The Place of Human Excellence

Come read with me — quietly, slowly, deeply

Reading: The Great Conversation, Vol 4 · The Iliad of Homer — Book VIII

How quickly one feels obliged to choose sides, in any dispute or war — modern or ancient, and long since decided.

We almost need one to be right, better, more deserving. The other to be wrong, less, and undeserving. Perhaps it’s because we are uncomfortable with complexity.

Across the first seven books, neither army is presented as blameless. Pride, anger, poor judgement and unnecessary suffering are never far away.

And yet, neither is easily dismissed or judged.
Again and again, Homer shows individuals, leaders and entire armies trying to meet brutal circumstances as well as they know how.

They fight when battle demands it.
They accept personal responsibility when others might hide behind the crowd.
They negotiate when negotiation is wiser than pride.
They stop to bury their dead and honour their customs, even while the war continues around them.
They prepare for what they know is coming.
They adapt to realities they would never have chosen.

By the time I reached Book VIII, it had become increasingly difficult to fault the way they were meeting the reality before them.

And then Homer confronts us with a new reality altogether.

The Greeks continue to fight with extraordinary courage and discipline. Teucer shoots with remarkable accuracy. Their leaders continue to lead. Their finest warriors refuse to retreat.

Nothing about their conduct suggests they have become less capable or committed than they were before.
Yet the battle turns against them.

Our instinct is always to search for the human explanation.
Who made the mistake?
Who failed to prepare?
Whose judgement proved inadequate?
Who lacked courage when it mattered most?

Book VIII steadily removes those possibilities.

The Greeks do not lose because they cease to be excellent.
They lose because excellence itself ceases to be the deciding force.

They do not lose because they cease to be excellent.
They lose because excellence itself
ceases to be the deciding factor.

That’s a very different perception.

We have become accustomed to believing that excellence determines outcomes.

Work harder.
Prepare better.
Think more clearly.
Become more disciplined.
Make better decisions.

Excellence matters.
Because without it, very little of lasting value is built.

We value those qualities.
We reward them.

But have we quietly come to expect too much of them?
Perhaps we have gradually given excellence sovereignty.

Homer seems to be suggesting that courage, intelligence, preparation and determination matter enormously in determining character, but do not possess the authority to determine what happens.

Not because excellence has failed.
But because excellence is operating within forces larger than itself.

That thought reaches far beyond an ancient battlefield.

If we have come to expect too much of excellence, we don’t only misunderstand success.
We misunderstand failure.

We assume that if someone remains poor, trapped, overwhelmed or unable to change their circumstances, there must have been something more they should have done.

Worked harder.
Planned better.
Made wiser decisions.
Become more disciplined.

Sometimes that is true.
But not always.
Sometimes we are looking at people whose excellence has met realities it cannot, by itself, overcome.

To overvalue human excellence is not only to misunderstand achievement.
It is to misunderstand suffering.

So I’ll leave you with the question Book VIII left me with:

Where in your own life have you come to expect excellence to accomplish what it cannot?

Come read with me — quietly, slowly, deeply.

This essay is part of the Conversations reading journey.