Glory
Robin:
Good evening.
Agnes:
Hi, Robin.
Robin:
Long time no see. We've had a few weeks since we did the last one. So we've no
doubt matured and grown and learned so much, we' hardly recognize each other.
Agnes:
OK, today we're going to talk about a topic that's close to your heart –
glory.
Robin:
It is. Although I don't necessarily understand how or why, so let's get into
that, I guess.
Agnes:
OK. But you see it as one of your central motivations.
Robin:
I see it as a way to describe one of my central motivations, whether it sort
of cuts nature at the joints is a different question. But yes, I embrace that
as a description of something I'm trying to get.
Agnes:
But not just oh wait, you don't have another better way. It's like the best
way you've got to describe one of your central motivations. Or is there a
better one?
Robin:
It's a good candidate for it. I mean, there may well be better ways, but we'd
have to search through and find them. So at the moment, it's certainly a
decent candidate.
Agnes:
OK. OK. That's itself is striking, if you think about it, it's like a very
good candidate for describing one of your central motivations, but you're not
sure what it is. So that's like, kind of admitting you don't really know what
your life is about. Right?
Robin:
I do. I admit that.
Agnes:
OK.
Robin:
I admit in behalf everybody else too so I'm not unique at the center of...
Agnes:
And so, it's exciting conversation because now you could find out the point of
your own life.
Robin:
Maybe.
Agnes:
OK. So here's like, my just first pass, like a gloss on the idea of glory is
that you have glory when you did something that shines forth, and elicits
admiration and wonder from other people. And let me add another sentence to
that. I think that like the idea of glory is closely connected with the idea
of a hero. And something that is, distinguishes heroes is that they are set
apart from other people and they're the main character in a story, right? The
story revolves in some way around the hero.
And so like in the Iliad, there are all these fighters and like, they have
different moments where like, they come to the fore, and like, when Diomedes
is like killing all these people, it's almost like he's saying, "I want this
Iliad to be about me." And it's like, but it's not going to be Diomedes it's
going to be about Achilles and Hector. But maybe for a brief moment, he thinks
he has a shot at making the story be about him and that's like his quest for
glory. And it kind of is about him in this little bits.
Robin:
Right. I mean compare to all the other soldiers in that battle, right, he
excelled and stood out compared to most of them. Maybe he wasn't the most
noticeable or excellent one, but he's certainly better than most.
Agnes:
Right. So the idea of like shining out, standing forth, being– having the
spotlight on you, I guess, those to me to be important.
Robin:
So I noticed two elements that are worth commenting on. One is that sort of
generically, we might just want to excel in generic that is, we might just say
whatever it is we want to do, we want to excel at it. So you might just expect
that as a general feature of any sort of ambition or goal in life as you'd
want to make it the most of whatever it is. So that's not terribly surprising.
But two noteworthy features are here. You don't just want to excel, you want
people to notice you've excelled. And the other is, you don't just want to be
excellent, you want to do excellent. So glory compared to some other concepts
of what you might want is more oriented around an accomplishment or
achievement so that your good features, whatever they are, are not just
illustrated but sort of reified and justified by the accomplishment.
Agnes:
Yeah, so I think that that's right, like it's not just a property of your
personality, like being a great person. It's...
Robin:
Right. So just being smart isn't glory, even if you're the smartest person
there ever was, maybe, but maybe sort of competing somebody in a contest to be
proven the smartest might be more glory. But even better might be using your
smarts to do something impressive and important.
Agnes:
My intuition is that competition is not always a great space for glory, even
though a lot of glory is sort of sought in competition, but the issue within a
competition is, in any competition there's like a set of competitors and then
you're just better than whoever those happen to be. Right?
Robin:
Right.
Agnes:
And, but like if we think about, you know, in order to have glory, like even
people in sports and stuff, the ones that really have glory, sort of stand out
from everybody. And it's not every Olympic victory even that has like the real
glory.
Robin:
Exactly.
Agnes:
There's like a few that we remember, right? And so there's an interesting,
like excellence, the concept of excellence is sort of a competitive concept.
It's like being the best at something in the relevant group, whereas the
concept of glory is more absolute.
Robin:
I think you're right, that is, when we're pursuing glory, we could just be the
best at something or accomplish something but we kind of care about how
important that seems to ourselves and everyone else. So that's one of the
reasons people, when they play sports want to play the same sports as other
people, not just so they can find other people to be on their teams but if
they win, they have won something that matters more.
I have a friend who is promoting pickleball, a new sport, a relatively small
numbers of people play, but they are trying to get included in the Olympics.
But the point is, you might be very well impressed by someone who's the
world's best pickleball player, but maybe not quite as much as the world's
best football player because there's a lot more people who play football.
Agnes:
I guess I was thinking of it – that's right that it matters how important the
pursuit is. But I also just think just being the best at something, even if
it's a super important thing, it's not quite enough for glory.
Robin:
Right. So that's what I was trying to talk about the difference between being
something and accomplishing something. The question is, even if you just show
them that you are something we need a sense that that matters, that we should
credit it for glory, it's not enough to just be. So...
Agnes:
But like, even if, like, let's say, you know, let's say you're a runner, OK?
And so you run faster than all the people else in the race besides you. Right?
And that's something you did, right? You did an achievement of the fast race
running, right? But then the question, OK, but what, you know, what makes that
a thing that gets credited for glory? And I think it's like, it has to stand
out so much like, not just stand up better than the people around you. But
like, if you just, you know, if we're just like way ahead of everybody else,
or something, like where– so just being the best. And even doing something of
significance, it's not quite enough. It's somehow this idea that you're, that
you're in a class of your own or something, that you're not just winning at
the competition that everyone else is competing at, but like, somehow, you're
doing your own thing.
Robin:
I mean, I think that we should distinguish sort of what counts at all for
glory, from what adds to glory and what sort of, you know, adds a lot of
points, if we're having a point system of glory. I certainly think that if the
thing itself that you are competing on or achieving seems glorious than merely
being slightly better is still pretty glorious. Being far better would be even
more so. But it doesn't mean that if you are – if you win the gold medal at
the Olympics by a half a second, you are the gold medalist and that will count
for people.
Agnes:
I mean, maybe it's a question of like, how long does your glory have to last?
Like, so the Greek word I mean, that Greek heroes all super into glory, that
was really big thing for them.
Robin:
Yeah.
Agnes:
There's a Greek word, Kleos, which really means glory. But the origin of the
word is, it's related to our word, I think loud, it's a word for sound. Right?
So it's something like people hear about you. You know, people hear about you
down the line, everybody hears about you because your sound is like
reverberates, right? And so if you think about like runners, OK, like lots of
great runners, but I haven't heard of most of them. But I've heard of Usain
Bolt, like he really has glory as a runner. And...
Robin:
More.
Agnes:
And I think he has more glory than some of the other runners who I haven't
heard of because I've heard of him, right?
Robin:
So, I mean, I think we should acknowledge that basically glory is a motivation
for just a large fraction of people in the world. And a great many of them
will achieve a satisfying degree of glory even though the vast majority of
them will never have anything close to an Olympic gold medalist. And never,
you know, much less somebody who wins, 10 of them or something. So, as a
practical matter, glory is just all around us. And you might even think on
most jobs, some element of having a satisfying job and a meaningful job will
be some element of glory in that job.
Agnes:
It's like micro glory?
Robin:
Well, I don't think we should call it micro, we may call the macro because I
think we focus on the like 10 best people who've ever existed, and we're only
going to call that glorious and everything else is going to be like not good
enough. I think that's not doing justice to humanity.
Agnes:
Your glory egalitarian.
Robin:
Yeah.
Agnes:
OK.
Robin:
I want everybody be able to get some.
Agnes:
Yeah, that's egalitarianism. OK.
Robin:
Well, that's not ega– I don't know if everybody gets the same amount.
Agnes:
OK, fair enough, fair enough. But you want everyone to get at least a little.
Robin:
Yeah.
Agnes:
OK. Or many people to get at least a little.
Robin:
Yeah.
Agnes:
But here's a question I have about glory. So if you compare it to other, to
wanting say, fame, you know, approval, applause...
Robin:
Respect.
Agnes:
Respect, right. It seems to me there's an– tell me if you agree with this or
not. But it seems to me there's an interesting difference, which is that
glory, though you want other people to notice and celebrate your achievement,
unlike respect, or fame, or applause, there isn't a focus on your own
experience of those people's receiving your achievement. That is like, it
makes sense, the thought of posthumous glory makes perfect sense.
Robin:
Right.
Agnes:
Right? Whereas the thought of posthumous applause, you know, wanting that it's
like, but you weren't around to hear it. And so, the concept of glory even
though it does matter to you that people notice it, it matters to you less
that you notice them noticing it.
Robin:
Right. So I think, I mean the prototypical or idealized glory, right, it's not
just that you have some great feature, that feature needs to have been
expressed in some accomplishment. And ideally, the ideal accomplisher is so
focused on the accomplishment, and so, you know, satisfied by the
accomplishment. They're not really thinking that much about all the praise, it
might be generating, I think you're right. That is, if you're too focused on
all the praise that makes you seem a little less glorious. You are, you know,
part of the idea would be this accomplishment is so intrinsic to who you are,
and to your whole life plan and motivations that your focus is on that
accomplishment. And that's the thing that motivated you is to accomplish.
Agnes:
Well, I mean, I guess I don't... so I think it's true that there's some–
there's suppose, there's something oblique in the pursuit of glory. It's in
that way, like, both happiness and pleasure. These are things where we sort of
pursue them best by kind of getting immersed in some project. And then we're
not thinking all the time, how do I get glory? Or how do I get happiness? Or
how do we get pleasure, right? And it sort of comes by the by.
But I think that it's still differently– and that might be true of approval,
and love and applause that like you want those things, but you're going to
pursue them indirectly. But I still think that even in the kind of intentional
content, when you do think about what you want with glory, you're thinking
about how you want future people to be amazed by you, admire you, wonder at
you, but you're not in that image also imagining yourself receiving that,
right? So glory is just more outward facing, I think.
Robin:
I think like a lot of status-like things, we are sort of equivocate and split
between, you know, wanting the actual praise and the actual recognition,
versus being satisfied with doing something that should have produced some
praise or recognition. And if for some reason it didn't, that's OK. Because
the important thing was the actual thing you accomplished. So maybe in some
battle, you do a heroic thing, and then you die. And for some reason, in the
battle, your record gets erased, and nobody ever knew that you did this heroic
thing. You still at that moment of the heroic thing in the battle might be
very proud and satisfied that you have become that hero that you've always
wanted to be. You might be a little disappointed that nobody will ever hear
about it. But I think, you know, we vacillate between how important that is
there.
Agnes:
But even in so far as you want people to hear about it. There's still a
question. Do you hear about them hearing about it? Like, when Hamlet is dying,
he tells Horatio, like tell my story, right? Which is Hamlet, like, I care
about glory. Like, I want people to know who Hamlet was.
Robin:
Absolutely.
Agnes:
And in some sense, Hamlet's desire for glory is satisfied through the play or
whatever, or if Horatio told the story that satisfies Hamlet, and so fully
satisfies. It's not like a little bit sad, right? It's like, that's glory. So
glory, the scene or something takes place outside of the reception of the
person whose glory it is.
Robin:
So if I were a foodie, I would not just like food. I would create– I would
choose some allegiances of the kinds of food I was into. So just any sort of
person in any sort of fandom or world I think, once you're into the world
enough I feel it's– most people don't think is just enough to be in that
world, but they want to choose factions that is there. So I might be into a
certain kind of food, maybe fresh food or extra spicy food or something. I
would just pick a thing and that would become mine.
And I think with respect to glory, I mean, once we realize that we are into
glory and glory is important to us, I think we also are going to tend to sort
of pick sides like that, we're going to start to talk about...
Agnes:
Your own niche kind of glory.
Robin:
Yeah, you want to say, well, this is the kind of glory that's really glorious.
And sure that other glory is glorious in some sense, but I think we're each
going to sort of tell our story about why the kind of glory we're going for is
really the most extra glorious. And that's kind of a fun thing to do, I think.
I mean, and I feel mixed feelings about it, because at one level, I just want
to stand back and analyze here without taking sides, but I can feel the
attraction to taking sides in that way.
Agnes:
I don't think it's analogous, though, because I mean, the foodie case, like I
would think that that's more like specialization, right? Like, different
foodies are into different kinds of food. But you wouldn't necessarily have to
think that your kind is like the best.
Robin:
Right. But you probably would. That is, after you– I mean so you know, you
might be a philosopher, and I might be an economist, and from a distance,
because those roles could have been reversed, who knows. And we might not like
take sides there. But we are tempted to take sides once we put enough of
ourselves into it, we are tempted to say "Yeah, and mine's a little better."
Agnes:
I think mine is a lot better.
Robin:
Oh, there you go.
Agnes:
But I didn't think you – I thought you, of you as being more objective.
Robin:
Well, but now we're talking about this temptation and joy sometimes of that
sort of partisan choice. And I think that's part of glory here. So part of
glory is sort of, you know, putting yourself on the line, like making a choice
about such things. So I think a glorious hero, at some point makes a choice.
And they commit to a certain path to glory. And they lay it all on the line,
and they roll the dice. And, you know, they have identified with that kind of
glory. If you're a soldier and you've chosen war to be your path to glory,
then at some point you say I am a soldier, and you have the virtues of that.
Or, if you're an intellectual say, but I don't know, it feels like there's
something important about a person who is trying to be glorious, having chosen
and identified with their path to glory.
Agnes:
OK, well, let's focus on your path to glory, which is through intellectual
contributions. So, one question that I had for you is, you associate glory
with risk taking. And I find that a little bit mysterious, like, for me, those
are not intrinsically connected. And in particular, it's mysterious, given
your chosen arena of glory. Because it seems to me like, you know, I get how,
like, in a war, you have to take all sorts of risks, but it's like, if you're
just like, reading books and writing stuff, like where are the big risks? So
explain the connection with risks and how does risk show up in your pursuit of
glory.
Robin:
Well, so I think it's widely perceived that an emphasis on glory is a bit more
of a male thing than a female thing. And I think that's related to this
general perception of one of the key distinctions between males and females
across biology is that males take more risks. So the usual ideas that being
excellent has higher payoffs for men, and so they shoot more for those long
shots. And so, a function that males perform in many species, the idea is they
can just take more risks. And by having stronger selection on males, the
species can reduce mutation rate faster. And they can tolerate that more
because if you lose 90% of the men, you can still have just as many in the
next generation, because you only need a few men to pass on the species to the
next generation.
And so it's widely perceived that men– or just have higher variance on a wide
range of characteristics, and that men are willing to take higher risk and
society is more willing to let men take risks and less feels less sorry for
them when they lose. So that's sort of this idea that if you're taking sort of
a male attitude toward glory, then you would be taking high risks with your
glory. That is, in the distribution of glory, you're trying to go for that
high tail, that high tail matters more to you, and you're willing to take a
small chance of a huge success. And because you are risk loving, and that's
part of glory that is...
So, you know, in a certain sort of perspective on life, a glory-seeking man
would say, “Well, you know, I've decided to shoot for this long shot and I
probably won't succeed, but you know what? The fact that I was willing to take
the shot at it, and if I failed, you know, accept that is part of the glory.”
It's glorious to be the sort of person who is willing to sort of step out and
take that long shot without too much hesitation.
Agnes:
Right. So like, but let me explain why I still don't get how you're going to
apply this to the intellectual case, I suppose. I'm like, here's a wheel that
you can spin, like a roulette wheel or something, right? And there's like a
thousand slots. And if the ball gets on one of them, you win lots of money.
And if you're willing to spin that wheel, and maybe get the money, and then
you get the money, it's like, great. But I'm like, I don't see that as risk
taking, I just think, you know, you did something where there was a small
chance of success and then maybe you succeeded at it.
What we characterize behavior as risk taking is if there's a lot of loss,
right? So if like, on the battlefield, right, like, there's a small chance of
glory and a big chance that you'll be killed. But in the intellectual arena,
it's like, there's maybe a small chance that you'll make a great discovery and
like a big chance that you'll just learn from one of the other things in the
roulette wheel. I'm like, you have a comfortable, like middle class life. So
is that still – do you still call it risk taking?
Robin:
I think I would, yes. So that is some areas of life and some eras of history,
the worst that can happen isn't so bad. That's pretty good thing about being
in those areas of life and being in those eras of history is that if you take
a long shot, and you fail badly, the worst situation is, you know, not as
painful as it would be in something else. So...
Agnes:
I agree.
Robin:
I think, you know, it depends on this is, again, coming down to the
connoisseur, which kind of glory you're caring about. If you're focused on
someone's sort of mental toughness and determination, and willingness to go
through with something, even when it's terrifying, and legitimately terribly
painful, then, yes, these kinds of intellectual glory, aren't going to give
you that kind of glory. So you know, a battle is much more appropriate for
that kind of glory, if the key thing is to show that I had determination, and
I didn't back down, and I knew it was likely to be really terrible, and I
still went for it. And if it's that sort of character, that's the key point of
the glory, then intellectual thing isn't going to do that. So I'm sort of
putting less weight on that kind of glory by saying that it's OK to be in an
environment, in an era where the worst case isn't so bad.
So my story about glory would be to say that the things that are the truly
glorious are the things that are objectively the greatest accomplishments.
That is, all the rest is sort of, you know, personal arrogance and
self-indulgence to be focused on how it makes you look. I want to go for the
kind of glory where I can say, "If I succeed at this, it will just absolutely
be the biggest best thing." And I am happy to set aside and say, "If you win
that sporting contest, then yes, you have proved you're stronger than me or
have more determination and more grit." But I might say, "But who cares about
this sporting contest?” I want to go for the kinds of kinds of glory where,
you know, if you succeed, it's just objectively fantastic. It was just a
wonderful thing to do.
Agnes:
So, that makes sense to me. What I was questioning was calling that an
especially risk-taking approach. It seems to...
Robin:
Would it be an intellectual thing that we have a wide range of risks? I mean,
yes, so according to the standard story of risk, it's about going for some
sort of middle options for sure, versus variants that has a chance of more and
a chance of less. That less doesn't have to be terrible, but it is less. So...
Agnes:
But like, I guess I don't think it's really much less like, I...
Robin:
It is. So most– I mean, most intellectuals try to become intellectuals, and
they fail and have to find another career. So that is the median outcome for
people who choose to try to be an intellectual. So, succeeding and getting an
intellectual career at all is better than median outcome. It is legitimate
glory.
Agnes:
That's true, but you don't have glory yet. The question is given– now, given
that you succeeded at being...
Robin:
No, no. You do have glory, it's just not as much. So again, I want to go with
– like come on, people who roll the dice on that and succeed I want to give
say they've got a measure of glory. Absolutely.
Agnes:
OK, fine. But like I'm talking about – I'm not like when I talk about what
motivates you and your life, right, like I'm talking about the glory you're
like still trying to get.
Robin:
Right.
Agnes:
And the point is that it seems to me that if you don't get that glory– it's
like the rolling the roulette wheel, where I would say like, well, you just
have some extra you can get. And there's not big like costs to you. But maybe
it's just like small costs and that's good enough for you to call it like,
it's like, if when you roll the roulette wheel, if it doesn't land on one of
the things like you get like, pinched slightly or something. And you're like,
well, you took a risk to get that reward.
Robin:
I mean, I think that even tenured professors have somewhat big things at
stake. That is if you really roll the dice as even a tenured professor, the
bad outcome is your colleagues decide that you are a waste and they are sorry
they ever hired you and you're just a lost cause and you're no longer
producing anything of interest, and nobody wants to invite you to anything and
nobody like wants to associate with you.
Agnes:
Oh, that could totally still happen and you could get glory, because they
could still be wrong.
Robin:
Of course, of course. But the point is, that's from a human point of view, a
substantial cost. It's a real cost. And that's a cost most intellectual
tenured professors aren't willing to take. Most of them do actually, like,
stay within their prior worlds of research, and follow their prior paths and
maintain prior connections because they are afraid, rightly, of losing those
things.
Agnes:
OK, let me– I want to switch over to the question about the objectively
greatest accomplishment, because one thing I worry about is like, are you just
smooshing the, like, you're maybe you're romantically attached to the concept
of glory, but it doesn't really fit the thing that you're doing. Because if I
think about, like, the objectively great accomplishments, if I think about
objectively great, like scientific accomplishments. And I think about what it
is for those accomplishments to be like, handed down, right, like, you know,
Archimedes, or Newton or Einstein, Pythagoras. It doesn't matter who did those
things. And we could easily just forget who it was. Like, if we didn't call it
the Pythagorean theorem or something. I mean, of course, it was named and was
actually it's Pythagoreans broadly, right? It was a secret doctrine.
Robin:
I mean sometimes that's true for all accomplishments, right?
Agnes:
No. So here's... I think there's a really big difference. So I think if you
take Achilles, MLK, Socrates, it's unthinkable that the thing they did could
be remembered without them being remembered. Because in some way, it was like,
an action that embodied who they were. So like, you know, what would it be to
remember what MLK achieved but not remember who achieved it? Like, it's a
personal achievement in a way that...
Robin:
It's more of actually if somebody else had done it, somebody else, his style
would be tied up with that achievement.
Agnes:
Absolutely.
Robin:
Right?
Agnes:
That's true.
Robin:
And so you can still say, why did it matter that his style was tied up for
that achievement rather than somebody else's style?
Agnes:
That may not even matter, but my thought is just...
Robin:
We remember him because he had to say a certain cadence of his of his speech
when he gave speeches, right? So we remember the marches that he led, and the
way he talked, but somebody else would have talked different.
Agnes:
Right. But, so I think that there's a question of what is the thing that is
remembered? And we can distinguish between an action and like the product of
the action, right? So like, say, there's Einstein acting like in the sense of,
he's doing some math, he's thinking, right? Those are the actions that he
performed. And then there's like the product, which is like the thing that he
discovered. And like that product can be alienated pretty far from his actions
to the point where like, you don't need to read his original papers, right?
Whereas in the case of MLK, Socrates, Jesus, you can't really do that
alienation. That is what you're in effect looking at when you're seeing the
glory, you're looking at the things they did, their actions. And so their
glory is really tied to them.
Robin:
Well, what you're saying is, the way in which we remember the things they did,
makes us remember many details about them in the way that some other kinds of
accomplishments might not. That's true about different kinds of
accomplishments, some of them, the nature of hearing the story of their
accomplishment will make us remember more details about them particularly. So,
you know, Neil Armstrong steps on the moon and he had a certain face, a
certain style of talking, and if we remember what he said, maybe somebody else
would have said different words, one step for mankind, whatever, right?
So it's just generally true that for a lot of kinds of accomplishments, like
you mix up some, so like, you know, JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter, and it's
not just a popular fantasy series. It's a series that sort of her personality
was wrapped up in many sort of parts of her life was expressed in, right? But
it's definitely true that some kinds of accomplishments, more wrap up some
details of that person in with the accomplishment in a way that people will
remember more details about them. Now, the question is, is that more glorious?
And that's a choice.
Agnes:
I'm carving things a little bit differently. So I think what we have is we
have kind of a metaphysical spectrum. At one end of the spectrum is a person
and at the other end of the spectrum is something like a theorem. Right? And
let's say a proof of a theorem, OK? And in between, we have stuff that we
could call actions to varying degrees, right? And so, if we, what I'm saying
is that when we remember Socrates or MLK, what we're remembering, in terms of
at this stage of the development is just closer to the person metaphysically.
Robin:
Right.
Agnes:
So we're remembering them doing something rather than remembering some result
of something that they did.
Robin:
Absolutely. So I mean, I completely agree. And the question is just on that
spectrum, which is more glorious? So for example, in a military context,
right? I could be someone like Patton, right? Who goes out and wins battles,
and makes everybody remember my distinctive style of being a general. And
Patton succeeded at that. And then there are other generals whose distinctive
personality has not been remembered so much. They were just remembered for
winning battles, say.
And you, as a soldier, or even a general might ask yourself, "Well, which do I
care more about? Do I want to win this battle? Or do I want to make people
remember how I won it?" And it seems more glorious, to me to say, "I really
just want to win this battle. If being a personality helps me, I'm going to do
that. But if not, I'm going to not be the personality." I think sort of the
ethic of glory in these contexts is that, you know, the accomplishment is the
thing. And somebody who's trying too hard to sort of make everybody remember
them in a way that isn't adding to or helping the accomplishment is a bit of
a, you know, self-serving arrogant asshole.
Agnes:
So...
Robin:
And that was the same for intellectual accomplishments, right? You might say,
Einstein, you know, had somewhat of a distinctive personality. But the thing
that's most striking about Einstein, in some ways, is the idea that, if he
hadn't done it then, it would have taken much longer before other people would
have done it. So, for many kinds of scientific or other intellectual
accomplishments, we actually know that many people were working on them pretty
similar in time. And so we know the person who actually did it first didn't
make that much of a difference, because somebody else really was just about to
do pretty much the same thing.
But then some people do something where we didn't see anybody close to that,
and we're pretty sure it would have taken a decade or maybe decades before
somebody else had done the same. And that seems more glorious. Because now you
can say you made a bigger difference in terms of when that happened. And that
seems to me that the usual sort of attitude in these areas that you're trying
to make glory happen.
Agnes:
It's funny, because it's like, if you think about like the, you know, dispute
between like Newton and Leibniz over like, who invented calculus, like you
could say, like, it's a moot point, given that there was both of them, neither
would get any glory because it would have been the basis were covered.
Robin:
I mean, I think that is a question people should ask themselves about how they
hand out glory. I think we've decided to give a lot of glory to the person who
was first even if they were just a little bit sooner than the person who was
second. But I think the more you want to focus on what difference did somebody
make, the more you have to admit that they didn't make as much of a difference
if somebody else was very close to doing the same thing. And to me, it's
making the difference that's the glory.
Just like in the military– in a war, right? Imagine, like there's some team
that has to do some a special project maybe to sneak in and assassinate the
other leader, right? And the point might be if you're in the military group,
you want to say, "Let's have a plan that makes that most likely to succeed."
And somebody might say, "No, I want to be in the team because I want to be the
person who accomplishes the special thing." And if you sacrifice the success
of the team, so that the chances of success so that you could be on the team,
the rest of us will criticize you as saying, "That's hurting our side in the
war. You are putting yourself and your own personal glory above our collective
glory."
Agnes:
I mean, but notice we do call that personal glory.
Robin:
Yes.
Agnes:
And also that phrase, collective glory, you just made that up. That's not a
real thing. Now, a point of glory is that one person is– glory is personal
glory.
Robin:
I think it's a valid concept. So, and the fact that's what we're talking
about, say about Newton versus Leibniz, right? If they were into the glory of
the whole intellectual world, then they wouldn't care so much about which of
them was slightly first. If they're into their personal glory, then they'll
care a lot more about which one of them is first and the rest of us could not
respect that as much.
Agnes:
OK, so now I feel like we've moved far from our original definition of glory,
because now we've moved to this idea of collective glory. As I underlined at
the very beginning, I connected the idea of glory with the idea of the hero,
who is the unique center of a story. I think it is a little bit narcissistic.
I don't think that's always a bad thing. You're more down on that than I am.
But now, it seems like in shifting glory into the intellectual realm, you've
shifted it in a bunch of different ways. So one of them is that there is...
Robin:
Well, it's not just intellectual, I think collective glory happens in a lot of
these other context. So, you know, on a basketball team in the finals, the
norm is supposed to be we're going to be glorious by we're going to win this
tournament. And if you're trying to push yourself to be the person who makes
more points at the expense of the team winning that's going against the sport
norm.
Similarly, in a military thing, as we discussed before, if you're going to
make us lose the war, more likely, because you want to be out in the front,
and getting more attention, that's also going to be something we all
disapprove of. And so I think, in the intellectual space, or even think of a
company like say, Apple. Apple has been glorious. Apple has achieved glories
and deservedly so. But if any one person like tried to stand out and get more
attention for Apple, Apple might itself think, well, that's taking away from
our glory that we're working on together. So I do think we can and should
often produce collective glory. And that often has a conflict with individual
glory. And we're wary of individual glory conflicting with it.
Agnes:
OK. But I think that those cases of collective glory are all involved people,
in some sense working together.
Robin:
Yes.
Agnes:
Right? So you could say, Watson and Crick, or something like that, right? But
I think that the thing you're talking about, like Newton and Leibniz were not
working together. They were working independently, right? And the thought
where it's like, well, what I'm supposed to care about is like the collective
glory of intellectuals or something. That's the whole glory space. Like it
sort of doesn't matter– we can't... it doesn't make sense to be trying to
increase that. And yet, I think you are saying that, for instance, suppose
there's two problems I could work on, right?
Problem number one is more important. And so it will give me like a lot more
glory. But I'm only like, a little bit ahead of the other people in problem
number one. So if I don't work on problem number one, somebody else will
quickly solve that. Problem number two, like unless I try to solve it, like it
won't be solved for 100 years. Now, you– it's not as important as problem
number one. But you think there'll be a strong case for working on problem
number two, right? And then I'm somehow maximizing glory overall by doing
that.
Robin:
Yes, absolutely. So I mean, think about in a military context, again, If you
just rush out, like shooting or blazing or swinging your sword, and you like,
are very dramatic, everybody notices you because you're right at the front.
But by doing so you make your side more likely to lose. I think the people on
your side should look down on you and disapprove of that. I think the things
that soldiers might well call glorious would be when a soldier is making the
choice that makes them personally less visible, that will make the team less
more likely to win. But if they hear a story of that, that's something they
respect more and is objectively more glorious to them.
Agnes:
I think the thing I'm not getting is where the team comes in when you're
talking about the entire intellectual space. There's nobody that all the
intellectuals are fighting. We're not like a set of superheroes that fight
like the bad anti-intellectuals or something. This is it, we're the whole
thing.
Robin:
You don't need an enemy to be a team.
Agnes:
OK, but I mean, like, the way that you were just cashing it out, it's like,
well, then our side will lose or something. So I mean...
Robin:
I was giving you a military example but...
Agnes:
Right.
Robin:
But I'm OK with thinking about sort of the glory of humanity. I want humanity
as a whole to be glorious. And I want alien civilizations when they eventually
hear about us...
Agnes:
Ah, so now, we get where it's the alien intellectuals on the other planet that
we're fighting.
Robin:
OK. When they hear around what did and how we chose, they will admire how we
stuck together and how we tried our best to accomplish as much as we could.
And even if there are no aliens, we would like our descendants to look back on
us and admire how we promoted together our intellectual progress to hand them
a legacy of what we have discovered.
Agnes:
OK, but say like the aliens come to you, right? And they're like, "We'd like
you to be an intellectual on our side. We'd like to import you to our side,
right? And we're going to give you like way better resources and intellectual
opportunities, and you're going to discover way more awesome stuff among us,
and also you get to like, somehow take all your friends with you. So you're
not like sad and lonely, whatever." I maybe predict that you would go for
that.
Robin:
I might well, so... So there's this concept of the Republic of Science, right?
And they're analogy is probably concepts of the community of philosophers,
right? I would think that you, as a philosopher would see it to be admirable
to do something that promotes philosophy in general. Even if there's not a
competing anti-philosophy out there that you're going up against, you would
still feel that you're part of this community that is trying to together
accomplish important things. And you would admire and praise somebody who made
good choices and took chances and had high ability and succeeded at helping
all of philosophy.
Agnes:
I mean, the question here is whether the concept of glory is still getting a
grip, right? And I was calling that into what you were like, well, there could
be group glory. And all of your examples involve not letting your team down.
And then I'm like, "OK, but if your team is all the intellectuals, how is that
even a team, there's no way to lose." And then you're like, "Oh, we can be
fighting the alien intellectuals." And then I'm like, "Hey, let's say they ask
you to betray all humanity, you'd do it?" And you're like, "Yeah, but that's
because I'm like, my bigger team is like all of intellectuals." But then I'm
like, "OK, who are we fighting again?"
Robin:
I think you can identify with a group without there being an anti, enemy
group.
Agnes:
I mean I totally agree with that. But I guess what I'm not sure is that at
that point, there's such a thing as the glory of the entire group taken as a
whole, where that can be either smaller or bigger, when you're not comparing
it to anything I just sort of...
Robin:
You're comparing it to the counterfactual versions of itself. What it would
have been instead had you not done the more glorious thing?
Agnes:
I see. So, really, like, I mean, the idea is like, you want, let's say
humanity to have as much glory as possible. And you think, the important
achievements for humanity is let's say, our intellectual achievements. And so
it's kind of altruistic, your pursuit of glory.
Robin:
That... I mean, the concept of glory, makes that less so in the sense that you
can be trying to pursue that. So that's – in many sporting contexts, in other
contexts, we have this concept of the glory of the group. And that glory then
goes to individuals who we credit for having promoted the glory of the group
in the best possible way. You know, the soldier who sacrifices himself in
order to have his side win can be seen as glory once we decide he– it was a
very effective sacrifice. It was a clever, good use of the resources to
actually promote the collective thing. Whereas if instead, they were showing
off in a way that hurt the collective cause, we wouldn't attribute as much
glory to that individual behavior because we would see it as you know,
grandstanding.
Agnes:
Right. So I like, I agree that quite often, what gives a person personal glory
is the fact that they did something for the group. But it still doesn't seem
to me that it's group glory, which is the concept that you want. That's
because it doesn't make any sense to me. Like the whole idea of glory is that
someone or even some group, like it can be Watson and Crick, it could be two
people, it could be a whole team, but that those people shine forth, above
everybody else. And we're like, "Wow! Look at them. Don't look at us. We're
not important. Look at them. Look at Achilles, he's literally light is pouring
out of him at certain point in the Iliad, right?" So like that, that's the
idea of glory, and that somehow you're wanting it to be more diffuse or
something where it's like, well, it's just all of humanity being in a good
condition. But I feel like that's not the concept of glory.
Robin:
But, I mean, substantively, there's not much difference. We're just arguing
here about whether the word applies to the group, but the individual behavior
that's credited for glory is still pretty much the same behavior here, right?
Are we disagreeing about which individual behavior is going to be called
glory?
Agnes:
Yeah, I mean, I think we are disagreeing a little. So maybe this is the point
like, if I do– if I solve problem number one, which is the bigger problem,
like you think the group should accord me less glory than if I solve problem
number two.
Robin:
Right.
Agnes:
Even though problem number two is a smaller problem, but because I'm putting
us more ahead by solving problem two.
Robin:
Right.
Agnes:
And so that's sort of like your view about the distribution of glory like the
correct distribution.
Robin:
So let's separate glory into several components. One component is how extreme
an ability your accomplishment shows that you have. So, you have extreme
smarts, extreme knowledge, extreme stamina, extreme social connections, right?
Various kinds of accomplishments can just show more extreme ability. Right?
That's one component. And you might have argued that would be the only
component to glory.
And another component of glory, I would say, is some concept of value, i.e.
what value did this accomplishment produce? And that concept of value is
generally going to be sort of with respect to some larger group like not just
what value did you achieve for yourself but what value did you achieve for a
larger group that you're in? And then we want to ask about marginal value that
is doing this thing, how much did it have a difference did it make and if we
trace through the overall effects then we might realize that some things that
seemed small were actually larger as we credit them for their overall effects.
So this thing about the bigger thing that somebody else would do sooner then
you know, a full evaluation of its value is smaller even if it's a bigger
thing because it, you know, doesn't make as much of a difference, somebody
else would do it again soon.
Agnes:
So, it seems to me that you could talk about somebody making a decision to do
the less glorious thing, but that was the greater contribution, that's like
intelligible to me. Like someone could be very torn between two careers. In
one of them, he's going to make the greater contribution to humanity, but it's
going to be stuff that's sort of small and not very recognized and not very
beautiful. And the other one's more glorious. That seems like a recognizable
sort of tension or, you know, situation that someone could be in where they
have to decide between glory and let's say, philanthropy, in a certain sense
love of mankind.
Robin:
So, a similar issue comes up in all sorts of admiration, where there is a
conflict between sort of doing what we would personally consider most
admirable and maybe what an outside world would recognize as more admirable.
And in those context, it's more about like, you think that they would agree
with you, if only they knew everything you knew or something. But because they
don't, then you are stuck with this conflict.
So if you just look at all the different things that might gain us glory, the
various features of ourselves that we would advertise to show that we are
impressive, they do seem to be features that matter more because they are
connected to some sort of value. That is, you know, we might value– we might
value the runner more than the juggler, because we see that in all sorts of
contexts, running is actually a thing that matters whereas juggling doesn't.
And so the athlete who is the best runner just is more glorious than the
athlete who is the best juggler because we're just less convinced of the value
of juggling. And so, in...
Agnes:
What about like figure skating, where you're making jumps really high, and
then landing on the ice after spinning around a bunch of times?
Robin:
Right. So I think I would say objectively, it's less glorious to be, instead
it's less connected with some other kinds of values. So but as we come to an
agreement about which kinds of abilities are objectively impressive, because
they're connected with value that will depend on sort of our perceptions of
value and what we've come to agree on. And so, you'd similarly expect some
sort of conflict there, where people, you know, we could say something is
objectively glorious even as an great accomplished, what we might mean is,
that's, that is an objectively impressive thing, according to very widely
shared standards that we have accepted at the moment, and maybe later, we will
change our mind and update to take more into account all the other things.
Agnes:
I think some of our standards are aesthetic. So I think like, you know,
jumping around on the ice is beautiful and so we like it. And that's why it's
like, that's more high status than a lot of the like skiing things, which are
arguably least skiing is somewhat useful. Whereas like jumping on ice is not
useful for anything.
Robin:
But aesthetic is value. So I was talking about sort of shared value.
Agnes:
Right, but it's a specific– so here's where the aesthetic like, I think comes
into is that the idea of a hero is the idea of the center of the story. And I
think that there's a narrative component here to glory.
Robin:
Yes.
Agnes:
That is, there's a question what makes for a good story? Because part of your
glory is people telling your story, like literally telling it like Hamlet
saying to Horatio, right? Or us telling the story of Achilles. And there's a
certain shape or something that your life can take such that it forms a good
story to tell later. Right? And that figures in glory, and it's not all–
that's not always going to be the same life that does the most benefit, the
life that makes for the best story,
Robin:
Unless you include the value of the story in the benefit.
Agnes:
But I mean, I think if– you either have to say we have insanely high value on
stories, or you say...
Robin:
We do.
Agnes:
I mean, that's a way to put it, but like, I don't think anyone would say that
this story is more valuable than like, a billion lives or something. But I
think it's just, there's somehow a different mode of like, well, in order for,
in order for someone to have glory, we have to tell the story. So in order for
us– we have to want to tell it and so it has to be a good story. And I don't
think that we were adding up the values of that level, like the value of
the...
Robin:
Right. So I would make an analogy to being a good politician. You might say,
we could discuss our ideals for what a best politician would be but then in
the actual world, somebody has to convince the voters that they actually have
good features. And so, the people who end up actually being who are considered
the best politicians might be well below what you or I might consider the best
but there's this social process of needing to come to an agreement.
And so, glory is in some sense about agreement. That is you are glorious if
you are agreed to be glorious, and that will require a lot of compromises
among the various people and what they understand and what they accept as
valuable, and just the social process by which they would tell a story and
then come together to agree that that's the best story. And that's the key
trade-offs there.
Agnes:
Right. So if we ask you, like you want glory, right? We could say there are
two kinds of glory, you could aim for. One kind of glory would be making your
life into the kind of life where people will converge on that as a story they
want to tell. Right? Versus, so to speak, the one where it's like the story
you think they should tell, even if they don't.
Robin:
Right.
Agnes:
Which glory are you going for?
Robin:
So again, we have this idea that there's a space of different ways to conceive
of glory, and that we are somewhat partisan in choosing our way and then
arguing for it. And so, I might well say that, say, if you run for office, and
you were actually objectively a better politician, but they didn't vote for
you. I might still admire that you, you went for the better politician role,
that you took the high road there.
And similarly, so for intellectuals, we have this thing about the long run.
So, many people, even most intellectuals today, they're trying to be seen as
the best intellectual right now. That is, they want the journalists to accept
them, and the jobs to be given to them, and the speaker invitations to happen
now, and they don't that much care happens after they're dead or later on.
They are trying to be accepted as the most respected intellectual of the
moment at the moment.
Whereas you can instead say, "Well, I guess today that yes, I see that today,
they're not respecting what I've done. But I'm going down a path where I have
a reason to hope at least that in the future, they will better respect what
I've done." And I might even think that's more glorious to go for the
long-term recognition and, and approval of what you've done is more glorious
than just trying to go for current popularity.
Agnes:
So suppose that you– suppose that you did like lots of research on what kinds
of stories have long-term staying power. And like, so this has come up, but
this is controversy right now on philosophy Twitter, because a philosopher
Jason Stanley said, "I would consider myself a failure if people weren't
reading me in 200 years." And then a lot of people took offense to this.
And then Aristotle on Twitter spoke up and said, "Well, I have some advice. If
you want to be read in a long time, you need to have a lot of contradictions
in your work, you need to have a lot of obscurity in it that people keep
working on, you need to be living in a kind of reproductive culture where a
lot of people can like, you know, talk about your ideas a lot."
So here are the things that you should go for, if you want to be around for
200 years. Suppose similarly, someone's like, you know, you did this research,
you're like, "You know what? My stuff is too easy to read. For me to get that
long term glory, I got to throw a few contradictions in there." Right? So
like, supposing that you had reason to believe this is what would produce the
2000 year, Aristotle at least got that and he's right around for, you know, a
couple 2400, 2500 years. That would– would that incline you to be like, OK
I'll... if that's what it takes, then I'll put some, like, Straussian
mysteries and a few contradictions into my writing to make it last longer.
Robin:
So again, you know, the concept of glory is some impressive accomplishment
that adds value and is recognized as adding value, right? And then there's
this ambiguity between how important is the recognition if you just think
people should have recognized that even if they don't, is that good enough?
And I think that's just the way people's concepts of glory split. I don't know
if there's a correct answer to that.
But with respect to say long-term intellectual things, I could say, well,
maybe the last 2000 years, the way people have done philosophy has made
philosophers who have contradictions and ambiguities more popular, but
hopefully the next 2000 years, they will learn better, and not be so foolish
as to give extra credit for such things. And therefore I'm betting on this
better version of the future, that takes things that are actually better
contribution and credits them rather than this sort of like way you could fool
the audience.
Agnes:
OK, I mean, I'm betting on it like, the point of this example was supposed to
be that you have some material for making a prediction. OK. And so like,
there's what you would like to be true, but now we have like some reason to
actually think something is true. And I'm just, you know, we're just got to
posit, you have reason to think that the future is going to go in the way
where you're more likely to have this long-term fame that you want if you
throw some contradictions in there. And the question is, would you do it? Or
would you be like, "No, that's not the kind of glory I want."
And I understand you're saying there are two different kinds of one could go
either way. But we've said– we've seen that happen a bunch of times. There's
the sports kind of glory that – you're willing to, like, you know, go for one
or the other, so I'm asking like, in this case, are you willing to go for one
or the other? Are you going to make a choice between the thing that ought to
be glorious, versus the thing that you predict will actually be glorious?
Robin:
I think I'm going to go for the thing that ought to be glorious. That seems to
me a more glorious kind of glory.
Agnes:
OK, well, we should stop soon. But I want to ask one last thing.
Robin:
Please.
Agnes:
So you and I have a glory dispute with respect to Wordle.
Robin:
OK.
Agnes:
A standing dispute, right? When we play Wordle together, when there's the
option of getting it in fewer but we know, let's say, it's one of six words,
right? And so we could guess one of those six words, and then we have a chance
of, say, getting it in three, versus, you might go through the extra work of
figuring out what word is it that you can guess such that you're sure to get
it in four? And I'm inclined to be like, let's figure out that word, and make
sure we get it in four. And you're inclined to be like, let's try and go for
get it in three. And now, you see your thing is more glorious. And I see mine
is more glorious. And so I'm going to explain why I think mine is more
glorious, and then you're going to explain why yours is more glory.
So I think mine is more glorious, because if we go for– if we just pick one of
the six at random, and then we ended up picking right, that's just seems like
luck to me, versus in my way, it's like you go through the, you know, blood,
sweat and tears of finding that word where once you found it, you know that
you will get it in four and that it's your own work. You know, that it's a
product of your soul to get it in four and thus, that seems more glorious to
me.
Robin:
So, I think a choice in a lot of these sorts of accomplishments things is, how
much detail do you think the audience will be able to see in order to judge
the quality of your accomplishment? So in some kinds of things that I care
more about, you know, I just think the audience should just be looking more at
like, what did you accomplish? And not caring that much exactly how you did
it. And if I'm trying to sort of be glorious to that kind of audience, or with
that kind of a metric, then I'm looking for just the big wins. And I'm willing
to have luck be part of that, if that's my best strategy for the big wins.
Now, if people see all the details and saw that I just took a chance, they
might be less impressed with the ability I showed in taking a chance. But the
question is, is it about my showing off my abilities in each and every little
thing I do? Or is it about the thing I'm going to accomplish? And I'm a little
discouraged by people who just are so focused on showing off their abilities
that they don't try to accomplish things.
And so, one of the things that actually always bugged me a lot in my life is
when people say, "You sure seem smart." And I go, "Yeah, but I was trying to
accomplish things. Did you like any of my accomplishments? And if I've just
succeeded and making you think I'm really smart, but you don't think I
actually did anything, I feel like a failure." And so, I would rather focus on
accomplishing things and just look for the right mix of doing things simply
and cleanly and taking chances and collaborating with less impressive people
and just doing whatever it takes to actually accomplish things, rather than
the life strategy of doing everything so as to show your most impressive
abilities by how you do it.
Agnes:
I mean, it's kind of ironic, because if I'm like, who in the world is there
who like sort of acts in such a way and takes– snatches opportunities in such
a way as to maximally reveal that they're smart, like you would be very up
high. Like if somebody wanted to reveal that they were smart, like I would
tell them, "Behave like Robin." So I believe you. But it's funny that that's
like it's not an accident that people have that reaction to you, right?
Because one thing is like, one way to reveal your extra smart is like to
always be shifting and moving and not like just be narrowly within one field
and to have your intelligence come out in all different contexts. So it
doesn't look like it's specialized to some circumstance.
Robin:
Right. I mean, honestly, I would think I would be most impressed in terms of
evaluating the abilities of somebody who looks like they are focused on
accomplishing and they consistently do that. I'm just going to be more
impressed by them. So, for example, I know some people and say, the venture
capital world or the tech world, and I sort of respect them more in some sense
than many of the intellectuals I know because I can see they're just focused
on making their businesses succeed through whatever means they can. And they
will switch methods and switch tools and change teams as necessary to make
that work. And I see that they consistently accomplish things that way. And I
have to infer, "Wow, if they were trying to play the game of just really
impressing you, they could probably do that. But they're instead trying to
accomplish things. And my hat's off." Like, that's the people I'm most
impressed by.
Agnes:
I don't think it's that you seem like you're playing the game of trying to
impress people. I think it's that... So if I think about students, OK? The
students that like, most impressed me. It isn't always the ones that
accomplish the most. Because sometimes it's like, like some students are like
they consistently accomplish a good result. But sometimes they're students
where you sort of, you can sort of just see that there's a lot more there
under the surface than what's coming out. Right? And it's not that– they're
not trying to show you that or something. That's not... but it's just the way
like, it's partly the fact that there's like a lot of variance in how it comes
out. And there's lots of failure mixed in there with the– it's not a
consistent success story, right? That often can be more impressive.
Robin:
So there's this book I read sometime in the last five years called Range, I
may have recommended it to you before, just about, you know, how specialized
you should be, and at what point in your life, you should choose to be
specialized. And it's a topic I've thought about for a long time, because I
am– I have a wider range than most. And there was the question of what's the
point of range?
So, early in life, and in sort of more high risk things, it does seem like
range is productive in the sense that if you say you're going to be an athlete
and you commit too early to your sport, that probably hurts you, you probably
should keep your options open until you get better indications, and then
learning a bunch of different sports sort of broadens your abilities and will
let it make it easier to learn whatever you learn.
But it may well also be true, that range is impressive. And that, you know,
people like me tell ourselves stories about why range is useful but we're
actually following this strategy of range as because that's, in fact, our best
shot at being impressive. That is, people who can do a wide range of things
moderately well might just be objectively more impressive than somebody who
can do one particular narrow thing very well. And if you want to be more
impressive than they can be, you'll have to go the range strategy. You'll have
to try to do a wide range of things to be in that game. So you know that I
have to admit that that's possible, that my reasons I give myself for a wide
range may not actually be justified, I may be choosing my range to be
impressive.
Agnes:
I doubt it. I don't think it's either one, I think it's just that you're
interested in a lot of different things. And so that moves, that shifts you
around.
Robin:
But the evolutionary pressure to produce that interesting wide range could
have come from how it's impressive. So, it's well known that like humans are
surprisingly general and broad compared to most animals. And there's this
question, you know, why is it that humans were able to be so broad? And why
did their minds get designed to be so broad? So it could be there's just some,
you know, elements of mind design, and we came across it and it just happens
to allow breath for relatively cheap. And so that was just a handy thing.
Or it could be that because we had so many different environments, we had to
go into, that there was a selection for range, a selection for the ability to
do a wide range of things. Or it could be that humans were mainly selected for
impressing each other. And even though being specialized was more useful,
having a wide range was reliably more impressive. And that's why we have the
range.
Agnes:
It seems like the point of impressiveness of having a wide range that was
really quite different glory.
Robin:
Well, glory is, you know, some combination of being impressive via an
accomplishment. That's what we've been discussing.
Agnes:
Yes. It's via an accomplishment. I think that's right. So I think that the
wide range is impressive. It's like there's two different ways you can value
someone you can value them in potentiality or actuality, right? And the
impressiveness of intelligence and range and all of that is the impressiveness
of potentiality. But the accomplishment that's the actual...
Robin:
I think some people accomplished in a wide range of areas, and they are, in
fact, more impressive for the range of their accomplishments.
Agnes:
That's true, but it's still, the glory is still, I think, lies in whatever it
is that they accomplished.
Robin:
No, I think there's an added glory from accomplishing a wide range of things.
If you're trying to like put somebody on a board of directors or something,
somebody who just did one thing very well, you might think they are not going
to be very flexible or smart on our board of directors. Whereas somebody who
accomplished a wide range of things, you might be more willing to put them on
your board, or put them in other position of authority, because you trust them
more.
Agnes:
Notice, like how what you're doing is you're looking at like, who do we put on
the board? That is you're looking at what use can we make of someone? But I
don't think it's what glory is about. Glory, it's just about admiring. It's
just you stand back, you admire, you're not thinking about what I hire this
person or something. That ship has sailed, right? Often the person is dead. So
I think if you're finding yourself in the mindset of like, who would I put on
the board or whatever, that's not the glory mindset. That's the hiring
mindset, where you're looking for talent and potential.
Robin:
If you're thinking like, who am I most impressed by in history? If we bring
up, say, Aristotle, and we'd say not only that Aristotle do a lot of stuff,
but he did a lot of stuff in a lot of different areas, would you like to have
a conversation with him? I think that that carries weight with me. I'd say,
"Yeah, I want to have a conversation with a guy who not only seemed pretty
smart about something, but seemed pretty smart about a lot of different
things."
Agnes:
But notice you now it looks like you're hiring Aristotle for the purpose of
having a conversation with you. And I still think that that's not what glory
is about. Glory is just about admiring. You don't need to do anything with it.
It's just, you just stand back. You're just like, "Wow!"
Robin:
But you're admiring some package of abilities revealed through an
accomplishment. So the question is like, what would be the test of those
abilities? What would they measure?
Agnes:
I don't think you're admiring the abilities. I think you're admiring like what
was achieved? Right?
Robin:
Well, I think it's the combination that you're in fact – and people are not
really willing to admit that it's that combination. So, that is sort of the
part of the essential ambiguity in glory, is it for the characteristics that
are shown by the accomplishment or, is it for the accomplishment, independent
of the characteristics?
Agnes:
I think we have to end on that quizzical note in the hope that future
generations will want to listen to this podcast because it ended in an aura of
mystery.
Robin:
And the wide range, grand range of topics we covered or pressed.
Agnes:
Exactly.
Robin:
All right, take care.
Agnes:
Bye.
Robin:
All right, I'm going to end the recording.
Agnes:
OK.