No place for snobbery.

"All of us, he used to say, are so fashioned by nature that we can live our lives free from error and nobly; not that one can and another cannot, but all. The clearest evidence of this is the fact that lawgivers lay down for all alike what may be done and forbid what may not be done, exempting from punishment no one who disobeys or does wrong, not the young nor the old, not the strong nor the weak, not anyone whomsoever.

"And yet if the whole notion of virtue were something that came to us from without, and we shared no part of it by birth, just as in activities pertaining to the other arts no one who has not learned the art is expected to be free from error, so in like manner in things pertaining to the conduct of life it would not be reasonable to expect anyone to be free from error who had not learned virtue, seeing that virtue is the only thing that saves us from error in daily living."

--Musonius Rufus, Lectures 2 (tr Lutz)

 It is hard to recognize how one's life is defined by division, harder still to overcome it in living, hardest of all to leave behind any resentment.

It has slowly come to me that most everything I have perceived myself as being is formed by the sense that I am or am not a member of some special club. If I am a member, my fellows will slap me on the back while we all snigger at the outsiders. If am not a member, I am met with the cold shoulder and mocked with derision.

This is true in politics, in religion, in race, in profession, in class. I have noticed it most in the snobbery of my vocation. "We are philosophers," they say, "and we know better."  Replace the term as you see fit. Lawyers, doctors, bankers, plumbers. Most of us won't even engage someone we consider to be ignorant and unworthy. We just laugh and walk away.

It is only when I learn that what defines me does not from without, but rather from within, that I can brush off such snobbery. Musonius rightly reminds me that my humanity is not something I acquire, but is rather something innate. I may have to be trained how to be a stock broker, but no schooling or professional promotion will make me more of a person.

I am already made to know what is true and to love what is good, and it is quite reasonable to expect a man to follow virtue and avoid vice by his very nature. Whatever group or clique I belong to will make no difference. The Stoic is always cosmopolitan, never provincial.

There is something beautifully ironic in the fact that Dives thought himself more of a man than Lazarus, simply because he was rich. Yet both were men by their nature, and all the trappings of his position did not change the fact that Dives was subject to the exact same measure of virtue as Lazarus. There is no place for snobbery in the human condition.  All of us are called to the good life, and all of have the gifts of nature necessary to live it. 

Written 10/2/1992

Image: Bonifacio Veronese (1487-1553), Dives and Lazarus.