Why the Middle Way Is Not Mediocrity
Aristotle, Daedalus, and the difficult art of proportion
Daedalus tells Icarus not to fly too low or too high. Aristotle calls virtue a mean. Neither is asking us to live timidly. They are asking for something harder: the right action, in the right measure, for the right reason.
“Fly neither too low nor too high.”
It sounds like advice from a cautious uncle.
It is actually one of the most demanding moral instructions in ancient thought.
The middle is often misunderstood as bland compromise. Do not be too brave, too generous, too ambitious, too passionate, too serious, too anything. Stay moderate. Keep your voice down. Do not inconvenience the furniture.
Aristotle means nothing so dull.
For Aristotle, virtue is a mean between excess and deficiency, but the mean is not an average. It is not halfway between courage and cowardice. It is not halfway between generosity and stinginess. It is not whatever leaves everyone equally unimpressed.
The mean is the right response in the right circumstance, toward the right object, at the right time, for the right reason.
This is difficult.
That is why it is virtue.
The middle between two failures
Courage lies between cowardice and recklessness.
The coward avoids the danger that should be faced.
The reckless person runs toward danger for the wrong reason, at the wrong time, or without understanding the cost.
The courageous person sees the danger clearly and acts because something more important is at stake.
Generosity lies between stinginess and waste.
Temperance lies between indulgence and deadness.
Truthfulness lies between boastfulness and false self-deprecation.
Gentleness lies between irascibility and servility.
The mean is not less than the extremes.
It is more exacting.
It requires knowledge of self, circumstance, consequence, and purpose.
Daedalus’ instruction to Icarus belongs in this moral world. The sea below and the sun above are not merely physical hazards. They are images of the failures of proportion.
Too low: fear, heaviness, submission to conditions that should be surpassed.
Too high: intoxication, arrogance, loss of relation to material reality.
The middle is not safety in the timid sense.
It is skilled flight.
Measure and craftsmanship
A craftsman understands that measure is not mediocrity.
A beam must be cut to the proper length. A wall must bear weight. An arch must distribute force. A room must have proportion. A stair must rise at a usable angle. A building cannot survive merely because its architect had strong feelings about it.
Geometry teaches this.
A structure stands because its parts are rightly related.
A life is not so different.
Too much work can destroy family, health, reflection, and friendship.
Too little work can destroy discipline, purpose, responsibility, and self-respect.
Too much ambition can turn service into vanity.
Too little ambition can turn humility into avoidance.
Too much confidence can become arrogance.
Too little confidence can become an excuse not to act.
The proper measure is not discovered once and framed above the fireplace. It is practiced.
The mean is a craft.
The Masonic measure
Masonic symbolism offers a vocabulary for this craft of proportion.
The rule asks whether time and labor have been measured rightly.
The compasses ask what must be circumscribed.
The square asks whether action meets the test of justice.
The plumb asks whether a person remains upright.
The level asks whether distinction has become contempt.
These are not instruments of mediocrity.
They are instruments of exactness.
The well-formed Mason is not the person who avoids every intensity. He is the person whose intensity is placed in service of something worthy.
He can be ambitious without becoming vain.
Courageous without becoming reckless.
Generous without becoming foolish.
Loyal without becoming blind.
Reflective without becoming inactive.
This is the middle way.
Not half-heartedness.
Mastery.
Icarus and the difficult middle
Icarus’ tragedy is not that he had too much desire for the sky.
It is that he mistook the exhilaration of ascent for freedom from measure.
The middle way is difficult because it asks a person to remain aware while he is doing well.
It is easy to remember limits when things are failing.
It is harder to remember them when the wind is good, the ground is far below, and everyone can see that you are flying.
The middle way is not the average of two mistakes.
It is the difficult point at which strength becomes courage, desire becomes love, and ambition becomes service.
Endnotes and further reading
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics Book II, especially the account of virtue as a mean relative to us.
Ovid, Metamorphoses Book 8, on Daedalus’ warning to Icarus to avoid both sea and sun.
Plato, Statesman, on measure, proportion, and the difference between mere quantity and what is fitting.
Related reading: “The Geometry of a Good Life.”
