Philosophers
Meditations of a philosopher king
POSTED MARCH 13, 2019
Marcus Aurelius, the emperor of Rome from 161 to 180 A.D., was the closest the Western world has seen to Plato's ideal ruler - a philosopher king. Along with Epictetus and Seneca, he is considered one of the most important Stoics. His personal and philosophical diary, "Meditations", were not meant for publication: they are indeed meditations - advice and reflections meant for himself. Fortunately for us, his writings were preserved c. 900 A.D. by Arethas of Caesarea, a bishop who was a collector of ancient manuscripts. He recopied "The Meditations" from a crumbling scroll, and the valuable insights of the philosopher-emperor are available to us in 21st century.
If we believe Brother David's suggestion that happiness is born from gratitude, we can imagine that Marcus Aurelius must have been a very happy man. In Book I, he gives us ten pages* worth of gratitude to his family, teachers, mentors, friends and the gods. The list of traits provide an insight into those qualities that Marcus Aurelius himself thought beneficial and most admired.
Here are some selections from Book I of "Meditations":
"From my grandfather Verus: decency and a mild temper
From what they say and I remember of my natural father: integrity and manliness
From my mother: piety, generosity, the avoidance of wrongdoing,...simplicity of living......
From my tutor: to tolerate pain and feel few needs, to work with my own hands and mind my own business...
From Diognetus:...to tolerate plain speaking; to have an affinity for philosophy;...to write essays from a young age; to love the camp-bed, the hide blanket...
From Rusticus: to grasp the idea of wanting correction and treatment of my character...to keep clear of speechifying, versifying, and pretentious language...to be readily recalled to reconciliation with those who have given or taken offense...to read carefully...to have encountered the Discourses of Epictetus....
From Appollonius: moral freedom, the certainty to ignore the dice of fortune...to see that a man can combine intensity and relaxation....
From Sextus: a kindly disposition...the concept of life lived according to nature...an agreeable manner with all...to combine complete freedom from passion with the greatest human affection....
From Severus: love of family, love of truth, love of justice...
From Alexander the Platonist: rarely, and never without great cause, to say or write to anyone that "I am too busy"
From Maximus: self-mastery, immune to any passing whim; good cheer in all circumstances...an uncomplaining energy for what needs to be done....
From my [adoptive] father: gentleness, and an immovable adherence to decisions made after full consideration...stamina and perseverance...his constant watch on the needs of the empire, his stewardship of its resources, and his tolerance of some people's criticism in this area...Nothing about him was harsh, relentless, or imperious....
From the gods: to have had good grandparents, good parents, a good sister, good teachers, good family, relatives and friends - almost everything...that my children were not born short of intelligence or physically deformed...that I was blessed with a brother,whose respect and affection were a source of joy for me...that I came to know Apollonius, Rusticus, Maximus ... that my wife is as she is...loving and unaffected
*The Book I quotes are from Martin Hammond's translation of Meditations. (Penguin Classics, 2006 and 2014)
Lao-Tzu and Marcus Aurelius on change, loss and life
POSTED OCT 3, 2019
In 1967, psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe examined the medical records of over 5,000 medical patients to determine whether stressful events might cause illnesses. Patients were asked to tally a list of 43 life events based on a relative score. Illnesses that developed shortly thereafter were then analyzed. Holmes and Rahe's findings, which have been validated numerous times, showed a strong correlation between stressful events and illness.
What is notable is that almost all of the top dozen or so stressful life events involved change of some type - even positive change such as marriage or retirement.
Since ancient times, philosophers have considered change to be a natural part of life. Consider the writings of the Roman emperor and Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius (121 - 180) and those of the author of the Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu (b. 601 BC). Separated by many centuries and thousands of miles, both advise acceptance of the inevitability of change and warn of the futility and pain that come with resistance. Noting that loss is just another form of change and that life is fleeting, they consider how best to live that life.
According to legend, Lao Tzu was keeper of the archives at the imperial court. When he was eighty years old he set out for the western border of China, toward what is now Tibet, "saddened and disillusioned that men were unwilling to follow the path to natural goodness. At the border, a guard, Yin Xi, asked Lao Tsu to record his teachings before he left. [Lao Tsu] then composed in 5,000 characters the Tao Te Ching (The Way and Its Power)." (Chebuctu website)
Lao Tzu had much to say about the constancy of change. For Lao Tzu, life was "a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” In another passage, he sounds even more like the Stoic Marcus Aurelius (or is it Marcus Aurelius who sounds like Lao Tzu?) “If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve.”
The Tao Te Ching is most famously known for a "go with the flow" approach to life: “By letting it go, it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try, the world is beyond the winning.” As for how to best live, Lao Tzu summarized, "I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.”
Emperor Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations" was never meant for any eyes but his own. Fortunately for us and Western civilization, a manuscript was preserved and survived through the centuries thanks to a Byzantine scholar named Arethas of Caesarea who lived circa 900.
Marcus Aurelius wrote the Meditations in Greek rather than his native Latin. Greek was the language in which philosophy was taught, and it was a language that he "preferred to Latin for the purpose of drawing inwards, meditating and clearing his mind". (1)
So here we have the most powerful ruler on the planet reflecting on life and the world and giving himself advice. His view of the world was informed by the philosophy of stoicism which asserts:
...that virtue (such as wisdom) is happiness and judgment should be based on behavior, rather than words. That we don’t control and cannot rely on external events, only ourselves and our responses. Stoicism has just a few central teachings. It sets out to remind us of how unpredictable the world can be. How brief our moment of life is. How to be steadfast, and strong, and in control of yourself. And finally, that the source of our dissatisfaction lies in our impulsive dependency on our reflexive senses rather than logic. (Daily Stoic website)
"Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them."
“Is any man afraid of change? What can take place without change? What then is more pleasing or more suitable to the universal nature? And canst thou take a bath unless the wood undergoes a change? And canst thou be nourished, unless the food undergoes a change? And can anything else that is useful be accomplished without change?”
He ultimately brings this concept of change to an acceptance of loss ("...loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight") and death ("...think of the whole of time, in which you have been assigned a brief and fleeting moment").
How then to best live our lives in this brief and fleeting moment? Marcus' advice to himself:
Spend time on the important things in life: "...you must remember that there is proportionate value in our attention to each action – so you will not lose heart if you devote no more time than they warrant to matters of less importance.”
Live rightfully: “So where should a man direct his endeavour? Here only – a right mind, action for the common good, speech incapable of lies, a disposition to welcome all that happens as necessary, intelligible, flowing from an equally intelligible spring of origin.”
Memento mori: “Your death will soon be on you: and you are not yet clear-minded, or untroubled, or free from the fear of external harm, or kindly to all people, or convinced that justice of action is the only wisdom.”
There are other correspondences between these philosophers from opposite ends of the earth - for example, on having the correct frame of mind towards external events and on not being overly concerned with the opinions of others. They both have much to teach us even now. Links to a couple of excellent summaries of their thoughts and wisdom are given below.
(1) Diskin Clay's introduction to the Penguin Classics "Meditations."
Marcus Aurelius and Albert Camus on courage and hope in troubling times
POSTED FEBRUARY 13, 2020
Two writers separated by almost two millennia provide some sage advice on confronting today's troubling times. Prompted by concerns with how I personally would deal with a second term for the incumbent president, I turned to Marcus Aurelius (121-180) and Albert Camus (1913-1960) to see what guidance they might offer. I was not disappointed.
In Chapter 6 of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, the Roman emperor-philosopher touches on many of his usual points (the constancy of change, the fleetingness of human life, be content with your lot and your allotted days, you have no control over external events – just your attitude towards them, rationality, living a good and just life, etc.) and also expresses a few thoughts that seemed directly relevant to my concern. (For an introduction to Meditations, see link below right.)
1. There are many people of good will around us. Keeping their qualities and virtues "ready to hand" will cheer us.
"Whenever you want to cheer yourself, think of the qualities of your fellows – the energy of one, for example, the decency of another, the generosity of a third, some other merit in a fourth. There is nothing so cheering as the stamp of virtues manifest in the character in colleagues – and the greater the collective incidence, the better. So keep them ready to hand.”
2. Don't be distracted by the actions of others who may be "neither true nor just." Rather recall what is of most value.
“In this world there is only one thing of value, to live out your life in truth and justice, tolerant of those who are neither true nor just.”
3. Understand that we are always in control of our own character.
“No one will prevent you living in accordance with the principle of your own nature.”
4. Keep optimistic that we can influence those who may not think like us, but, even if they are not persuaded, act "whenever the principle of justice so directs."
“Try to persuade them but act even if they are unpersuaded, whenever the principle of justice so directs. But if someone forcibly resists, change tack to an unhurt acceptance, so using the obstacle to bring forth a different virtue.”
While Marcus saw rationality and reason everywhere, the French philosopher, author and journalist Albert Camus* saw absurdity and injustice. Camus reminds us of the need for moral courage in difficult times. We must continue to live by our highest values. (For a brief introduction to Camus's work, see link below left.)
5. In the face of absurdity, injustice, and cruelty, we need to reawaken our noblest nature to "mend what has been torn apart" and restore justice and mercy to those that have been denied it.
"Our task as [humans] is to find the few principles that will calm the infinite anguish of free souls. We must mend what has been torn apart, make justice imaginable again in a world so obviously unjust, give happiness a meaning once more.”
6. Love of country and justice is a good thing; hatred of other countries, peoples and races is not. Be particularly wary of any alleged national greatness "born of blood and falsehood."
“And I should like to be able to love my country and still love justice. I don't want any greatness for it, particularly a greatness born of blood and falsehood. I want to keep it alive by keeping justice alive.”
7. Eschew violence in every instance.**
"In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners."
8. Don't despair.
"In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer."
Knowing that we are on the right side of history and shall eventually prevail, I'll close with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King. In the spring of 1964, he reminded us that "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
* Born in Algeria of French parents, he joined the French Resistance, serving as editor-in-chief of its journal. A series of short essays for the journal were later published as Neither Victims nor Executioners: An Ethic Superior to Murder. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44 in 1957 "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times."
** Camus was a fervent pacifist who once said, "There are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for."
Albert Camus's "The Plague"
POSTED MARCH 25, 2020
A few years after the end of World War II, the French Nobel-prize-winning author and philosopher Albert Camus finished one of his greatest works. The Plague, set in the large Algerian city of Oran, relates the actions and reactions of people as they face an epidemic that has struck their town - a re-appearance of the bubonic plague of medieval times. The story has been called an allegory for the Nazi occupation during World War II as well as an allegory of the struggle between good and evil.
When the plague strikes and rats start dying in the streets, the immediate reactions of the townspeople and the authorities range from denial to indecisiveness. Only after it becomes impossible to deny that a serious epidemic is ravaging Oran, do the authorities enact strict sanitation measures, placing the whole city under quarantine. With the imposition of the quarantine, the public reacts with a mixture of obsession with their own suffering and of longing for their loved ones from whom they have been separated. "After the term of exile lasts several months, many of Oran's citizens lose their selfish obsession with personal suffering. They come to recognize the plague as a collective disaster that is everyone's concern. They confront their social responsibility and join the anti-plague efforts." (1)
Tony Judt*, reviewing the novel in The Guardian two months after the 9/11 attacks (2), calls Camus - an ardent pacifist and death penalty opponent - "a hero for our age". Noting Camus's "compassion for the doubters and the compromised, for the motives and mistakes of imperfect humanity, ...his unwavering grasp of the difference between good and evil", Judt writes:
Camus's insistence on placing individual moral responsibility at the heart of all public choices cuts sharply across the comfortable habits of our own age. His definition of heroism - ordinary people doing extraordinary things out of simple decency - rings truer than we might once have acknowledged.
The story, which Camus tells through the eyes of three main characters, has some lessons for our consideration The three characters are a doctor, a journalist, and a rich vacationer.**
Dr. Rieux, a man who, faced with suffering and a common crisis, does what he must and becomes a leader and an example, not out of heroic courage or careful reasoning, but rather from a sort of necessary optimism;
Rambert, the young journalist cut off from his wife in Paris, is initially obsessed with his personal suffering and indifferent to the larger tragedy. On the eve of his getaway he realises how, despite himself, he has become part of the community and shares its fate; ignoring the risk and in the face of his earlier, selfish needs, he remains in Oran and joins the health teams.
Tarrou left home in disgust at his father's advocacy of the death penalty. Tarrou has reflected painfully upon his past life and commitments, and his confession to Rieux is at the heart of the novel's moral message: "I thought I was struggling against the plague. I learned that I had indirectly supported the deaths of thousands of men, that I had even caused their deaths by approving the actions and principles that inevitably led to them." (2)
The novel ends with a warning that is as much about the existence of evil as it is about a biological plague:
“He knew what those jubilant crowds did not know but could have learned from books: that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen-chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city.”
Other quotes from "The Plague" are in the sidebar.
(1) Spark Notes
(2) The Guardian (link in sidebar)
*Three of the first four posts on my first blog (The Left Bank Cafe) discussed Tony Judt's Ill Fares the Land. From a November 2010 post: the book "describes how we got to where we are now (income inequality, the growing gap between the rich and the rest), the effects of inequality (it can be correlated against social immobility, health problems, crime, and mental illness) and what can be done about it....Judt also discusses the current state of social democracies, contrasts the economists Keynes and Hayek, and describes how “Great Societies” were built from the end of WWII through the ‘70’s and how they have been unraveled over the past 30 years most notably in the US and the UK."
**The descriptions are extracted and condensed from Judt's article in The Guardian
Quotes from "The Plague"
"What we learn in time of pestilence: that there are more things to admire in men than to despise."
“I have no idea what's awaiting me, or what will happen when this all ends. For the moment I know this: there are sick people and they need curing.”
"...a feeling normally as individual as the ache of separation from those one loves suddenly became a feeling in which all shared alike and — together with fear — the greatest affliction of the long period of exile that lay ahead."
"...a loveless world is a dead world, and always there comes an hour when one is weary of prisons, of one's work, and of devotion to duty, and all one craves for is a loved face, the warmth and wonder of a loving heart.”
""No longer were there individual destinies; only a collective destiny, made of plague and emotions shared by all."
"People are more often good than bad...but they are more or less ignorant and this is what one calls vice or virtue, the most appalling vice being the ignorance that thinks it knows everything and which consequently authorizes itself to kill."
"But again and again there comes a time in history when the man who dares to say that two and two make four is punished with death."
"Once the faintest stirring of hope became possible, the dominion of the plague was ended."
“All I maintain is that on this earth there are pestilences and there are victims, and it's up to us, so far as possible, not to join forces with the pestilences.”
"If there is one thing one can always yearn for and sometimes attain, it is human love."
"Tarrou nodded. 'Yes. But your victories will never be lasting; that's all.' Rieux's face darkened. 'Yes, I know that. But it's no reason for giving up the struggle.'"