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Friday, May 5, 2023

Seneca, Moral Letters 48.2


This fellowship, maintained with scrupulous care, which makes us mingle as men with our fellow men and holds that the human race have certain rights in common, is also of great help in cherishing the more intimate fellowship which is based on friendship, concerning which I began to speak above. For he that has much in common with a fellow man will have all things in common with a friend.
 
And on this point, my excellent Lucilius, I should like to have those subtle dialecticians of yours advise me how I ought to help a friend, or how a fellow man, rather than tell me in how many ways the word "friend" is used, and how many meanings the word "man" possesses. 
 
Lo, Wisdom and Folly are taking opposite sides. Which shall I join? Which party would you have me follow? On that side, "man" is the equivalent of "friend"; on the other side, "friend" is not the equivalent of "man." 
 
The one wants a friend for his own advantage; the other wants to make himself an advantage to his friend. What you have to offer me is nothing but distortion of words and splitting of syllables. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 48 
 
My attitude about human nature in general will lay the foundation for the way I choose to treat the individual people around me. 
 
Do I consider others to be ends in themselves, or merely as means to my own end? When I look into their eyes, do I see fellow subjects, or do I reduce them to objects for my use? Do I accept my neighbor as someone I am meant to work with in cooperation, or do I assume we must be enemies in a relentless state of confrontation? 
 
Stoicism operates from a common-sense principle that right habits of thinking lead to right habits of action, though we neglect this truth so often that it hardly seems so common. Before I get tangled up in the stampede of envy and spite, it does me a world of good to engage in some deliberate reflection on why people are made for the sake of one another. 
 
Wherever I find new people, there I always have the opportunity to discover new friends. 
 
Dwelling only on the theory, however, and nitpicking about the academic jargon are no substitutes for actually engaging in the task. I was initially confused by the way Seneca shifts the stress of this letter from the benefits of friendship to the hazards of quibbling, but I then realized how often my own urge to bicker over abstractions is such an obstacle to good will. 
 
The problem is that once I start splitting hairs, I am really just showing off, interested in making myself look good at someone else’s expense. Observe, for example, how common it is in pseudo-intellectual circles to immediately respond to any statement with a quizzical look and those belittling words: “Well, I’m not sure I agree.” 
 
As the kids like to say, that’s all kinds of wrong! Whether or not I agree should be the last decision I make, not the first, since the truth of any conclusion should follow from the merits of the argument that precedes it. 
 
If I am being sincere, I will rather begin by patiently clarifying the terms, carefully working back to first principles, and finding what is held in common before I focus on any of the differences. Only then is it fitting to affirm or deny. 
 
Arrogance breeds animosity, and animosity stands in opposition to fellowship. 
 
Now we can quarrel over the etymologies in the dictionary, in which case we will never be friends, or we can cultivate the art of being a friend as the natural perfection to being a man. 
 
A bitter man will cling to false dichotomies, such as the illusion that our advantages must be at odds, because he refuses to see past the end of his nose. 

—Reflection written in 3/2013 



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