Secretary Mattis and “Meditations” on Trump

“Secretary Mattis’ words are a warning and a reminder that our roots were born not of anger but of a deeply felt awareness of human limitation.”

When President Donald Trump used various federal law enforcement agencies to clear protestors so he could hold up the bible at St. John’s Church in Washington, D.C., on June 1st, he created a clear symbolic gesture for his supporters. However, this was a scene that roiled four-star general and former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who had held a different book by his side on the battlefield. Secretary Mattis felt that federal officers were being used as a Praetorian Guard, something new to the United States but not to history.

President Trump hoisted the bible but was likely unaware that the New Testament is deeply rooted in Stoicism (a school of thought best exemplified by writers such as Epictetus and Seneca). Secretary Mattis’ preferred book was also by a stoic philosopher (and a Roman Emperor): Marcus Aurelius. The book, Meditations, is a diary written by the emperor as “notes to self.” Many of these notes were about how to conduct himself in public. As a man with absolute power, Marcus Aurelius, who could have had all the fame and women he wanted and all his enemies vanquished, chose to live a life of virtue. He wanted to live in harmony with himself and others. As he would write in Meditations, “What we do now echoes in eternity.”

He further advised: “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” Secretary Mattis finally took action with his first public criticism of his former boss since he resigned from President Trump’s cabinet in December of 2018, following President Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria. Secretary Mattis knew well the dangers of creating a power vacuum on a foreign battlefield without considering the potential fallout.