Stockdale on Stoicism 46

Howie Rutledge, one of the four of us with more than four years, went back to school and got a master's degree after we got home. His thesis concentrated on the question of whether long-term erosion of human purpose was more effectively achieved by torture or isolation. 

He mailed out questionnaires to us (who had also taken the ropes at least ten times), and others with records of extreme prison abuse. 

He found that those who had less than two years' isolation and plenty of torture said torture was the trump card; those with more than two years' isolation and plenty of torture said that, for long-term modification of behavior, isolation was the way to go. 

From my viewpoint, you can get used to repeated rope torture—there are some tricks for minimizing your losses in that game. 

But keep a man, even a very strong-willed man, in isolation for three or more years, and he starts looking for a friend, any friend, regardless of nationality or ideology. 

—from James B. Stockdale, Master of My Fate: A Stoic Philosopher in a Hanoi Prison 

IMAGE: Jacques-Louis David, Psyche Abandoned (c. 1795) 

Aesop's Fables 78

The Horse and the Ass 

A Horse and an Ass were traveling together, the Horse prancing along in its fine trappings, the Ass carrying with difficulty the heavy weight in its panniers. 

"I wish I were you," sighed the Ass; "nothing to do and well fed, and all that fine harness upon you." 

Next day, however, there was a great battle, and the Horse was wounded to death in the final charge of the day. 

His friend, the Ass, happened to pass by shortly afterwards and found him on the point of death. 

"I was wrong," said the Ass: 

"Better humble security than gilded danger." 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 254

Hari (from hri, to steal) means "He who steals our hearts," and Haribala means "Hari is our strength."  

Seneca, Moral Letters 71.9

"What," you say, "do you call reclining at a banquet and submitting to torture equally good?" 
 
Does this seem surprising to you? You may be still more surprised at the following—that reclining at a banquet is an evil, while reclining on the rack is a good, if the former act is done in a shameful, and the latter in an honorable manner. 
 
It is not the material that makes these actions good or bad; it is the virtue. All acts in which virtue has disclosed itself are of the same measure and value. 
 
At this moment the man who measures the souls of all men by his own is shaking his fist in my face because I hold that there is a parity between the goods involved in the case of one who passes sentence honorably, and of one who suffers sentence honorably; or because I hold that there is a parity between the goods of one who celebrates a triumph, and of one who, unconquered in spirit, is carried before the victor's chariot. 
 
For such critics think that whatever they themselves cannot do, is not done; they pass judgment on virtue in the light of their own weaknesses. 
 
Why do you marvel if it helps a man, and on occasion even pleases him, to be burned, wounded, slain, or bound in prison? To a luxurious man, a simple life is a penalty; to a lazy man, work is punishment; the dandy pities the diligent man; to the slothful, studies are torture. 
 
Similarly, we regard those things with respect to which we are all infirm of disposition, as hard and beyond endurance, forgetting what a torment it is to many men to abstain from wine or to be routed from their beds at break of day. These actions are not essentially difficult; it is we ourselves that are soft and flabby. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 71 
 
My years of training in Scholastic distinctions, which the critic might condemn as mere quibbling, still serve me well in my daily Stoic practices. If you express shock and outrage at the claim that a banquet and torture can be equally good, I will do you one better, and I will follow Seneca in observing how the fine dining could actually end up becoming far worse. 
 
This can only be the case if merit is first in the form of the act, not from the matter of the act, such that the virtue or the vice within the agent is what determines the good or the evil of the circumstances. What the Stoic tradition sometimes calls “happiness on the rack” is made possible by a reappraisal of values, one grounded in character over utility. 
 
I have often been at my worst in the lap of luxury, and at my best during intense affliction. The reverse can also be the case, hinging upon my disposition, and it really depends on whether my thoughts, words, and deeds are honorable or shameful. The older folks used to speak about being a good man in a storm, so I will coin the opposite phrase for my own purposes, a bad man on calm seas. 
 
Though I have a profound reverence for Aristotle, and I continue to rely on his insights for my sanity, I have long been concerned by his insistence that certain external conditions, at least a bare minimum, are required for happiness. Even when I first read the Nicomachean Ethics, I wondered if we were considering such necessities too narrowly: cannot any situation be an occasion for virtue, however severe? 
 
When something is taken away, I am also offered the chance to live with excellence, just as much as when something is given. Sickness becomes as conducive as health, and loneliness as much as friendship. 
 
I may be taking too much inspiration from the broader perspective of Aquinas, but my Stoic experience also suggests to me that Aristotle was still confusing principles and preferences: as much as a part of me may want to be rich, I certainly don’t have to be. 
 
Indeed, our limitations usually come from our inner attitudes, not from our external circumstances. Do not believe the cynical man, when he tells you that you can’t possibly be virtuous, because he is merely talking about his own shortcomings. He cannot conceive of how pain can motivate him, or how poverty can strengthen him, or how rejection can inspire him. His enslavement to gratification is his greatest burden, and he would be liberated from it in a moment if he freed his judgments. 
 
It is remarkable how losing the very option to be lazy, luxurious, and lustful opens up whole new avenues for living. What once felt compulsory is now rightly seen as a diversion from the task at hand. If you don’t trust me, I hope that you will soon learn it for yourself, even if it is initially terrifying. 

—Reflection written in 9/2013 

Love Among the Ruins

Edward Burne-Jones, Love Among the Ruins (watercolor, 1873) 

Edward Burne-Jones, Love Among the Ruins (oil, 1894) 

The Merciful Knight

Edward Burne-Jones, The Merciful Knight (1863) 

The Last Sleep of Arthur

Edward Burne-Jones, The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon (1898) 

Pygmalion

Edward Burne-Jones, Pygmalion (first series, 1870) 

Edward Burne-Jones, Pygmalion and the Image (second series, 1878) 

The Heart Desires 

The Hand Refrains

The Godhead Fires 

The Soul Attains 

Stoic Snippets 251

Consider whence each thing is come, and of what it consists, and into what it changes, and what kind of a thing it will be when it has changed, and that it will sustain no harm. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.17 

IMAGE: M.C. Escher, Swans (1956) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 71.8

Wisdom will bring the conviction that there is but one good – that which is honorable; that this can neither be shortened nor extended, any more than a carpenter's rule, with which straight lines are tested, can be bent. Any change in the rule means spoiling the straight line. 
 
Applying, therefore, this same figure to virtue, we shall say: 
 
Virtue also is straight, and admits of no bending. What can be made more tense than a thing which is already rigid? Such is virtue, which passes judgment on everything, but nothing passes judgment on virtue. 
 
And if this rule, virtue, cannot itself be made more straight, neither can the things created by virtue be in one case straighter and in another less straight. For they must necessarily correspond to virtue; hence they are equal. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 71 
 
Whenever we form a judgment, there is always a standard by which we are judging, whether we are aware of it explicitly or assume it implicitly. 
 
Over the years, as I saw all kinds of strange and wonderful things, I noticed how most of us just take certain benchmarks for granted, without giving them much deliberate thought, and I must sadly include myself in that group, on far too many occasions. Once the premise is accepted without question, catastrophe is bound to follow, as I have sadly learned the hard way. 
 
If my experience is any guide, we tend to start with pleasure as the greatest good, and with pain as the worst evil. To his credit, Epicurus was at least describing how we tend to feel, even if he neglected to dig deeper about how we ought to think. 
 
One part of me wishes to blame the philosophers of post-modernity for reducing us to creatures of subjective desire, but the other part, the better part, recognizes why this is a universal flaw, the weakness of accepting only the impression. 
 
When I take the time to reflect upon my nature, I learn how the act of knowing, the very precondition for my sense of wonder, is what separates me from the beasts.
 
The other day, a clever man on the internet was claiming that man is hardly rational, and I could only laugh to myself as he employed reason to deny reason. Since I am a creature of mind and will, I have the power to make sense of my impressions, to find an objective meaning and value in my feelings. 
 
From this, I can discover my purpose, to direct my actions by an understanding of the true, the good, and the beautiful. From this, I know myself to be defined by my virtues, which are the proper perfection of my powers. 
 
The Stoic is certainly not alone in embracing virtue as the highest human good, but he stands above so many of the rest by making no concessions to convenience, by adding no conditions to the content of his character. Become honorable, in the deepest sense of the word, and you become what you were meant to be. The rest is trivial. 
 
Virtue is straight, and it admits of no bending—you can’t get any humanly better than this, any more complete than this. Add a pleasure, and you have tickled the appetite, or add some fame, and you have stroked the ego, but a good man is a good man, regardless of the conditions in which you find him. He is happy because he is at peace with himself and with his world. 
 
Though I now commit most of my personal study to Stoicism, my first love was for the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, and that will never leave me. In my last year of college, I stumbled across a dusty old book by Fulton Sheen, written long before he became an American television personality. God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy helped me to rightly express the framework of measures, the rules by which we judge. 
 
I had a sort of “eureka!” moment when I came to his conclusion, for while I was already beginning to understand why thought must conform to things, the mind agreeing with Nature, I was missing the final step, that all created things are ultimately measure by God: 
 
—The Divine Intellect is a measure, not a thing measured. 
—Natural things are both a measure and a thing measured. 
—The human intellect is a thing measured, not a measure. 
 
In other words, and in a more Stoic context, virtue is the perfection of our particular human nature, which is then itself measured by all of Nature as a whole, which is then itself measured by the Divine. Virtue is the excellence of what I am, and it can only exist through the excellence of all that is: my being is relative to Being. 
 
I have yet to find a “modern” Stoic thinker who understands this, though I am sure there are one or two hiding away somewhere, with absolutely no worries about getting published or attending the next conference. What “modern” Stoicism, which adopts the name without the task, fails to grasp is that virtue is meaningless without the structure of Providence. 
 
The measure of a man is his honor. The measure of a man’s honor is his service to the Absolute. Reduce virtue to something subjective, and you remove the carpenter’s rule. Yes, as a cradle Catholic, the pun is intended. 

—Reflection written in 9/2013 

The Liberal Arts 36

The Liberal Arts 35

The Liberal Arts 34

The Liberal Arts 33

Dhammapada 389

No one should attack a Brahmana, but no Brahmana, if attacked, should let himself fly at his aggressor! 

Woe to him who strikes a Brahmana, more woe to him who flies at his aggressor! 

Seneca, Moral Letters 71.7

You need not, therefore, wonder that goods are equal, both those which are to be deliberately chosen, and those which circumstances have imposed. 
 
For if you once adopt the view that they are unequal, deeming, for instance, a brave endurance of torture as among the lesser goods, you will be including it among the evils also; you will pronounce Socrates unhappy in his prison, Cato unhappy when he reopens his wounds with more courage than he showed in inflicting them, and Regulus the most ill-starred of all when he pays the penalty for keeping his word even with his enemies. 
 
And yet no man, even the most effeminate person in the world, has ever dared to maintain such an opinion. For though such persons deny that a man like Regulus is happy, yet for all that they also deny that he is wretched. 
 
The earlier Academics do indeed admit that a man is happy even amid such tortures, but do not admit that he is completely or fully happy. With this view we cannot in any wise agree; for unless a man is happy, he has not attained the Supreme Good; and the good which is supreme admits of no higher degree, if only virtue exists within this man, and if adversity does not impair his virtue, and if, though the body be injured, the virtue abides unharmed. 
 
And it does abide. For I understand virtue to be high-spirited and exalted, so that it is aroused by anything that molests it. This spirit, which young men of noble breeding often assume, when they are so deeply stirred by the beauty of some honorable object that they despise all the gifts of chance, is assuredly infused in us and communicated to us by wisdom. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 71 
 
It wasn’t until I had examined my motives with a brutal honesty that I recognized how thoroughly I was comparing myself to others. I liked to think I was a free spirit, hardly restricted by the blinders of convention, and yet it turned out how most every goal I believed I was setting for myself was actually defined by some sort of contest, always looking to my left or to my right to gauge my progress. 
 
This fellow has far better grades, so he is surely ahead of me. That fellow just got brutally dumped by his girlfriend, so I might have a chance to gain some ground. It was all about someone else’s situation, and not really about my own character: if I had reflected more carefully upon the true good within my nature, I would have understood why a blessing for one is never greater or lesser than a blessing for another. 
 
This only sounds ridiculous if I remain entranced by the accidents instead of the substance. As a creature of reason and will, the perfection of my nature lies in the excellence of my own judgments and actions, with every other condition being relative to that end. This is the basic argument for why the Stoics speak of virtue as the highest human good, as much as I might prefer to dismiss such principles as mere romantic posturing. 
 
And if I muddy the water by dwelling upon the whims of fortune, I am compromising the superior for the inferior. Socrates, or Cato, or Regulus chose to focus on their own integrity, and in doing so they lived in the richest and fullest way possible: nothing further could be added to it, whatever the circumstances, and nothing could be taken away from it, without their free consent. 
 
Once I object that their virtue was diminished by pain, or that their happiness was lessened by hardship, I am working from contradictory standards; once I wish to have it both ways, I will end up having it no way at all. If a state is complete in itself, in each of its moments, no supplement or reduction is required. Hume was mistaken to claim that comfort makes it nicer, just as Kant was mistaken to claim the discomfort makes it nobler—it is all of a one. 
 
No, Socrates would not have been a better or a happier man free from prison, and Cato would not have been a better or a happier man by defeating Caesar, and Regulus would not have been a better or a happier man by remaining in Rome. Do not permit the obfuscations of scholars to convince you otherwise. 
 
I do not know how embellished their life stories became over the years, and I honestly don’t think it matters to prove the point that character always rises above convenience. It is the mark of a misanthrope to question the honorable intent of legendary heroes, when dozens of similar cases can be found from everyday life, just outside his window. 

—Reflection written in 9/2013 

IMAGE: Benjamin West, The Departure of Regulus (1769) 

Abandoned Places 57

IMAGE by Christian Richter 

Nature 59

IMAGE by Andrew Studer 

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 164

Even when the wound is healed, the scar remains. 

IMAGE: William D. McPherson and J. Oliver, The Scourged Back (1863) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 71.6

Therefore, the wise man will say just what a Marcus Cato would say, after reviewing his past life: 
 
"The whole race of man, both that which is and that which is to be, is condemned to die. 
 
“Of all the cities that at any time have held sway over the world, and of all that have been the splendid ornaments of empires not their own, men shall someday ask where they were, and they shall be swept away by destructions of various kinds; some shall be ruined by wars, others shall be wasted away by inactivity and by the kind of peace which ends in sloth, or by that vice which is fraught with destruction even for mighty dynasties—luxury. 
 
“All these fertile plains shall be buried out of sight by a sudden overflowing of the sea, or a slipping of the soil, as it settles to lower levels, shall draw them suddenly into a yawning chasm. Why then should I be angry or feel sorrow, if I precede the general destruction by a tiny interval of time?" 
 
Let great souls comply with God's wishes, and suffer unhesitatingly whatever fate the law of the Universe ordains; for the soul at death is either sent forth into a better life, destined to dwell with Deity amid greater radiance and calm, or else, at least, without suffering any harm to itself, it will be mingled with Nature again, and will return to the Universe. 
 
Therefore, Cato's honorable death was no less a good than his honorable life, since virtue admits of no stretching. Socrates used to say that verity and virtue were the same. Just as truth does not grow, so neither does virtue grow; for it has its due proportions and is complete. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 71 

 
What a Cato or a Seneca have to say will certainly sound quite odd to those of us who were raised to define ourselves by our worldly success. To make our mark, we were told, it is necessary to accumulate wealth, to acquire a reputation, to gain influence, and thereby “to see and to be seen”. 
 
How disturbing, then, when we are reminded how shallow and fleeting such diversions truly are, and why they can never offer us any peace of mind. 
 
I am sorely mistaken if I believe I can cling to my circumstances or build some sort of enduring legacy; even the most cursory glance at history will show that none of it is lasting, and that death is the great equalizer. Just ask Ozymandias. 
 
Having focused on increasing the quantity of my supposed possessions, I will have neglected the quality of my character, the only thing that was within my power to begin with; more years, or more trinkets, or more admirers will do nothing to improve the inner state of my soul. 
 
They tell me that thinking like this is outdated, as if truth were a function of fashion, and that nobody speaks like Cato or Seneca anymore. 
 
Now while such lofty rhetoric is certainly rare, I will still insist that there are many in this world who continue to revere virtue above all else, and you simply don’t take any notice of them, because they feel no need to put on an elaborate show. A man of conscience is timeless, the salt of the earth, with little interest in impressing anyone or ruling anything beyond himself. 
 
He knows this by reflecting upon his own nature, instead of blindly following the herd. He understands how he will soon be forgotten, and yet this does not trouble him in the least, for he has discovered his worth on the inside, regardless of the trappings on the outside. 
 
The passage of time, however much or little is given to him, will only confirm that the lay of the land is meant to be in constant flux, leaving but the dignity of conviction, however humble its conditions or brief its expression. 
 
Virtue does not need to grow bigger in quantity, since it is already complete in quality, the total actualization of what it means to be human—the rest is accidental, such that any and every situation is an opportunity for excellence.
 
Will God give us the reward of eternal bliss after we have run the course? Will something of us remain after we are dead? Perhaps, but even if my consciousness ceases to be distinct, and the pieces of me merge back into the Whole, to be transformed into something new, I need ask for nothing more than my short moment of honor. 

—Reflection written in 9/2013 

IMAGE: Guercino, The Suicide of Cato (c. 1650) 

Henry David Thoreau 5

Men and boys are learning all kinds of trades but how to make men of themselves. 

They learn to make houses; but they are not so well housed, they are not so contented in their houses, as the woodchucks in their holes. 

What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?—if you cannot tolerate the planet that it is on? Grade the ground first. 

If a man believes and expects great things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you show him . . . he will be surrounded by grandeur. 

He is in the condition of a healthy and hungry man, who says to himself—how sweet this crust is! 

—Henry David Thoreau, in a letter to Harrison Blake (20 May, 1860) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 10

The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Natural History of Intellect 

IMAGE: Francisco Goya, The Fates (1823) 

James Vila Blake, Sonnets from Marcus Aurelius 18

18. 

Ἐμὲ ἓν μόνον περισπᾷ, μή τι αὐτὸς ποιήσω, ὃ ἡ κατασκευὴ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐ θέλει ἢ ὡς οὐ θέλει ἢ ὃ νῦν οὐ θέλει. 

There is but one thing that moves me solicitously, namely, that I myself shall not do anything disallowed by the constitution of man, or in a way disallowed, or disallowed at this present moment.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.20 

18. 

Two clans or companies wide Nature hath: 

What I can wield, eke what ’s beyond my power; 

With these let me go on my sunny path, 

Nor mire the breast or wings o’ the present hour. 

Now do I moan no more, whimper nor pine; 

The evils I can rule I straightway cure; 

For things not in my power ’twere base to whine 

Or groan while manful reason bids endure. 

So in the moving mass and sum of things 

I can and can not, one mark looms sublime: 

My sole care is that naught me draws or stings 

’Gainst my true self, or ill in way or time. 

How all-benign the universe to me, 

That I amid these massy things am free! 

Seneca, Moral Letters 71.5

Why should he not suffer, bravely and calmly, a change in the government? For what is free from the risk of change? Neither earth, nor sky, nor the whole fabric of our Universe, though it be controlled by the hand of God. It will not always preserve its present order; it will be thrown from its course in days to come. 
 
All things move in accord with their appointed times; they are destined to be born, to grow, and to be destroyed. The stars which you see moving above us, and this seemingly immovable earth to which we cling and on which we are set, will be consumed and will cease to exist. 
 
There is nothing that does not have its old age; the intervals are merely unequal at which Nature sends forth all these things towards the same goal. Whatever is, will cease to be, and yet it will not perish, but will be resolved into its elements. 
 
To our minds, this process means perishing, for we behold only that which is nearest; our sluggish mind, under allegiance to the body, does not penetrate to bournes beyond. 
 
Were it not so, the mind would endure with greater courage its own ending and that of its possessions, if only it could hope that life and death, like the whole Universe about us, go by turns, that whatever has been put together is broken up again, that whatever has been broken up is put together again, and that the eternal craftsmanship of God, who controls all things, is working at this task. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 71 
 
“All is like straw” is the next of those annoying Stoic rules I constantly repeat, though I gladly admit to stealing the phrase from St. Thomas Aquinas, then followed closely by “Think much bigger”. I can never go wrong by remembering the fragility of my particular circumstances, and I can never go wrong by simultaneously holding fast to the order of Providence. 
 
Nature delights in change, which is itself a mark of its meaning and purpose, while behind it all is the working of Divine Mind. This little annoyance, which may appear to be so frightful at the moment, will soon pass, once it has served its part. That alluring prize, which may appear to be so indispensable at the moment, will also pass, which is precisely as it should be. 
 
What initially seems so large is really quite small, and what initially seems so distant is really the closest of all. A fleeting misfortune is nothing, just as the presence of God is everything: if I limit myself to a picture of a bearded old man in the sky, even if that is the best my feeble imagination can manage, I am not extending my thought to the fullness of the Whole. 
 
I will not dwell upon the metaphysics here, but there is a good reason why the Stoics equated God with being, and did not merely speak of a Creator who mysteriously hovered above His creatures. While I will raise eyebrows among both the classicists and the Thomists, I dare to suggest that all the Wisdom Traditions point to the ultimate unity of existence, where, as St. Augustine said, things are real insofar as they are from God, and unreal insofar they are not God—only God subsists.
 
I am always viewing things from the perspective of my position, from the bottom up, when I must strive to consider things from the perspective of the Ultimate, from the top down. I do not refer here to a spatial direction, but to what I can only call a causal priority, placing what is relative within the context of what is absolute, what is contingent upon what is necessary, and what is imperfect under what is perfect. 
 
That I am young and vital now, though I will soon be old and feeble, or that I feel pleasure now, though I will soon feel pain, is not a burden, if I am willing to extend my awareness beyond the appearance of the temporary into the realm of the eternal. 

—Reflection written in 9/2013 

IMAGE: Michelangelo, Creation of Adam, detail (1510) 

The Mother Road 3

The Basel Dance of Death 7

Matthäus Merian, The Basel Dance of Death: The Cardinal (1616) 

"Rise up with your red hat,
Lord Cardinal, this dance is good.
You have often blessed many laypeople.
You must now also join the dance."

"I was by papal choice
a cardinal of the Holy Church.
The world held me in great esteem.
Now I cannot withstand Death's power." 

Ellis Walker, Epictetus in Poetical Paraphrase 52

LII. 

Boast not in company of what you've done,
What battles you have fought, what hazards run;
How first at such a siege of such a town,
You scal'd the walls, and won the mural crown;
And how your skill and conduct gain'd the day,
While hosts of slaughter'd foes about you lay:
For while your actions you yourself relate,
You from your real merits derogate;
With your own breath you blow away your praise,
And overthrow those trophies you would raise;
You talk away those honours you have got,
While some despise you, some believe you not;
Nor is't as pleasant  or agreeable
To them to hear, as 'tis to you to tell:
What is't to them what laurels you have gain'd?
What dangers you've escap'd, what wounds sustain'd?
Perhaps they fancy all that you have said
Doth but their sloth, or cowardice upbraid,
And, vex'd or tir'd, they wish you all the same
Danger, and wounds, and hardships o'er again.