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stormsewerI was reading about Cynics today:
"The ordinary pleasures of life were for them not merely negligible but positively harmful inasmuch as they interrupted the operation of the will. Wealth, popularity and power tend to dethrone the authority of reason and to pervert the soul from the natural to the artificial. Man exists for and in himself alone; his highest end is self-knowledge and self-realization in conformity with the dictates of his reason, apart altogether from the state and society. For this end, disrepute and poverty are advantageous, in so far as they drive back the man upon himself, increasing his self-control and purifying his intellect from the dross of the external. The good man (i.e. the wise man) wants nothing: like the gods, he is self-sufficing; "let men gain wisdom—or buy a rope"; he is a citizen of the world, not of a particular country."
"We learn that Diogenes and Crates sought to force their principles upon their fellows in an obtrusive, tactless manner. The very essence of their philosophy was the negation of the graces of social courtesy; it was impossible to "return to nature" in the midst of a society clothed in the accumulated artificiality of evolved convention without shocking the ingrained sensibilities of its members. Nor is it unjust to infer that the sense of opposition provoked some of the Cynics to an overweening display of superiority."
Somehow that makes me think of Fight Club.
I'm thinking I'm quite fond of Stoicism actually, and I'm surprised at how much it seems to have in common with Zen and Buddhism generally, something supposedly unique to the East, totally alien to traditionally Western ways of thinking. Logos and Tao seem to be somewhat related concepts, as well...
The Stoic doctrine that if you're not happy it's your own fault ("If, therefore, any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone." -Epitectus) can be a little dangerous, though. It's a good personal philosophy, I think, but it can also be twisted to justify the oppression of others and the maintenance of the status quo, whatever it may be.
I'm thinking I should get my hands on Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, though.
For my birthday, my sister got me On The Nature of Things, which is considered the most elegant expression of Epicureanism (which sounds like a philosophy of cooking to me), because she thought it would jive well with my personal way of thinking. I haven't read it yet (maybe I'll take it along to North Korea), but it does seem to. Thomas Jefferson apparently thought of himself as an Epicurean, which is promising. I love TJ, man. The Wikipedia articles seem to indicate that Stoicism and Epicureanism were in conflict with each other, though, but I don't quite understand why.
"The ordinary pleasures of life were for them not merely negligible but positively harmful inasmuch as they interrupted the operation of the will. Wealth, popularity and power tend to dethrone the authority of reason and to pervert the soul from the natural to the artificial. Man exists for and in himself alone; his highest end is self-knowledge and self-realization in conformity with the dictates of his reason, apart altogether from the state and society. For this end, disrepute and poverty are advantageous, in so far as they drive back the man upon himself, increasing his self-control and purifying his intellect from the dross of the external. The good man (i.e. the wise man) wants nothing: like the gods, he is self-sufficing; "let men gain wisdom—or buy a rope"; he is a citizen of the world, not of a particular country."
"We learn that Diogenes and Crates sought to force their principles upon their fellows in an obtrusive, tactless manner. The very essence of their philosophy was the negation of the graces of social courtesy; it was impossible to "return to nature" in the midst of a society clothed in the accumulated artificiality of evolved convention without shocking the ingrained sensibilities of its members. Nor is it unjust to infer that the sense of opposition provoked some of the Cynics to an overweening display of superiority."
Somehow that makes me think of Fight Club.
I'm thinking I'm quite fond of Stoicism actually, and I'm surprised at how much it seems to have in common with Zen and Buddhism generally, something supposedly unique to the East, totally alien to traditionally Western ways of thinking. Logos and Tao seem to be somewhat related concepts, as well...
The Stoic doctrine that if you're not happy it's your own fault ("If, therefore, any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone." -Epitectus) can be a little dangerous, though. It's a good personal philosophy, I think, but it can also be twisted to justify the oppression of others and the maintenance of the status quo, whatever it may be.
I'm thinking I should get my hands on Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, though.
For my birthday, my sister got me On The Nature of Things, which is considered the most elegant expression of Epicureanism (which sounds like a philosophy of cooking to me), because she thought it would jive well with my personal way of thinking. I haven't read it yet (maybe I'll take it along to North Korea), but it does seem to. Thomas Jefferson apparently thought of himself as an Epicurean, which is promising. I love TJ, man. The Wikipedia articles seem to indicate that Stoicism and Epicureanism were in conflict with each other, though, but I don't quite understand why.
