are many people who want to see others fail and who will sabotage others for their own gain. Not only that, but it can be difficult to have a love for humanity; that often means that you must put others before yourself, often causing you to neglect self-care. So the 2% isn’t only because many people are further than selfish and genuinely want to see others fail, but also because having a love for humanity, with all of the distractions we have around us (social media, politics, the economy, etc), is a difficult thing to maintain. Humans are naturally loving towards humanity, but with these distractions their natural thoughts become altered. (3) To a certain extent, I do believe that love for humanity is a choice. Dr. Sandridge brought up a question asking if the need to explain/argue something makes it a choice, and as my short answer I would have to say no. What brought up this question was a discussion about sunsets and Well’s speech, saying that you don’t need to argue why you love sunsets, but that Wells argues that you should love humanity. The thing is, not everyone loves sunsets and not everyone has a love for humanity. Everything is a choice, so to say that having to argue or explain something makes it a choice isn’t correct to me. Let me up the ante quite a bit: You killed someone and are sentenced to life in prison; it seems as if there is no choice and that you must go to jail, and legally this is true, but not literally. If you want, you could choose to run away, get a new identity, and settle somewhere else. Yes, that’s quite illegal, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a choice. We have choices in everything that we do, and if not everything than almost everything. Wells did explain and argue that we should love humanity, but I feel she did so because not enough people love it. The love for humanity is a beautiful thing and if we all had it we could make the world a much better place (although this can cause contradictions because people have different views, beliefs, morals, etc, but we won’t get into that). Wells also believes this is important when it comes to future generations; she believes that we should live lives that will benefit our children in the future, even if that means making sacrifices of our own. She argues for the love of humanity because it is something she truly believes in. And yes, it is a choice and if it weren’t there would be no need to argue, but essentially everything is. Lastly, (4) We originally wrote that wanting to better/improve humanity and having self-control are more important for leadership than love for humanity, but before I get into my additional thoughts, I’ll explain these 2. Wanting to better/improve humanity is essentially having a love for humanity, if you have a love for humanity you’ll naturally want to better it and improve it. Having self-control is also an important aspect of leadership, but maybe not more important than a love for humanity, as a genuine love for humanity encompasses self-control. Wells does agree that self-control is an important requisite of true leadership, but she believes that the love for humanity is above all, and with that I agree. If you have a genuine love for humanity you’ll naturally encompass all of the other requisites because you want to see humanity succeed.

Do I feel that I have a love for humanity? To a certain extent yes, but maybe not fully. I want us as a humanity to succeed, but it’s difficult for me to have those feelings for those who are succeeding and do nothing to help the rest. There are millionaires, billionaires, even some trillionaires (more so companies) that have enough money that they won’t even be able to spend it all in their lifetime. Now, I understand that many of these people may want to leave money for their children and their family, but I feel that much of the time it’s for selfish reasons, they just don’t want to give. What I’m saying is, when there are people like that in the world it’s difficult for me to root for them, but I do want humanity to succeed, for everyone and everything to be equal, and for us to treat each other with love and respect; and I hope this is a future we will have one day.