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Friday, August 16, 2024

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.19


M. Why should I say more? Why should I add that the Peripatetics say that these perturbations, which we insist upon it should be extirpated, are not only natural, but were given to men by nature for a good purpose? 
 
They usually talk in this manner. In the first place, they say much in praise of anger; they call it the whetstone of courage, and they say that angry men exert themselves most against an enemy or against a bad citizen: that those reasons are of little weight which are the motives of men who think thus, as—it is a just war; it becomes us to fight for our laws, our liberties, our country: they will allow no force to these arguments unless our courage is warmed by anger. 
 
Nor do they confine their argument to warriors; but their opinion is that no one can issue any rigid commands without some bitterness and anger. In short, they have no notion of an orator either accusing or even defending a client without he is spurred on by anger. And though this anger should not be real, still they think his words and gestures ought to wear the appearance of it, so that the action of the orator may excite the anger of his hearer. And they deny that any man has ever been seen who does not know what it is to be angry; and they name what we call lenity by the bad appellation of indolence. 
 
Nor do they commend only this lust (for anger is, as I defined it above, the lust of revenge), but they maintain that kind of lust or desire to be given us by nature for very good purposes, saying that no one can execute anything well but what he is in earnest about. 
 
Themistocles used to walk in the public places in the night because he could not sleep; and when asked the reason, his answer was, that Miltiades’s trophies kept him awake. 
 
Who has not heard how Demosthenes used to watch, who said that it gave him pain if any mechanic was up in a morning at his work before him? 
 
Lastly, they urge that some of the greatest philosophers would never have made that progress in their studies without some ardent desire spurring them on—we are informed that Pythagoras, Democritus, and Plato visited the remotest parts of the world; for they thought that they ought to go wherever anything was to be learned. Now, it is not conceivable that these things could be effected by anything but by the greatest ardor of mind. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.19 
 
I would need to dig out my old classical rhetoric textbook, but isn’t it called apophasis when someone says he won’t be talking about it, and then promptly proceeds to talk about it? I can’t really pull it off, as it makes me feel a little shifty, though I’m glad Cicero had that arrow in his quiver. 
 
While I imagine some of it is peculiar to our cultural habits, I am wary of those who believe that anger, or any sort of hot-blooded passion, is somehow a proof of genuine conviction. I fear it can far too easily betray quite the opposite, a weakness of character where posturing is mistaken for principles. If meant only for show, it is, at the very least, insincere, and when actually reflecting an inner agitation, it tells me a fellow is having trouble with mastering himself.
 
Speaking only for myself, those moments when I am caught up in an emotional frenzy are precisely the moments when I need to take a time-out. Indeed, I have found, for example, that my will is at its bravest when my thinking is at its calmest; feelings of bitterness and resentment are usually signs of a stubborn vice festering inside of me. 
 
In order for Themistocles to be a good man, did he really have to feel that he was better than Miltiades? This appears to say more about our insecurities than about our merits, such that a craving for competition and conflict is hardly a mark of strength. I know there can be a certain satisfaction to inflicting an insult or an injury, and yet I also know that this is never to my credit. I can do far better than believing my manhood needs to depend upon my hostility. 
 
Both aggression and desire are natural instincts, but they bring us endless troubles when we permit them to run away with us: do we have them under our power, or do they have us under their power? To put it another way, it is natural for a man to be driven, while it is unnatural for a man to be dragged. We need only look into our motives to identify the difference between excellence and avarice, between justice and malice. The pattern is much the same when distinguishing love from lust. 
 
A disordered model of the person will inevitably lead to disordered standards for victory and success—we need not make heroes of enraged and grasping men. Unlike the wild beast, I have the mercy to tame my fury, and the temperance to curb my hunger. 

—Reflection written in 1/1999 

IMAGE by Ric Estrada (1960) 



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