Becoming a father changed my whole life. It taught me as if by revelation. ― Abraham Maslow
Franz Kafka’s Letter to the Father (1953) is one of the most harrowing pieces of introspection in the Western canon. Kafka wrote the letter in 1919, when he was 36 years old and his father, Hermann, was 65 years old. Kafka did not post the letter, nor did he intend to publish it. Franz was a sensitive child, whereas his father was a large, dominating, and successful man. The stage for conflict, misunderstanding, and trauma was set. The letter, we suspect, was not meant to be a literary achievement, but rather a kind of reckoning, the author’s attempt to explain his suffering to himself. Any attempt to speculate any further about Kafka’s intentions will likely remain fruitless. Was he looking to achieve catharsis, seek vengeance, find understanding? It is impossible to say. What is clear, however, is what a stern upbringing can do to a sensitive child.
Why is it that Kafka’s Metamorphosis survives in the school curriculum, while the Letter is ignored? This is a good psychological question. I submit that the Letter is far more frightening than the Metamorphosis. The student (and the teacher) can distance themselves from the latter by mistaking it for a piece of science fiction. By contrast, the immediacy of the former is inescapable, and this scares people. What if, one is led to wonder, my family is not as idyllic as I have been asked to believe? What if my father is Hermann?
In the American curriculum, Greek myths are a perennial favorite. Why? The violence, and in particular the violence within the family, is overwhelming. The saga of the House of Atreus begins with filicide (the killing of a son), nepoticide (the killing of nephews), and cannibalism. In Aischylos’s Oresteia, we finally get the beginnings of a theory of justice, but it takes a millennium to get there. If this does not horrify us, why not look at the Old Testament? God the Father is not above genocide; Abraham attempts filicide before he settles on slaughtering a ram. These are the stories our children are given so their moral education can be furthered. And to think that the anthropologists and psychoanalysts keep complaining about the savagery in Grimm’s fairy tales (Piatti-Farnell, 2018)!
A stock example of human irrationality is the misperceived difference between homicide and suicide. The latter is almost twice as common as the former, a difference that most people get backwards (Lichtenstein et al., 1978). Aha!—we are told, the availability heuristic strikes again. Now, ask what is more likely: for a child to be killed by a parent or by a stranger? Is it irrational to believe the latter is more common? Is it not rational, in the sense of being correct, to believe the risk of intra-family violence is greater than the risk of extra-family violence? And then what? Can we look reality in the face?
These statistics are uncontested (Durose et al., 2005), but they are misleading in the sense that they miss much of the story. In sum, and on average, children are better off with their parents than with strangers. And this brings us back to fathers. The contributions most fathers make to a healthy upbringing have been noted for decades (Mitscherlich, 1963), but only gradually appear to come into focus (Diniz et al., 2021).
The myths of old are not the only voices that have come down to us. The philosopher and military man Xenophon of Athens was well familiar with the Persian Empire and its culture. After leading the most epic retreat in history (the March of the Ten Thousand, described in the Anabasis) Xenophon wrote a book on the education of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire, and perhaps the only conqueror in history who was beloved by those whom he had conquered. In Xenophon’s telling, Cyrus credits his father: “My father, always the best of my teachers, was Cambyses, king of the Persians before me. It was he who first inspired me to love humanity, wisdom, and courage. He taught me to endure all labors and undergo all dangers for the sake of heroic achievement” (Hedrick, 2006, p. 3). Xenophon’s Cyropaideia has for millennia been a manual of effective and virtuous leadership. Masculinity without toxicity.
Marcus Aurelius, the last of “the good emperors”, strikes a similar note in his Meditations, which he wrote late at night in his tent after battling marauding Germans, and, like Kafka, did not mean to publish his private thoughts. Unlike Kafka, however, Marcus, the Stoic, credits the elder men in his life for teaching him virtue. On page 1, Marcus tells us that “From my grandfather Verus I learned morality and manners, and to govern my temper. From my father [Annius Verus], by reputation and my memories: modesty and a manly character.”
This is virtue ethics, not especially en vogue these days, but fathers will understand. The other day, a friend organized a gathering on campus so that men could share stories of their fathers. It was a moving event. I heard the echo of Marcus Aurelius (whose statue with him on horseback I can see from my office). Men remember the dignity of their fathers, their steadfastness, and their calm under pressure. Fathers know not to coddle. They teach self-sufficiency by example, and yet, they also teach how to connect with others to everyone’s benefit. This is what most fathers do, without applause or fanfare. When they don’t say “I love you” often enough, the message of love is still there. We need to understand the code.
