Musonius Rufus, Lectures 10.4

You know, of course, that Demosthenes holds that people can insult even by a glance, and that such things are intolerable, and that men in one way or another are driven mad by them.

So it is that men who do not know what is really good and what is shameful, having regard only for common opinion, think they are insulted if someone gives them a malignant glance or laughs or strikes them or reviles them.

But the wise and sensible man, such as the philosopher ought to be, is not disturbed by any of these things. He does not think that disgrace lies in enduring them, but rather in doing them.

I hear it almost every day now, that our age of “political correctness” has made everyone so on edge, so easily offended, so quick to condemn anyone else’s judgment. The world has fundamentally changed, they say, so different from a better time when we could be confident in ourselves without having to go on the attack against whatever we happened to dislike.

I will respectfully suggest, however, that human nature has always been subject to this weakness, and that the only things to change are the trends and fads that become the center of this or that tribe’s loyalties. Opinions come and go like the flavor of the week, but the same small-mindedness gives a bad taste to it all.

I am old enough to remember when a good number of people would be shocked and scandalized by a hemline that was too high, or a neckline that was too low. There was no use in saying that fashions changed with the wind, and that character was in what we thought and how we lived. “Oh no! Mark my words, that girl is a whore, and she will burn in hell!”

Soon enough, you would see short shorts and spaghetti straps everywhere, and the woman who even knew what a hemline was had become a rarity.

And I slowly but surely observed the tables turn. There would now be protests and outrage at women who covered their heads or faces out of their own understanding of modesty. Once again, it was pointless to appeal to the content of character. “Oh no! We can’t have restrictive behavior like that in a modern and democratic society! They need to be proud of their bodies. It needs to be made illegal!”

It happened back in the time of Demosthenes, just as it happens now. Virtue is confused with what is popular, and principles are replaced with preferences. Notice that Musonius doesn’t just describe that this happens, but he also explains why it happens: we hastily respond from a conformity to passion and politics instead of a harmony with reason and Nature.

If I feel hurt by anyone or anything, I should first ask which of my own judgments produced that aversion. If my reaction is one of disgust, then it is clearly following from my own estimation of what is right and wrong. Am I working from a sound moral measure to begin with?

Even if I am, which is certainly not always the case, why am I assuming that it is my place to determine the actions of others? In Stoicism, where virtue is the highest human good, it is my first responsibility to manage my own character, to change what I can change about myself. I am not helping myself or helping others if my demands for justice reveal an injustice within me, if my cries of disgust only reflect my own inner rot, if I appeal to love while acting out of hatred.

So many of the things I find to be unacceptable or deplorable stem from my own ignorance about the deeper human good, the dignity of the soul.

Your words may be nasty, but they need not hurt me, and so I should not feel wronged.

You may look scandalous to me, but that says more about my own vices than it does about yours.

Your ridicule and rejection may come from your own malice, but they do not have to trigger my own malice.

You may assault my body, but you have absolutely no power over my conscience.

I should desire what is good for you, and I am not working toward that goal if I cast you out; I cannot be a friend to you if I treat you as an enemy. My acts of condemnation and violence don’t help you, and they certainly don’t help me.

Let me be careful not to trade one evil for another. There is no merit in merely diminishing your merit; I should worry more about working on my own vices than criticizing yours.

Written in 10/1999