Value for Friday of Week 08 in the season of Dormancy

Living in Discipline, Self-Control and Self-Regulation

Through discipline, we put and keep ourselves in good order.

Discipline is the refining fire by which talent becomes ability. [attributed to Christian writer Roy L. Smith]
Your disciplines today will govern you tomorrow. [attributed to French author Thomas Blandi]
We have been silent witnesses of evil deeds . . . Will our inward power of resistance be strong enough for us to find our way back? [Dietrich Bonhoeffer]
Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly. [attributed to actress Julie Andrews]

“Discipline is the deliberate, or lack of, action to regulate behaviour. It is the practice of frank and strict adherence to legislation and guidelines, and cultural standards and values; the ability to control oneself or other people, even in challenging circumstances.” It is order applied to life. Unlike happiness, discipline is a means to ends, not an end in itself. While military or religious discipline can be rigid, discipline under other circumstances can be creative.

“The word discipline means to impart knowledge and skill – to teach. However, it is often equated with punishment and control. There is a great deal of controversy about the appropriate ways to discipline children, and parents are often confused about effective ways to set limits and instill self-control in their child.” “. . . self-discipline can bolster performance in tasks that require self-control and is linked to a range of positive outcomes, including academic success, decreased procrastination, and delayed gratification . . .”

“Monikers for self-control vary widely and include delay of gratification, effortful control, willpower, executive control, time preference, self-discipline, self-regulation, and ego strength. Moffitt et al. . . . use the term self-control synonymously with conscientiousness, a large class of personality traits that includes responsibility, industriousness, and orderliness (2). The common thread running through diverse conceptualizations of self-control is the idea of effortful regulation of the self by the self.” “Higher self-control is associated with better health, education, and employment outcomes as well as greater financial and overall well-being.” “. . . self-control ‘outdoes’ talent in predicting academic success during adolescence.”

“Self-regulation – control over one’s thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and impulses – has been associated with better life outcomes . . .” “. . . self-regulation is essential for the development and preservation of health and well-being in the early years and across the lifespan.”

Real

True Narratives

Since I wrote you, Helen and I have gone to live all by ourselves in a little garden-house about a quarter of a mile from her home, only a short distance from Ivy Green, the Keller homestead. I very soon made up my mind that I could do nothing with Helen in the midst of the family, who have always allowed her to do exactly as she pleased. She has tyrannized over everybody, her mother, her father, the servants, the little darkies who play with her, and nobody had ever seriously disputed her will, except occasionally her brother James, until I came; and like all tyrants she holds tenaciously to her divine right to do as she pleases. If she ever failed to get what she wanted, it was because of her inability to make the vassals of her household understand what it was. Every thwarted desire was the signal for a passionate outburst, and as she grew older and stronger, these tempests became more violent. As I began to teach her, I was beset by many difficulties. She wouldn't yield a point without contesting it to the bitter end. I couldn't coax her or compromise with her. To get her to do the simplest thing, such as combing her hair or washing her hands or buttoning her boots, it was necessary to use force, and, of course, a distressing scene followed. The family naturally felt inclined to interfere, especially her father, who cannot bear to see her cry. So they were all willing to give in for the sake of peace. Besides, her past experiences and associations were all against me. I saw clearly that it was useless to try to teach her language or anything else until she learned to obey me. I have thought about it a great deal, and the more I think, the more certain I am that obedience is the gateway through which knowledge, yes, and love, too, enter the mind of the child. As I wrote you, I meant to go slowly at first. I had an idea that I could win the love and confidence of my little pupil by the same means that I should use if she could see and hear. But I soon found that I was cut off from all the usual approaches to the child's heart. She accepted everything I did for her as a matter of course, and refused to be caressed, and there was no way of appealing to her affection or sympathy or childish love of approbation. She would or she wouldn't, and there was an end of it. Thus it is, we study, plan and prepare ourselves for a task, and when the hour for action arrives, we find that the system we have followed with such labour and pride does not fit the occasion; and then there's nothing for us to do but rely on something within us, some innate capacity for knowing and doing, which we did not know we possessed until the hour of our great need brought it to light. [Annie Sullivan, Letter to Sophia C. Hopkins, March 11, 1887 (see Sullivan’s letters).]

Johann Sebastian Bach is one of a handful of great composers, along with Beethoven and a few others, without whose contribution music would not be what it is today. By thinking through music in a way that no one had done before, he made it possible for everyone after him to think about it in a variety of new ways. Most notably, perhaps, he explored musical structure not just in words but through his compositions. Harold C. Schoenberg writes that in The Art of Fugue, Bach "summarized everything known about counterpoint and then added the full measure of his own mighty genius . . ." Perhaps Bach's greatest genius was in finding the order in music and simultaneously producing works of consummate beauty. This exemplifies the pinnacle accomplishment of discipline, the purpose of which is not to inflict misery but to alleviate it.

Christoph Wolff, Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician (W. W. Norton and Co., 2000).
Martin Geck, Johann Sebastian Bach: Life and Work (Harcourt, 2006).
Hans T. David, Arthur Mendel & Christoph Wolff, The New Bach Reader: A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents (W. W. Norton and Co., 1998).
John Butt, Ed., The Cambridge Companion to Bach (Cambridge University Press, 1997).
Hans Conrad Fisher, Johann Sebastian Bach: His Life in Pictures and Documents (Hanssler, 2000).
Karl Geiringer, Johann Sebastian Bach: The Culmination of an Era (Oxford University Press, 1966).

Though Dietrich Bonhoeffer's story could well be filed under courage or conviction, here it is filed it per the title of one of his books: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (Touchstone, 1959). His ideas on the subject offer a window into his reasons for seeking to murder Hitler. Obvious as the moral choice may seem to be, in retrospect, actions like his were and are rare, explaining in part why discipleship is in short supply. Many others have seen discipleship through other lenses, terrorists and Hitler's followers included. People tend to be suspicious of so-called true believers, with good reason. Power in the hands of people who believe that moral authority comes from their version of God is inherently problematic. Bonhoeffer's life and philosophy present a study in contradictions. Yet for most people, secularists included, Bonhoeffer is an ethical hero. Perhaps he made good decisions partly for good reasons. Yet without a firm grounding in a universal ethic, humanity is unlikely ever to make discipleship the norm. Bonhoeffer's story and his writings illustrate the complexity of discipleship.

Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (Thomas Nelson, 2010).
Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography (Augsberg Fortress Publishers, 2000) (review).
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics (Augsberg Fortress Publishers, 2004).
Dietrich Bohhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison (Touchstone, 1997).
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: Explorations of Faith in Community (HarperSanFrancisco, 1993).

The narrative of human discipline would be woefully incomplete without the remarkable story of the United States Marine Corps.

Edwin Howard Simmons, The United States Marines: A History (Naval Institute Press, 4th edition, 2002).
Thomas E. Ricks, Making the Corps (Scribner, 1997).
Aaron B. O'Connell, Underdogs: The Making of the Modern Marine Corps (Harvard University Press, 2012).
Iain C. Martin, The Greatest U. S. Marine Corps Stories Ever Told: Unforgettable Stories of Courage, Honor, and Sacrifice (The Lyons Press, 2007).
Chester G. Hearn, Marines: An Illustrated History (Zenith Press, 2007).
H. Avery Chenowith, Semper Fi: The Definitive Illustrated History of the U. S. Marines (Sterline, 2005).
The Marines (PBS documentary film, 2007).

Religious discipline:

Thich Nhat Hanh, Joyfully Together: The Art of Building a Harmonious Community (Parallax Press, 2007).
Louis de La Vallée Pousson, The Way to Nirvana: Six Lectures on Ancient Buddhism as a Discipline of Salvation (Cambridge, 1917).
Lawrence S. Cunningham, Thomas Merton and the Monastic Vision (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1999).

Other narratives on self-control:

Mary Clearman Blew, This Is Not the Ivy League: A Memoir (University of Nebraska Press, 2011): perhaps an anti-memoir
Anna Whitelock, The Queen’s Bed: An Intimate History of Elizabeth’s Court (Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2014): on how this 16th-century British queen used celibacy to consolidate and maintain her power, or so she thought.

From the dark side:

Elizabeth D. Samet, Looking for the Good War: American Amnesia and the Violent Pursuit of Happiness (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2021): “. . . Our Nostalgia for World War II Has Done Real Harm”

Technical and Analytical Readings

Roy F. Baumeister and John Tier ney, Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength (The Penguin Press, 2011): the authors compare the will to a muscle, which can be strong or can become fatigued.
Charles S. Carver & Michael F. Scheier, On the Self-Regulation of Behavior (Cambridge University Press, 1998).
Kathleen D. Vohs & Roy F. Baumeister, eds., Handbook of Self-Regulation: Research, Theory, and Applications (Guilford Press, 3rd edition, 2016).
J.A. Scott Kelso, Dynamic Patterns: The Self-Organization of Brain and Behavior (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1995).
Alison L. Bailey & Margaret Heritage, Self-Regulation in Learning: The Role of Language and Formative Assessment (Harvard Education Press, 2018).
Bryan Sokol, et. al., eds., Self- and Social-Regulation: The Development of Social Interaction, Social Understanding, and Executive Functions (Oxford University Press, 2010).
Gabriele Oettingen & Peter M. Gollwitzer, eds., Self-Regulation in Adolescence (Cambridge University Press, 2015).
Joseph Rees, Reforming the Workplace: A Study of Self-Regulation in Occupational Safety (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016).
Allan N. Schore, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self: The Neurobiology of Emotional Development (Routledge, 2016).
Jeffrey A. Greene & Dale H. Schunk, eds., Handbook of Self-Regulation of Learning and Performance (Routledge, 2018).
Roy F. Baumeister, Self-Regulation and Self-Control: Selected works of Roy F. Baumeister (Routledge, 2018).
Tamsin Grimmer & Wendy Geens, Nurturing Self-Regulation in Early Childhood: Adopting an Ethos and Approach (Routledge, 2022).
Jeffrey A. Greene, Self-Regulation in Education (Routledge, 2018).
Heidi L. Andrade & Margaret Heritage, Using Formative Assessment to Enhance Learning, Achievement, and Academic Self-Regulation (Routledge, 2018).
Linda Cameron & Howard Leventhal, eds., The Self-Regulation of Health and Illness Behaviour (Routledge, 2003).
Denise de Ridder & John de Wit, Self-Regulation in Health Behavior (Wiley, 2006).
C. S. S. Carver & M. F. Scheier, Attention and Self-Regulation: A Control-Theory Approach to Human Behavior (Springer, 1981).
T. Elbert, B. Rockstroh, W. Lutzenberger & N. Birbaumer, eds., Self-Regulation of the Brain and Behavior (Springer, 1984).

Photographs

Documentary and Educational Films

Best of Enemies: The pivotal point in this film is the hyper-controlled, cerebral William F. Buckley, Jr., losing his cool in a debate with Gore Vidal. He never got over it.

Imaginary

Fictional Narratives

Novels:

Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin (1833): see the comments on the opera.

Poetry

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

Discipline does not imply something painful or punitive. Instead, it refers to harmony with an order. We can hear this in much of Johann Sebastian Bach’s music. He explored compositional forms thoroughly and in detail, fleshing out and displaying their elements with unmatched artistic creativity, coupled with scrupulous adherence to musical form. The title of one of his great works, Die Kunst der Fuge (The Art of Fugue), BWV 1080 (1746, rev. 1750) (approx. 60-90’) (recordings), suggests that he was aware of this. His exploration took several forms, most of them in counterpoint. “. . . the work consists largely of variations. It was the author's intention to show what could be done with a fugal theme . . .” This masterwork is the main subject of several books. Top performances on harpsichord include those by Gustav Leonhardt in 1969, Kenneth Gilbert in 1989, and Davitt Moroney in 1999; on piano by Glenn Gould in 1983, Tatyana Nikolayeva in 1993, Konstantin Lifschitz in 2011, Angela Hewitt in 2014, Cédric Pescia in 2014, Zhu Xiao-Mei in 2014, and Daniil Trifonov in 2021; on organ by Helmut Walcha in 1960, Hans Fagius in 2000, Vincent Grappy in 2018, and Daniel Hyde in 2025; in string quartet by Juilliard String Quartet in 1992, Keller Quartett in 1998, and Emerson String Quartet in 2002; and by other ensembles by Musica Antique Köln in 1983, Hespèrion XX in 2000, Les inAttendus in 2021, and Collegium Musicum ‘23 in 2025.

All of Bach’s organ works, individually and especially as a whole, reflect the value of discipline in their composition. For some of the best organists, too, Bach's organ works have served as the centerpiece of their careers. Some of them have spent or are spending a lifetime studying and mastering how to play Bach.