What's In A Name?

Today the Oxfam workers were harassing people on Buchanan Street. They did not want money, just names and addresses. Supposedly this information was not to be used for junk mail. So what on earth would they want with the names of people declaring, "I'm in", as the T-shirts of the bouncing college students proclaimed?

There are different forms of power, the means of working your will in the world. The most common is money. Another is people. The individual is a commodity to be used by religions, political groups, companies, and even charities. By showing these names, Oxfam is essentially declaring to whomever they choose to influence, for whatever purpose, that they have power in the form of these signatories.

Now there is a theory, I call it a theory simply because I do not know if it is true, that Oxfam is doing more than trying to feed starving African children. That much of their work centres on political change, and these changes are largely Marxist in nature. Suppose this is true. How many signatories would a "Marxism for Africa" campaign acquire as opposed to feeding cute little children?

My point is that whether or not the theory is true, the public had no problem putting their names to a data sheet for some purpose unknown, even to the students soliciting them. I began to wonder. What is a name worth?

In the film Kate and Leopold, the Duke of Albany finds himself transported from 1876 New York to the year 2001. Leopold finds himself cast in a television commercial selling Farmer's Bounty, a low-fat margarine. Upon tasting the product during the filming, his face betrays his disgust and he declares it to taste like saddle soap. With this discovery, he refuses to put his name to the product to the frustration of the director. "It's a paycheque pal." The scene, and the argument with Kate that follows, illustrates how eager we are to compromise our names for the right price. He says," What has happened to the world? You have every convenience, every comfort, yet no time for integrity."

I could not help but think of Leopold as I witnessed these people placing their names on this list so thoughtlessly. What then is the value of one's name to be thrown around in such a manner? Of course their name is but one of thousands on a list, but it is their name and they should value it.

In Gaelic, and a few other languages as well, the word for name and soul are the same word, ainm. Your name is more than just a label, it is your soul manifested in language. In English, the word name is also used to mean reputation.

The Victorians held their reputation as a high value. It was something to be protected, defended, and enriched through their actions. Generally, they did nothing that would bring their good name into disrepute and worked to strengthen it. You might say that they were demonstrating loving care for their soul. This reminds me of the film Rob Roy in which the title character defined honour to his sons as "a gift a man gives to himself".

Of all the values, of all those things that we hold important, that we merit worthy of our energies, the primary is our existence itself. We eat, we sleep, and we sustain our biological forms. But existence is not about the flesh. It is about the soul ingrained within that flesh.

I should note, dear reader, that by soul I am referring to that psycho-emotional essence defining that which is uniquely you. It is what Ayn Rand called the Sense of Life, "a preconceptual equivalent of metaphysics. A subconsciously integrated appraisal of man's nature and the nature of reality, summing up one's view of man's relationship to existence. The integrated sum of man's basic values." This sense of life is your sense of life, your sense of what it means to be you and the nature of world in which you exist.

So your soul should be your most valued possession, to cultivate, nurture, and protect as the source of your Pride, your Name, your Reputation, and your Honour. But how often do we as humans take this treasure for granted and throw it carelessly away? Such as in the name of some misguided morality or when some people, so desperate to be loved, give their heart away carelessly and are left feeling empty or humiliated for the loss of it.

Another common metaphor for the soul is the heart and the blood that pumps through it. We speak of someone putting his life's blood into an endeavour. We may give our heart to another and perhaps feel the terrible pain when our soul feels torn asunder during periods of heartbreak. In our stories, the vampire draws life from the blood of another, draining their soul of its essence.

Over the past six months I have been learning gradually the value of my soul having spent long hours in solitude, contemplation, and self-assessment. I have faced all the sins that I have committed. Not sins against man, but sins against myself born of a lack of will and emotional discipline.

I recently heard a tale of a man who would probably not be regarded as a virtuous by most standards. When told of his life and antics he struck me as a modern Libertine who is suited more to one of the Marquis de Sade's plays than to the reality most of us experiences. No experience, whether it be pleasure or pain, was to be avoided, and to truly live then both must be experienced and embraced in equal measure.

His daughter spoke of many occasions watching him cast a woman from his villa with tears in his eyes. This image spoke to me. How often are we willing to do the right things when it causes us pain? How often to we seek to avoid the pain of today and only increase it a hundred fold down the road? I have never been one for feeling the pain today to be happy tomorrow. I would often take the easy road and find later that the cost was too great.

The act of living according to one's standards or moral code for the benefit of one's existence is the very definition of virtue. So in a simple incident of a Libertine casting-out a woman, despite his pain but for the good of his soul, I find the meaning of virtue. It is by living a virtuous life despite those tough decisions that we earn the right to Pride.

I want to stress that virtue is not about living according to an externally imposed moral code. It is about living according to your moral code. It is virtue that allows us to look into the mirror every morning with pride and not guilt. As for modern morality, when virtue becomes evil, then only the evil are virtuous.

The ancient Hindus preached the importance of the harmony of Dharma, Artha, and Kama in ones life and the need to devote time and energy to each. Dharma is the spiritual journey, Artha the material journey, and Kama being that of love and pleasure. Sir Richard Burton in his translation of the Kama Sura equated these to Virtue, Wealth, and Love. Of these, both Wealth and Love are at service to the Soul, for neither can stand in one's life without the strong foundation born of a virtuous soul.

Do not pour your life's blood into causes without merit, nor should you give so great a gift as your heart to the unworthy or unappreciative. For a true man of honour, the kind once called gentleman, would never demean his soul in such a manner.

In researching a blog – yes dear reader, occasionally I do research – I found this article from the National Review dated 19 April 1999 called Paying for Beauty - motion picture 'Titanic' misrepresents the social codes of the wealthy.

Yet Cameron-who, as I say, did his homework-knows that there were many true gentlemen in first and second class who indeed, according to their code of behavior, "did the right thing." For example, we see in a cameo shot Isidor Strauss and his wife. They are lying together on a bed in their stateroom, waiting for death. Cameron knows that their real story is more complicated and much more poignant.

Isidor Strauss created the great department store Macy's. In his late 60s, rich and retired, he toured Europe with his wife. They were now heading home on the Titanic. As the ship sank, Mrs. Strauss was allowed to board a lifeboat. She pleaded that her elderly husband be allowed to board too. This was allowed. But Mr. Strauss refused to board. He said, "I will not go before the other men." That was that. She said that she had spent her life with him and would not leave him now. She stepped out of the boat, and they sat on deck chairs to watch others load.

The point here is that the upper-class gentleman's code of that era was deeply felt and sternly enforced. It involved "setting an example" for the rest of society. When things went wrong, one bore it with stoicism, or irony, or humor. Perhaps above all, one was deferential to women.

Col. John Jacob Astor, whose ancestors first earned their money in fur trading, also makes a cameo appearance in Titanic. He was traveling with his second wife, young and pregnant. She pleaded that he be let into a lifeboat with her. Second Officer Lightoller refused: "Women only." Without complaint, Astor withdrew. Apparently while swimming in the ocean he was crushed by tons of steel as one of the funnels tilted and crashed. Benjamin Guggenheim, of the great steel fortune, met a similar fate and asked a departing passenger to tell his wife he had died "like a gentleman."

It is possible that Cameron intuited that a modern audience would scarcely believe that any such code of honor existed. Yet I think he never considered for a moment trying for genuine complexity here, because he had a very different, more up-to-date ideal in mind: that of Jack Dawson.

Where have all the gentlemen gone indeed? Surely at the very core of the gentleman beats the heart of a man who knows himself and his place in the world with full acceptance and without complaint. His first love is self-love and upon that solid rock is built a name of which he endeavours through his actions to be proud. A name he will not compromise for love, or money, or even life itself.

I may close with clichéd admonitions such as "Know Thyself" or "be true to yourself". A cliché is a truth rubbed smooth from use, and both statements are worthy of constant use. However, I shall end this rant with a simple, common farewell, "Take care of yourself". After all, you are your most prized possession.