Stockdale on Stoicism 57

Like all good squeeze-play systems, political prisons are meant to destroy the man who chooses the "middle way," who decides to be "reasonable," to "meet them half-way." 

For hours on end, my commissar would plead with me to follow that track: "You are an American, you are pragmatic; come, let us reason together." 

It is only when he can get you to level with him in some small way, to drop your guard and betray an emotional dependence on his good will, that he can get his crowbars of fear and guilt behind your armor and begin to twist.

Political prison extortion is one grand leverage game. The inmate is well served to chant the rules he must live by under his breath: "Show no fear." "Never trigger shame." "The credibility of your defiance must be maintained." "The prison onslaught must be contained." "Never level with a jailer." 

One soon learns that to survive with self-respect, he has to divest himself of the remnants of his student-body-president personality: the willingness to be open, to interact, to respond in interesting ways. 

With time and care, many prisoners create a new independent personality that even under torture is difficult to manipulate. In Stoic terms, having external needs makes one vulnerable and vulgar.

The condition and characteristic of a vulgar person is that he never looks for either help or harm from himself, but only from externals. The condition and characteristic of a philosopher is that he looks to himself for all help or harm.

I do not suggest that I understood all this while in prison or that the Enchiridion was familiar enough to use as a text on how to face the challenge. But, remembering my experiences in prison, I have since come to think that the Enchiridion has all the right answers. 

—from James B. Stockdale, Epictetus' Enchiridion: Conflict and Character 

IMAGE: Nikolai Yaroshenko, A Prisoner in His Cell (1878) 

Henry David Thoreau 16

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. 

—from Henry David Thoreau, Journals (19 August, 1851) 

Owls 19

IMAGE by Hassan Ibrahim 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 21

No man can have society upon his own terms. If he seeks it, he must serve it too. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals (1833) 

The Mother Road 15

IMAGES by Bob Waldmire (1992) 

Epictetus, Discourses 2.11.1

Chapter 11: What is the beginning of philosophy.  

The beginning of philosophy with those who approach it in the right way and by the door is a consciousness of one's own weakness and want of power in regard to necessary things. 
 
For we come into the world with no innate conception of a right-angled triangle, or of a quarter-tone or of a semi-tone, but we are taught what each of these means by systematic instruction; and therefore those who are ignorant of these things do not think that they know them. 
 
On the other hand, everyone has come into the world with an innate conception as to good and bad, noble and shameful, becoming and unbecoming, happiness and unhappiness, fitting and inappropriate, what is right to do and what is wrong. 
 
Therefore, we all use these terms and try to fit our preconceived notions to particular facts. 
 
“He did nobly”, “dutifully”, “un-dutifully”; “he was unfortunate”, “he was fortunate”; “he is unjust”, “he is just.” 
 
Which of us refrains from these phrases? Which of us puts off using them until he is taught them, just as men who have no knowledge of lines or sounds refrain from talking of them? 
 
The reason is that on the subject in question we come into the world with a certain amount of teaching, so to say, already given us by nature; to this basis of knowledge we have added our own fancies. 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.11
 
If I were to present this passage to my esteemed colleagues, they would immediately begin debating about a possible relationship between Epictetus and the innate ideas of Platonism, and whether there might be some trail of textual breadcrumbs connecting the Stoics with the Academy. I can even picture one fellow working it into the footnotes for his next scholarly article. 
 
While I am also interested in such technical questions, since I will never deny that I am a philosophy geek, this letter inspires me for very different reasons. I recognize how often my thinking jumps far ahead of what is justified, and why my immediate opinions, however comfortable they might feel, do not necessarily reflect the way things are. I attend to this letter because it reminds me that philosophy is indispensable as a guide for daily living. 
 
On the scholarly side of things, I will only suggest that Epictetus is speaking of an intrinsic disposition to understanding, more like a Peripatetic potency, or what Chrysippus called a “seed”, rather than any content of knowledge that precedes experience. By our very nature, we are inclined to seeking out meaning and purpose. 
 
On the personal side of things, that can also get us in quite a bit of trouble. It is our nature to understand, to distinguish the true from the false and the good from the bad, but we instinctively turn to concepts like duty, fortune, and justice, without first arriving at a clear definition of these terms. 
 
I cannot be expected to work through a mathematical proof, or to compose a piece of music, without the discipline of training, so why do I assume I can make life-altering decisions about right and wrong before I have clarified my first principles? As much as I make my demands about being happy, have I grasped anything about what it actually means to live with excellence? 
 
My natural impulses have pointed me in a vague direction, and now my deliberate judgments must focus in on the details of the map. Otherwise, I will find myself making sweeping claims about politics, economics, and all sorts of social schemes, while never having established what it even means to be human. If I am speaking of benefit or harm in my day-to-day business, I would be well advised to lay out some of the ground rules. 
 
My hunches give me a certain confidence, like a child who believes he already knows how to play baseball by watching a game on the television. No, an inspiration is just the beginning, not to be confused with the completion of the task. Philosophy, as the practical foundation for all of our estimation, is the necessary condition for anything worthwhile I will ever achieve in this life. 
 
Hasty conceits and flights of fancy are no substitute for a fixed measure. 

—Reflection written in 8/2001 

The Basel Dance of Death 18

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

"Now come, you noble warrior.
You must attend to your manliness here
with Death, who spares no man.
Take leave, then you will be rewarded."

"I have frightened many men, 
who were bedecked in armor.
Now grim Death battles with me
and truly leaves me in great distress." 

Ellis Walker, Epictetus in Poetical Paraphrase 63

LXIII. 

If any strive to injure, or defame
Your honour, filching from you your good name;
Consider, he believes this blame your due,
That he doth only what he ought to do:
For 'tis a thing impossible, that he
Should so in sentiments with you agree,
As not to follow his own bent of mind,
And that to which his judgment is inclin'd.
Now if through carelessness he judge amiss,
He suffers most, and all the harm is his.
He truly suffers most, whose reason's light
Is clouded o'er, whom error doth benight;
He the affront to his own reason gives,
Who thinks wrong right, who falshoods truths believes.
Then why should his mistakes your soul torment?
His own mistakes are his own punishment;
He wrongs his judgment, not the truth, or you,
You still are guiltless, still what's truth is true;
Still 'tis a certain truth (whate'er he say)
That whensoe'er the sun appears, 'tis day.
And thus prepar'd, you patiently may bear
His rudeness, and unmov'd his slanders hear,
And calmly answer, that such things to him 
Fit to be done, fit to be said, may seem.

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 196

The great gifts of Fortune are waited on by fear. 

William Hogarth, Industry and Idleness 1

When I first came across this series of prints, I was still in college, and I was deeply confused about where my life would take me. In hindsight, a part of my problem was the very wording of my question, because I should have been more concerned about where I would take my life. 

I had long been told about the importance of hard work, and yet I did not bind my diligence to a sense of joyful duty. While they told me I could be successful if I put in the effort, I was not impressed by the prospect of riches and fame, only coming to appreciate intense labor once I discovered some deeper values worth living for. 

Please don't tell me a man is happy because he is rich, when it actually turns out that he is rich because he is happy. 

So much of Hogarth's work teaches us how virtue will raise us up, just as vice will drag us down, and it employs various images of prosperity and misery to drive the point home. This is a lesson worth learning, at any time or in any place, even if it is presented in an idealized manner. 

There is a danger, however, in treating the good fortune as an end in itself, instead of recognizing it as a consequence of a good character, an outward symbol for an inner commitment. As a child, I wondered what it meant to live "happily ever after" in the fairy tales, and if it was merely about defeating the dragon and winning the heart of the princess. Was the prince still a hero if he tried his best and fell in battle? 

I unfortunately know of far too many noble souls who have done precisely the right thing, only to never receive any earthly reward. I am hesitant to follow those who insist that hard work alone will bring us our happiness, without building upon the foundation of a healthy conscience. 

Our circumstances can be fickle, often unfolding in a way that has no connection to our merits, but what fascinates me about Hogarth's scenario is how both Thomas Idle and Francis Goodchild begin with exactly the same opportunities, and then end up making such radically different choices. In this particular narrative, no one has an unfair advantage, and no one has gotten a raw deal: it almost plays out like a moral experiment under identical conditions. 

The two apprentices are in service to one master weaver, and are asked to perform equal tasks. Nevertheless, Thomas is asleep at his loom, while Francis is at the top of his game. What may at first appear to be the trivial difference between having a good day and having a bad day is really grounded in the most basic judgments about what is "good" and what is "bad". 

One copy of The Prentice's Guide is neglected, while the other is well cared for. Thomas is more concerned with his beer and tobacco, and reading the latest novels, while Francis does not allow himself to be distracted, and keeps up with the local news. 

The Master does not look angry at Thomas—only disappointed. I know that look all too well, and I am now grateful that it eventually had some effect on me. 

The items in the frame are premonitions of their respective futures: to the left, a whip, shackles, and a hanging rope; to the right, a mace, a ceremonial sword, and a chain of gold. 

I have no problem with the cat being a cat, but I do frown upon Thomas not shooing the cat. 

What's that? You say Thomas is at least having some fun, and Francis just looks like a square? Yet regardless of what may come, Thomas is hung over, and Francis is smiling. Maybe it only sounds stuffy to someone who expects to receive and never intends to give. Be careful where you seek your contentment. 

Proverbs 23:21 

The Drunkard shall come to
Poverty, and drowsiness shall
clothe a Man with rags. 

Proverbs 10:4 

The hand of the diligent
maketh rich. 

William Hogarth, Industry and Idleness 1: The Fellow 'Prentices at Their Looms (1747) 

Maxims of Goethe 88

I can promise to be sincere, but not to be impartial. 

James Vila Blake, Sonnets from Marcus Aurelius 29

29. 

Οἱ Πυθαγόρειοι: ἕωθεν εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν ἀφορᾶν, ἵν̓ ὑπομιμνῃσκώμεθα τῶν ἀεὶ κατὰ τὰ αὐτὰ καὶ ὡσαύτως τὸ ἑαυτῶν ἔργον διανυόντων καὶ τῆς τάξεως καὶ τῆς καθαρότητος καὶ τῆς γυμνότητος: οὐδὲν γὰρ προκάλυμμα ἄστρου. 

The Pythagoreans bid us look up into the sky in the morning, that we may keep ourselves mindful of those hosts that always are accomplishing their work by the same course and in the same way; and that so we may know their orderly ranks and their purity and their natural openness—for no star wears a veil.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.27 

29. 

Pythagoras’ disciples have a creed 

Of morning’s bounden duty unto joy. 

Look up, they say, and to the expanse give heed, 

And let three lustrous thoughts thy soul employ: 

Acclaim the order and the constancy 

Of heavenly beamy bodies, each in place. 

Laud the purgation and equality 

Of matter in those fulgencies of space. 

Relish the artlessness of all those lights, 

That open to our eyes and cry us hail, 

And naught have to conceal, no hidden plights, 

But unreserved; for no star wears a veil. 

If with this homage the daily dawn we meet, 

Our path is plain, and sparkles to our feet. 

IMAGE: Fyodor Bronnikov, Pythagoreans Celebrate the Sunrise (1869) 

Delphic Maxims 97

Εὐπροσήγορος γίνου 

Be courteous 

IMAGE: Randolph Caldecott, May Day Dancing (1884) 

Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 6.6

But why do I talk of myself, who through the contagion of fashion and of the times, am perhaps a little infected with the fault of the age? 
 
In the memory of our fathers, Manius Manilius (not to mention continually the Curii and the Luscinii) at length became poor; for he had only a little house at Carani and a farm near Labicum. Now are we, because we have greater possessions, richer men? I wish we were. 
 
But the amount of wealth is not defined by the valuation of the census, but by habit and mode of life; not to be greedy is wealth; not to be extravagant is revenue. Above all things, to be content with what we possess is the greatest and most secure of riches. 
 
If therefore they who are the most skillful valuers of property highly estimate fields and certain sites, because such estates are the least liable to injury, how much more valuable is virtue, which never can be wrested, never can be filched from us, which cannot be lost by fire or by shipwreck, and which is not alienated by the convulsions of tempest or of time, with which those who are endowed alone are rich, for they alone possess resources which are profitable and eternal; and they are the only men who, being contented with what they possess, think it sufficient, which is the criterion of riches: they hanker after nothing, they are in need of nothing, they feel the want of nothing, and they require nothing. 
 
As to the unsatiable and avaricious part of mankind, as they have possessions liable to uncertainty, and at the mercy of chance, they who are forever thirsting after more, and of whom there never was a man for whom what he had sufficed; they are so far from being wealthy and rich, that they are to be regarded as necessitous and beggared. 

—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 6 
 
Like Cicero, it is easy for me to treat certain luxuries as if they were necessities, unwittingly raising the bar for a supposedly happy life. It doesn’t help how those around me are constantly trying to outdo one another, with the end result that we must now have a million-dollar home, at least two cars in the garage, and a summer vacation costing more than my grandfather earned in an entire year. 
 
All of it is driven by credit, of course, which tricks us into thinking we are getting rich, when, in fact, the banks are getting rich, as we obediently feed at their trough. 
 
Like Cicero, I also wonder if folks from the past were more temperate and frugal, but I then remember why there must be a Crassus for every Manilius in any age, and I just happen to look back at one of them with greater reverence. 
 
I would be grateful for the little house, which, as a teacher in Catholic schools, is at this point completely beyond my means, but I have absolutely no urge to boss other workers on some farm. Perhaps that would change if you tempted me with prosperity, which only goes to show why riches can have a way of numbing us to what is essential in life. 
 
Once again, however, it is never the money itself that is the problem, for the man who attends first to the cultivation of his conscience will thrive as either a prince or a pauper. 
 
What first struck me so profoundly about Stoicism was its insistence on a radically different set of priorities, one that so many other philosophers would praise in theory, but so often failed to apply in practice. True riches are in the disposition of the soul, regardless of the accessories, and our daily habits should reflect that dignity. 
 
When I continue to doubt this truth, I can remind myself why virtue is always more reliable than fortune. Despite our conniving, the circumstances will unfold on their own terms, and even when they seem to coincide with our desires, we remain forever at their mercy. 
 
We are kidding ourselves when we say that we have “earned” some worldly reward, because the choices of others, and the subtle workings of fate, which will usually appear as random to our clouded vision, are far beyond our power. 
 
No, I am at my best when I put my trust in my own character, which alone remains for me to determine. Though an enemy may take my property, or my comforts, or my reputation, or even my very life, he has no authority over my judgments, unless I have already decided to surrender them. For all the pain another might inflict, it pales in comparison to the harm I inflict upon myself once I abandon my nature. 
 
I should not blame a man for being rich, or even for being greedy. Let me find joy in attending to my own virtues, which is the only way I can encourage him to help himself. The greatest wealth lies within. 

—Reflection written in 5/1999 

IMAGE: Franco-Flemish School, Temperance (c. 1780) 

The Darkling Thursh

"The Darkling Thrush" 

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) 

I leant upon a coppice gate

      When Frost was spectre-grey,

And Winter's dregs made desolate

      The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

      Like strings of broken lyres,

And all mankind that haunted nigh

      Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be

      The Century's corpse outleant,

His crypt the cloudy canopy,

      The wind his death-lament.

The ancient pulse of germ and birth

      Was shrunken hard and dry,

And every spirit upon earth

      Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among

      The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

      Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

      In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

      Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings

      Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

      Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

      His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

      And I was unaware. 

The Fall of Babylon

John Martin, The Fall of Babylon (1831) 

Mutability

"Mutability" 

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) 

From low to high doth dissolution climb,

And sink from high to low, along a scale

Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail;

A musical but melancholy chime,

Which they can hear who meddle not with crime,

Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care.

Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear

The longest date do melt like frosty rime,

That in the morning whitened hill and plain

And is no more; drop like the tower sublime

Of yesterday, which royally did wear

His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain

Some casual shout that broke the silent air,

Or the unimaginable touch of Time. 

IMAGE: Johann Heinrich Schönfeld, Allegory of Time (c. 1640) 

In the Alpine High Valley

Carl Spitzweg, In the Alpine High Valley (c. 1871) 

Hymn to the Night

"Hymn to the Night" 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) 

Aspasie, trillistos. 

I heard the trailing garments of the Night 

      Sweep through her marble halls! 

I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light 

      From the celestial walls! 

I felt her presence, by its spell of might, 

      Stoop o'er me from above; 

The calm, majestic presence of the Night, 

      As of the one I love. 

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight, 

      The manifold, soft chimes, 

That fill the haunted chambers of the Night, 

      Like some old poet's rhymes. 

From the cool cisterns of the midnight air 

      My spirit drank repose; 

The fountain of perpetual peace flows there— 

      From those deep cisterns flows. 

O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear 

      What man has borne before! 

Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care, 

      And they complain no more. 

Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer! 

      Descend with broad-winged flight, 

The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair, 

      The best-beloved Night! 

IMAGE: Jean-Francois Millet, Starry Night (1865)