The Danger of Thinking We Know Better: A Parting Statement on the Value of Tradition and its Ongoing War with the Researcher's Ego

Castle Dore, Cornwall

Finding myself after many years at the end of my Arthurian quest, some thoughts occur to me.

Foremost among these is "What took me so long?"  The answer to that question leads, inevitably, to a follow-up: simply put, "Why?"

Well, what took me so long, if I'm perfectly honest, is that like all other amateur sleuths (note there are no truly professional ones: real academics wisely eschew any attempt to identify a historical Arthur) I was intent on discovering not THE Arthur, but MY Arthur.  Very few of us are actually looking for the former.  And that is obvious not only in the displaying of an almost universal, stubborn refusal to accept the potential value of tradition, but also in the cantankerous, rancorous nature of the Arthurian debate.  I am constantly reminded of one of my favorite sayings of Montaigne:

"Nothing is so firmly believed as what we least know."

Like pretty much everyone else, I entered into the fray to try and prove that I could come up with the "right answer", the "best solution" to the Arthurian mystery.  I didn't realize at the time that there really wasn't much of a mystery there to begin with!  Tradition had always been pretty plain on where Arthur properly belonged and who he actually was.  It was we researchers who kept insisting on complicating matters, contenting ourselves with forever chasing the dragon's tail.

At one time or another in my Arthurian "career", I managed to fit the hero pretty much everywhere.  That was something I became quite adept at.  And each time I felt that I had managed to pin him down, I patted myself on the back in private celebration.  Yet there was always a nagging something in my argument or a missing piece of evidence that would eventually cause me to throw off a theory and embark on the formation of a newer and more valid or convincing one.  

The Arthurian adventure, undertaken in this way, becomes more than an adventure.  It becomes an obsession, a sort of addiction.  One returns to it over and over, much as people do now to the social media they cannot detach from without exhibiting withdrawal symptoms.  If permitted to do so, the pursuit of the Questing Beast can take over one's life, directing it, at times, to places one should not go.  

As for the "Why?" I alluded to above... I am speaking about ego, pure and simple.  In order to satisfy the demands of ego, a person must come up with a unique Arthurian theory that, no matter how bad, they can convince other people to subscribe to.  We can't do this if we "fall back on" tradition, for tradition already has it all figured out.  There is precious little opportunity for us to make a name for ourselves if we choose to defend a view of Arthur that is considered old and outmoded.  There is nothing exciting or glamorous about taking that route.  We will never be remembered as the "discover of Arthur".  We will, instead, have merely added our faint whisper to the canon of established literature and folklore.

What eventually brought me around to an appreciation of Arthurian tradition?  

Firstly, I became more and more convinced that Uther Pendragon as a title stood for the magister utriusque militiae rank of the British general of the Western Roman Empire, Gerontius.  That, in turn, led me to do something I had skillfully avoided doing in the past: I dared take a look at Gereint and related place-names in Cornwall.  That single action forced me to accept the very real possibility that Arthur did belong to Dumnonia after all and that, indeed, were we to try and propose a different origin, we would have to make a conscious decision to ignore the preponderance of the evidence.  It is with some measure of shame that I must to confess to occasionally being tempted to do down that path.  To my credit, I avoided the detour of denial and self-deception.  Barely.  Ego is a single-minded driver with a mighty whip-hand.  

Over the decades I have made and lost friends and colleagues for no other reason than we could not agree on this or that point.  And why couldn't we agree?  Because in the so-called Arthurian "community" nothing is more precious than one own's personal theory.  Never mind if the majority of such theories are poorly constructed, naive, betray a lack of training in any number of vital disciplines, are without rational foundation or even utterly deranged. Preconcieved bias rules all.  Nationalistic or ethnic "pride" or even religious/spiritual convictions are often present in the mix.  Any vestige of objectivity is drowned in a sea of informed ignorance.  I am reminded of what Isaac Asimov said when referring to the thread of anti-intellectualism running through American political and cultural life:

"my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

I can't say I have any regrets about bowing out of the Arthurian field: by and large the experience has not been a pleasant one.  It has been a dirty war - with not even a Pyrrhic victory at the end of it all. Aside from whatever small contributions I may have made (most, if not all of which will soon be forgotten), when I think back on my many negative interactions with members of the community, it is with relief that I embrace an end to such folly.  Over the decades I have made a handful of true friends, but most associates and colleagues have either deserted me or were by necessity cut off whenever they exhibited a fanatical close-mindedness, insisted of refusing offered evidence and endlessly pushed inferior - and infuriating - quasi-arguments.  Arguments they would not alter under any conditions and had decided to take to their graves, presumably because they had staked their career reputations upon them. Arguments supporting baseless theories that served only to bolster deeply-entrenched personal beliefs, often of a wholly irrational nature. 

Maybe someday the tendency to put ego first and the genuine search for the truth last will be replaced by a more forthright and decent approach to Arthurian research.  If that ever happens, I will be here, perhaps ready to emerge from protection afforded by the "Shadows in the Mist."