Seneca, Moral Letters 7.6

In order, however, that I may not today have learned exclusively for myself, I shall share with you three excellent sayings, of the same general purport, which have come to my attention. This letter will give you one of them as payment of my debt; the other two you may accept as a contribution in advance. 

 

Democritus says: "One man means as much to me as a multitude, and a multitude only as much as one man."

 

The following also was nobly spoken by someone or other, for it is doubtful who the author was; they asked him what was the object of all this study applied to an art that would reach but very few. He replied: "I am content with few, content with one, content with none at all." 

 

The third saying—and a noteworthy one, too—is by Epicurus, written to one of the partners of his studies: "I write this not for the many, but for you; each of us is enough of an audience for the other.” 

 

Lay these words to heart, Lucilius, that you may scorn the pleasure which comes from the applause of the majority. Many men praise you; but have you any reason for being pleased with yourself, if you are a person whom the many can understand? Your good qualities should face inwards. Farewell.

 

I always feel uncomfortable when John Stuart Mill writes about “the greatest good for the greatest number”, as if there has to be a tension between the one and the many, or that what satisfies the few is second best to what satisfies the crowd. 

 

In much the same way, I cringe a little bit when I hear those lines from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, otherwise one of my favorite guilty pleasures in film: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.”

 

I won’t venture to speak for Mill or for Spock, but I do see a false dichotomy when people oppose the majority and the minority, all because a qualitative difference is being confused with a quantitative one. 

 

If something is genuinely good for one person, it is then already in and of itself something complete. If something else is then genuinely good for another person, that too is in and of itself something complete. If I now place the two next to one another, I have not made either any better than it was before, only provided multiple instances of what possesses inherent worth. 

 

If the human good is rightly understood, then there is never any need for the benefit of some to require a harm to others, whether we are speaking of the many or of the few. 

Virtue, unlike wealth or fame, is not a limited commodity, and so it is quite possible, whatever the external circumstances, for all people to treat one another with justice and decency. One must not lack it so that others can have it. 

 

If something is right or wrong, it will be so by Nature itself, applying fully to the parts and to the whole, and it will make no difference whatsoever whether it happens to be popular or unpopular. 

 

In case some fellow geek is shocked by my view of Spock, I can assure you that I believe his act to be incredibly noble, and my allergies somehow kick in whenever I watch the scene. No, I only object to the wording, to suggesting that by giving his life for his crewmates he somehow had to do a wrong for himself. By his being a good person, he could only help them to be good people. 

 

To suffer a loss in the body was here to gain a blessing in the soul, the only thing that all of us ultimately need. So I instead focus in on some of Spock’s other words: “I have been, and always shall be, your friend.”

 

Does anyone ever notice that in the next film, the entire crew of the Enterprise is willing to sacrifice everything to save just one man? That, too, is as it should be. To mix my literary metaphors, it is necessary to learn a far deeper lesson: 

 

Un pour tous, tous pour un. “One for all, all for one!” 

 

The sayings Seneca shares with Lucilius can only help to remind me that good is good, however big or small, broad or narrow, esteemed or forgotten. The total merit is on the inside of each individual, regardless of the grandeur of scale. 

Written in 4/2012