Discipline

Continuing with my Nine Noble Virtues in Heathenry series, the next virtue on our list is discipline. In my opinion, this is one of the most difficult virtues to consistently apply in one’s life because it requires self-mastery. In my original short description of this virtue, I described discipline as meaning: “self-control, the will and the practice of governing one’s self so that others don’t have to.” It’s deceptive, to apply a short description to a virtue like this, because discipline requires and implies a great deal more than a short description can cover….

Along with honor, discipline is one of the few among the Nine Noble Virtues (NNV) that can be used (unaltered) as either a noun or a verb. This, of course, adds another layer to our definition for the word, as Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary demonstrates for the discipline entry:

discipline (1 noun): 4 : training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character 5 a : control gained by enforcing obedience or order b : orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior c : SELF-CONTROL 6 : a rule or system of rules governing conduct or activity

discipline (2 transitive verb): 2 : to train or develop by instruction and exercise especially in self-control 3 a : to bring (a group) under control <discipline troops> b : to impose order upon <serious writers discipline and refine their writing styles>

The reason I say this status, as verb and noun, adds a layer of complexity is because it indicates that discipline isn’t just something we foster within our own selves – it’s something we seek to foster in the world around us. But what is discipline? Is it training, is it control, is it a system of rules? There is a word that underlies these definitions, that I think is perhaps a better way to define it – order. By embracing the virtue of discipline, we seek to bring and maintain order with ourselves and the world around us. This is still a very relevant concept in Germany, as the popular expression here, “Ordnung muß sein” (”Order must be“) indicates.

Our Heathen forebears understood the value of order and discipline only too well – without discipline and the maintaining of order, they would not have survived their environment (be it frozen winters, predators, or enemies). This somewhat contradicts the popular notion of Heathens in the Viking Age or earlier being drunken brutes – I don’t suggest this didn’t exist, but it’s pretty difficult to hunt food and chop the wood needed for cooking and heating fires when you’re fat, lazy and in a drunken stupor. The Heathen poem, Hávamál (”Words of the High One,” or Odin) has the following to say of discipline (here, in the form of moderation) in these selected stanzas:

Regarding alcohol:
12. Less good there lies | than most believe
In ale for mortal men;
For the more he drinks | the less does man
Of his mind the mastery hold.

Regarding food:
21. The herds know well | when home they shall fare,
And then from the grass they go;
But the foolish man | his belly’s measure
Shall never know aright.

Regarding prattle:
29. Often he speaks | who never is still
With words that win no faith;
The babbling tongue, | if a bridle it find not,
Oft for itself sings ill.

Regarding wake-up time:
59. He must early go forth | whose workers are few,
Himself his work to seek;
Much remains undone | for the morning-sleeper,
For the swift is wealth half won.

Discipline was a requirement for survival in historic times, just as it is today – whether among people living out in the country, or among people living in a crowded city, no matter how easy it might be for us to conveniently forget this. Order was also vital for survival – even during the times of kings, there was no great government apparatus to monitor every move, and respond to every infraction; so individuals and communities had to look to their own discipline in many regards. For communities to survive, the order borne out of common discipline was critical – and the ability to respond to lapses in order by means of discipline (in the way of punishment) was just as critical. Among the earliest recordings of punishment among our Heathen forebears comes from Cornelius Tacitus, in his famous work, Germania (circa 69, CE):

12. In the assembly it is allowed to present accusations, and to prosecute capital offences. Punishments vary according to the quality of the crime. Traitors and deserters they hang upon trees. Cowards, and sluggards, and unnatural prostitutes they smother in mud and bogs under an heap of hurdles. Such diversity in their executions has this view, that in punishing of glaring iniquities, it behoves likewise to display them to sight; but effeminacy and pollution must be buried and concealed. In lighter transgressions too the penalty is measured by the fault, and the delinquents upon conviction are condemned to pay a certain number of horses or cattle.

In some cases, (like in disciplining troops), the early Germans believed discipline to be divinely mandated:

7. But to none else but the Priests is it allowed to exercise correction, or to inflict bonds or stripes. Nor when the Priests do this, is the same considered as a punishment, or arising from the orders of the general, but from the immediate command of the Deity, Him whom they believe to accompany them in war.

So, two thousand years ago, we can see that our Heathen forebears were cognizant of the importance of discipline, tended as communities to maintain order, and would enforce order and discipline through punishment if required. A thousand years later, during the Viking Age, discipline was still necessary and still enforced. But what about today’s society? In the Western World, we live in a culture where it would seem such harsh measures of personal and social discipline aren’t nearly as critical. Most of us don’t have to get up with the chickens and go milk cows and chop wood before breakfast can be cooked. Most of us don’t have to walk or run for miles each day just to find food, not when we can drive or take a bus or train – when our backsides get sore, it’s not from sitting astride a horse all day, it’s from sitting in spring-cushioned ergo-seats for a few hours at a time. When someone breaks the social order and commits a crime, we usually don’t have to be too concerned – the police and prison systems will take care of it. And when it comes to eating and drinking, as long as the wallets have cash, we can have all manner of foods and drinks brought to us until we have to be rolled away from the table. As for prattle, one need only watch some of the more common ‘talk’ shows to realize that prattle is celebrated as entertainment in our modern culture. So, with all of these things considered, why waste time trying to hold ourselves to silly diets? Why walk when we can drive? And why should anyone think it their concern when we decide to tie one on and get roaring drunk out of habit?

If we look at our world – at the resources we are consuming with reckless abandon, with the extra burden on society engendered by illnesses directly attributable to obesity, with the damage and fatalities brought about by people losing control of their minds and bodies through drugs and alcohol, or with any number of other social and personal maladies in the world today – we can see that a lack of discipline plays a major part. Although our ancestors had no way of predicting the state of things today, the previously cited stanzas from Hávamál demonstrate that they at least understood the dangers in people losing the will to self-regulate. By choosing to discipline ourselves as individuals and as a society, we increase our capacity to contribute to the world around us (rather than impacting it in more negative ways). By self-regulating, we also lessen the need for an overburdened (and oversized) government to regulate for us. Since this affects us all, it’s certainly within our sphere of concern to directly involve ourselves in places where we see lapses in order and discipline, to help and encourage others to act in positive ways not just for themselves, but for their communities as well. It’s this approach to self-mastery that sets us apart from the undisciplined, and enables us to help others master their own selves; rather than be subject to (or ourselves become) bellowing blow-hards, trying to control everyone else to compensate for their lack of self-control.