Costermonger times

I recently came across a passage from Shakespeare’s play “Henry IV, part 2” that offers a wise commentary on life today. Falstaff is speaking:
“Virtue is of such little regard in these costermonger times that true valor is turned bear-herd.”

The Elizabethan English may seem hard to understand at first, but the meaning can be teased out with the help of some definitions. A “costermonger” is a common street peddler. It has a negative connotation of someone hawking goods with little regard for anything else. A “bear-herd” is a person who keeps bears to be baited by dogs for entertainment, merely a crude animal handler. “Virtue” is a more familiar word meaning being of high moral character, simply doing what is right. “Valor” connotes courage, the strength of character to face danger or doubt with firmness.

I am no Shakespeare scholar, but I paraphrase Falstaff’s words this way:
Nowadays, when so much of our lives has become commercialized, crude self-interest has replaced strength of character and the willingness to live in a rightful manner.

Although Shakespeare wrote Falstaff’s words four centuries ago, they seem especially relevant in our own costermonger times in which everything is for sale, and “entrepreneur” has become someone to be honored irrespective of the consequences of that person’s actions. The word virtue is completely absent in news stories, and valor is almost as rare, appearing occasionally in articles about an act of physical bravery such as in battle. Both are more than merely nouns we come across in literature; they are important values to follow in our daily lives.

Virtue is listening to and following the still, small voice within each of us, the voice of our conscience speaking to us about what is right. Virtue means recognizing the obligation we each have to one another and to the common good that we share as a society. While valor connotes physical bravery, it is much more than that, however. It is a willingness to act to fulfill that obligation, even if doing so puts one at risk.

Virtue and valor apply to every aspect of our lives. Falstaff referred to “costermonger times,” implying a commercial society where soulless buying and selling dominate human interactions. That term describes the nature of our hyper-commercialized times where individuals have been metamorphosed into interchangeable units of production and consumption, where “good” is measured mainly in economic terms, where grifting has become a noble profession. I don’t exaggerate. Virtue and valor are absent in the calculus of our economy. Business ethics is an oxymoron, evinced by news stories of corporate amorality or worse—unsafe products foisted on the public, opposition to environmental and safety regulations, policies that harm workers to increase profits.

Yet trying to follow one’s moral compass in the workplace is a risky endeavor. For many people their economic well-being is dependent on their job, on the opinion of the boss and of the boss’s boss. Losing one’s job can be calamitous, particularly if it is the result of speaking out against something one thinks is wrong. There is no Silver Star for bravery in the business world, nor even a Purple Heart for grievous wounds.

The importance of virtue and valor becomes even more obvious during election campaigns when we are inundated with political ads and videos, and many of our politicians strut and fret across the stage during their time in office, whose words and actions signify nothing except to further their own blind ambition. We need leaders who exhibit virtue and valor, irrespective of party. Moreover, we need not just leaders but candidates for office who manifest those values as well, even in the face of partisan lies and insults. Instead, we have politicians whose views are determined by the latest poll numbers, cynical liars whose “life-long beliefs” reflect the winds of public opinion at the moment. Virtue means knowing right from wrong and then trying to do what is right. Valor is the courage to hew to one’s beliefs, even if it means losing an election.

I suppose that the word “character” expresses the idea of both values. A person of character manifests mental and moral qualities that capture the essence of virtue and valor. I realize that I am dealing with vague terms, but I think that one can recognize those qualities of virtue and valor in a person, whether in a neighbor, boss or co-worker, or politician.

Valor is virtue carried forth into the world.

Sure, that is idealistic, but idealism is an anodyne to cynicism and resignation.