Take Reverence: Renewing A Forgotten Virtue By Paul Woodruff Expressed As E-Text

book of wisdom makes me want to be a better person and some way shows me how.
This is a very wise book in both senses, By drawing on sources mostly from ancient Greece and China, and illustrating with examples from the contemporary western world sports, politics, family, religion, education, Woodruff makes a compelling case that reverence as he defines it is a cardinal, i.
e. transcultural virtue. Also, and not incidentally, I take Woodruff to be an exemplar of philosophical writing: he is equally erudite and accessible.
I will share his chapter on teaching with my philosophy of education students, and his chapter on leadership with my administrators.
Here are a few of my favorite passages:

"Reverence is the capacity for a range of feelings and emotions that are linked it is a sense that there is something larger than a human being, accompanied by capacities for awe, respect, and shame it is often expressed in, and reinforced by, ceremony.
"

"Reverence calls for respect only when respect is really the right attitude, To pay respect to a tyrant would not be reverent it would be weak and cowardly, The most reverent response to a tyrant is to mock him, "

"If you wish to be reverent, never claim the awful majesty of God in support of your political views.
You cannot speak on such matters with the authority of God, It is an especially vicious and harmful falsehood to say that you dovicious because it is irreverent, harmful because it is like pouring fuel on smoldering disagreements.
Your followers will never listen to the other side, never enter into discussion, never consider a compromise.
In fact, by claiming that God votes with you, you have effectively opted out of political process altogether.
"

"Home above all is the place where small rituals bring a family together into a family, where the respect they share is so common and familiar that they hardly recognize it as flowing from reverence.
"

"A virtue is a capacity, cultivated by experience and training, to have emotions that make you feel like doing good things.
Virtue talk has been revived in recent years, but it runs against the grain of modern ethics, which is mostly about doing what is right whether you feel like it or not.
By contrast, virtue is about cultivating feelings that will lead you in the right way whether you know the rule in a given case or not.
"

"Without reverence, we may feel shame as the pain of being exposed to other people for having violated community standardsand this is not a virtuous response, because it may have nothing to do with right and wrong.
But when reverence is in play, we feel shame when exposed in our own minds to shortcomings visàvis the ideals toward which we stand in awe, and this reaction does belong to virtue.
"

"What religious people today admire in other religions cannot be faith since they reject most of the content of other faiths, but reverence.
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"Reverence is not faith, because the faithful may hold their faith with arrogance and selfsatisfaction, and because the reverent may not know what to believe.
"

"Socrates hides his meaning in inaccessible places, If he knows anything, he rarely admits it, He twists and turns away from the role of a teacher, Irony is silence twisted into words that provoke and do not satisfy, Like pure silence, irony shows awe at subject matter that cannot easily be tamed, Irony treats students with more respect than they are likely to recognize, It is Socrates peculiar way of being reverent toward the goals of philosophy, toward wisdom, "

"Every honest scholar knows that he too will die, that future generations will know more than he, and that someone will sooner or later refute him on some point or other.
Knowing thisreally knowing it in a way that enables you to feel respect for the faltering efforts of beginners in the fieldis reverence.
"I read this because my university program asked me to over the summer, It was definitely interesting and made me think differently about our virtues, but I don't think I would choose to read this book again.
This book defines reverence as "a sense that there is something larger than a human being, accompanied by capacities for awe, respect, and shame.
. . often reinforced by ceremony". Later in the book, Woodruff more succintly defines reverence as the ability "to feel respect in the right way towards the right people" as well as "awe towards an object that transcends particular human interests.
" The author believes that reverence is a virtue which, like other virtues, can help you feel like doing what is right as opposed to merely controlling an impulse not to.


For example, voting, even if or especially if one vote doesn't matter, is useful as an expression of reverence for the democratic process.
Similarly, attending a committee meeting even if you know what will happen in advance is useful as an expression of reverence for the idea of faculty deliberation.
Reverence is not the same as religious belief: for example, one who announces God's position on X or Y is anything but reverent, because reverence requires a sense of the difference between human and divine.
I do wish, however, that Woodruff had compared reverence and humility, because in this example the two seem to me much alike.


Reverence is especially useful in hierarchical systems not just ancient monarchies, but the many hierarchies that dot our lives, like companies and classrooms: leaders with reverence know that they don't know everything, and are more willing to listen to and learn from their inferiors.
Even the most foolish inferiors have value, because a true sage has tested a theory against even foolish objections.


On the other hand, inferiors have to respect superiors even before the latter have proved their worth partially to show broader respect for whatever hierarchical "team" both superior and inferior are involved in for example, a class in college, partially because the "team" can't function if the inferiors won't cooperate until the superior has shown his/her worth.
Noting the nonchalant destruction for our environment and a lack of respect for rules and authorities, philosopher Paul Woodruff questions if modern society has lost its capacity for reverence in his book Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue.


In this thinpage book, he eloquently examines the meaning of reverence and explores it as an important aspect of a moral life, defining it as "the welldeveloped capacity to have the feelings of awe, respect, and shame when these are the right feelings to have" as well as "the virtue that keeps human beings from trying to act like gods".


Part opinion, part historical, Woodruff uses examples from the past such as principles from ancient Greek and Confucian ideals to back his arguments up in a clear and easily understood way.
For example, he cross references the importance of reverence in various settings and in different cultures, specifically ancient Greece, Confucian China and present day university life.


Author Woodruff teaches humanities at the University of Texas at Austin and hopes that this book of his would inspire readers to live their life with reverence rather than to rebel for the sake of criticism.


For more book reviews, visit sitelink FreshGrads Reads, We also do reviews on food, movies and more in Singapore, Check us out sitelinkhere! I read this book over a year ago, but I still think of it from time to time.
Reverence: awe, respect and shame, all involving something bigger than ourselves that can't be controlled by us, and not necessarily religious.
Something which seems to make each of us a better person, It doesn't mean blind obedience, One can protest one's government, . . out of reverence for justice, It's what people feel is lacking when they feel "dissed, " Where there is contempt, ridicule and condescension there is a lack of reverence, Goodnatured humor can puncture the pompous and deflate the irreverent, but irreverent humor has much of meanness and cruelty in it.
Where politicans use destructive tactics to best their opponents, there is a lack of reverence, And it's why I'm agnostic instead of atheistic, Because somehow I feel that it's healthier to allow for the possibility that there is something larger than myself which I can't control that may, just may, work in my favor from time to time.
With reverence there is hope, With hope, there is a lack of desperation, With a lack of desperation, I'm inclined to be nicer to others and to myself, I don't remember all the questions and answers raised by this book, But its general theme is one I'm reminded of almost daily, especially when I see a beautiful cloud formation.
This essay, which is based on reflections of Woodruff's book, appeared in my blog:


My life is lived out in tension.


I want the world to be a better place, I also desire for people to treat one another with respect, Often, these two desires come into conflict,

How can we encourage people to be better without being perceived as attacking them Is

there a way to accept people without judgment I hope so, but sometimes find it difficult.
I try not to be judgmental, But I find I am judgmental, especially when I find judgments by others that I perceive to be made unfairly or for unjust reasons.
Then I become judgmental toward those who are judgmental, Instead of building relationships, they become fractured, Is there a way to stop the vicious circle of accelerating tension

I also want to encourage people to live up to their potential.
It is from this desire I often resort to parody and satire to challenge those whose actions seem selfrighteous or who seem to take for granted their positions of power.
The satirist critiques are based upon a strong moral ethic and the sharpness of his or her pen lies in the hypocrisy being practiced by those who are in control.
âœIf mild reproof and counsel could succeed, the satirist would have nothing to do,â according to Ernest Tuveson in an article in âœThe Satiristâs Art.
But when I critique, I run the risk of treating others with less respect that I would like.
for more on satire, see âœEdward and Lillian Bloom, Satireâs Persuasive Voice, Ithaca: Cornell,, A warning however, the Bloomâs never met a compound or complex sentence they didnât likeâ”me being judgmental again.


One of the most influential books Iâve read in the pastyears is Paul Woodruff, Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue Oxford,.
Woodruff draws from early Greek and Chinese philosophy to make the case that reverence is a classic virtue which helps us to do right.
âœReverence arises out of an understanding of human limitations from this grows the capacity to be in awe of whatever we believe lies outside our controlâ”God, truth, justice, nature, even deathââ âœSimply put, reverence is the virtue that keeps human beings from trying to act like godsââ âœtyranny is the height of irreverence.
â âœreverence separates leaders from tyrantsââ âœthe reverent leader need not pretend to be godlike the ideals are godlike enough.
â

Woodruff does not deny the importance of humor and mockery in reverence, âœMockery serves reverence in two ways: by reminding stuffed shirts about their imperfections, and by awakening a sense of shame in people who have allowed theirs to lie dormant.
â This is good news for meâ”I can still use humor,

Since reverence makes few demands on belief it can be practiced across religious lines, then a truly good desire would be that all people of all faiths practice reverence.
I think there are deep wells within the Christian tradition from which we can draw, Jesusâ command not to judge, not to hate, and to pray for our enemies anyone said a prayer for Bin Laden lately And I donât think Jesus saying to pray for our enemiesâ means for us to pray that he meets his maker sooner.
Instead, we love others and pray even for our persecutors, for when we act in such a way, we will have a hard time demonizing them.
We should pray that our enemies have reverence! I like that,

Okay, this is heavy stuffâ”reminds me of the Ethics classes I took as an undergrad in the philosophy department.
Let me end it with one quote from another of my favorite reverent/irreverent philosophers, Edward Abbey who died in, but lives on in Ed Abbeyâs blog: âœI hate intellectual discussion.
When I hear the words phenomenology or structuralism, I reach for my buck knife, â from, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness,