Henry David Thoreau 15

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves. 

—from Henry David Thoreau, Journals (1847) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 20

A man contains all that is needful to his government within himself. He is made a law unto himself. All real good or evil that can befall him must be from himself. He only can do himself any good or any harm. Nothing can be given to him or can taken from him but always there is a compensation. 

There is a correspondence between the human soul and everything that exists in the world; more properly, everything that is known to man. Instead of studying things without the principles of them, all may be penetrated unto with him. Every act puts the agent in a new position. 

The purpose of life seems to be to acquaint a man with himself. He is not to live the future as described to him but to live the real future to the real present. The highest revelation is that God is in every man. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals (8 September, 1833) 

IMAGE: Tintoretto, Christ Washing the Disciples' Feet (1549) 

Dhammapada 418

Him I call indeed a Brahmana who has left what gives pleasure and what gives pain, who is cool, and free from all germs of renewed life, the hero who has conquered all the worlds. 

IMAGE: William Degouve de Nuncques, Nocturn in the Parc Royal, Brussels (1897) 

Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 4.2

But see how much I despised the shafts of your villainy. That you aimed your villainous wrongs at me, I was always aware; but that they reached me I never thought. It is true, you might think that somewhat belonging to me was tumbling down or consuming, when you were demolishing my walls, and applying your detestable torches to the roofs of my houses. 
 
But neither I nor any man can call that our own which can be taken away, plundered, or lost. Could you have robbed me of my godlike constancy of mind, of my application, of my vigilance, and of those measures through which, to your confusion, the republic now exists; could you have abolished the eternal memory of this lasting service; far more, had you robbed me of that soul from which these designs emanated; then, indeed, I should have confessed that I had received an injury. 
 
But as you neither did nor could do this, your persecution rendered my return glorious, but not my departure miserable. I, therefore, was always a citizen of Rome, but especially at the time when the senate charged foreign nations with my preservation as the best of her citizens. 
 
As to you, you are at this time no citizen, unless the same person can be at once a citizen and an enemy. Can you distinguish a citizen from an enemy by the accidents of nature and place, and not by its affections and actions? 
 
You have perpetrated a massacre in the forum, and occupied the temples with bands of armed ruffians; you have set on fire the temples of the gods and the houses of private citizens. 
 
If you are a citizen, in what sense was Spartacus an enemy? Can you be a citizen, through whom, for a time, the state had no existence? And do you apply to me your own designation, when all mankind thought that on my departure Rome herself was gone into exile? 

—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 4 
 
Once a man binds himself to wickedness, he wishes to live his life as a contradiction, and what could be more insane than to repudiate his very nature? He demands to receive, though he will not bow to give. He expects to be adored, yet he never offers love. He considers himself an end, while he treats others as means. His entire outlook is a paradox: rules for thee, but not for me. 
 
He defines his worth by everything except his own character, and so he assumes that his own benefit must come at someone else’s expense. This is why he is so full of hatred, because his desire to acquire and to consume knows no bounds. Success is viewed as a series of conflicts, in which cooperation will only be the temporary mask for a cunning exploitation. 
 
A fellow like Clodius believes himself the victor when he has destroyed an enemy’s property, rank, and privileges, but he does not understand how a genuine liberty is in the dignity of the spirit, not from the circumstances of the flesh. All the scoundrel has managed is to diminish his own excellence, even as he unwittingly offers others an opportunity to stand firmer in their convictions. 
 
I do not think that Cicero expects this to come easily, but what a triumph it is to not become like your oppressor! Yes, while it is frustrating to lose one’s money, and painful to see one’s house burned to the ground, and downright agonizing to be exiled from one’s country, the bully can never seize another man’s integrity, the only unassailable fortress he can ever hold. Cicero did not have to be a card-carrying Stoic to understand this timeless truth. 
 
One reason I try to stay clear of any contemporary political bickering is that such an animosity is itself a blatant betrayal of precisely what it means to be a citizen. Where there is no love of neighbor, there can be no loyalty to the state, and hating an enemy, whatever the color of his flag, is no excuse for abandoning my humanity. Do not let the demagogues trick you into believing that the good of the fashionable many requires the destruction of the inconvenient few. 
 
Distinguish between the those who define their honor through power and those who define their honor through service. I think it no exaggeration to say that the rise or fall of whole civilizations depends upon the health of our personal virtues. 

—Reflection written in 5/1999 

IMAGE: Thomas Cole, The Course of Empire: Destruction (1836) 

The Liberation

Jean Delville, The Liberation (1936) 

The Ideas

Jean Delville, The Ideas (1934) 

Owls 17

IMAGE by Mick Thompson 

Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 4.1

Paradox 4: That Every Fool Is a Madman
 
[Translator's note: This paradox takes for its illustration the life of Publius Clodius, a Roman soldier of noble birth, but infamous for the corruption of his morals. He was ultimately slain by the retinue of Milo, in an encouter which took place between the two as Milo was journeying toward Lanuvium, his native place, and Clodius was on his way to Rome.]
 
I will now convict you, by infallible considerations, not as a fool, as I have often done, nor as a villain, as I always do, but as insane and mad. 
 
Could the mind of the wise man, fortified as with walls by depth of counsel, by patient endurance of human ills, by contempt of fortune; in short, by all the virtues—a mind that could not be expelled out of this community—shall such a mind be overpowered and taken by storm? 
 
For what do we call a community? Surely, not every assembly of thieves and ruffians? Is it then the entire rabble of outlaws and robbers assembled in one place? No; you will doubtless reply. Then this was no community when its laws had no force; when its courts of justice were prostrated; when the custom of the country had fallen into contempt; when, the magistrates having been driven away by the sword, there was not even the name of a senate in the state. 
 
Could that gang of ruffians, that assembly of villains which you head in the forum, could those remains of Catiline’s frantic conspiracy, diverted to your mad and guilty schemes, be termed a community? 

 
I could not therefore be expelled from a community, because no such then existed. I was summoned back to a community when there was a consul in the state, which at the former time there was not; when there was a senate, which then had ceased to exist; when the voice of the people was free; and when laws and equity, those bonds of a community, had been restored. 

—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 4 
 
Once again, reading Cicero has me going down the rabbit hole of Roman history. The elaborate schemes, the daring coups, and the brutal reprisals leave my head reeling, reminding me why a study of the past, like any art or science, can only be built upon the foundation of philosophy. Without a standard of true and false, and of right and wrong, there would be no way to distinguish up from down. 
 
I work with many historians, and I even call some of them my friends, but so many of them refuse to look beyond the measures of of wealth, power, and fame. Even when condemning acts as “monstrous” or “deplorable”, they are still buying into the madness of the vices, a view of the world driven solely by greed, lust, and vanity. Such an insanity goes deeper than any colloquial or clinical connotations, because it abandons the rule of reason itself, and can therefore no longer distinguish between good and evil. 
 
Where there is no understanding, there can be no goodwill, and where there is no goodwill, there can be no community. The life of Publius Clodius is a tragic example of what will happen when conscience gives way to concupiscence, which can sadly emerge in any time or place. Virtue springs from wisdom, which is sanity. Vice springs from ignorance, which is insanity. Everything hinges upon the order or the disorder within the mind. 
 
I do not doubt that Cicero had his prejudices, as we all do, but I will not assume malice on his part when he rebukes his opponents. He looks beyond his frustrations to the deeper values of human nature, in which a good man cannot be exiled from society, since a society is formed by sound judgment and free consent. Solidarity is impossible in the presence of lunacy. 
 
While the language may sound harsh, how else are we to describe all the misdeeds that go so contrary to reason? And, in the face of such folly, what could be more sane than the man who knows why his self-awareness is the key to his self-mastery? In the end, the tyrant, whether big or small, has renounced his intellect, so he is the worst sort of madman. 

—Reflection written in 5/1999 

IMAGE: Pasko Vucetic and Viktor Kovacic, Hatred and Madness (c. 1898) 

The Almightier

Carl Hassmann, The Almightier (1907) 

The Last Idols

Jean Delville, The Last Idols (1931) 

From Darkness to Light

Jean Delville, From Darkness to Light (1929) 

The Mother Road 14

Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3.5

But in life we are not to consider what should be the punishment of each offense, but what is the rule of right to each individual. We are to consider everything that is not becoming as wicked, and everything which is unlawful as heinous. 
 
What! Even in the most trifling matters? To be sure; for if we are unable to regulate the course of events, yet we may place a bound to our passions. If a player dances ever so little out of time, if a verse is pronounced by him longer or shorter by a single syllable than it ought to be, he is hooted and hissed off the stage. 
 
And shall you, who ought to be better regulated than any gesture, and more regular than any verse shall you be found faulty even in a syllable of conduct? I overlook the trifling faults of a poet; but shall I approve my fellow-citizen’s life while he is counting his misdeeds with his fingers? 
 
If some of these are trifling, how can it be regarded as more venial when whatever wrong is committed, is committed to the violation of reason and order? Now, if reason and order are violated, nothing can be added by which the offense can seem to be aggravated. 

—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3 
 
I run the risk of only treating some of my vices seriously, worried about the ones that might trigger a harsh reprisal, and willing to ignore the ones where I can weasel my way out. I check the numbers twice on my taxes, because I don’t want to get a hefty fine, but I breeze my way through neglecting a friend, because he’s unlikely to see behind my cheap excuses.
 
Sometimes the consequences are greater, and sometimes they are lesser, but when it comes to the state of my conscience, each instance of wickedness is a corruption of the whole. Where Prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice are broken, the harmony within the nature of the person is gravely disturbed. 
 
Do the little things count? Just as much as the big things, in the sense that a breakdown at one level is a breakdown at every level, much like a flaw in the tiniest component will upset the workings of the entire machine. I know this to be true when my snarky comments restrict my peace of mind just as much as a full-blown temper tantrum, or that covetous gaze is already a surrender of my self-control. 
 
This does not have to become what Catholics identify as scrupulosity, a distorted anxiety about sinning, if I can remember how my failings can always be opportunities for further improvement, and why they will cease to do me harm once I choose to be accountable for myself. Though it is fitting to seek the perfection of our nature, as much as it is within our power, learning from our mistakes is a necessary part of that process. Be firm with yourself, while also forgiving with yourself. 
 
We will be disappointed with the musician who can’t play in tune, or the actor who fumbles his lines, so why should we not expect at least a competence of character in our daily living? We have something backwards when the performer is booed off a stage for the slightest blunder, and yet we look the other way when the simplest of decencies are abandoned. 
 
What makes all the vices equally severe is that each and every one of them prevents our capacity to understand and to love. Whenever we go contrary to the rule of reason, we also make it impossible to exercise any goodwill. This is why the Stoics further made the radical claim that our vices are as crippling to us as a form of madness. 

—Reflection written in 5/1999 

The School of Silence

Jean Delville, The School of Silence (1929) 

The Forces

Jean Delville, The Forces (1924) 

The Basel Dance of Death 17

Matthäus Merian, The Basel Dance of Death: The Physician (1616) 

"Sir Doctor, observe the anatomy
on me, whether it is well made.
Because you have also dispatched many,
who all do now resemble me." 

"I have with my inspecting the water
helped both men and women.
Who will inspect my water now?
I must now go away with Death." 

Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3.4

But someone will say, what then? Does it make no difference, whether a man murders his father or his slave? If you instance these acts abstractedly, it is difficult to decide of what quality they are. 
 
If to deprive a parent of life is in itself a most heinous crime, the Saguntines were then parricides, because they chose that their parents should die as freemen rather than live as slaves. Thus, a case may happen in which there may be no guilt in depriving a parent of life, and very often we cannot without guilt put a slave to death. 
 
The circumstances therefore attending this case, and not the nature of the thing, occasion the distinction: these circumstances as they lean to either case, that case becomes the more favorable; but if they appertain alike to both, the acts are then equal. 
 
There is this difference—that in killing a slave, if wrong is done, it is a single sin that is committed; but many are involved in taking the life of a father. The object of violence is the man who begat you, the man who fed you, the man who brought you up, the man who gave your position in your home, your family, and the state. This offense is greater by reason of the number of sins involved in it, and is deserving of a proportionately greater punishment. 

—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3 
 
I have a vivid memory of one particular week while I was in high school, which challenged me to look at justice in a whole new light. 
 
When we arrived on Monday morning, all the chatter was about a celebrity who had been murdered over the weekend. Even among my progressive friends, there was much talk about a swift and severe retribution: “We’ve lost someone who touched so many lives! The killer needs to rot in jail for what he did!” 
 
Later that day, I noticed some police cars in an alley down the block. The owner of our local diner explained how a homeless man had been beaten to death during the night. His biggest concern was whether the delivery truck could be unloaded on time, and my schoolmates only shrugged when I mentioned what I felt was a terrible tragedy. 
 
For the next few days, the newspapers were full of moving tributes for a singer. I could not find any mention of the vagrant. I knew neither of them personally, but I had great difficulty believing that the life of the one was so much more valuable than that of the other. We place the dignity in the trappings of a life, and so easily forget what makes the man. 
 
Whatever the degree of the circumstances, the crime is still the same in kind, though it is often difficult to see through the layers of our many attachments and aversions. Why, for example, do we say that it is worse to kill our own kin than it is to kill a stranger? Or why are we more offended at the abuse of children and the elderly? 
 
Behind the impressions of malice or brutality, we are also compounding many different offenses into one, such that mistreating my wife is both a violation of her rights as person and the betrayal of a special bond of fidelity, and thus it should carry with it a harsher penalty. 
 
The wrong, of course, remains a wrong, regardless of the many different ways I may express it, or how many times I may commit it. I notice how the courts like to pile up endless lists of charges in cases where the public is especially outraged, though I sometimes wonder if one count is already more than enough to prove the point, and five or ten life sentences will hardly end up being all that different. 
 
At the very least, I should not say that my lie is less of an injustice because I only told it once, or that my treachery is less severe because it happened so long ago. I ought to feel regret for any of my vices, and not to believe that a greater or lesser penalty somehow changes my fundamental responsibility. 

—Reflection written in 5/1999 

Modern Stoicism?

The Mothers

Jean Delville, The Mothers (1919) 

The Victorious Spirit

Jean Delville, The Victorious Spirit (1914)