. . . "The reflections which I employ for my own benefit so as not to be irked by exile, I should like to repeat to you. It seems to me that exile does not strip a man entirely, not even of the things which the average man calls goods, as I have just shown. But if he is deprived of some or all of them, he is still not deprived of the things which are truly goods.
"Certainly the exile is not prevented from possessing courage and justice simply because he is banished, nor self-control, nor understanding, nor any of the other virtues which when present serve to bring honor and benefit to a man and show him to be praiseworthy and of good repute, but when absent, serve to cause him harm and dishonor and show him to be wicked and of ill-repute.
"Since this is true, if you are that good man and have his virtues, exile will not harm or degrade you, because the virtues are present in you which are most able to help and to sustain you.
"But if you are bad, it is the evil that harms you and not exile; and the misery you feel in exile is the product of evil, not of exile. It is from this you must hasten to secure release rather than from exile." . . .
--Musonius Rufus, Fragment 9 (tr Lutz)
In typical Stoic fashion, Musonius explains that our confusion arises from what we consider to be 'good' in life. We will grumble and roll our eyes at this, of course, because only philosophers seem to worry about such abstract and obscure questions. This arises, however, from a misunderstanding of true philosophy, which isn't just about thinking well, but ordered primarily toward the fullness of living well.
As the grounded philosophers, like the Stoics, remind us time and time again, there is no more practical and critical matter than understanding the nature of the good. All thought, desire, and action rises or falls with that understanding.
"Average men" will tend to find the good in pleasure, honor, or wealth, and Musonius has explained that we need not even lose those things in a state of exile. Many have indeed increased their fortunes when cast away from home.
But even if we lose such things, these are hardly complete goods, which are determined by the value of my thoughts and deeds, not by the externals themselves. I can, in any and every circumstance, continue to practice courage, justice, temperance, or wisdom, since such goods are absolute, and depend upon nothing but my judgment. Indeed, losing pleasure, honor, and wealth can even give me an even greater opportunity to act with virtue.
The only thing that is completely good for man is the exercise of virtue, and the only thing that is completely evil for man is the exercise of vice. Happiness or misery hinge upon these two. The evil is never in the circumstances of the exile, or of any supposed misfortune, but in our use of it. We are mistaken when we say that our conditions are evil, but quite right when we see evil in our response. Let us not confuse what is done to us with what we do.
I don't think Musonius wishes to scold us, but rather to encourage us. He reminds us that he too must think through the benefit and harm in his state, and it is only in this way that he does not confuse evil with any circumstance. Our estimation of where we are to find the pure good of our nature, which can be nothing but the exercise of that nature, will be a powerful tool in living well.
Whenever I fell that itch of temptation, of measuring myself by all the worldly trappings, I do much as he suggests, and I can feel the whole viewpoint gradually shift, as if I was seeing the very same things but from a different perspective, from seeing myself from the outside in, to seeing myself from the inside out. There we have yet another instance of the Stoic Turn.
Written in 8/2013
Image: Domenico Peterlini, Dante in Exile (c. 1860):
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