Therefore, you should state why the wise man ought not to get drunk. Explain by facts, and not by mere words, the hideousness of the thing, and its haunting evils.
Do that which is easiest of all—namely, demonstrate that what men call pleasures are punishments as soon as they have exceeded due bounds.
For if you try to prove that the wise man can souse himself with much wine and yet keep his course straight, even though he be in his cups, you may go on to infer by syllogisms that he will not die if he swallows poison, that he will not sleep if he takes a sleeping potion, that he will not vomit and reject the matter which clogs his stomach when you give him hellebore.
But, when a man’s feet totter and his tongue is unsteady, what reason have you for believing that he is half sober and half drunk? Farewell.
Do that which is easiest of all—namely, demonstrate that what men call pleasures are punishments as soon as they have exceeded due bounds.
For if you try to prove that the wise man can souse himself with much wine and yet keep his course straight, even though he be in his cups, you may go on to infer by syllogisms that he will not die if he swallows poison, that he will not sleep if he takes a sleeping potion, that he will not vomit and reject the matter which clogs his stomach when you give him hellebore.
But, when a man’s feet totter and his tongue is unsteady, what reason have you for believing that he is half sober and half drunk? Farewell.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 83
A rousing sermon or a lofty treatise does have its proper place, but a man can only learn to practice sobriety if he can see right before him why intoxication will always make him worse, and this, in turn, is only possible if he can see right before him why virtue is all that can make him better. No amount of censure or study can take the place of making that connection in daily living.
And another man cannot do this for you—you will have to do it for yourself. While Nature is there to point the way, you must commit to taking the necessary steps.
In my own case, I long appreciated the nuances of the theory, yet I was ignoring a critical component: when push comes to shove, do not treat every immediate gratification as if it were a good, because the value of the pleasure is relative to the merit of the action.
When the feelings are divorced from an understanding, we are fumbling about blindly, and we are far more likely to miss wildly than to hit the mark. It is judgment that provides the measure of too much or too little.
As much as I can conceive of this through a formal syllogism, the self-loathing that follows from falling into excess is the best sort of proof. Though it may sound like a cheap parlor trick, there are few more effective methods for resisting a compulsion than carefully visualizing, in gory detail, my situation and state of mind in the next twenty-four hours. Even the most beastly of hedonists is then likely to think twice.
Intellectuals have a knack for rationalizing most anything, because they are inclined to dwell upon the words in isolation from the deeds, with the misguided aim of being notably clever instead of just becoming quietly decent.
I am suspicious, therefore, of any sort of zealot, whether he denounces or embraces all of the pleasures. Prudence, as distinct from prudishness or permissiveness, know why the limit has been reached when we have surrendered a mastery over ourselves.
The answer is neither in running away nor in making excuses. It is in being fully accountable.
A rousing sermon or a lofty treatise does have its proper place, but a man can only learn to practice sobriety if he can see right before him why intoxication will always make him worse, and this, in turn, is only possible if he can see right before him why virtue is all that can make him better. No amount of censure or study can take the place of making that connection in daily living.
And another man cannot do this for you—you will have to do it for yourself. While Nature is there to point the way, you must commit to taking the necessary steps.
In my own case, I long appreciated the nuances of the theory, yet I was ignoring a critical component: when push comes to shove, do not treat every immediate gratification as if it were a good, because the value of the pleasure is relative to the merit of the action.
When the feelings are divorced from an understanding, we are fumbling about blindly, and we are far more likely to miss wildly than to hit the mark. It is judgment that provides the measure of too much or too little.
As much as I can conceive of this through a formal syllogism, the self-loathing that follows from falling into excess is the best sort of proof. Though it may sound like a cheap parlor trick, there are few more effective methods for resisting a compulsion than carefully visualizing, in gory detail, my situation and state of mind in the next twenty-four hours. Even the most beastly of hedonists is then likely to think twice.
Intellectuals have a knack for rationalizing most anything, because they are inclined to dwell upon the words in isolation from the deeds, with the misguided aim of being notably clever instead of just becoming quietly decent.
I am suspicious, therefore, of any sort of zealot, whether he denounces or embraces all of the pleasures. Prudence, as distinct from prudishness or permissiveness, know why the limit has been reached when we have surrendered a mastery over ourselves.
The answer is neither in running away nor in making excuses. It is in being fully accountable.
—Reflection written in 12/2013
IMAGE: Albert Anker, The Drinker (1868)
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