George Washington and the burden of the world-spirit

Yesterday was President’s Day, which is basically George Washington Day, so I wanted to do a quick post about him. The most interesting thing about George Washington to me is how he spent that most famous year, 1776. He spent it mostly running away from the British, hiding out, losing battles, building forts, fleeing forts. We think of George Washington as the ultimate winner, military genius, the undisputed heavyweight champion of world history. But it wasn’t really like that. In fact he lost more battles than he won.

He started off hot. 1775 was the year the Revolutionary War began in Boston, and that was successful—big victories at the battles of Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill. But when things turned to New York, Washington suddenly lost his mojo. He lost the Battles of Brooklyn, White Plains, Fort Washington, and Kips Bay in 1776. He even lost the fort that was named after him to the British. He lost all these battles but he didn’t lose the war.

What happened? He became perhaps too conscious of his responsibilities, and of everything that was hanging in the balance. He was careful not to fight a battle where too much was at risk—he knew that if he put all his chips into one battle and lost, then his new country would never exist, and world history would grind to a halt. It’s impossible to imagine that much stress, that much responsibility—the best possibility for a new country in history hanging in the balance. Winning the war was the most important thing.

But he couldn’t keep losing battles. The turning point came on December 25, 1776, at the end of a year of running and losing. He surprised the British by sneakily crossing the Delaware River and winning the Battle of Trenton in New Jersey. Then he won the Battle of Princeton and Assunpink Creek. He won three battles in ten days—he just kept attacking. He waited and waited and then everything turned and he kept pushing—he waited until he couldn’t wait anymore and then was relentless. It was still about six years until the war was over and he won, but that was the turning point, after a year of losing and running.

So what’s the point? The duality of the responsibility of the world-spirit of history—he must’ve felt the spirit of world history weighing on him. And that made him hesitant to go all-out to win the war, because the spirit of world-history depended on him winning. So this made him hesitate and run—but it also made him push forward nonstop once he found an opening. Hesitate until you don’t, and then don’t stop.

But also I feel like it was impossible for him to lose. The world-spirit wanted America to exist—what would history have looked like if America never existed? Impossible to even imagine. It was time for it to happen. It was destiny in a way. Washington was kind of just along for the ride, the shepherd of destiny. All he had to do was not screw it up…but also aggressively pursue it at certain times. This was his dual role—passive caretaker/shepherd, and relentless attacker. Washington is often called a genius, and this is what his genius was—to be able to be both caretaker and attacker at once, knowing when to be which.