#452： The Warrior's Manifesto
Episode Stats
Summary
Daniel Modell is a 20-year veteran of the New York City Police Department and the author of The Warrior's Manifesto, a book about what it really means to be a warrior. In this episode of the Art of Manliness podcast, Brad and Daniel discuss what makes a warrior a warrior, why warriors do what they do, why violence is sometimes necessary for peace, and why you don't need a title to become a leader. At the end, Daniel talks about why it isn't just members of the military and law enforcement who need to understand the way of the warrior, but ordinary civilians as well.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. Warrior is a word
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that gets thrown around a lot. There are road warriors, social justice warriors,
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ninja warriors. What does it really mean to be a warrior? I guess today sets out a working
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definition in his book, The Warrior's Manifesto. His name is Daniel Modell, and he earned his master's
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degree in philosophy before going on to serve for 20 years in the New York City Police Department.
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Daniel and I begin our conversation discussing what makes a warrior a warrior and the lessons
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Spartacus can teach us on that score. Daniel and I then discuss why warriors do what they do,
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why violence is sometimes necessary for peace, and what it means to be savage without becoming.
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Savage. We then discuss how bureaucracy kills leadership and why you don't need a title to
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be a leader. At the end of our conversation, Daniel talks about why it isn't just members
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of the military and law enforcement who need to understand the way of the warrior,
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but ordinary civilians as well. After the show's over, check out the show notes at
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So you have a book, The Warrior's Manifesto. But before we get into the book, let's talk about
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your background because I think it's really interesting. You're a 20-year veteran of the
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New York City Police, but you have a, you got your bachelor's in philosophy and your master's
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in philosophy. So how did that happen? How did you go from philosopher to New York City
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It's like a totally natural transition. I mean, both endeavors begin with a P, right?
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So I developed an interest in philosophy as an undergraduate at New York University.
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At the time, there was a, for me anyway, a pretty vibrant intellectual atmosphere on campus.
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We were encouraged to take a range of core courses and philosophy really appealed to me,
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particularly the history of ideas and how they developed and express themselves in different
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systems. At the same time, I'd been interested in the idea of policing for a long time. And so
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right around the time when I finished up my undergraduate studies, I took the exam to become
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a police officer in New York City. Now, as I recall it, there were some legal challenges
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to establishing a list from my exam. So I continued to pursue my interest in philosophy and I ended
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up in a graduate program in the University of Texas at Austin. During that time, a list of candidates
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was finally established from my police exam. And I deferred my investigation to become a cop so
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that I could finish my studies at Austin. And once I did that, I moved back to New York City,
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started my investigation and was hired by the NYPD in 1995.
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And when you were doing your graduate studies in philosophy, what type of philosophy were you
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focused on? I started out at the University of Texas with a specialty in ancient philosophy.
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During my time there, I ended up hooking up with a professor by the name of Edwin Allaire,
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whose work was more in early modern philosophy. So over time, I developed an interest in that,
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Descartes, Descartes, Hume, Berkeley, figures like that. I still maintain an interest in ancient
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philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. Some of the pre-Socratics really interested me. But I ended
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up writing my master's thesis on something more like early modern with Allaire.
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Well, I'm curious, when you finished your master's and you went back to become a cop,
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how did your background in philosophy influence your approach to policing?
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It's an interesting question. It's not that easy to answer. I'd say there was,
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in some ways, an influence, I guess in the broadest sense, inquiry, investigation,
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a willingness to think deeply about issues or problems are core factors in philosophy.
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And in some ways, although the practical details are very different, policing requires some of that
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capacity and willingness to inquire, investigate, figure out what at root is happening in a particular
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situation, often a volatile one. So in a very broad sense, there are these mirrored set of skills
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between the two. But with that said, I mean, I don't want to exaggerate the similarities in the
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course of my career as a cop. I don't recall any encounters in which I was tempted to cite a passage
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from Plato's Symposium or to counter a crazy rant from an emotionally disturbed person by pointing out
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to them the law of non-contradiction or something like that. But maybe the best way I could say it is
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this, speaking for myself, developing a thoughtful temperament was helpful in navigating some of the
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craziness of policing and studying philosophy did help.
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I'm mad. Yeah, it would have been great for a cop show if you had a quip with the symposium.
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Yeah. That's my next project. With quotes from Plato.
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Right. And so are you still with NYPD or are you doing something else now?
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I'm not. I retired in 2015. So about three years ago, I retired as a lieutenant. I, in the meantime,
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started a business with a couple of partners of mine. They were sergeants in the NYPD. Both of them
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are also retired at this point. It's called ARIES Tactical and Emergency Management Solutions. We do
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self-defense and tactical training for civilians, law enforcement, security personnel, and we have a
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Well, let's talk about you've also become a writer. So you got this book, The Warrior's Manifesto. What
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was the impetus behind this book? Was it basically trying to distill all your thoughts about,
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I don't know, what it means to be a warrior? Because then again, I mean, you're an interesting
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position there because you've studied this abstractly, right? You know, reading Plato
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and Aristotle, but also you've lived it day to day. So was there like a moment after you retired,
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be like, I need to write this book or has this been brewing in your mind for a long time and you
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finally just decided to put, I guess, finger to keyboard and get it out there?
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Yeah, the latter, Brett. I'd been thinking about a project like that for some time, certainly before
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I retired. It's hard to kind of bear down and write a book while you're, you know, working third
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platoon at a Bronx precinct. But yeah, I'd been thinking about it for some time. I would say
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there were two major factors that kind of pushed the book out of me. The first was, oh, this kind of
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felt need to kind of understand in fundamental terms, what the warrior professions are really
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about, why society needs military and law enforcement and the ideals that they should strive
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towards. But the second one, and this was felt more towards the end of my career, it's related to the
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first in some ways, though, was a desire to answer the relentless din of criticism that was coming from
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some of the more shrill activists around at the time and directed at law enforcement currently. But
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look, let's not forget, there was some pretty shrill criticism of the military not more than a couple
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generations ago. So I wanted to provide some sort of comprehensive answer to that kind of criticism,
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not directly, but more in the way of establishing a framework that kind of detailed the extent to
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which the warrior professions are critical and really bulwarks of civilization.
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Yeah, it's platonic. It's sort of platonic in a way. So let's get platonic. All right,
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let's start off with definitions. So what, in your idea of a warrior, what makes a warrior a warrior?
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Yeah, good question. And one that I try to tackle in the book. I'd say when we raise large questions like
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what is an X, what is an X? It's, as a point of method, it's always good to start with common or
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traditional answers to the question. That is, by the way, a Socratic. Thanks for...
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So, for example, if you want to say that fighting for country is a defining characteristic of the warrior,
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you want to figure out whether that excludes too much and includes too much. I think that it does.
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So if you want to take that as a defining characteristic, let's not forget you have to
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include Japanese soldiers of the Axis who, at certain times, you know, caught Chinese infants on
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their bayonets in a kind of warped competition. And on the other hand, you would have to exclude an
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extraordinary figure like Spartacus, who didn't fight under the banner of any nation, quite the
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contrary. Having said that, by the way, fighting for country may be critically important personally
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for individual warriors, and maybe should be in many cases. But I would say it can't be a defining
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characteristic of the warrior as such, because it includes too much and excludes too much.
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The same is true, if I could push forward with it a little bit, even if you want to say fighting in
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a war, right, really defines the warrior. Because think about it this way, there are many, many hundreds,
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thousands who have joined Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force. And with everything that that implies,
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willingness to fight and die so that others can sleep soundly. But given the times that they
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joined the military, which were relatively peaceful, they never did fight in a war. But I know plenty of
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these guys, as I'm sure you do, Brett, and it seems wrong not to call them warriors. The same, I would say,
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is true of cops. Cops, at least in their capacity as cops, don't fight in wars, as that term's commonly
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understood anyway. But nevertheless, you know, I've served with many of them over the course of a couple
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of decades, and they are every bit the warrior. So, and then on the other side of it, not everybody who
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dons a uniform or who's even in a trench is necessarily a warrior. And some of the better
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soldiers will be the first to tell you that. Hey, we could go on. I mean, historically,
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look, some who fought in wars after they defeated or achieved their military end would rape and pillage.
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And we don't generally want to apply the kind of the term warrior to those guys because they behave
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like thugs, right? Thug and warrior, at least in my mind, don't go together. So I think when you
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try to consider what it is that's essential to being a warrior, we're looking for something larger.
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And I would say that it is fighting for an ideal understood as such, as a matter of professional
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obligation, and as a matter of principle, when that ideal is potentially threatened by violence or
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attack. Gotcha. And I mean, you mentioned Spartacus in the book, you went to Great to Tell. I'm using
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him as sort of an example of what it means to be a warrior, right? Because he said he didn't fight for
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a country. That's right. But despite that, you still considered him a warrior. So what is it about
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Spartacus that lines up with that definition that you've come up with? Well, I think that what's so
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compelling about Spartacus as a historical figure, and in no small part as a figure of myth,
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is that he defied all of these traditional categorizations associated with the warrior.
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Like I said, and as I point out in the book, he didn't fight under the banner of any nation.
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He certainly didn't have a traditional organization to his army. And yet he fought with a purity of purpose
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and a kind of stubborn defiance in the face of adversity that any warrior would surely recognize
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in himself. So I think he really captured very neatly that you fight for a larger ideal, in his case,
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freedom. He started out as already was captured and kind of forced into slavery in the gladiatorial
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games. So he fought for freedom, both for himself and rallied others to his cause. And when that was
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threatened, as it was immediately, by counterattacks and his possible destruction, you know, he fought
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for it. He fought for himself with all that he had, tactical savvy, raw guts, and again, all in the
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service of that larger ideal of freedom. And that's a warrior. I mean, I think that really sums up what a
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So we've talked about the what of the warrior. They fight for some ideal. Let's talk about those ideals.
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That's like the why of the warrior. How do you decide which ideals are worth fighting for? Right?
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Because that gets tricky, right? Because, you know, everyone thinks everyone, like it's that phrase,
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everyone's a hero in their own brain or their own mind. Yeah. So they might think they're fighting for
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a great cause, but it might not be. It can get pretty tricky at times. I would say we,
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there are some views that are obviously kind of off. If you're fighting for the right to
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exterminate a defenseless minority, it seems a wild set of rationalizations that would
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justify that in your own mind, where you're still calling yourself a warrior, somebody who's fighting
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for some worthy cause. Does that make sense so far? Yeah, that makes sense so far.
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Yeah. So while I, I think you're right, there's, there are issues that are debatable around the
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periphery. At the core, a warrior is, is a protector. He, a warrior doesn't want to fight or kill the
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defenseless or the innocent to the extent that a warrior wants to fight. He wants to fight bad guys,
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or he wants to fight another warrior. So at core, I think we start there in trying to figure out
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what it is that the ideals toward which warrior should strive. Does that sort of answer the
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question at least in a preliminary way? Yeah. In a preliminary way. Sure. Well,
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let's get, I think examples are useful, like Plutarch, right? That's why I love Plutarch. He gives
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actual examples and you do this in your book. You talk about the Persian war as sort of a case study
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in exploring the why of the warriors. What can the Persian war teach us about that?
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So the Persian war, I think is instructive in this sense. It was, it was a conflict between
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two alternative visions, right? Of society. One represented by Xerxes was essentially planned,
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and despotic, surrounded by vassal colonies, and Greece, which was really a series of separate
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nations, separate city-states, each inclined often to spar with the other, each very jealous about
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guarding its independence, and with at least a rudimentary respect for freedom.
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freedom. So when Xerxes invaded Greece to make it yet another vassal state, the Greeks, or at least some
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of them, formed a confederation to stand up against that attack and maintain their freedom and their
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independence. The, one of the most dramatic battles of that conflict was the 300 at Thermopylae,
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they, there was a small group of Spartans for religious reasons. Spartan didn't enter fully
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into the war, at least not at that time. And so a small group of 300 led by their, a king, Leonidas,
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took up a position at a terrain that was tactically advantageous to them, Thermopylae, the hot gates,
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right? It was narrow. And so allowed them to manage and control of the conflict, even though
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the Persian army was enormous, far larger, of course, than the 300-some estimates, like from Herodotus,
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say that there was a million of them. That might be an exaggeration, but in any case,
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there were many, many more than the 300 Spartans. For several days, the Spartans were able to defy and
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defeat the Persian army and gave time for the Greek Confederation to set themselves up both at sea
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and on land. And it was their sacrifice that allowed the battles at Salamis and Plataea to go
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the way of the Greeks. The Spartans were defeated ultimately, I think almost exclusively because they
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were betrayed by one of their own and they ended up getting flanked by the Persians. But they all died
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to a man. And again, they died in the service of freedom. They didn't want to function as yet
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another vassal state in the enormous empire of Persia. That's a worthy ideal to fight for.
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And yeah, so I think the Spartan 300 are great examples of that.
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Yeah. And even then, it gets tricky, right? Because if I remember from my classical history,
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the Persian emperors, yeah, they'd come in, they'd make these states, let's call them,
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they weren't states, but like these city states, part of their kingdom, and they'd be vassal and
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had to pay taxes. But other than that, they were pretty lenient. They let them continue to worship
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their own gods, kind of function in their own culture. They didn't impose Persian culture on them.
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And so it'd be like, yeah, that sounds not so bad, right? Like, you know, they just kind of leave us
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alone and give us some protection maybe, but there's always a price. And that price is always
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that freedom. And the Greeks weren't willing to pay that price.
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That's right. The Greeks were, at that time, fifth century Greeks were an unruly lot. I think that was
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their great virtue. And part of what makes them intellectually so interesting, the advancement
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in philosophy, mathematics, geometry, inquiry generally was really potent in at least some
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of the cultures. Interestingly enough, I mean, you're right, history is kind of sloppy, not so
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much in Sparta. Despite their bravery at Thermopylae, the Spartans were not generally a really inquisitive
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lot, like the Athenians. And in fact, I'll go further and say that the Spartans in general were much more
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noble in defeat than they were in victory. The Spartans, after all, had a whole system of
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helitry, if you remember any of that. It was in many ways a slave society itself. So history looked as
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always more sloppy maybe than we'd like. But on the whole, on the whole, when you compare the Persian
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Empire at the time under Xerxes, there was a definite overlord at its center. He did see himself
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as a god. He wasn't alone in that, but he did see himself as a god and thought that the remainder of
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the world should come to heel because after all, he was a god. And on the other side, you have the Greeks
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who didn't accept that, who believed in, at least some of them, in the power of individual inquiry,
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the importance of freedom, democracy. And between those two, I think that the Greek approach is the
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right one. And in this case, at least, it showed in battle.
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Yeah. And I imagine the why of the warrior, I mean, it's something that I think someone who's not in that
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position has to grapple with. They probably grapple with it all the time, whether they're a police
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officer or a soldier. They sign up for a position where their job is to execute an order or execute
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a law, right? But they might have to think, they might think, well, is the law just? They might go
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through them, but they still have to, you know, they're in a position where they have to, that's
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their job, but there's still, there's that internal struggle. Well, is this the right thing? I mean,
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how do you, in your experience, or just talking to other people in that position, how, what's the
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thought process that goes on there when they're trying to figure out the why of the warrior? They
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might have this ideal, but on the day-to-day, they might feel like they're coming up short on it.
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I think as a practical matter, most guys in law enforcement and the military have a healthy respect
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for the notions of freedom and individual rights. So in the broad sense, I don't think that they
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struggle at that level. But as you're getting to and pointing out, it's more on, you know,
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with particular decisions and our particular policies, are they just? Now, how do you navigate
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that? It's a good question. I think you, you never want to forget your humanity, right? And you always
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want to remember that in the end, you're there to protect, right? In the broader sense, the defenseless,
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the innocent, those who aren't really in a position to defend themselves. And so if you start to
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veer towards, look, I'm just sort of doing this by the numbers and for the numbers, if I can put it
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that way, my, or to be specific about it, my boss or executive management wants X number of criminal
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court summonses issued per month or X number of arrests. And so, you know, I'm just going to do it,
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even though discretion under other circumstances would press me to probably give a break in a lot
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of these cases. Otherwise, that's when you start veering into really losing a sense of yourself.
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And that is a problem in bureaucracies where performance is so commonly measured quantitatively.
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It's that, to borrow a phrase from Jerry Muller, the tyranny of metrics. But when you start thinking
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sort of almost exclusively in terms of numbers, you're going wrong. You want to think more
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qualitatively about what it is that you do, because if you don't, you kind of sap the nobility from the
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No, that makes sense. It's very Aristotelian, right? Where, you know, it's the meat that you're
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trying, it's like using your, what do you call it, phronesis, your practical wisdom to figure out
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what the right thing to do in the right, at the right time for the right reasons.
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To be sure. Yeah, to be sure. And like I said, one, one tell is this tendency nowadays to kind of
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quantify everything and think that you've summed up the person or the world by, by doing that.
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policing, and I would say the military too, has always been more art than science. Don't get me
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wrong, science plays a role in both professions. But it's always been more art than science,
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because after all, in the end, it's about human relationships and how you navigate those
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under extreme circumstances, to be sure. But nevertheless, they're human relationships. And
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they, in the end, human relationships can't be finally quantified, if that makes sense.
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That makes sense. Facebook thinks you can quantify relationships, but that's not how it works in
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real life. We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors. And now back to the show.
00:27:53.280
Yeah. Well, so let's kind of carry on this idea about the tension between a warrior and bureaucracy.
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Yeah. We had a guest on a couple of weeks ago, talking about the worth of war, and he talks about
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all the innovations that have come from warfare. And one of them is bureaucracy. We got bureaucracy
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from to wage war more efficiently. So there's a role for bureaucracy is that makes things more
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efficient, make sure things get done. But as you said, it's a double-edged sword, and it can sort of
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muck things up and make things harder on those sort of day-to-day questions. So in the book,
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you talk about there's a dichotomy between leaders and bureaucrats. How do you, what's the difference
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between the two? A leader is really all about vision. He looks to articulate a vision for those
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who follow him, subordinates, even peers, and sometimes, frankly, even supervisors. And a leader
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looks to define a common sense of purpose and to inspire his guys to act in accordance with the best
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within them. He's looking to bring out the best in his guys and the best in himself. Again, that's a
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qualitative endeavor, right? Going back to that whole quality quantity dichotomy that we briefly
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talked about before. But I'd say at root, and perhaps most importantly, in practice, the leader
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treats his men as men. Now contrast that with the bureaucrat who concerns himself primarily with
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securing his status within an organization, particularly the executive managers. The idol
00:29:39.760
that a functionary kind of worships is moving up promotion. And so the art that he learns is not so
00:29:50.700
much how to bring out the best within the guys that you work with, but rather manipulation, politicking,
00:29:59.740
careerism. And he can't inspire people because, among other things, the bureaucrat doesn't generally
00:30:11.760
share glory, doesn't accept blame. One thing that you'll almost never hear from a bureaucrat is,
00:30:20.660
that's my fault. That one's on me. It's my responsibility. But you will hear that regularly
00:30:26.640
from a leader. So the bureaucrat, especially a certain kind of bureaucrat, is really concerned
00:30:34.280
with propelling himself forward within a bureaucracy. So among other things, what the bureaucrat has to
00:30:43.460
master is process, protocol, paperwork, procedure. And in many ways, these define the limits of his world.
00:30:54.480
Whether the process, the paperwork, the procedural minutiae serve any meaningful purpose,
00:31:02.780
it's a question that a functionary never really raises. And in fact, functionaries don't question,
00:31:12.460
period, because they understand implicitly, if nothing else, that pushing upward in a bureaucracy means
00:31:20.260
not upsetting the status quo and not rocking the boat. The leader is the opposite, right? He questions
00:31:27.580
when it makes sense. He challenges when he needs to. He speaks out because he's motivated by a larger sense
00:31:36.060
of right and wrong for himself, for his guys, and for the organization too, for that matter.
00:31:41.800
So I think those are kind of the critically different portraits of the leader and the bureaucrat.
00:31:49.980
I wonder, I'm actually curious about the guy that you spoke to about the development of bureaucracy.
00:32:00.140
And I wonder whether it's really as efficient as we think. When I think of bureaucracy sometimes,
00:32:06.140
and I just kind of run through a Rolodex of concretes, I think of experiences that I had at,
00:32:13.880
I don't know, the DMV or the post office, and they don't seem all that efficient.
00:32:21.980
And frankly, I'll say even having been in the NYPD for 20 years, so I'm kind of sort of intimately
00:32:28.180
familiar with that bureaucracy. Efficiency isn't a word that I would attach to the organization,
00:32:37.300
but I wonder if maybe he wasn't talking about the initial stages of development of bureaucracies
00:32:43.640
in military contexts. Yeah, I think he's talking more about that. There's actually some semblance
00:32:49.780
of organization that went on that didn't exist before. As you were talking, describing the difference
00:32:54.880
between a bureaucrat and a leader, and you're describing a bureaucrat, the thought that came
00:32:58.420
to mind was that it's really easy to become a bureaucrat, right? Because as you said, you have
00:33:07.780
a system, you know exactly what you're supposed to do. That's comforting, right? So you do that.
00:33:14.160
So I can see why, I mean, a lot of people, a lot of times we feel like, oh, I would never become a
00:33:19.840
bureaucrat. But like, I think our tendency would be like, yeah, that's nice, because I got someone,
00:33:24.940
I got something to tell me exactly what to do each and every day. And I don't have to think
00:33:28.380
at all. That's right. You're exactly right. The comfort of bureaucracy is that you never really
00:33:36.220
have to raise larger questions for yourself. Your role is entirely defined by procedure and
00:33:44.520
protocol. Hannah Arendt made a really interesting point in regards to this in her book on Eichmann,
00:33:53.120
where she said, look, in some ways, we want to see a figure like Eichmann as this deeply and
00:34:02.500
obviously evil Darth Vader, Satan-like character. But the truth is, he was the perfect bureaucrat. I mean,
00:34:11.600
all he was really doing was pushing paper from one side of the desk to the other, because that's what
00:34:18.620
the bureaucracy defined his role as. The fact that the papers involved transporting defenseless people
00:34:29.060
to gas chambers never really fundamentally entered his thinking. He was all about his role within the
00:34:37.540
bureaucracy. But of course, that's one of the problems with bureaucracy. It is comforting in
00:34:45.640
some sense. It is easy. But what it takes from you is that very human impulse to question, but am I doing
00:34:55.520
the right thing? And so that's the deep problem with bureaucracy. And it certainly asserts itself in,
00:35:03.520
I think, many, many different organizations, but certainly law enforcement and military organizations.
00:35:11.380
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first purchase. And now back to the show. And I imagine that there's a tension for individuals
00:37:30.060
who are striving to be leaders because on the one hand, they want a question and they want to make
00:37:35.060
sure they're doing the right thing. But the other hand, you have to sort of play the game. If you just
00:37:39.420
run roughshod and you just become belligerent and say, you guys are idiots, you're doing everything
00:37:45.240
wrong. Like no one's going to listen to you, right? They'll get kicked out or they'll just
00:37:49.540
ignored. So how, and maybe in your own experience or seeing the experience of other people in law
00:37:55.040
enforcement or the military, how do they balance that tension of being a leader, but also having
00:38:01.080
to sort of play the game so people actually pay attention to them? Does that make sense?
00:38:05.220
Well, let me start by saying, frankly, a lot of them didn't. Leadership within law enforcement
00:38:12.260
organizations among executive management, I don't think that it's common where you would expect to
00:38:18.360
see it, by the way, other things being equal, but it's not that common. And it's not common for
00:38:25.340
precisely the reason that you cite. If you don't, as it were, play the game, if you cast yourself as
00:38:35.120
somebody who's going to question and rock the boat, you're not going to be pushed forward in
00:38:42.300
the bureaucracy. Bureaucracy loves its own status quo. So if you're all about change and trying to make
00:38:48.860
things better and trying to improve morale, for example, you're going to have a hard go getting
00:38:57.380
pushed up in the bureaucracy. It's what's required, certainly more than questioning and what is
00:39:05.960
admired by the bureaucracy more than challenging is how could I push forward and protect the agency?
00:39:16.340
I had an interesting conversation once with a very high ranking chief in the NYPD. He's still there.
00:39:24.260
His name's not important. But it was during the whole controversy with Stop Question and Frisk,
00:39:33.600
the court case was underway. And so I was chatting with him about it. And so I said,
00:39:43.140
the case doesn't seem to be going well for the agency. And look, maybe that's right. You know,
00:39:50.300
it's not very clear that the Stop Question and Frisk policy was ever a great approach to getting guns
00:39:57.240
off the street. That is to say, once again, quantity over quality. But in any case, we could talk more
00:40:03.700
about that if you want. But I really want to actually just highlight the nature of the discussion I had
00:40:09.760
with this chief. And so he said, yeah, well, look, hopefully the court case does go well for the
00:40:19.620
agency. And I said to him at one point, but look, maybe that's what we need. You know, what if we were
00:40:28.320
wrong about the whole approach to Stop Question and Frisk? And he stopped for a minute and just kind of
00:40:36.160
stared, I'm tempted to say somewhat vacantly at me. But then with a certain amount of edginess,
00:40:42.720
he said, well, look, in the end, you got to defend the department, don't you? And I said,
00:40:51.620
but what if the department's wrong? And I tell you, that was really the last discussion I ever had with
00:40:59.400
him. He didn't want to talk to me anymore after that. And that captures the bureaucratic mentality
00:41:08.920
at its most dysfunctional core. You just don't question whether the policy that you're implementing
00:41:19.820
really makes sense, whether it really serves a larger mission, whether it's the right thing to do
00:41:28.280
or not. It's really just about defending the agency or the bureaucracy or the organization,
00:41:35.820
just because that becomes your whole world. So I might've gone a little far afield in tackling the
00:41:43.580
question that you answered, Brett, but it's difficult to be a leader and to be an executive manager
00:41:56.100
in a large bureaucracy, at least as they're currently constituted. It's just not a common thing. So much
00:42:07.880
of executive management is about getting the bars and the stars. And there doesn't seem to be much
00:42:15.360
active thought beyond that. I hate to paint such a pessimistic picture of things, but I'm afraid that
00:42:23.720
it's well-grounded. So I imagine in your idea of a warrior, a warrior would be a leader, have those
00:42:32.540
traits and not a bureaucrat, correct? Sure. Because the warrior is driven by, or should be driven by,
00:42:41.800
a sense of right and wrong. A warrior would never be disinclined to question. That doesn't mean
00:42:50.200
he's questioning his every single action. I mean, when you've got to fight, you've got to fight. And
00:42:55.880
most of the time it's pretty clear when you have to do that. But there's a whole series of peripheral
00:43:02.780
issues that as an independent actor who's striving towards the best within himself and towards larger
00:43:13.660
ideals, he, yeah, he would tend to question and to challenge when that's necessary. So I think the rudiments
00:43:23.700
of leadership kind of fall within every warrior, not necessarily every warrior is a leader, but all the
00:43:29.960
rudiments of solid leadership, I think are within the warrior. And that's things like self-possession, the
00:43:42.320
willingness to grow, the willingness to ask whether at any point I'm doing the right thing, you know,
00:43:50.860
whether our sense of purpose has gotten lost along the way somewhere. So yes, I would say
00:43:58.660
leadership certainly comes from those who dedicate themselves to developing the art of the warrior.
00:44:06.540
And I don't think that you can develop into a leader if you're mired in process and protocol and
00:44:16.560
paperwork and procedures, you know, you know, the, uh, the, the, the real center of most larger
00:44:25.140
organizations. So we've been talking about the ideals of a warrior, uh, what makes a warrior, but we
00:44:30.720
haven't hit on the actions of a warrior because they have these ideals that they fight for that. So
00:44:35.820
that means they have to use violence sometimes. And you call this the, the central, the central
00:44:41.720
riddle of the warrior, right? That to fight violence, you have to use violence. Why is that the central
00:44:48.780
So there's a common belief that violence begets violence, right? And so if the warrior uses violence
00:45:00.480
and surely he does, doesn't that merely perpetuate something that's not at all desirable, that is to
00:45:10.640
say in using violence, you merely beget further violence. So the warrior is really just a kind of
00:45:19.020
taking up his appointed role in this perpetual dance that never ends. So it is a riddle and it's a
00:45:30.040
challenge that's, that's worth thinking about and answering. I would say that historically, as a general
00:45:40.140
principle, it's not true that violence necessarily begets violence. I'll give you a specific example that
00:45:49.920
may be instructive. Let's take the conflict between primarily the United States and Japan during
00:45:59.540
World War II. So fighting in the Pacific was ferocious during that conflict and Imperial Japan
00:46:08.980
had said quite explicitly that they were willing to fight to the last man rather than surrender.
00:46:17.700
And partly as a result of that, Truman ended up okaying the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japan.
00:46:25.900
And it wrought, obviously, horrible devastation. After that, the Japanese did surrender. And
00:46:36.000
so what happened as a result of that? The Japanese rejected the former philosophy that kind of pushed
00:46:46.560
them into alliances with the other Axis powers. They rebuilt. They reorganized.
00:46:55.000
They became an extraordinary economic power. And at this point, geopolitically,
00:47:03.600
Japan and the United States are fast allies and have been for decades. And I don't think that any
00:47:11.280
sensible person worries that Japan is secretly seething with rage, waiting for a moment to wreak vengeance
00:47:21.400
on us. So, I mean, it's instructive. We dropped atomic bombs on Japan. That didn't beget further
00:47:29.680
violence. In fact, there has been, like I said, decades of peace between the two countries since.
00:47:38.120
And let me try to bring it down to an even more individual level. When your mom or your dad or both
00:47:46.520
told you stand up to the bully, did they tell you that because they thought that standing up to him,
00:47:55.660
perhaps fighting him, would beget more violence? The answer is surely no. They gave you that advice
00:48:04.020
because, first of all, you should be willing to defend yourself. You should be willing to stand up for
00:48:11.880
yourself or you're going to be a doormat your whole life. And more than that, what they
00:48:17.880
at least intuitively recognized in giving you that advice is that on the whole, the bully will back
00:48:26.400
down if you confront him forcibly. And in fact, if you have to fight a bully, even if you lose,
00:48:33.900
it's unlikely that he's going to target you again because bullies are looking to target or attack
00:48:41.860
what they think is weakness and not strength. So, historically and logically, I don't think that
00:48:51.200
there's any real reason to accept the premise that violence necessarily begets violence. Now,
00:48:58.000
you could give me examples of instances in which it has actually the armistice at the end of World
00:49:05.900
War I is a good example of a kind of strategically ineffective of violence that ultimately led to
00:49:13.880
a worse violence. But in any case, the larger point is violence doesn't necessarily beget violence.
00:49:20.980
Sometimes violence and decisive violence is the only way to stop an initiated act of violence.
00:49:30.760
And so that's why it's just part of the necessary makeup of the warrior professions that they be
00:49:38.180
skilled at the use of violence. Violence is a tool in the end. In itself, it's neither good nor bad,
00:49:47.320
right? I mean, it's amply attested in nature. As I pointed out in the book, if a lion or a pride of
00:49:58.320
lions attack a wildebeest, rip out its throat and consume it, that's certainly violent. But it would
00:50:05.600
be silly to say that it was a good or a bad thing for the lion to do in moral terms. It's just silly,
00:50:13.000
right? So violence in itself is neither good nor bad. It's when we're talking about human action
00:50:20.880
and there's choice involved, that's when you can talk about good or bad. And intention and context
00:50:28.100
are critically important in figuring out whether a particular act of violence is good or bad.
00:50:34.780
We could talk some more about that if you want, but I've probably droned on a bit too long.
00:50:39.660
Well, so violence is sometimes the answer. You have this great line in your book that
00:50:46.400
a warrior has to be savage without becoming a savage. I mean, I imagine that's hard. There's
00:50:53.800
that line from Nietzsche, like be careful when you go look for monsters because you'll become a monster
00:50:59.580
too. So how does that look like in the life of a warrior or a law enforcement, military guy who,
00:51:06.040
someone who has to use violence and not let that, I don't know, degrade them where they start to
00:51:12.160
like it and enjoy it and they become savage, like you say?
00:51:16.320
Right. Or sure. The, so you want your warriors to fight savagely when that's necessary. And I'll be
00:51:27.160
concrete about it again, because I think that's always helpful and tackling an issue or a question.
00:51:34.200
If, let's start with something in law enforcement, say, if a pedophile attacks a child, that's certainly
00:51:47.900
an act of evil. And you want a cop, if he comes on that scene, to use violence to stop that act of
00:52:00.340
evil, that initiated act of violence. Well, by the way, it really could be anybody, right? Civilian or
00:52:06.800
anybody. You're certainly justified in using violence to stop the pedophile from attacking
00:52:11.580
the child. And let's shift to a military context. If the goal of a special operations unit is to
00:52:23.540
take a town that has strategic value or where there's munitions stored or anything like that,
00:52:32.000
they should fight savagely to achieve that end. But once the objective is achieved, there is no real
00:52:41.420
justification for then raping and assaulting and beating up the villagers, right? Or in the case of,
00:52:53.540
law enforcement, once somebody is managed and brought under control, there's no value in and no
00:53:05.360
justification for then getting in extra beatings on the person. Because if you do that, if you do that,
00:53:15.460
you then become the very thing that you exist to fight against. You've now shifted over into instead
00:53:25.340
of fighting savages, you've become a savage yourself. So that internal contradiction, right,
00:53:34.400
is something that you would look to avoid, right?
00:53:39.120
Uh, I mean, so somebody, I guess the question is like, how do you avoid that? Is it just being
00:53:46.380
self-aware? Is it talking with your comrades about this? What, what is it that keeps you from going
00:53:55.300
I think self-awareness is critically important in that, as in all things. So yes, self-awareness is a
00:54:03.760
critical first step. And, you know, consistently sort of questioning yourself, checking your premises,
00:54:12.660
making sure you remember your mission and the purpose for which you exist professionally,
00:54:18.720
talking to, and having a common sense of purpose with other warriors, military law enforcement,
00:54:28.680
freedom fighters for that matter, that also would tend to keep you grounded. It is, it is a difficult
00:54:36.500
thing, milling around the precincts of violence as a matter of professional obligation. And it is
00:54:44.940
possible. And some guys do succumb to, oh, that, uh, that tendency to just a wallow in the violence.
00:54:56.400
That's, that's all they come to know. But my sense of it is those guys might, the guys who do sort of fall
00:55:05.220
into that trap always did have a kind of tendency towards, towards thuggery. I mean, the guys who really
00:55:13.580
respect the oath that they take to protect the constitution and in our country, in any case,
00:55:21.040
to protect the constitution and the rights of individuals and, and, you know, protect the
00:55:27.340
freedom for people to, to everything, including protest against you. Those guys tend to be okay.
00:55:36.640
I think it's the guys who, who always did have a little bit of a tendency and a taste for violence
00:55:43.900
as such that fall into the, the, the trap of, of, of just wallowing in it and kind of yielding to it.
00:55:53.380
So we've been talking a lot about law enforcement, military. I know we have a lot of LEOs and military
00:55:59.540
guys listening to the podcast, but what about civilians? What, why do you think it's important
00:56:03.060
for civilians to understand what you're trying to tackle here with your, with your book,
00:56:08.240
Warrior's Manifesto? I think there's a couple of reasons and, and I think it, it certainly has a
00:56:14.700
value for any civilians who would be interested in, in reading it and kind of delving into the topics
00:56:23.100
that I delve into. Part of it is just that, look, there's lots of cops and lots of soldiers out there.
00:56:30.800
We all know at least one, right? And usually know at least one pretty well. And so if you do want to
00:56:39.560
have a sense of what it means to take on the obligations of the warrior in a professional
00:56:46.640
setting, I think this book will get you on, on your way towards that. But there, I think maybe is
00:56:54.560
even a deeper reason and might be a deeper appeal for civilians, those who aren't necessarily in law
00:57:02.280
enforcement or in the military. And that's this, you may meet a moment in the course of your life
00:57:10.280
where you may have to use violence, where you may have to protect yourself, where you may have to
00:57:19.440
protect somebody else, a loved one, a friend, or even a stranger for that matter. And in that moment,
00:57:28.200
you are a warrior. And so to kind of gain some understanding of, of what ultimately that moment
00:57:38.900
means, hopefully it's not much more than a moment or two, but to gain some understanding of what that
00:57:47.120
moment means, I kind of, to think deeply about it. You know, why did I, I step up? Why was it
00:57:54.320
important for me to take action in, in this moment? I think you'll, you'll get at least some answer from,
00:58:04.900
from the book, right? Anything can happen. And, you know, even as a civilian,
00:58:11.920
you should be prepared and you should think about how it is that you want to act in a situation that
00:58:21.440
calls for potentially violence, but certainly a firm stand, if nothing else. In fact, the first
00:58:29.740
section of the book, the spirit of the warrior is, is really directed towards civilians. So I think
00:58:38.220
there's some, some value in, in those two things for civilians.
00:58:43.560
Well, Daniel, this has been a good conversation. Besides the book, is there someplace people can go
00:58:48.660
I've written some articles. The Warriors Manifesto is the only book that I have written thus far,
00:58:53.740
but I've written some articles. They are for the most part about topics in law enforcement.
00:59:00.980
I've written some articles on the active shooter phenomenon. I've written some articles on case law
00:59:09.660
and some, some of the more notorious cases involving police shootings. I think probably the most convenient
00:59:18.960
way for anybody to access that is at our website. It's www.AriesTactics.com. A-R-E-S-T-A-C-T-I-C-S.com.
00:59:33.120
And they might, they might find some value in those articles.
00:59:36.820
It does. Well, Daniel, thanks for coming on. It's been a good conversation.
00:59:40.880
My guest today was Daniel Modell. He's the author of the book,
00:59:43.460
Warrior's Manifesto. It's available on amazon.com. Also check out our show notes at
00:59:47.360
aom.is slash warriors manifesto where you can find links to resources where you can delve deeper
00:59:51.660
into this topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. For
01:00:08.140
more manly tips and advice, make sure to check out the Art of Manliness website at
01:00:11.500
artofmanliness.com. And if you enjoyed the podcast, got something out of it, I'd appreciate it if you
01:00:15.700
give us a review on iTunes or Stitcher. It helps out a lot. And if you've done that already, thank
01:00:19.620
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01:00:23.040
something out of it. As always, thank you for your continued support. And until next time,