Being & doing: Aristotle & John Paul II.

The pagan philosopher Aristotle argued that the acquisition of virtue is the proper objective in life, since a life is intelligible only when directed toward some end or good. For the human person, that involves exercising one's reason--the distinctive quality shared by no other being. The well-lived individual life requires a conception of what that life isn't yet, but under certain conditions could become. Since, according to Aristotle, there is no difference in kind between the good of one and the good of most or all, virtue also has to be the objective of a community or state. It is a goal of the individual, but is also a value to be universally sought.

I mention this to emphasize a continuity of thought and value from antiquity to the present, via the Christian religion, which rejects the modern utilitarian idea that the pleasure or material happiness of the greatest number is the objective of human existence and the measure of social and political worth.

The enormous attention devoted globally to the death and the funeral of John Paul II--and therefore to his life--emphasized the activism of his papacy, particularly his crucial role in the collapse of Soviet communism. But attention also centered on the changes he made (or refused to make) in the church and its practices, his ecumenism and pastoral journeys around the world, and the particular appeal he had for the young people of Western society, a generation seemingly given over to materialism.

I would argue, though, that the actual source of John Paul's appeal was not what he did but what he was: a self-evidently virtuous man. There are very few people in history, including papal history, of whom one would spontaneously say this.

Virtue is the quality of goodness in a person or in human conduct, obtained (again according to the Greeks) by the practice of wisdom or prudence (acquired by contemplation, in the Christian tradition), courage, temperance, and justice. These are not innate qualities, but have to be earned. In John Paul's tradition, faith, hope and charity are added to the four classical sources of virtue. For a nonphilosophical and nonreligious world, this comes down to the argument that what one is is more important than what one does.

The same goes for society, and what it does. I was set on this line of thought by the March 17 death of George F. Kennan, as well as the death of the pope. For a quarter century, my columns have been devoted mainly to issues of international politics and American foreign relations, so the connection was a natural one. I have been greatly influenced by Kennan, although without totally agreeing with him.

Kennan was, all of his professional life, an enemy of foreign policy set out in moralizing terms or professing a moral objective: crusades for freedom, making the world safe for democracy, defending human rights, etc. He was strictly a national-interest man, or so he said. At the same time, he conceived of American national interests as intimately connected to American national virtue. He also believed that American national virtue was--potentially, at least--the decisive factor in the success or failure of its foreign policy.

For Kennan, being was more important than action. What the country was was ultimately more important than what it did. He never actually said the following, and being as utterly American to the bone as he was, he probably never would have allowed himself to think it, but I believe it was inherent in his argument: National virtue is more important than national action because, if the country is not "virtuous," it is not worth defending.

Kennan's key statement in this respect was his 1951 essay on "America and the Russian Future." In it he wrote: "Any message we may try to bring to others will be effective only if it is in accord with what we are to ourselves, and if this is something sufficiently impressive to compel the respect and confidence of a world which, despite all of its material difficulties, is still more ready to recognize and respect spiritual distinction than material opulence."

Spiritual distinction is what produced the astonishing outpouring of love or respect for John Paul II. It was not what he did or taught. Many inside as well as outside the Catholic Church disagreed with things that he did or said. It was the virtue of the man that rebuked our times and earned people's allegiance, and we nearly all understand this.

[c] 2005, Tribune Media Services International