On Knighthood

Day 47

If I want, I will fight

If I want, I will learn,

If I want, I will live

And I want,

And I will

- Jamethial*

A chivalrous knight is a sort of artificial person, one who is meek to the nth and fierce to the nth, that combines two opposing personas in a non-destructive logical field, forging a way through life, and with a method of existing in the world, which is more do to free willed choice, than natural fortune. To create a Knight requires taking what is already existent in the world, the natural forces of the human being, and somehow combining them to turn a gem of something possible in the world into a gem of something actual in the world. This gem coincides with a person, so that a knight-gem is also a facet of a person-gem, or that a knight can be a person and a person can also be a knight. Knights, as persons, can have aspects to them which are un-knightly, but this is because persons can fail to be perfect knights. Knights can also fail to be persons, can require we act in ways which are unacceptable to us, can be an unreachable ideal, or can be understood to be more akin to characters in a simple book than real and complex characters of flesh and blood. However, just like how once you conceive the idea of other minds it can be difficult to ever make it go away, once you conceive the idea of the knight, once the gem is existent in the world, then it can be just as difficult to make that ideal dream fade completely away because, as something which is and is known, it is a part of all the world in one way or another as long as you live.

There are many theories about where knights come from and what they are. One theory is that since we find so many monsters inside and out, that a knight is something we create in order to survive in a dangerous world. The old contract to have with a knight is one of service and obedience; The knight is the human monster chained with and encased in steel, ones who direct iron to rend flesh, who is fed by the community and given the veneers of honor, in order that they may protect the community. These knights are more akin to parasites, who jealously guard their territory from other parasites. The knight lives a monstrous life, filled with violence, threats, and duties. He is fierce as can be, but meek only to the extent that his society and his jailers force him to be. He protects not because he chooses to, but because it is the only way he gets fed. Only stupid or unfed knights pillage and raid – the wise ones become farmers of men. They can pretend, even to themselves, that they are knights for a noble and good purpose, but this is in the end a self-serving illusion. If they are too meek, then someone fiercer will nose out their time of weakness and strike them down.

Another theory of knightly origins is that there are such a things as virtues in the world, good, perfect, and ideal things to which we aspire to reach and become, because of the effects that these have on the world or in our life, like the theories of: Plato - We aspire to become noble and good knights because we aspire to become noble and good persons, to reach, understand, and incarnate the ultimate good. We aim to become a knight because a knight is part of what we understand a good person to be, though a knight is only a part of that perfect good. We are knights because to be a knight is part of understanding the Good. Aristotle - We aspire to become knights because knights have managed to not become too extreme, because knights can walk the middle path between a life spent on the battlefield, and a life spent caring for home and family. Knights live a happy life because they have managed to balance out two forceful aspects of their selves, those roads which if followed would eventually lead to only the misery of the too fierce or the too meek. We are knights because we want to live a good life. Religion - We aspire to become knights because that is the proper thing to do. We are only following the commands of God, honoring our nation and family, or seeking our eternal rewards. To not be fierce, either on the battlefield of the flesh or of the spirit, is to fail the test of life, is something to be ashamed of. To not be meek is to be utterly vain and alone, to cast aside to cast aside and reject all the gifts we have been given. We are knights not because we aspire to the Good, but because we are good. These knights are meek to the furthest extent that they can be, fighting only when forced, because they find the pen more powerful than the sword. If they are too fierce, they turn hypocritical, becoming monsters.

These are positions which have, in one form or another, been reasoned and thought out for many a year. They are all possible aspects of a chivalrous knight, and all reasons we might try to become one. For me though, while they are reasonable, they are also very adult. We can understand why adults might want to be knights – If we believe in the dark side, where monsters are about and the only way to both stand us straight up and survive, is to harness their power - if the only thing which can fight the monsters outside are the monsters inside of me, then so be it. Strength of body and will wins out. We will be proud and strong and arrogant, doing what must be done if we are not to live as worms or slaves. If we believe in the light side, that a monster is best fought not by becoming a monster, but through transcending our animal selves in faith or with reason, then relying on the spirit or the mind seems to be the way out. We can aim for the good to cleanse the spirit and open the mind, teach men to be better, and extend the moral law of men and gods.

These views though, while being aspects we can learn from, are not why I write about knights here. I write about knights because I read stories as child. I chose to use knights as an example of an artificial person because I had a semi-technical example of a chivalrous knight in Lewis's essay “On the Necessity of Chivalry”, and while I could have conceivably used some other idea, like Artist or Worker to talk about artificial persons, I don't remember them as clearly. My explanations of an artificial person for them would be adult, full of reasoning and reflection, wise and important, but only so deep. I write about knights because I still feel the same way I did as a child, about this part of the world. I don't just remember the books I read, the stories knew, the hopes I had. Many things have faded away over time, but not yet this. I sleep in a bed I bought with money I worked at a weekly job to earn, I am finally not going to school, or waiting to go to school, or taking a break from school. I travel to foreign places by myself, face new challenges, and grow new worries – but I still read the old books. I can still travel to Emelan and meet a child like myself along the way. My knowledge, my words, my world in this case, might not be very wide, and might not be terribly communal, but it is, as far as I can make it, what I think I mean (and after all, I did first read “The Necessity of Chivalry” when I was twelve):

Why would a child wish to be a knight? We can certainly imagine that it is for hope of obtaining power, celebrity, and position. As a child we often lack these things, but feel the want of them very much. When we saw a figure of a knight in the toy store, or saw a picture of a knight in a book, then the knight was a very unenchanted thing, a mere vehicle for achieving momentary enjoyment or another. As we learn more about knights, perhaps reading a story where they defeat the monster and save the princess, or see a movie where they receive a parade or a medal for their actions, we start to identify with them a little. We can start to think that if we were a knight, that we would then have these things, by a sort of magical enchantment. We know though that a child's attention span can be very short, and that being a knight can be very arduous. To try and be a knight in this case, to pretend to be something you are not in order to grab something that you want, just for the sake of fulfilling a want , is, oddly enough, not a very chivalrous sort of thing to do. You can be a knight like this, but you are either a dark knight or a light knight, not a chivalrous knight. If forced to confront yourself, to understand and own up to your actions, results in disillusionment. You achieved the trapping of knighthood, the spurs and the sword, but never grasped the spirit. You leave knights behind, and move on to the next big thing in your life. Although, on rare occasion, you are somewhat reminded of what you once thought a knight could be, when you see a noble deed or overcome a difficult trial, with a sense of vague re-enchantment and a renewed feeling of hope in the world. Thus, while children can certainly wish to put on knightly armor for very un-knightly reasons, they only stay this way if their world becomes stagnant and they do not self-reflect. Of course this can happen, we've likely all met people who want the glitter and the glam without paying the cost or doing any of the work, but not everybody is like this. I dare say that children can be wiser than you, or they , think they are – though it can definitely take a while, the “thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts”.

My favorite reasons be to a knight, is because of the story. Knights go on adventures. They make friends, fight enemies, and go to wondrous and terrible places. Knights face up to the monsters in the closet and under the bed, the monsters the adults deny exist. Children know that there are things to fear in this world, things with a sort of magic about them. Things which don't quite fit into the sun-lit, clarifying, ordered, and understood world. A knight, a real knight, a good knight, is something most of us never meet in person, and so can be in somewhat the same existential state, be somebody who fights monsters like that. Knights help people, and sometimes we want to be helped, and want someone to be a knight for us. A knight is something in the world, and the world – is where we find us.

To see ourself as a knight, as a better person, an ideal person, a hoped for person, is to try and fit it all together: To combine the intellectual and the emotional, ones hopes and fears, the magical and the mundane, the mysterious and the known. A knight does this not through a balancing of monsters, because a knight fights monsters. A knight does this not because there is a good and noble power holding up the world, not for selfish reward, and not in a carefully balanced way. Indeed, a knight is a very unbalanced person, being meek and fierce to the nth degree. To be balanced is to fall, but it is also a part of the activity of walking and running, of moving. To be a knight is to adventure under the hill or over the hill, to go to places which are known only by a few vague and faded lines on a map. A knight, literally, figuratively, and symbolically, is on a journey to the very edge of the known world.

When we read stories, we often identify with the characters and think that “I could do that to”.. When we face issues in life and in the world, monsters outside and in, whips and chains, we often ask ourselves “What would Arthur do? (the Aardvark or the king, take your pick). We can try to live up to what we receive from our self-sourced inquiry, or sometimes find that we've already done it and now we have to figure out what to do next. We panic and look around for an answer, for somebody to help us or direct us on the correct path, but no matter where we go, there we are. We've asked the question of somebody else, but we find ourselves answering us. We run from ourselves to ourselves, purposefully changing who we are or what we do. We aim to walk out of the chains we wear, to move our gem-self from the center, to the edge of the world, while remaining a foundational pillar of the world. This is a brave thing to do, to better yourself. We view the world and the self not as we do see ourselves, or as others do, but as we wish we could. We try to go beyond what we know. We want something better than our clay, and equal to the peeks of our desire. We want to be a knight.

We tend to find out as we are children and not babes, that we have self-knowledge and learn again, who we are. We find that we can't easily hold onto that moment of knighthood, but feel that at the end even though we partially failed and were disappointed by what we found and who we became, that we are reluctant to hold that it was all for naught. We find that we feel it was better to have dared than coward, to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all, and that it is better to have been there and done something, than to have missed it and ended up a lesser soul. WE were beaen down and bloodied, tore the masks off monsters, put on the masks of monsters on again, and went on a grand adventure. We are mortal and fallible, world-losers and world-forsakers. We make of ourselves and the world knights like Lancelot and Arthur, who sometimes tarnished their oaths, sometimes failed to live up to their promise, and once in a great while, shined like stars. Perhaps we can make something of ourselves, make-believe, and hence make real, that; “Though the day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day. Today we fight!”*

*Kencywrath Series by P.C.Hodgell

*Aragorn's speech before the Black Gate, Return of the King Film.