Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.30

A black character, a womanish character, a stubborn character, bestial, childish, animal, stupid, counterfeit, scurrilous, fraudulent, tyrannical.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4 (tr Long)

A very intelligent student once surprised me by saying this passage was proof that all white males are racist and sexist. When I tried to explain the context, he immediately reported me to the Dean for what he called a “hate crime”.

Philosophy will inevitably be offensive to ignorance, and it should never bow to the fashions of the age. Show others a respect for their point of view, if you wish you own point of view to be respected. Censorship will solve nothing, if we still want to encourage people to do their own thinking.

If the fine fellow had bothered to read the whole assignment, instead of only the bits that fit his preconceptions, he would have seen that the true Stoic is probably the most fair, egalitarian, and cosmopolitan person you’re ever likely to meet. The Stoic never judges you by what you are, but by who you are.

Blackness here has nothing to do with race, and femininity is quite fitting for a woman, but hardly fitting for a man such as our author, Marcus Aurelius himself. Inequality isn’t the issue. The development of moral character, regardless of race, gender, creed, or class, is the issue.

I have never found a passage by any Classical Stoic author that tells me how the Greeks are any better than the Romans, or how men are any better than women. I have, however, found many Stoic passages that tell me how a good man, or a good woman, is better than a bad man, or a bad woman.

The Stoics believed in the universality of humanity, and they believed, as all decent people do, that what comes first is the content of character.

In school I was once taught to love people for their own sake, beyond any accidents. But the times they are a changing, once again, as they always do. I choose to ride it out. This too shall pass.

My point is most certainly not political, because the politics of our age is primarily about ideological posturing and power, whether from the right or from the left. My point is moral. I try to define people by how they think, and by how they act, not by where they happened to be born, or what they happened to be born with. Man is a social animal, and he is always called to live with justice.

I believe this is precisely the point Marcus Aurelius has in mind. I should observe all the people around me, who have darkness in their souls, who make of themselves something they are not, who spout lies and hatred, who want only their own way, who seek gratification, power, and control, and who live in conflict with the harmony of Nature.

Now, I have only one task.

Don’t be like them.

I shouldn’t breed hatred where there should be love, and I shouldn’t breed division where there should be unity.

It’s easy for me to love people who agree with me. It’s hard for me to love people who disagree with me. I need to work on loving those people, the ones that all the important folks now tell me I’m supposed to hate.

Everyone is worthy of love, even the tyrants, but I don’t have to be one to show my care for one.

Written in 1/2016