‘The value of truth seems to be equally important. You may recall that when we talked about integrity as a leadership quality that makes people trust you the importance of truth as conceived to be something outside oneself, something to which one owned a primary allegiance, emerged,’ I replied.
‘In what sense can a task have truth? Let us assume that a leader, or anyone else for that matter, should in principle always tell the truth about the task in hand. Is that what you mean?’ asked the young chief executive.
‘Not entirely, though actually seeing clearly the truth about the task – the realities of the situation – is significant and we might return to that later. No, what I had in mind were those tasks that can be interpreted self-evidently or indirectly as pursuits of truth. All forms of education – for truth is the mind’s good – and research in the sciences or arts fall under that banner. (Not, of course, the so-called academic research that is self-serving, banal and lacking a sense of exploration.) Therefore they tend to seem self-evidently meaningful or purposeful to us.’
‘So, to take our present conversation as an example, it feels meaningful because we seek the truth about leadership?’
‘Yes, and even if we got nowhere, the attempt, the journey, would I suspect seem worthwhile to both of us. The same can be said, I suggest, for tasks that involve or have the value of beauty implicit in them. A world-famous film producer said recently: “All my life I have a compulsion to make beautiful things. Beauty is for me an ideal that pulls me towards it.” Her words capture the artistic or creative impulse that is encoded in our spiritual DNA, though some obviously have it in greater measure than others.’
‘Good, truth, beauty – are there any other values that we should look for?’
‘There is a broad tradition, emanating from the ancient Greek philosophers who were the first to explore this area, that these three are the chief values. Other values are satellite moons circling around these planets.
‘It’s interesting that the values appear to have some relation to each other,’ I continued. ‘Scientists and mathematicians, for example, often comment on the beauty of the truths they discover. The relation between truth and goodness is self-evident. Apart from implying someone who adheres to truth, “goodness” also (literally) means wholeness. It is hard to conceive of a person of integrity or a whole person who is not also good.’
‘What of the relation of beauty and goodness?’
‘Here again we tend to link them, at least subjectively. Beauty is the only visible value of the three, and we tend to assume that a beautiful person is morally good…’
‘And an ugly one bad.’
‘In a more sophisticated frame of mind we distinguish between an inner beauty as compared to an exterior or merely physical form of beauty. We all know that a lovely smile can transform a plain face, or that technically good looks can lack beauty. The inner kind of beauty seems to be the obverse side of goodness. As Shakespeare wrote in The Two Gentlemen of Verona:
Is she kind as she is fair?
For beauty lives with kindness.’
While I spoke the young chief executive had been doodling on some paper. He had drawn another three-overlapping-circles model, which he showed me.
‘I am curious to know what we might call x, the place where all the three values come together. If these ideals have their own drawing power; then the x energy must have a three-fold intensity.’
‘We can only speculate about that,’ I replied. ‘If you reverse the image and imagine a task that is on the full overlay of evil, a lie and ugly – the Nazi extermination camps come to mind – the effects on humans, directly or indirectly, are appalling, almost too painful even to contemplate.
‘I am not suggesting that goodness, truth and beauty are there in their pure forms, but we need at least a trace of them – a few drops of the supernatural in the bath of reality – to make our endeavours seem worthwhile, meaningful or purposeful.’
‘Does x have a name?’
‘No, it does not. Maybe love is a contender. For love is an energy or force, and it is the only thing we know that integrates the concepts of good, truth and beauty.’
Men think there are circumstances when they may treat their fellow beings without love, but no such circumstances exist. Inanimate objects may be dealt with/without love, but human beings cannot be treated without love. If you feel no love for people, leave them alone. Occupy yourself with things, with your own self, with anything you please, but not with people.
Leo Tolstoy