What then? Is it not true that “women are common property by Nature”? I agree, for the sucking-pig is the common property of those who are bidden to the feast. Very well, when it has been cut into portions, come, if you see fit, and snatch the portion of the guest who sits next you, steal it secretly or slip your hand over it and taste it, or if you cannot snatch any of the flesh rub your fingers on the fat and lick them. A fine companion you are for a feast or a dinner, worthy of Socrates indeed!
Again, is not the theater common to all citizens? When they are seated there, come, if you see fit, and turn one of them out. In the same way you may say that women are common property by Nature. But when the lawgiver, like the giver of the feast, has apportioned them, will you not look for your own portion instead of stealing what is another's and guzzling that?
Again, is not the theater common to all citizens? When they are seated there, come, if you see fit, and turn one of them out. In the same way you may say that women are common property by Nature. But when the lawgiver, like the giver of the feast, has apportioned them, will you not look for your own portion instead of stealing what is another's and guzzling that?
—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.4
Ouch!
I never cease to be amazed at the way “philosophers” will contort grand theories in order to satisfy their base desires. I am old enough to have seen the last remaining “free love” professors from the 1960’s doing their thing around campus, all of whom would dispose of a young lady with a broken heart, on the grounds that she was too young to understand how their brand of freedom really meant the complete absence of accountability or respect.
Currently there is no need to even make any arguments, because sex is presumed to be about gratification through brute pleasure, not fulfillment through joyful character. The Nietzschean will has completely replaced the Socratic mind in public discourse.
How often have I now heard appeals to Plato’s Republic in defense of promiscuity? We all know precisely what Plato meant about common families, but we continue to pretend otherwise. I just recently read a scholarly article referencing this very chapter as proof that Epictetus approved of polygamy. No, I kid you not.
The passage is, of course, dripping with sarcasm, for it demands that we reflect upon what it truly means for things to be held in common. For their many differences, the capitalist and the socialist perversely agree that anything they happen to touch is rightfully theirs to possess.
The modernists, or the post-modernists, are always working from false premises, that subjective longing overrides objective cooperation, and that the communal is subject to their particular preferences. Even when we have a joint responsibility, it does not mean we erase a personal commitment.
What sort of monster walks into a party, and then drinks all the booze or eats all the food? What kind of beast attends a concert and kicks another fellow out of his seat? It is the very sort of man, loosely defined, who thinks it acceptable to sleep with your wife, or to “have his way” with anyone he happens to meet.
That we are all called by Nature to love one another does not mean we are all intended to make love to one another. A basic course in logic would clarify the confusion of these terms.
What a vast contrast there is between the man who says, “I like it, so I want it!” and the man who says, “I love it, so I revere it!"
Ouch!
I never cease to be amazed at the way “philosophers” will contort grand theories in order to satisfy their base desires. I am old enough to have seen the last remaining “free love” professors from the 1960’s doing their thing around campus, all of whom would dispose of a young lady with a broken heart, on the grounds that she was too young to understand how their brand of freedom really meant the complete absence of accountability or respect.
Currently there is no need to even make any arguments, because sex is presumed to be about gratification through brute pleasure, not fulfillment through joyful character. The Nietzschean will has completely replaced the Socratic mind in public discourse.
How often have I now heard appeals to Plato’s Republic in defense of promiscuity? We all know precisely what Plato meant about common families, but we continue to pretend otherwise. I just recently read a scholarly article referencing this very chapter as proof that Epictetus approved of polygamy. No, I kid you not.
The passage is, of course, dripping with sarcasm, for it demands that we reflect upon what it truly means for things to be held in common. For their many differences, the capitalist and the socialist perversely agree that anything they happen to touch is rightfully theirs to possess.
The modernists, or the post-modernists, are always working from false premises, that subjective longing overrides objective cooperation, and that the communal is subject to their particular preferences. Even when we have a joint responsibility, it does not mean we erase a personal commitment.
What sort of monster walks into a party, and then drinks all the booze or eats all the food? What kind of beast attends a concert and kicks another fellow out of his seat? It is the very sort of man, loosely defined, who thinks it acceptable to sleep with your wife, or to “have his way” with anyone he happens to meet.
That we are all called by Nature to love one another does not mean we are all intended to make love to one another. A basic course in logic would clarify the confusion of these terms.
What a vast contrast there is between the man who says, “I like it, so I want it!” and the man who says, “I love it, so I revere it!"
—Reflection written in 6/2001
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