It is Saturday in the marketplace.
The air is thick with a dry haze of dust kicked up from the rolling carts and shuffling feet. A light wind blows the canvas stalls. The vendors bark and haggle as people pick up their wares and finger them with simian interest.
Young men who are not otherwise occupied with work gather in the square. They arrange themselves in small jovial groups. Some squat to play games. Others lean on crates and watch the girls go by—offering hoots, hollers, and whistles of admiration.
A man emerges from the throng at the low end of town. He is wearing a well-worn black suit and he is carrying a spectacular contraption that appears to be some kind of organ. He walks up to where the young men are gathered. Ceremoniously, he prepares his device, adjusting each part with the feigned gravity of a man performing an ancient rite. The young men watch from the corners of their eyes.
Then the man begins to play his organ, and there is something about the sound of it that captures the attention of men—but especially young men. The man sings along to the music using words that every man knows well and wants to hear again and again. He sings songs of injustice and betrayal and wrongs that can only be righted by men of courage.
“If not now, when? If not us, then who?”
Something deep in the bellows of the instrument drones like bagpipes in the distance. It is only an organ, but the men hear war drums—like a blank filled in by the mind. The man’s skilled fingers dance over the keys. The top notes are ululating Valkyries and the low notes hit like a chorus of your forefathers resonating from the caverns of Hades.
This is the song and the sound of thumos, the spirit of man without which there would be nothing to recommend us. It is the call to righteous adventure and action, and the men in the marketplace are enraptured.
But the player—we will call him The Player—plays this sacred song carelessly and selfishly.
The song of thumos is meant to inspire action. It seeks resolution and justice.
But the Player loves the crowd more than the cause.
He wants to keep them there in the town square, circling round, caught up in the song, getting angrier and angrier. But The Player will neither send them into battle nor release them to return home. The conflict he sings of can have no resolution, So he changes the song as the shadows grow long to keep the young men stomping around him.
The men circle and circle as the days go by. And their families worry. And their mothers cry.
But the Player keeps on playing and playing and changing his tune.
And the young men, once lively and strong, slowly waste away. They spend the rest of their lives in the circle, accomplishing nothing, until they are gone. And then, and only then, The Player moves on.
The Player is the kind of organ grinder who was once accompanied by a monkey. The monkey would dance to his music and collect change from passersby.
But this Player is not accompanied by a monkey.
Because he knows where to find many, he knows how to make them dance, and change isn’t really what he wants.
I introduced the phrase “Organ Grinder of Thumos” way back in 2020 in an Instagram post. I always loved the image, but realized recently that I had never formalized it in an essay.
C.B. Robertson and I will be talking about rage-baiters, thumos, and the culture of unresolvable anger that wastes the lives of righteous men on the first episode of our re-booted LIVE show — DIALOG — tonight on YouTube at 7:30PM PST.
It will air simultaneously on both of our channels and on The Order of Fire’s channel.
CB and I have a great, well-established rapport and he is a great balance to my character and energy. I’m, well…kind of a bohemian artist type. He is a working electrician, married father of five who spends his free time exploring philosophy and the works of Homer. He recently launched an ambitious Homer course that he has already worked through with two cohorts of students in the past.
Watch a reading of this essay on Youtube.
This is such an apt phrase. I'm going to use it to remind myself when I'm getting angry online. I've often heard folks who complain about the same things and wondered what they want to do about it or what would they have us do. Damn son, they're just grinding that organ and us monkeys are dancing - withering on the vine
I would like to donate every few times--but not subscribe.