Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.14

Most of the things that the multitude admire, are referred to objects of the most general kind, those that are held together by cohesion or natural organization, such as stones, wood, fig trees, vines, olives.

But those that are admired by men who are a little more reasonable, are referred to the things that are held together by a living principle, as flocks, herds.

Those that are admired by men who are still more instructed are the things that are held together by a rational soul, not however a universal soul, but rational so far as it is a soul skilled in some art, or expert in some other way, or simply rational so far as it possesses a number of slaves.

But he who values rational soul, a soul universal and fitted for political life, regards nothing else except this: above all things he keeps his soul in a condition and in an activity conformable to reason and social life, and he cooperates to this end with those who are of the same kind as himself.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6 (tr Long)

Some people seek to be satisfied by possessing and enjoying inanimate things, and they measure the value of life by their presence. A big house, a flashy car, and plenty of food on the table are deemed to be most desirable.

Others may consider the possession of animate things to be more worthy, as did a man I knew in Texas, who defined himself by how many head of cattle and acres of corn he owned, and he was quite happy to share those magic numbers every time he saw me.

Others again may pursue a seemingly more human measure, and order life by the value of people. Yet this is not in the sense of respecting people for their own sake, but making use of people to achieve a convenient and profitable end. It is the attitude that perceives human beings as a resource to be exploited.

In all three cases, we are simply admiring different degrees of property, whether in commodities, plants and animals, or other human beings. It is concerned with what is external, and it revolves around how anything or anyone can be an instrument for us in increasing our own pleasure, position, or honor.

I have known people of all three types, though I have been most familiar with the third, since they are the ones I usually went to school and worked with. They would often think of themselves as being special, informed, and refined, and were convinced that they were doing society a great service.

I have seen high-powered educators, lawyers, and clerics make fun of construction workers greedy to profit from pouring their concrete, or farmers greedy to profit from selling their crops, but in the end they aren’t so very different at all. It is perhaps only more clever and efficient to greedily make a profit out of people themselves.

There is yet another, fourth and final, group of people Marcus Aurelius speaks about. They are certainly out there, though we might not notice them. They usually do not draw attention to themselves, and they care about a very different way of living, so they seem invisible to many. Regardless of their profession, circumstances, or position, they measure life by a genuinely human standard, not by how other people can be useful to them, but by how well they themselves can think and act.

Human reason is an end in itself, never a means to and end, and the dignity of any person proceeds from the exercise of his own virtue, never from his instrumentality for others.

Observe how the world tells us, time and time again, that success is defined by the things we own and the people we influence. The Stoic stands in sharp contrast, because who he is has little to do with what he has out there. Ordered by the character of his own actions, he is then capable of looking at others as fellow subjects, never as mere objects, sharing in the exact same goal of life.

This is why the Stoic can always choose to cooperate with others, because he knows he doesn’t have to be a user, and he must never dispose of anyone.

Written in 1/2007