Dr. Timothy J. Pawl, professor of philosophy, wrote an op-ed in The Conversation about contemporary understandings of meekness as a virtue. Often associated with docility and weakness, Pawl explores a historic understanding of meekness that reveals something different.
From the op-ed:
You probably see a mousy doormat, someone sheepishly acquiescing to the will of the stronger. When Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth,” you might think that those wimps will hand it over without a whimper or word of objection to stronger, more ambitious people. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche called meekness “craven baseness.”
Indeed, one of the Oxford English Dictionary’s definitions is “inclined to submit tamely to oppression or injury, easily imposed upon or cowed, timid.” Meekness, then, is a weakness. Why would you ever want to be meek?
Meekness, docility and condescension: three traits with no cultural capital today. And yet, our ancestors typically understood these traits to be virtues. How in the world could that be?
Such a trait – excellence with respect to one’s anger – used to be called meekness. We hear an echo of this original meaning even today in horse training, where to “meek” a horse means training it to subjugate its great power to its master, not letting its passions take control. Likewise, meekness once meant not becoming weak, but subjugating power to reason – not letting anger take control.
