Arete and the Ethics of Moderation

“Ninety percent of the world's woe comes from people not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailties, and even their real virtues. Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves.” ~ Sydney J. Harris, American journalist

Arete, translated as "goodness," "excellence," and "virtue," sounds like a good, simple idea in principle. We can all say that we conform to some personal/cultural standard of goodness or virtue, though the precise codes of ethics may vary from location to location. Thinking of arete as a synonym of excellence, though, begs one question: how far should we go? In terms of "excellence," arete can be translated as "being the best that you can be" and/or "reaching your highest human potential," and Aristotle locates this in knowledge and understanding (Hooker). What, though, does this mean, and how much should we work towards?

What directly contradicts the ideal of striving for our highest human potential is the Delphic Maxim nothing to excess. Striking a balance between achievement and moderation is essential to maintaining mental, physical, and spiritual health. While we should finish the race without regret, nothing says that we need to win. Our bodies will all fail someday, and we will leave the reins of our civilizations in the hands of future generations. A certain amount of physical-mental-spiritual "honing" helps us maintain our bodies and keep ourselves in service of the collective good. To a certain degree, the ancients knew about this; otherwise, why would they have incorporated athletic contests into their religious ceremonies and created the symposia, which can be intellectual (as shown in the dialogues of Plato)?

Moderation dictates that we must balance these needs. Thus, people who weight lift and condition excessively may end up weaker in their later years; those who spend all of their time devoted to spiritual pursuits can lose grounding in reality (which could explain why physical tasks receive such emphasis in monasteries of many traditions); and hyper-intellectuals risk losing the ability to translate philosophies into practice. "Nothing to excess" dictates that we cannot curb this by giving one hundred percent to each division; too much discipline and practice burns us out quickly. To me, this is why polytheistic reconstructionisms place less emphasis on UPG (Unverified Personal Gnosis) and more on action and research. Spirituality is thus tempered by scholarship, and both ground themselves in the orthopraxy of the religion.

Individuals are left to discover how much they can give to these areas to achieve excellence and remain stable. Like many things in Hellenic Polytheism, this requires study—not reading the American Journal of Philology or Classical Antiquity for notes on proper sacrificial methods in 400 BCE, but the study of the Hellenist's own self. Pythagoras taught that individuals must submit to self-examination at the closing of each day, and this presents one way to learn one's limitations; another equally good method is to periodically evaluate one's emotional/mental health to determine whether our outlooks are hampering our achievement of happiness and success.

Regardless, submitting to the error of over-achievement is, in my mind, not cultivating arete because it prevents us from developing our whole selves. Sometimes we need to do this, as in the case of those with hectic jobs or class loads; other times, we bring this excessive stress upon ourselves and need to learn how to balance. Recently, I have identified myself as an overachiever, and I am spending a significant amount of mental effort training my mind to accommodate setbacks. I have chosen to evaluate my emotional reactions to my performance when they appear and take the wisdom contained in the Delphic Maxims to heart. We will see how it goes.