May 15, 2026 • 36 mins
Bestselling author and podcaster Ryan Holiday and former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis discuss America’s founding ideals and why they still matter 250 years later in the second part of a conversation recorded at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Holiday and Mattis explain why adherence to Stoic virtues is valuable in the military and how falling back on one’s first principles can help navigate a crisis.
They reflect on the philosophical ideas that influenced early American leaders like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. They also assess the importance of civic duty and participation in our democracy.
Using the example of Admiral James Stockdale, Mattis explains how members of the military respond to orders they believe are unjustified, and Holiday highlights the need for virtuous leadership as America looks to the future.
Support for Firing Line with Margaret Hoover is provided by Robert Granieri, Vanessa and Henry Cornell, The Fairweather Foundation, The Tepper Foundation, Peter and Mary Kalikow, The Beth and Ravenel Curry Foundation, Pritzker Military Foundation, Cliff and Laurel Asness, The Margaret and Daniel Loeb Foundation, The Marc Haas Foundation, Katharine J. Rayner, Charles R. Schwab, Lindsay and George Billingsley, The Meadowlark Foundation, Jared Stone, Al and Kathy Hubbard, and Craig Newmark Philanthropies.
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(00:01):
It was in finding a purpose thatI stumbled into the study of
philosophy. It wasn't something I picked up
in school, frankly, with something almost forced on me by
my circumstance. We have Stoics who were
emperors, we have Stoics who were generals, we have Stoics
who were politicians, Stoics whowere merchants, people who did
things in the real world. Jim Mattis and Ryan Holiday are
(00:26):
an unlikely duo. General Mattis was raised by the
Greatest Generation, commanded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan,
retiring as a four-star Marine general, and then served as
President Trump's first Defense Secretary.
He is the real deal. Ryan Holiday is a millennial
star podcaster, a best selling author and a leadership coach.
(00:49):
I'll do it tomorrow as the biggest lie in the world.
Both find wisdom in the ancient Stoic philosophers, as did the
founders of our nation. Washington is this embodiment of
the Stoic idea of getting betterbecause of obstacles and
difficulties. The revolution is not the kind
of war that he wants, but he makes it work.
(01:10):
He listens with a willingness tobe persuaded.
He quiets himself down, tones down his temper, and he learns.
And remember, in crises we fall back on 1st principles.
He had them in him. As the US prepares to celebrate
its 250th birthday this summer, we brought them together gather
on a stage at the Hoover Institution at Stanford
(01:32):
University to discuss our history and our future.
Probably said something about the moment of time that you're
in when Stoicism is popular again.
The founders were turning to it because the founding wasn't a
walk in the park either. The Founding Fathers were mostly
still alive when we nearly made Aaron Burr our president.
So get over it. These aren't dark times.
(01:54):
These are testing times. General Jim Mattis, Ryan
Holiday, welcome to this specialtaping of Firing Line at the
Hoover Institution, where, General Mattis, you serve as a
Senior Fellow and I am privileged to serve on the Board
of Overseers. The two of you, to the
(02:14):
uninitiated, may seem like an odd couple in terms of your
pairing, but the truth is that you have found one another in a
shared passion for Stoicism, theancient philosophy that
emphasizes key virtues, courage,discipline, justice, wisdom in
pursuit of the better life. Ryan, you are a best selling
(02:38):
author, an expert on Stoicism, and in your public appearances
you often cite General Mattis. You have referred to him as one
of your heroes. Why?
I think we tend to think of philosophy as something that
might happen on a university campus as opposed to something
that you use in the world what you actually do, which is, which
(03:01):
is what the Stoic philosophers were.
We have Stoics who were emperors, we have Stoics who
were generals. We have Stoics who were
politicians, Stoics who were merchants, people who did things
in the real world. And so I'm less interested in
people like me who write and talk about stoke philosophy and
and much more interested in people who are applying it in
(03:21):
the real world, which General Mattis is an example of.
You famously carried Mark Aurelius meditations with you on
your deployments over over the years.
Did you? Many times.
Ryan, one of your recent books, Courage is Calling, has a
curious blurb on the top. A superb handbook for
cultivating A purposeful life bynone other than General Jim
(03:45):
Mattis. General Mattis, you cite Ryan
often in your interviews. You mentioned that you're
reading his latest books. You're not only just reading the
Stokes themselves, but you're reading how Ryan has repurposed
them. What is it?
We know you to be, as you were called, sort of popularly, the
warrior monk, a man and a general who has, you know, a
(04:06):
library of thousands of, of books.
So what is it about Ryan's work that speaks to you?
Well, first of all, Margaret, thank you because while Ryan and
I have been back and forth communicating many times over
the years, this is actually the first time we've ever met in
public or or met at all. So thank you for this
opportunity. But the problem that you face, I
(04:28):
think, in the military on a personal basis is you're often
careening from one crisis to another.
It's just the norm of military life.
It's military generally are not used unless there's a crisis of
some kind. And a crisis is often defined by
what the people who are affectedare not in control.
(04:49):
You've got to deal with it. You're not going to control it.
And So what you do in a crisis as a human being, you fall back
on something. And in my case, I found that by
falling back on certain values, I was able to keep myself at
least calm enough to take purposeful action because a lot
(05:09):
of people are looking to their officers to say, what are we
going to do about this? And it was in finding a purpose
that I stumbled into the study of philosophy.
It wasn't something I picked up in school, frankly, with
something almost forced on me bymy circumstance with Ryan, what
(05:29):
I saw in his writing and wherever I followed him, it
seemed like everywhere I went, I'd show up at the Naval
account. I go to Notre Dame.
Guess what? Ryan Holiday was here last week.
I think, well, I'm not going to look too good this week then,
because he's a lot better at this stuff than I am, because
he's really done his homework. He studied the applicability and
(05:51):
he understands it in almost classical terms, and so that was
what drew me to Ryan's writings.Yeah, there was a a Stoic about
a century before Christ named Scipio Emilianos, who's one of
the great Roman generals. And he was famous, an ancient
historian said for for training as much in philosophy as he did
at arms. And I think of General Mattis as
(06:14):
maybe a modern reincarnation of that very timeless idea.
The, the warrior monk as an archetype is not a new thing or
even a particularly rare thing. You have to study what you're
doing. And as you, as you talk about in
your book, the idea of learning by trial and error is, is both
arrogant and reckless. And so we turn to the past
(06:36):
because the people in the past lived through situations like
we're in right now, like whatever the one that you're in
as an individual right now. And, and this goes back to the
origin of stoicism. Zeno is this merchants in in the
Mediterranean and he stops at the temple of Apollo and he
asked the the Oracle there for the secret to the good life.
(06:59):
And she tells him that it it is having conversations with the
dead. And that's what he takes this
only later to to me and that that reading the study of
philosophy is a conversation with the dead.
And how do we access this wisdom, bring it into our own
lives? Because again, to to to the
general's point to learn by trial and error, is is is is is
(07:23):
largely an expense paid by people other than you.
We're approaching the 250th anniversary of the Declaration
of Independence, assigning This is a time in our country of
division, uncertainty, and and now war.
General Mattis, What guidance can Americans glean from the
founding generation? Well, Tom Ricks has written a
(07:47):
book about this sort of thing called first principles, and
what you do when you're in a crisis, you fall back on your
first principles, or what are our first principles?
Declaration of Independence. You just mentioned the
Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and you fall back on
those things. And you look at our founding
fathers who drawing from the Enlightenment, which is all
(08:09):
based on the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, they had
guidelines for themselves. And based on those guidelines,
they drew up those documents with a lot of skepticism about
human nature, yet a belief in quote, the people, UN quote.
And So what you do is you, you look for something to kind of
(08:32):
ground yourself on. I mean, think of the Simon and
Garfunkel song about Missus Robinson and where, where have
you gone, Joe DiMaggio? Our nation turned its lonely
eyes to you. In the midst of this time, we
can be turning back to our firstprinciples and the Joe DiMaggio
(08:52):
kind of leadership, which is mature, humble, competent, and
all these things that really aresummed up in in a code that you
live by. Again, a song you when you're on
the road have got to have a codeto live by Crosby, Stills, Nash
and young for us Gray haired guys, right?
And so you the the code you liveby is probably found somewhere
(09:15):
in those principles because there's nothing new under the
sun, as Ryan said, and people have been through it before.
I mean, the people who think this is so bad, what's going on
right now in the country? And yet the Founding fathers
were mostly still alive when we nearly made Aaron Burr our
president. OK, so get over it.
This is nothing. These aren't dark times, Caesar
(09:36):
Stern times. These are testing times.
Welcome to democracy, the worst form of government.
Except for all the rest we've tried.
And it it it's worth pointing out that ancient philosophy was
what the ancients turn to. Also, what when when Marx
realized comes to sowing philosophy, It is roughly 500
years old, so. So he is looking backwards and
(09:59):
going how did people live through moments like this
before? What?
What do my predecessors have to teach me about a moment like
this, as we are doing today? It's this I, I think it's, it's
both reassuring and then of course, a little disappointing
that we're still doing the same things that we've always done.
And when the people point out that the Stokes can be a little
(10:20):
depressing, that's one of the things they're meditating on.
It's just how little has changedover the the last 20 centuries.
But, but it is true that the, the ancients were looking
backwards to Cato and Cato was looking backwards to, to, to, to
Zeno and Clanthes and Cracippus and the founding Stoics.
And so it is this ancient thing.It probably says something about
(10:44):
the moment of time that you're in when, when Stoicism is
popular again. The, the founders were turning
to it because the founding wasn't a walk in the park
either. It was, it was a dark time.
And, and, and just remembering that there's always been moments
like this and that people have lived through it.
And then we're lucky enough thatthey distilled some of those
(11:05):
lessons in into these classical works that we can benefit from
now. That's that's the journey.
You both point to George Washington as sort of the
Seminole founder who drew on thethe Stoics, General Mattis.
What is it about Stoicism that is so beneficial to the
military? You know, if you look at what he
(11:27):
went through, I can give you 100quantifiable reasons why we
failed in our Revolutionary War.And each time you find where
Washington is able to stand the strain.
And he was not a perfect human being, not by a long stretch of
the imagination. But he also knew his own
(11:48):
weaknesses. He knew he had a volcanic
temper. And one of the principles that
you draw from Stoicism is self-control.
And so he learned. How do you actually lead an army
of free men and in some cases slaves?
How do you lead that army to surrender some of their personal
(12:09):
freedom so they can survive and thrive and have victory on a
battlefield eventually? And you see him actually turning
to the examples, you think of Cincinnatus, a wonderful example
that obviously Washington was very, very aware of as and
others too, actually. So what he's gaining is the
(12:30):
ability when he's in a fight up against the finest small army in
the world, remember the Redcoatsa few years later are going to
humble Napoleon. That's the army that he defeated
by keeping his army alive all those years.
And he's doing it largely set ona foundation, I think, of the of
the ancients, of the of the philosophers.
(12:53):
Furthermore, he has learned how to actually apply what they
said, what they wrote about. And he is the most boring leader
you can ever find, I guarantee you, as a colonial officer in
the British Army, as a revolutionary general learning
how to fight from French generals half his age but with
more combat experience, to the father of our country as the
(13:16):
first president, he does the same thing time after time.
He listens with a willingness tobe persuaded.
He quiets himself down, tones down his temper, and he learns.
He listens and he learns. And then matter of fact, one of
his aides said he hear, listen so well he could even hear
(13:36):
what's not being said. That is a man in control of
himself. And then after listening and
learning, he helps them and thenhe leads.
That's the way he melds this army into a war fighting
instrument that can actually survive these bloody battles.
And so you see almost a Direct Line from the examples that he
(13:56):
reads about straight into his conduct on a daily and hourly
basis, listening to even what's not being said.
He can even read body language. In other words, in the midst of
all the crises he's going through.
And remember in crises we fall back on 1st principles.
He had them in him. He didn't just read it and then
pass the course in college. He never went to college.
(14:19):
You know, he actually lived them.
We, we do these men and women a disservice when we make them
superhuman, when we forget that,that this was hard work.
You know, one of the sculptors of Washington spends, you know,
hours with him sitting there. He notes that that it actually
(14:39):
right beneath the surface, therewere these fiery passions that
he was in fact an, an incrediblypassionate and man with a, with,
with quite a temper, as you said.
And, and he, he, he notes that Washington's first victory then
is over that, over himself, which is the, the basis of
stoicism, that, that no one who has not first mastered
(15:01):
themselves is fit to govern or to lead.
And so it was work for Washington.
He's not naturally this way. There are people who are
naturally lowercase Stoic, but Idon't think that would describe
Washington, wouldn't describe John Adams.
It wouldn't describe many of thefounders.
It was, it was work. They, they, they learned about
these ideas as a as young men, as part of the educational
(15:26):
process. And then it was a lifetime of
trying to apply them and fallingshort and trying to get a little
bit better. Falling short and trying to get
a little bit better. And that, that is what makes
Washington so impressive and, and why we were so lucky.
I think Thomas Paine wrote that how uniquely suited Washington
(15:47):
was for the moment. He said there's some, some men
who, you know, adversity makes them wither, makes them fall
apart. And then there's others in which
it, I think he says unlocks a cabinet of fortitude and, and
Washington is this embodiment ofthe stoic idea of, of, of
getting better because of obstacles and difficulties.
(16:07):
The revolution is not the kind of war that he wants.
It does not go the way that he wants, but but he he makes, he
makes it work and that that is, I think, his genius.
You have said, Ryan, that Abraham Lincoln is perhaps the
only president to simultaneouslyembody all four of the Stoic
virtues courage, discipline, justice and wisdom.
(16:32):
How and why was that so unique? What's so impressive about
Lincoln? Unlike many of the other great
men of history, you know, your, your Napoleons, or you're
Caesar's or you're great conquerors, or he, he, he uses
his ambition, his power to, to bind a nation together, to heal,
(16:54):
to, to, to put it back together.You know, he, he said.
Every man has their peculiar ambition, but his ambition,
unlike so many of those toweringfigures, doesn't, doesn't come
at the expense of anyone else. He's, he's, he's great in that
way. He, he was actually writing
(17:15):
about those figures in a letter and he talked about how you
know, you can, you can become great by by making slaves of men
or by freeing slaves. And and there is something I
think uniquely wonderful about Lincoln in in the ends to which
he directs this ambition. And he's a yeah, a towering
(17:38):
figure in that regard that, you know, you could look at him as
this self-made man who who educates himself, who comes
from, you know, to to conquers great heights.
But but, but there is this moralpurpose to it that I think isn't
shared necessarily by all the people who have that office.
You know, that brings to mind Ryan, something that Ralph Waldo
(18:00):
Emerson wrote and lady, he wrotein the masculine tone of the of
his time, so bear with it. But he said great men, great
nations have not been boasters and buffoons.
Rather, they have perceived the terror of life and manned
themselves to face it. By manning themselves, they're
disciplining themselves. They've got to have the inner
(18:21):
character to actually deal with the reality, and any leaders #1
responsibility, whether it be ofa corporation here in Silicon
Valley or a football team or anything else, is they have to
define reality. It is very hard to define an
external reality if your internal geography is churning
(18:43):
with no real anchor point. You'll pick up very quickly if
you have a leader who does not have a quiet mind.
If you're in a crisis, it'll it'll read.
You'll read it loud and clear. And Lincoln was somehow able to
take the worst crisis of our young nation, still young
nation, even at 250. And I think that This is why is
(19:05):
what Ryan's pointing out. Yeah.
But sorry, I was just saying it's easier to be successful and
I think stoicism has been misinterpreted it.
You know it is not a recipe for being a better sociopath, right?
It is easier to succeed if you don't care about anyone else,
right? If if you're not held up by
pesky moral principles or ideas or ideals.
(19:26):
And I think what you see in Lincoln is, is this unique
combination of an incredibly crafty and pragmatic politician
who also had some, some, what doyou call them, flat ass rules.
Some things he would not do, yes, some, some, some, some
lines that were more important to him than anything else.
(19:46):
And that kind of moral leadership is ultimately what
Stoicism is supposed to to to. That's why the the virtue of
justice is so essential. It informs the others.
Looking back General Mattis at the 250 years of this country or
since our signing of the Declaration of Independent, what
are the stoke virtues that have most defined American
leadership? I think that first of all, the
(20:10):
idea that we are all custodians of our democracy, we are all
protectors of our Constitution, all of us have that obligation.
I think we've gotten big as a country.
We're we're spread out, we're diverse.
At times it can seem like these things are kind of out there and
(20:32):
we're more spectators. But democracy is not a spectator
sport. And I think what it really is
brought home is that we're goingto have to get together.
Really what we have is 1 great big dispute resolution process
is what a democracy is. You think one thing, Ryan,
you've got another, I've got another.
(20:52):
And somehow in the interest of our children and generations to
come, we've got to figure out how to deal with it right now.
And I think that that is a fundamental requirement that we
then meet those the the demands with all of us pitching in and
working on. And that is the fundamental idea
(21:14):
of a democracy. We're going, no one's going to
get everything they want their way at times.
We're going to be compromising and we're going to be working
and making that certain that we can deal with those fundamental
problems. So what we turn over to the next
generation is something just a little bit better as our our
goal for a more perfect union. There's a word I never say if
(21:36):
I've had two glasses of wine. It's use of fruct.
And you understand why it was first used in presidential
papers. I found it in Thomas
Jefferson's, but basically it means that he was an agrarian
guy and he said, you know, when you take over your parents farm,
you a guy or gal, you can changethe water course, chop the trees
(21:59):
down, plant things, move the rocks, do whatever you want.
But you are obligated to turn itover to your son or daughter in
as good a condition or better than you got it.
But we hold this nation in use of front and we are obligated to
do this. You cannot, as a Congress,
surrender your constitutional duties.
(22:19):
You do not have the right to do that.
The Constitution is our guide. It is our protector.
But it also must be protected byall of us.
In 1979, General Westmoreland, who commanded U.S. forces in
Vietnam, appeared on the original Firing Line with
William F Buckley Junior. And he discussed sort of what
(22:40):
you're getting at. He he discussed the duties and
the rights of citizenship. Take a look at what he said.
I don't believe our democracy long range is going to work
unless there's an attitude in our society, and particularly
among our young, that they have an obligation of service.
(23:00):
Now a principle of democracy is for every right there is a duty.
For every right of citizenship there's a duty of citizenship.
Now we inherited this principle from the British and the British
I believe, inherited it from Roman law.
Now it it seems to me that in the last decade we have put in
(23:23):
ordinate attention on rights of citizenship, rights, rights,
rights, and in the process we have neglected duties of
citizenship. Of course, General Westmoreland
was speaking in the context of the military draft.
But to what extent, 250 years into our nation's founding, does
(23:44):
our democracy's long term survival depend on this greater
recognition of civic duty? General.
Well, certainly if we don't all protect it, this idea that we're
going to just pass on these freedoms and everything, there's
not going to be any kind of interruption of them is, is
(24:06):
something that history would refute.
We may be a very, very young country in the history of the
world. We are the oldest democracy.
How many people in the world's history have had the freedoms we
have? And it shows why we have got a
duty equal to every right that we get to pass those duty, those
rights on undamaged. I think I I don't have a good
(24:30):
answer for you other than to sayin my case, I was having a whale
of a good time in college, lost my draft deferment.
And as raised by the greatest generation that felt the country
didn't have to be perfect to be worth fighting for.
And if Uncle Sam said you're going, we all went.
A few didn't, but 99% of us carried out our patriotic chore.
(24:56):
And as my Army buddies put it, you were the dumbest draft
Dodger we ever met. You joined the Marine infantry
to get out of the Army. I say, well, yeah, but it worked
out. But my point is that you, you,
each of us has a responsibility and it's not based on a perfect
country. There's never been a perfect
country. We'd have to go a long way to
find a country more willing to point out where we have fallen
(25:19):
short, where we have such documents as our founding
fathers gave us because they were guided by the ancients.
They gave us that one man lockedup in a Birmingham jail without
any access to any of those documents.
But they're so in all of our minds that he could write a
letter from a Birmingham jail and say, America, you are
(25:42):
falling short. We've got to do better.
And so you see it actually an action right there from a
Birmingham jail cell. Ryan But General as Moreland
actually cited that we got this sense from the British, who got
it from the Romans, right? I mean, there's a clear sense
that this does come from the ancients and there's a
connection to the Stoics. But there was a tension even in
(26:02):
the ancient world. Seneca talked about how the
distinction between the Epicureans and the Stoics was
that the Epicureans were more interested in their sort of self
discovery and enlightenment. They retreat to the garden and
the Stoics got involved, he said.
He said that the difference was that the Epicureans got involved
in politics only if they had to,and the Stoics got involved in
(26:24):
less. Something prevented them.
And, you know, today when we think politics, we think, of
course, running or holding office.
But there's so many ways to contribute to public life, the
public sphere, right down to thefact that, you know, 50% of
adults don't vote. So, so we, we have to
participate in this system. And, and if the people who are
(26:44):
philosophically inclined are notparticipating, who are you
ceding the fields to? I think that's, that's
ultimately what the Stoics realize on a very sort of
practical level, that if you retreat off with your books and
your ideas and you just debate these things in theory, but
you're not involved, you're not contributing, you're not making
these things accessible and practical to real people in a
(27:05):
real way. Somebody else is going to step
in and fill that void. And, and so I think, yeah, the,
the, the question of if, if you're not going to participate,
who is participating? Who is speaking on your behalf?
I think that sort of explains the situation that we're in
right now. Ryan, in 2021, you welcomed then
Major General Dan Kane, who is now currently the Chairman of
(27:30):
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to your wildly popular Daily Stoic
podcast. How does the man who is now
supervising America's military engagement around the world rely
on Stoicism? I I imagine it is a difficult
position that he finds himself in.
(27:51):
You don't get to choose your boss in the military or in any
part of the world, right? You don't get to choose your
boss, but you do choose how you decide to serve them.
I, I, I think he's done an an admirable job being the the
voice of reason when he can seems to be someone in command
of himself. You don't see him engaged in
(28:14):
backstabbing or attention seeking behavior.
You you see him when he addresses the press doing so
respectfully, doing so, you know, with a, a certain amount
of humility and gravitas given the the the nature of of what
what he's dealing with. And I, I'd, I'd like to think
(28:35):
and, and you know that, that, and I do know his sort of
personal study of the Stoics has, has informed that approach.
And you want to go back to, to the jobs that these types of
people had 2000 years ago. Marcus Realist is the emperor of
Rome. Seneca is the advisor to Nero.
Cato is there as Caesar attemptsto overthrow the Republic.
(29:00):
The Stoics were there in the thick of the thick of things, in
good times and in bad and tried to do the best they could, try
to do their duty as they as theyunderstood it.
And that's what I understand General Kane is doing.
You, Ryan, are writing a book about Admiral Stockdale, who was
a fellow here at the Hoover Institution.
(29:21):
Explain Stockdale's role first in the Gulf of Tonkin, which is
of course the incident that got the United States military
involved in the Vietnam War. So he is asked to lead the
reprisal raids for something that more or less in, you know,
in his own recollections didn't occur.
(29:42):
And it does bring up the sort offascinating questions that I'd
be curious for you to take on, on what is a soldiers duty in in
when they receive orders that they have questions about what
is a soldiers duty when they're called up to fight in a war that
they disagree with that these are again, these are the
questions where if it stops being an academic exercise and
(30:05):
it starts to be real people in. The world so.
So let me set the table for that.
For what? You just laid the ground and
then turn it to you. General Mattis, Admiral
Stockdale was ordered to engage in retaliatory strikes despite
knowing that there was no attackon US ships.
He later said that he knew the US was about to launch a war
under, quote, false pretenses, but he followed orders anyway.
(30:27):
So how do members of the military handle orders that they
are not sure are justified? Well, first of all, justified.
There is an assumption that orders come down from the
commander in chief who's electedby the American people.
When those orders come down, they're transmitted out of the
(30:49):
Pentagon. That's the actual process.
And at the Pentagon, they will be reviewed by officers.
And I'm going to say something very blunt here.
The president that you elect andthe Congress that we elect have
the right to be wrong. And the US military is still
(31:10):
sworn to carry out those orders now, not illegal orders.
These were not illegal orders. Were they justified?
Debatable, to put it mildly. But what you do is you take you
keep your faith in the fact thatthe Constitution is what you've
(31:33):
sworn to uphold. And if the under the
Constitution, if the president was elected, per the
Constitution, you are to carry out those orders.
Now, if you morally cannot, there were officers that walked
into Admiral then Commander Stockdale's office on board the
aircraft carrier Riskini. And they took their wings off
(31:55):
and drop them on the table. And that is an option.
You can, you can do that. You can only resign, quit once.
And you got to be very careful when you do it because if it's
seen as cowardice, that will ruin not only your reputation,
but that is illegal. You are not allowed to be a
coward when you're given orders.That's why they're called
(32:16):
orders, not likes. You don't have to like it.
It's an order. That's why they call it orders.
OK, so you keep faith that the Constitution will not
necessarily give you the perfectanswer every time, but in the
long run, the control of the people over who they vote in is
what you're defending. And that is why you carry out
(32:39):
the orders. It is at times very difficult
for people who live with the freedom of our civilian society
to comprehend because they're behind that wall of the military
and our CIA to protect their rights to have all the freedom
they have. But if you ever have the
military deciding, no, I don't think that's a good order, I'm
(33:02):
not going to do that one. Or well, I've got a better idea,
you know, we'll go fight these guys.
You don't want a military makingthose decision for you, even if
they're right one time. I don't think it's a surprise to
anybody here, but the US military senior leadership did
not recommend the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
(33:22):
And yet when ordered to do it, we went into the fight.
And this shows civilian control.The military, at that point, you
try to carry out the orders as morally and ethically and
efficiently as you can carry them out.
And maybe someday they'll come back and say we were wrong to do
(33:43):
something, and they'll may come back and say you were right, but
you don't start deciding which orders you're going to obey.
For example, in World War 2, we're bombed in Pearl Harbor.
The military said Japan's the number one enemy.
And FDR, as our President elected committee said Hitler
first, Germany 1st and the Pacific, against the
(34:05):
recommendation of the Chief of Staff of the Army, George
Marshall and Admiral King, the Chief of the Navy, we went after
Europe 1st. And that is the obedience of the
military. Even when they disagree, they
carry out the orders of the elected commander in chief.
And I think ultimately This is why leadership, leaders of
(34:29):
virtue are so important because they make decisions, life or
death decisions that other people have to follow and enact.
And, and I think as I, as I've explored this subject in these
PO WS, you see this fascinating contrast between people who are
obediently and diligently doing their job, upholding their duty,
(34:53):
their responsibilities, And thatis continually being subjected
to political leaders who are making expedient decisions or
making decisions for or emotional decisions or not being
forthright with the American people.
And so, so ultimately, you can'tjust have one section of your
(35:17):
society adhering to the ideas ofthe Constitution or virtues and
values. It needs to be balanced.
So This is why Adams was so adamant that that the
Constitution would fail without,he said a country without virtue
and the people would go through the bounds of the Constitution
like a whale through a net. He he didn't just mean the
(35:39):
political leaders. He didn't just mean himself and
George Washington. He meant that the people that
virtue and values and these ideals had to be important and
they had to be more important than financial self-interest.
They had to be more important than than political parties.
They had to be more important than anything.
That character is fate the ancients believed in.
And they're right. Ultimately, it has to come down
(35:59):
to character. General Mattis, Ryan Holiday,
thank you for joining us here atthe Hoover Institution for a
special edition of Firing Line. It's an honor.
Thank you.
It was in finding a purpose thatI stumbled into the study of
philosophy. It wasn't something I picked up
in school, frankly, with something almost forced on me by
my circumstance. We have Stoics who were
emperors, we have Stoics who were generals, we have Stoics
who were politicians, Stoics whowere merchants, people who did
things in the real world. Jim Mattis and Ryan Holiday are
(00:26):
an unlikely duo. General Mattis was raised by the
Greatest Generation, commanded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan,
retiring as a four-star Marine general, and then served as
President Trump's first Defense Secretary.
He is the real deal. Ryan Holiday is a millennial
star podcaster, a best selling author and a leadership coach.
(00:49):
I'll do it tomorrow as the biggest lie in the world.
Both find wisdom in the ancient Stoic philosophers, as did the
founders of our nation. Washington is this embodiment of
the Stoic idea of getting betterbecause of obstacles and
difficulties. The revolution is not the kind
of war that he wants, but he makes it work.
(01:10):
He listens with a willingness tobe persuaded.
He quiets himself down, tones down his temper, and he learns.
And remember, in crises we fall back on 1st principles.
He had them in him. As the US prepares to celebrate
its 250th birthday this summer, we brought them together gather
on a stage at the Hoover Institution at Stanford
(01:32):
University to discuss our history and our future.
Probably said something about the moment of time that you're
in when Stoicism is popular again.
The founders were turning to it because the founding wasn't a
walk in the park either. The Founding Fathers were mostly
still alive when we nearly made Aaron Burr our president.
So get over it. These aren't dark times.
(01:54):
These are testing times. General Jim Mattis, Ryan
Holiday, welcome to this specialtaping of Firing Line at the
Hoover Institution, where, General Mattis, you serve as a
Senior Fellow and I am privileged to serve on the Board
of Overseers. The two of you, to the
(02:14):
uninitiated, may seem like an odd couple in terms of your
pairing, but the truth is that you have found one another in a
shared passion for Stoicism, theancient philosophy that
emphasizes key virtues, courage,discipline, justice, wisdom in
pursuit of the better life. Ryan, you are a best selling
(02:38):
author, an expert on Stoicism, and in your public appearances
you often cite General Mattis. You have referred to him as one
of your heroes. Why?
I think we tend to think of philosophy as something that
might happen on a university campus as opposed to something
that you use in the world what you actually do, which is, which
(03:01):
is what the Stoic philosophers were.
We have Stoics who were emperors, we have Stoics who
were generals. We have Stoics who were
politicians, Stoics who were merchants, people who did things
in the real world. And so I'm less interested in
people like me who write and talk about stoke philosophy and
and much more interested in people who are applying it in
(03:21):
the real world, which General Mattis is an example of.
You famously carried Mark Aurelius meditations with you on
your deployments over over the years.
Did you? Many times.
Ryan, one of your recent books, Courage is Calling, has a
curious blurb on the top. A superb handbook for
cultivating A purposeful life bynone other than General Jim
(03:45):
Mattis. General Mattis, you cite Ryan
often in your interviews. You mentioned that you're
reading his latest books. You're not only just reading the
Stokes themselves, but you're reading how Ryan has repurposed
them. What is it?
We know you to be, as you were called, sort of popularly, the
warrior monk, a man and a general who has, you know, a
(04:06):
library of thousands of, of books.
So what is it about Ryan's work that speaks to you?
Well, first of all, Margaret, thank you because while Ryan and
I have been back and forth communicating many times over
the years, this is actually the first time we've ever met in
public or or met at all. So thank you for this
opportunity. But the problem that you face, I
(04:28):
think, in the military on a personal basis is you're often
careening from one crisis to another.
It's just the norm of military life.
It's military generally are not used unless there's a crisis of
some kind. And a crisis is often defined by
what the people who are affectedare not in control.
(04:49):
You've got to deal with it. You're not going to control it.
And So what you do in a crisis as a human being, you fall back
on something. And in my case, I found that by
falling back on certain values, I was able to keep myself at
least calm enough to take purposeful action because a lot
(05:09):
of people are looking to their officers to say, what are we
going to do about this? And it was in finding a purpose
that I stumbled into the study of philosophy.
It wasn't something I picked up in school, frankly, with
something almost forced on me bymy circumstance with Ryan, what
(05:29):
I saw in his writing and wherever I followed him, it
seemed like everywhere I went, I'd show up at the Naval
account. I go to Notre Dame.
Guess what? Ryan Holiday was here last week.
I think, well, I'm not going to look too good this week then,
because he's a lot better at this stuff than I am, because
he's really done his homework. He studied the applicability and
(05:51):
he understands it in almost classical terms, and so that was
what drew me to Ryan's writings.Yeah, there was a a Stoic about
a century before Christ named Scipio Emilianos, who's one of
the great Roman generals. And he was famous, an ancient
historian said for for training as much in philosophy as he did
at arms. And I think of General Mattis as
(06:14):
maybe a modern reincarnation of that very timeless idea.
The, the warrior monk as an archetype is not a new thing or
even a particularly rare thing. You have to study what you're
doing. And as you, as you talk about in
your book, the idea of learning by trial and error is, is both
arrogant and reckless. And so we turn to the past
(06:36):
because the people in the past lived through situations like
we're in right now, like whatever the one that you're in
as an individual right now. And, and this goes back to the
origin of stoicism. Zeno is this merchants in in the
Mediterranean and he stops at the temple of Apollo and he
asked the the Oracle there for the secret to the good life.
(06:59):
And she tells him that it it is having conversations with the
dead. And that's what he takes this
only later to to me and that that reading the study of
philosophy is a conversation with the dead.
And how do we access this wisdom, bring it into our own
lives? Because again, to to to the
general's point to learn by trial and error, is is is is is
(07:23):
largely an expense paid by people other than you.
We're approaching the 250th anniversary of the Declaration
of Independence, assigning This is a time in our country of
division, uncertainty, and and now war.
General Mattis, What guidance can Americans glean from the
founding generation? Well, Tom Ricks has written a
(07:47):
book about this sort of thing called first principles, and
what you do when you're in a crisis, you fall back on your
first principles, or what are our first principles?
Declaration of Independence. You just mentioned the
Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and you fall back on
those things. And you look at our founding
fathers who drawing from the Enlightenment, which is all
(08:09):
based on the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, they had
guidelines for themselves. And based on those guidelines,
they drew up those documents with a lot of skepticism about
human nature, yet a belief in quote, the people, UN quote.
And So what you do is you, you look for something to kind of
(08:32):
ground yourself on. I mean, think of the Simon and
Garfunkel song about Missus Robinson and where, where have
you gone, Joe DiMaggio? Our nation turned its lonely
eyes to you. In the midst of this time, we
can be turning back to our firstprinciples and the Joe DiMaggio
(08:52):
kind of leadership, which is mature, humble, competent, and
all these things that really aresummed up in in a code that you
live by. Again, a song you when you're on
the road have got to have a codeto live by Crosby, Stills, Nash
and young for us Gray haired guys, right?
And so you the the code you liveby is probably found somewhere
(09:15):
in those principles because there's nothing new under the
sun, as Ryan said, and people have been through it before.
I mean, the people who think this is so bad, what's going on
right now in the country? And yet the Founding fathers
were mostly still alive when we nearly made Aaron Burr our
president. OK, so get over it.
This is nothing. These aren't dark times, Caesar
(09:36):
Stern times. These are testing times.
Welcome to democracy, the worst form of government.
Except for all the rest we've tried.
And it it it's worth pointing out that ancient philosophy was
what the ancients turn to. Also, what when when Marx
realized comes to sowing philosophy, It is roughly 500
years old, so. So he is looking backwards and
(09:59):
going how did people live through moments like this
before? What?
What do my predecessors have to teach me about a moment like
this, as we are doing today? It's this I, I think it's, it's
both reassuring and then of course, a little disappointing
that we're still doing the same things that we've always done.
And when the people point out that the Stokes can be a little
(10:20):
depressing, that's one of the things they're meditating on.
It's just how little has changedover the the last 20 centuries.
But, but it is true that the, the ancients were looking
backwards to Cato and Cato was looking backwards to, to, to, to
Zeno and Clanthes and Cracippus and the founding Stoics.
And so it is this ancient thing.It probably says something about
(10:44):
the moment of time that you're in when, when Stoicism is
popular again. The, the founders were turning
to it because the founding wasn't a walk in the park
either. It was, it was a dark time.
And, and, and just remembering that there's always been moments
like this and that people have lived through it.
And then we're lucky enough thatthey distilled some of those
(11:05):
lessons in into these classical works that we can benefit from
now. That's that's the journey.
You both point to George Washington as sort of the
Seminole founder who drew on thethe Stoics, General Mattis.
What is it about Stoicism that is so beneficial to the
military? You know, if you look at what he
(11:27):
went through, I can give you 100quantifiable reasons why we
failed in our Revolutionary War.And each time you find where
Washington is able to stand the strain.
And he was not a perfect human being, not by a long stretch of
the imagination. But he also knew his own
(11:48):
weaknesses. He knew he had a volcanic
temper. And one of the principles that
you draw from Stoicism is self-control.
And so he learned. How do you actually lead an army
of free men and in some cases slaves?
How do you lead that army to surrender some of their personal
(12:09):
freedom so they can survive and thrive and have victory on a
battlefield eventually? And you see him actually turning
to the examples, you think of Cincinnatus, a wonderful example
that obviously Washington was very, very aware of as and
others too, actually. So what he's gaining is the
(12:30):
ability when he's in a fight up against the finest small army in
the world, remember the Redcoatsa few years later are going to
humble Napoleon. That's the army that he defeated
by keeping his army alive all those years.
And he's doing it largely set ona foundation, I think, of the of
the ancients, of the of the philosophers.
(12:53):
Furthermore, he has learned how to actually apply what they
said, what they wrote about. And he is the most boring leader
you can ever find, I guarantee you, as a colonial officer in
the British Army, as a revolutionary general learning
how to fight from French generals half his age but with
more combat experience, to the father of our country as the
(13:16):
first president, he does the same thing time after time.
He listens with a willingness tobe persuaded.
He quiets himself down, tones down his temper, and he learns.
He listens and he learns. And then matter of fact, one of
his aides said he hear, listen so well he could even hear
(13:36):
what's not being said. That is a man in control of
himself. And then after listening and
learning, he helps them and thenhe leads.
That's the way he melds this army into a war fighting
instrument that can actually survive these bloody battles.
And so you see almost a Direct Line from the examples that he
(13:56):
reads about straight into his conduct on a daily and hourly
basis, listening to even what's not being said.
He can even read body language. In other words, in the midst of
all the crises he's going through.
And remember in crises we fall back on 1st principles.
He had them in him. He didn't just read it and then
pass the course in college. He never went to college.
(14:19):
You know, he actually lived them.
We, we do these men and women a disservice when we make them
superhuman, when we forget that,that this was hard work.
You know, one of the sculptors of Washington spends, you know,
hours with him sitting there. He notes that that it actually
(14:39):
right beneath the surface, therewere these fiery passions that
he was in fact an, an incrediblypassionate and man with a, with,
with quite a temper, as you said.
And, and he, he, he notes that Washington's first victory then
is over that, over himself, which is the, the basis of
stoicism, that, that no one who has not first mastered
(15:01):
themselves is fit to govern or to lead.
And so it was work for Washington.
He's not naturally this way. There are people who are
naturally lowercase Stoic, but Idon't think that would describe
Washington, wouldn't describe John Adams.
It wouldn't describe many of thefounders.
It was, it was work. They, they, they learned about
these ideas as a as young men, as part of the educational
(15:26):
process. And then it was a lifetime of
trying to apply them and fallingshort and trying to get a little
bit better. Falling short and trying to get
a little bit better. And that, that is what makes
Washington so impressive and, and why we were so lucky.
I think Thomas Paine wrote that how uniquely suited Washington
(15:47):
was for the moment. He said there's some, some men
who, you know, adversity makes them wither, makes them fall
apart. And then there's others in which
it, I think he says unlocks a cabinet of fortitude and, and
Washington is this embodiment ofthe stoic idea of, of, of
getting better because of obstacles and difficulties.
(16:07):
The revolution is not the kind of war that he wants.
It does not go the way that he wants, but but he he makes, he
makes it work and that that is, I think, his genius.
You have said, Ryan, that Abraham Lincoln is perhaps the
only president to simultaneouslyembody all four of the Stoic
virtues courage, discipline, justice and wisdom.
(16:32):
How and why was that so unique? What's so impressive about
Lincoln? Unlike many of the other great
men of history, you know, your, your Napoleons, or you're
Caesar's or you're great conquerors, or he, he, he uses
his ambition, his power to, to bind a nation together, to heal,
(16:54):
to, to, to put it back together.You know, he, he said.
Every man has their peculiar ambition, but his ambition,
unlike so many of those toweringfigures, doesn't, doesn't come
at the expense of anyone else. He's, he's, he's great in that
way. He, he was actually writing
(17:15):
about those figures in a letter and he talked about how you
know, you can, you can become great by by making slaves of men
or by freeing slaves. And and there is something I
think uniquely wonderful about Lincoln in in the ends to which
he directs this ambition. And he's a yeah, a towering
(17:38):
figure in that regard that, you know, you could look at him as
this self-made man who who educates himself, who comes
from, you know, to to conquers great heights.
But but, but there is this moralpurpose to it that I think isn't
shared necessarily by all the people who have that office.
You know, that brings to mind Ryan, something that Ralph Waldo
(18:00):
Emerson wrote and lady, he wrotein the masculine tone of the of
his time, so bear with it. But he said great men, great
nations have not been boasters and buffoons.
Rather, they have perceived the terror of life and manned
themselves to face it. By manning themselves, they're
disciplining themselves. They've got to have the inner
(18:21):
character to actually deal with the reality, and any leaders #1
responsibility, whether it be ofa corporation here in Silicon
Valley or a football team or anything else, is they have to
define reality. It is very hard to define an
external reality if your internal geography is churning
(18:43):
with no real anchor point. You'll pick up very quickly if
you have a leader who does not have a quiet mind.
If you're in a crisis, it'll it'll read.
You'll read it loud and clear. And Lincoln was somehow able to
take the worst crisis of our young nation, still young
nation, even at 250. And I think that This is why is
(19:05):
what Ryan's pointing out. Yeah.
But sorry, I was just saying it's easier to be successful and
I think stoicism has been misinterpreted it.
You know it is not a recipe for being a better sociopath, right?
It is easier to succeed if you don't care about anyone else,
right? If if you're not held up by
pesky moral principles or ideas or ideals.
(19:26):
And I think what you see in Lincoln is, is this unique
combination of an incredibly crafty and pragmatic politician
who also had some, some, what doyou call them, flat ass rules.
Some things he would not do, yes, some, some, some, some
lines that were more important to him than anything else.
(19:46):
And that kind of moral leadership is ultimately what
Stoicism is supposed to to to. That's why the the virtue of
justice is so essential. It informs the others.
Looking back General Mattis at the 250 years of this country or
since our signing of the Declaration of Independent, what
are the stoke virtues that have most defined American
leadership? I think that first of all, the
(20:10):
idea that we are all custodians of our democracy, we are all
protectors of our Constitution, all of us have that obligation.
I think we've gotten big as a country.
We're we're spread out, we're diverse.
At times it can seem like these things are kind of out there and
(20:32):
we're more spectators. But democracy is not a spectator
sport. And I think what it really is
brought home is that we're goingto have to get together.
Really what we have is 1 great big dispute resolution process
is what a democracy is. You think one thing, Ryan,
you've got another, I've got another.
(20:52):
And somehow in the interest of our children and generations to
come, we've got to figure out how to deal with it right now.
And I think that that is a fundamental requirement that we
then meet those the the demands with all of us pitching in and
working on. And that is the fundamental idea
(21:14):
of a democracy. We're going, no one's going to
get everything they want their way at times.
We're going to be compromising and we're going to be working
and making that certain that we can deal with those fundamental
problems. So what we turn over to the next
generation is something just a little bit better as our our
goal for a more perfect union. There's a word I never say if
(21:36):
I've had two glasses of wine. It's use of fruct.
And you understand why it was first used in presidential
papers. I found it in Thomas
Jefferson's, but basically it means that he was an agrarian
guy and he said, you know, when you take over your parents farm,
you a guy or gal, you can changethe water course, chop the trees
(21:59):
down, plant things, move the rocks, do whatever you want.
But you are obligated to turn itover to your son or daughter in
as good a condition or better than you got it.
But we hold this nation in use of front and we are obligated to
do this. You cannot, as a Congress,
surrender your constitutional duties.
(22:19):
You do not have the right to do that.
The Constitution is our guide. It is our protector.
But it also must be protected byall of us.
In 1979, General Westmoreland, who commanded U.S. forces in
Vietnam, appeared on the original Firing Line with
William F Buckley Junior. And he discussed sort of what
(22:40):
you're getting at. He he discussed the duties and
the rights of citizenship. Take a look at what he said.
I don't believe our democracy long range is going to work
unless there's an attitude in our society, and particularly
among our young, that they have an obligation of service.
(23:00):
Now a principle of democracy is for every right there is a duty.
For every right of citizenship there's a duty of citizenship.
Now we inherited this principle from the British and the British
I believe, inherited it from Roman law.
Now it it seems to me that in the last decade we have put in
(23:23):
ordinate attention on rights of citizenship, rights, rights,
rights, and in the process we have neglected duties of
citizenship. Of course, General Westmoreland
was speaking in the context of the military draft.
But to what extent, 250 years into our nation's founding, does
(23:44):
our democracy's long term survival depend on this greater
recognition of civic duty? General.
Well, certainly if we don't all protect it, this idea that we're
going to just pass on these freedoms and everything, there's
not going to be any kind of interruption of them is, is
(24:06):
something that history would refute.
We may be a very, very young country in the history of the
world. We are the oldest democracy.
How many people in the world's history have had the freedoms we
have? And it shows why we have got a
duty equal to every right that we get to pass those duty, those
rights on undamaged. I think I I don't have a good
(24:30):
answer for you other than to sayin my case, I was having a whale
of a good time in college, lost my draft deferment.
And as raised by the greatest generation that felt the country
didn't have to be perfect to be worth fighting for.
And if Uncle Sam said you're going, we all went.
A few didn't, but 99% of us carried out our patriotic chore.
(24:56):
And as my Army buddies put it, you were the dumbest draft
Dodger we ever met. You joined the Marine infantry
to get out of the Army. I say, well, yeah, but it worked
out. But my point is that you, you,
each of us has a responsibility and it's not based on a perfect
country. There's never been a perfect
country. We'd have to go a long way to
find a country more willing to point out where we have fallen
(25:19):
short, where we have such documents as our founding
fathers gave us because they were guided by the ancients.
They gave us that one man lockedup in a Birmingham jail without
any access to any of those documents.
But they're so in all of our minds that he could write a
letter from a Birmingham jail and say, America, you are
(25:42):
falling short. We've got to do better.
And so you see it actually an action right there from a
Birmingham jail cell. Ryan But General as Moreland
actually cited that we got this sense from the British, who got
it from the Romans, right? I mean, there's a clear sense
that this does come from the ancients and there's a
connection to the Stoics. But there was a tension even in
(26:02):
the ancient world. Seneca talked about how the
distinction between the Epicureans and the Stoics was
that the Epicureans were more interested in their sort of self
discovery and enlightenment. They retreat to the garden and
the Stoics got involved, he said.
He said that the difference was that the Epicureans got involved
in politics only if they had to,and the Stoics got involved in
(26:24):
less. Something prevented them.
And, you know, today when we think politics, we think, of
course, running or holding office.
But there's so many ways to contribute to public life, the
public sphere, right down to thefact that, you know, 50% of
adults don't vote. So, so we, we have to
participate in this system. And, and if the people who are
(26:44):
philosophically inclined are notparticipating, who are you
ceding the fields to? I think that's, that's
ultimately what the Stoics realize on a very sort of
practical level, that if you retreat off with your books and
your ideas and you just debate these things in theory, but
you're not involved, you're not contributing, you're not making
these things accessible and practical to real people in a
(27:05):
real way. Somebody else is going to step
in and fill that void. And, and so I think, yeah, the,
the, the question of if, if you're not going to participate,
who is participating? Who is speaking on your behalf?
I think that sort of explains the situation that we're in
right now. Ryan, in 2021, you welcomed then
Major General Dan Kane, who is now currently the Chairman of
(27:30):
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to your wildly popular Daily Stoic
podcast. How does the man who is now
supervising America's military engagement around the world rely
on Stoicism? I I imagine it is a difficult
position that he finds himself in.
(27:51):
You don't get to choose your boss in the military or in any
part of the world, right? You don't get to choose your
boss, but you do choose how you decide to serve them.
I, I, I think he's done an an admirable job being the the
voice of reason when he can seems to be someone in command
of himself. You don't see him engaged in
(28:14):
backstabbing or attention seeking behavior.
You you see him when he addresses the press doing so
respectfully, doing so, you know, with a, a certain amount
of humility and gravitas given the the the nature of of what
what he's dealing with. And I, I'd, I'd like to think
(28:35):
and, and you know that, that, and I do know his sort of
personal study of the Stoics has, has informed that approach.
And you want to go back to, to the jobs that these types of
people had 2000 years ago. Marcus Realist is the emperor of
Rome. Seneca is the advisor to Nero.
Cato is there as Caesar attemptsto overthrow the Republic.
(29:00):
The Stoics were there in the thick of the thick of things, in
good times and in bad and tried to do the best they could, try
to do their duty as they as theyunderstood it.
And that's what I understand General Kane is doing.
You, Ryan, are writing a book about Admiral Stockdale, who was
a fellow here at the Hoover Institution.
(29:21):
Explain Stockdale's role first in the Gulf of Tonkin, which is
of course the incident that got the United States military
involved in the Vietnam War. So he is asked to lead the
reprisal raids for something that more or less in, you know,
in his own recollections didn't occur.
(29:42):
And it does bring up the sort offascinating questions that I'd
be curious for you to take on, on what is a soldiers duty in in
when they receive orders that they have questions about what
is a soldiers duty when they're called up to fight in a war that
they disagree with that these are again, these are the
questions where if it stops being an academic exercise and
(30:05):
it starts to be real people in. The world so.
So let me set the table for that.
For what? You just laid the ground and
then turn it to you. General Mattis, Admiral
Stockdale was ordered to engage in retaliatory strikes despite
knowing that there was no attackon US ships.
He later said that he knew the US was about to launch a war
under, quote, false pretenses, but he followed orders anyway.
(30:27):
So how do members of the military handle orders that they
are not sure are justified? Well, first of all, justified.
There is an assumption that orders come down from the
commander in chief who's electedby the American people.
When those orders come down, they're transmitted out of the
(30:49):
Pentagon. That's the actual process.
And at the Pentagon, they will be reviewed by officers.
And I'm going to say something very blunt here.
The president that you elect andthe Congress that we elect have
the right to be wrong. And the US military is still
(31:10):
sworn to carry out those orders now, not illegal orders.
These were not illegal orders. Were they justified?
Debatable, to put it mildly. But what you do is you take you
keep your faith in the fact thatthe Constitution is what you've
(31:33):
sworn to uphold. And if the under the
Constitution, if the president was elected, per the
Constitution, you are to carry out those orders.
Now, if you morally cannot, there were officers that walked
into Admiral then Commander Stockdale's office on board the
aircraft carrier Riskini. And they took their wings off
(31:55):
and drop them on the table. And that is an option.
You can, you can do that. You can only resign, quit once.
And you got to be very careful when you do it because if it's
seen as cowardice, that will ruin not only your reputation,
but that is illegal. You are not allowed to be a
coward when you're given orders.That's why they're called
(32:16):
orders, not likes. You don't have to like it.
It's an order. That's why they call it orders.
OK, so you keep faith that the Constitution will not
necessarily give you the perfectanswer every time, but in the
long run, the control of the people over who they vote in is
what you're defending. And that is why you carry out
(32:39):
the orders. It is at times very difficult
for people who live with the freedom of our civilian society
to comprehend because they're behind that wall of the military
and our CIA to protect their rights to have all the freedom
they have. But if you ever have the
military deciding, no, I don't think that's a good order, I'm
(33:02):
not going to do that one. Or well, I've got a better idea,
you know, we'll go fight these guys.
You don't want a military makingthose decision for you, even if
they're right one time. I don't think it's a surprise to
anybody here, but the US military senior leadership did
not recommend the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
(33:22):
And yet when ordered to do it, we went into the fight.
And this shows civilian control.The military, at that point, you
try to carry out the orders as morally and ethically and
efficiently as you can carry them out.
And maybe someday they'll come back and say we were wrong to do
(33:43):
something, and they'll may come back and say you were right, but
you don't start deciding which orders you're going to obey.
For example, in World War 2, we're bombed in Pearl Harbor.
The military said Japan's the number one enemy.
And FDR, as our President elected committee said Hitler
first, Germany 1st and the Pacific, against the
(34:05):
recommendation of the Chief of Staff of the Army, George
Marshall and Admiral King, the Chief of the Navy, we went after
Europe 1st. And that is the obedience of the
military. Even when they disagree, they
carry out the orders of the elected commander in chief.
And I think ultimately This is why leadership, leaders of
(34:29):
virtue are so important because they make decisions, life or
death decisions that other people have to follow and enact.
And, and I think as I, as I've explored this subject in these
PO WS, you see this fascinating contrast between people who are
obediently and diligently doing their job, upholding their duty,
(34:53):
their responsibilities, And thatis continually being subjected
to political leaders who are making expedient decisions or
making decisions for or emotional decisions or not being
forthright with the American people.
And so, so ultimately, you can'tjust have one section of your
(35:17):
society adhering to the ideas ofthe Constitution or virtues and
values. It needs to be balanced.
So This is why Adams was so adamant that that the
Constitution would fail without,he said a country without virtue
and the people would go through the bounds of the Constitution
like a whale through a net. He he didn't just mean the
(35:39):
political leaders. He didn't just mean himself and
George Washington. He meant that the people that
virtue and values and these ideals had to be important and
they had to be more important than financial self-interest.
They had to be more important than than political parties.
They had to be more important than anything.
That character is fate the ancients believed in.
And they're right. Ultimately, it has to come down
(35:59):
to character. General Mattis, Ryan Holiday,
thank you for joining us here atthe Hoover Institution for a
special edition of Firing Line. It's an honor.
Thank you.
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