From The Seven Deadly Virtues, Jonathan Last discusses gratitude, the virtue “that allows us to appreciate what is good, to discern what should be defended and cultivated.” — [Ed.]
Picking a favorite virtue is like picking a favorite child: It’s the kind of thing you’re supposed to pretend not to do—but that everyone does anyway. We can toss chastity and temperance out of the ring straight off, obviously. They’re important, in their way, but exactly no one is going to make them contenders for the title. Same for thrift and simplicity. Nice to have, but not first-tier virtues. Fellowship is fine, but a luxury. And justice? As Rob Long suggests some pages down the line, that’s the virtue we’d much rather have done unto others than practiced on ourselves. No thanks.
Some pages after that, Christopher Caldwell argues a pride of place for curiosity, “because the knowledge acquired through curiosity grounds your other virtues, while leaving to you the choice of what those virtues will be.” Aquinas called prudence the queen of the virtues, saying that she gently guides all the rest. And Aristotle deemed that courage was the first virtue, because it makes all the others possible.
Good points, all of them. And you probably have your own favorite. But I’d like to make the case for gratitude. Cicero declared, “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” It is the alpha, the point from which all virtues must begin. Gratitude that allows us to appreciate what is good, to discern what should be defended and cultivated.
You need not believe in God to pursue the virtues (though it certainly helps). Yet if you do believe, then your first instinct in all things must be gratitude: for creation, for love, for mercy. And even if you don’t believe, you must start again from gratitude: That a world grown from randomness could have turned out so fortuitously, with such liberality. That the Hobbesian state of nature has been conquered. At least for a spell. As my friend Yuval Levin explained not long ago, “We value these things not because they are triumphant and invincible but because they are precious and vulnerable, because they weren’t fated to happen, and they’re not certain to survive. They need us—and our gratitude for them should move us to defend them and to build on them.”
Gratitude magnifies the sweet parts of life and diminishes the painful ones. It is the wellspring of humility and ambition, the magnetic pole for prudence, the platform for courage, the inducement to charity and mercy. And in addition to everything else, gratitude is the engine for progress: We build not because we are dissatisfied with the world as it is, but because we are grateful to all those who have built it to this point, and wish to repay them by making our own contributions to their work.
None of this is to say that the world is perfect—it isn’t. But if it’s to be improved, that improvement will come, one person at a time, through the exercise of virtue—through the conscious decision of all of us to try to be better people, to live better lives, and to make a better world. All of which begins, from first light, with saying “Thank you” for what we have, right now.
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To read more from Jonathan Last and other great conservative writers on why the virtuous life is funny as hell, purchase a copy of The Seven Deadly Virtues on Amazon. Dad doesn’t need another tie; it’s the perfect holiday gift!
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