Seneca, Moral Letters 76.8

You may perhaps remember my saying that the things which have been generally desired and feared have been trampled down by many a man in moments of sudden passion. 
 
There have been found men who would place their hands in the flames, men whose smiles could not be stopped by the torturer, men who would shed not a tear at the funeral of their children, men who would meet death unflinchingly. It is love, for example, anger, lust, which have challenged dangers. 
 
If a momentary stubbornness can accomplish all this when roused by some goad that pricks the spirit, how much more can be accomplished by virtue, which does not act impulsively or suddenly, but uniformly and with a strength that is lasting!
 
It follows that the things which are often scorned by the men who are moved with a sudden passion, and are always scorned by the wise, are neither goods nor evils. Virtue itself is therefore the only good; she marches proudly between the two extremes of fortune, with great scorn for both. 
 
If, however, you accept the view that there is anything good besides that which is honorable, all the virtues will suffer. For it will never be possible for any virtue to be won and held, if there is anything outside itself which virtue must take into consideration. 
 
If there is any such thing, then it is at variance with reason, from which the virtues spring, and with truth also, which cannot exist without reason. Any opinion, however, which is at variance with truth, is wrong. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 76 
 
I hear many claims about the inherent weakness of human nature, and much cynicism about expecting anyone to ever perform any noble deeds. Yet by assuming that people must be base, cowardly, or lazy, we are merely lowering the bar, treating a creature gifted with reason and will as if he were no more than a slave to brute instinct. Yes, a man will be subject to volatile impressions, but he still remains the master of his own judgments. 
 
That many might choose to follow the herd instead of thinking for themselves is hardly a necessity: each one of us makes his own estimation of his own impulses, and each one of us can always decide differently. If I have favored the path of least resistance, it is merely because I have deemed convenience to be greater than character, an error I may begin to correct at this very moment. 
 
We are impressed by deeds committed out of intense passion, though they are hardly extraordinary, since all of us will do most anything for the sake of what we presently perceive to be the greatest reward. Rage, terror, or lust are passing emotions, however, and it is only when an action is supported by the depth of a genuine understanding that we can speak of a conviction as being absolutely indomitable. 
 
Both the lover and the sage will recognize why the circumstances of this life, whether pleasant or painful, are as nothing compared to the glory of the prize: they become indifferent to poverty and riches, sickness and health, torment and luxury. As a boy, I would go through hell or high water for the sake of a girl, and now as a man, I am finally working on doing the same for the sake of my conscience. 
 
Imagine if I had stopped for a beer with the guys on my wedding night. It is now no different if I were to look the other way when I catch the boss with his hand in the till, or the priest with his hand under a skirt. Let the opinion be anchored in a knowledge of the true and the good, and then the hesitation will fall away; equivocation is the mark of the two-faced man. 
 
It is both funny and sad when certain folks speak of compromising one’s principles in the name of utility as being “reasonable”, when it is actually the most unreasonable thing in the world. A sound mind demands integrity and consistency, not feeble duplicity and cheap excuses. If virtue doesn’t come first, it won’t mean much of anything at all, quickly sold off to the highest bidder with the sweetest smile. 

—Reflection written in 10/2013 

IMAGE: Hans Baldung, Mucius Scaevola Before Porsenna (1531) 

The Travels of the Soul 4

Howard Pyle, The Travels of the Soul 4: At the Gates of Life (1902) 

The Travels of the Soul 3

Howard Pyle, The Travels of the Soul 3: In the Valley of Shadows (1902) 

The Travels of the Soul 2

Howard Pyle, The Travels of the Soul 2: In the Meadows of Youth (1902) 

The Travels of the Soul 1

Howard Pyle, The Travels of the Soul 1: The Wicket of Paradise (1902) 

Stoic Snippets 259

. . . If, then, whatever the time may be when you shall be near to your departure, neglecting everything else you shall respect only your ruling faculty and the divinity within you, and if you shall be afraid not because you must some time cease to live, but if you shall fear never to have begun to live according to Nature—then you will be a man worthy of the Universe which has produced you, and you will cease to be a stranger in your native land, and to wonder at things which happen daily as if they were something unexpected, and to be dependent on this or that. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.1 

IMAGE: Janis Rozentāls, Death (1897) 

Stoic Snippets 258

All those things at which you wish to arrive by a circuitous road you  can have now, if you do not refuse them to yourself. 

And this means, if you will take no notice of all the past, and trust the future to Providence, and direct the present only conformably to piety and justice.  

Conformably to piety that you may be content with the lot which is assigned to you, for Nature designed it for you and you for it. 

Conformably to justice, that you may always speak the truth freely and without disguise, and do the things which are agreeable to law and according to the worth of each. 

And let neither another man's wickedness hinder you, nor opinion nor voice, nor yet the sensations of the poor flesh which has grown about you; for the passive part will look to this. . . . 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.1 

IMAGE: Noël Coypel, The Chariot of Jupiter Between Justice and Piety (c. 1671) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 76.7

If every good is in the soul, then whatever strengthens, uplifts, and enlarges the soul, is a good; virtue, however, does make the soul stronger, loftier, and larger. 
 
For all other things, which arouse our desires, depress the soul and weaken it, and when we think that they are uplifting the soul, they are merely puffing it up and cheating it with much emptiness. Therefore, that alone is good which will make the soul better. 
 
All the actions of life, taken as a whole, are controlled by the consideration of what is honorable or base; it is with reference to these two things that our reason is governed in doing or not doing a particular thing. 
 
I shall explain what I mean: a good man will do what he thinks it will be honorable for him to do, even if it involves toil; he will do it even if it involves harm to him; he will do it even if it involves peril; again, he will not do that which will be base, even if it brings him money, or pleasure, or power. Nothing will deter him from that which is honorable, and nothing will tempt him into baseness.
 
Therefore, if he is determined invariably to follow that which is honorable, invariably to avoid baseness, and in every act of his life to have regard for these two things, deeming nothing else good except that which is honorable, and nothing else bad except that which is base; if virtue alone is unperverted in him and by itself keeps its even course, then virtue is that man’s only good, and nothing can thenceforth happen to it which may make it anything else than good. 
 
It has escaped all risk of change; folly may creep upwards towards wisdom, but wisdom never slips back into folly. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 76 
 
Who would have thought that Plato’s Meno, the first proper text of philosophy I was ever asked to read, ended up containing the most practical lesson I ever needed to learn? 
 
At that time, as a frenzied teenager, I was mainly struck by what I thought was Socrates’ clever bickering, so I failed to see how the argument was leading me toward an ultimate self-awareness: whatever is good in this life, only becomes good because it is accompanied by virtue, and virtue, in turn, is only acquired through the means of understanding. 
 
And now, decades later, as I once again consider this letter by Seneca, I recollect, with no pun intended, why character is the sole measure of human nature. Every other condition of my life, however pleasant or painful, convenient or frustrating, revolves around this absolute. 
 
If I merely pack this away as a profound abstraction, I will continue to be anxious and miserable, constantly seduced by false promises. It is rather the daily practice of prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice that fulfills my nature, and thereby brings me peace of mind. The naysayers dismiss this as a burden, while I seek it out as a joy, thanks to what Socrates and the Stoics have taught me. 
 
On those days when I fail, it is due to a lack of clarity, simplicity, and focus, having permitted diversions to get in the way of my true calling. An impression may be strong at a certain moment, so I allow myself to get turned around, confusing the lesser for the greater, but this is not an excuse for despair. It is always within my power to change my direction, to return to my conscience as my guide. 
 
Sometimes it feels too difficult, and then I recognize why the drudgery is a consequence of my attitude. A rightly formed habit flows from the exercise of conviction, such that worldly trinkets and facile amusements are not quite so tempting when a nobler purpose is revealed. I have found that a good man never feels disheartened by a sacrifice for the sake of what he truly loves. 
 
The fact that I remain so in awe of someone who will unfailingly stand his ground proves why I remain a work in progress. The Stoic ideal of the sage, the one who will never return to his old vices, is only bewildering to those of us who are still desperately trying to sit on the fence. The sage, however, knows it to be true and good through every fiber of his being, and so he can no longer even conceive of doing otherwise. 
 
On a far more trivial level, it is something like craving processed foods once you’ve eaten straight from the farm. The vanities of wealth, luxury, or fame are just appealing to the poor souls who don’t yet know any better. 

—Reflection written in 10/2013 

IMAGE: Pieter Boel, Allegory of the Vanities of the World (1663) 

A World Split Apart 16

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

BEFORE THE TURN 

I am not examining the case of a disaster brought on by a world war and the changes which it would produce in society. But as long as we wake up every morning under a peaceful sun, we must lead an everyday life. Yet there is a disaster which is already very much with us. I am referring to the calamity of an autonomous, irreligious, humanistic consciousness. 

It has made man the measure of all things on earth—imperfect man, who is never free of pride, self-interest, envy, vanity, and dozens of other defects. We are now paying for the mistakes which were not properly appraised at the beginning of the journey. 

On the way from the Renaissance to our days we have enriched our experience, but we have lost the concept of a Supreme Complete Entity which used to restrain our passions and our irresponsibility. We have placed too much hope in politics and social reforms, only to find out that we were being deprived of our most precious possession: our spiritual life. It is trampled by the party mob in the East, by the commercial one in the West. This is the essence of the crisis: the split in the world is less terrifying than the similarity of the disease afflicting its main sections. 

If, as claimed by humanism, man were born only to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to death, his task on earth evidently must be more spiritual: not a total engrossment in everyday life, not the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then their carefree consumption. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one’s life journey may become above all an experience of moral growth: to leave life a better human being than one started it. 

It is imperative to reappraise the scale of the usual human values; its present incorrectness is astounding. It is not possible that assessment of the president’s performance should be reduced to the question of how much money one makes or to the availability of gasoline. Only by the voluntary nurturing in ourselves of freely accepted and serene self-restraint can mankind rise above the world stream of materialism.  

Today it would be retrogressive to hold on to the ossified formulas of the Enlightenment. Such social dogmatism leaves us helpless before the trials of our times. 

Even if we are spared destruction by war, life will have to change in order not to perish on its own. We cannot avoid reassessing the fundamental definitions of human life and human society. Is it true that man is above everything? Is there no Superior Spirit above him? Is it right that man’s life and society’s activities should be ruled by material expansion above all? Is it permissible to promote such expansion to the detriment of our integral spiritual life? 

If the world has not approached its end, it has reached a major watershed in history, equal in importance to the turn from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It will demand from us a spiritual blaze; we shall have to rise to a new height of vision, to a new level of life, where our physical nature will not be cursed, as in the Middle Ages, but even more importantly, our spiritual being will not be trampled upon, as in the Modern Era. 

This ascension is similar to climbing onto the next anthropological stage. No one on earth has any other way left but—upward.

The Last Journey

Jakub Schikaneder, The Last Journey (c. 1880) 

Dhammapada 395

The man who wears dirty raiments, who is emaciated and covered with veins, who lives alone in the forest, and meditates, him I call indeed a Brahmana. 

Mammon and His Slave

Sascha Schneider, Mammon and His Slave (1895) 

A World Split Apart 15

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

AN UNEXPECTED KINSHIP 

As humanism in its development was becoming more and more materialistic, it also increasingly allowed its concepts to be used first by socialism and then by communism. So that Karl Marx was able to say, in 1844, that “communism is naturalized humanism.” 

This statement has proved to be not entirely unreasonable. One does see the same stones in the foundations of an eroded humanism and of any type of socialism: boundless materialism; freedom from religion and religious responsibility (which under Communist regimes attains the stage of anti-religious dictatorship); concentration on social structures with an allegedly scientific approach. (This last is typical of both the Age of Enlightenment and of Marxism.) 

It is no accident that all of communism’s rhetorical vows revolve around Man (with a capital M) and his earthly happiness. At first glance it seems an ugly parallel: common traits in the thinking and way of life of today’s West and today’s East? But such is the logic of materialistic development.  

The interrelationship is such, moreover, that the current of materialism which is farthest to the left, and is hence the most consistent, always proves to be stronger, more attractive, and victorious. Humanism which has lost its Christian heritage cannot prevail in this competition. 

Thus during the past centuries and especially in recent decades, as the process became more acute, the alignment of forces was as follows: Liberalism was inevitably pushed aside by radicalism, radicalism had to surrender to socialism, and socialism could not stand up to communism. 

The Communist regime in the East could endure and grow due to the enthusiastic support from an enormous number of Western intellectuals who (feeling the kinship!) refused to see communism’s crimes, and when they no longer could do so, they tried to justify these crimes. 

The problem persists: in our Eastern countries, communism has suffered a complete ideological defeat; it is zero and less than zero. And yet Western intellectuals still look at it with considerable interest and empathy, and this is precisely what makes it so immensely difficult for the West to withstand the East.

Seneca, Moral Letters 76.6

The same thing holds good regarding men as regarding things. A ship is said to be good not when it is decorated with costly colors, nor when its prow is covered with silver or gold or its figure-head embossed in ivory, nor when it is laden with the imperial revenuesor with the wealth of kings, but when it is steady and staunch and taut, with seams that keep out the water, stout enough to endure the buffeting of the waves’ obedient to its helm, swift and caring naught for the winds.
 
You will speak of a sword as good, not when its sword-belt is of gold, or its scabbard studded with gems, but when its edge is fine for cutting and its point will pierce any armor. Take the carpenter’s rule: we do not ask how beautiful it is, but how straight it is. Each thing is praised in regard to that attribute which is taken as its standard, in regard to that which is its peculiar quality. 
 
Therefore, in the case of man also, it is not pertinent to the question to know how many acres he ploughs, how much money he has out at interest, how many callers attend his receptions, how costly is the couch on which he lies, how transparent are the cups from which he drinks, but how good he is. 
 
He is good, however, if his reason is well-ordered and right and adapted to that which his nature has willed. It is this that is called virtue; this is what we mean by “honorable”; it is man’s unique good. For since reason alone brings man to perfection, reason alone, when perfected, makes man happy. 
 
This, moreover, is man’s only good, the only means by which he is made happy. We do indeed say that those things also are goods which are furthered and brought together by virtue—that is, all the works of virtue; but virtue itself is for this reason the only good, because there is no good without virtue. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 76 
 
The ship is no sturdier from having bright sails, and the sword is no deadlier from resting in an ornate scabbard. So too, a man is no better from accumulating trinkets or basking in applause. How odd that we immediately grasp why things are never improved by their embellishments, and yet we still struggle to accept this same fact about people. 
 
I think of how corporations take a dull car of dubious construction, and then proceed to slap on different badges and trims, topped off by a higher price tag, as if this has somehow improved its quality. Though we all say we are wise to such tricks, many of us continue to buy merely for the sake of appearances, revealing the ignorance behind our vanities. 
 
I am still of a generation that remembers hood ornaments and hubcaps, along with all the status such accessories could provide. While the hood ornament originally served as a clever way to disguise the radiator cap, by my time in was a gimmick. I was not surprised, however, when teenagers started stealing them, and wearing them around their necks like badges of honor. 
 
Yet if I were to degrade myself into being a thief, why not just swipe the actual car, which is far more useful? Or would I now be too afraid that some other rascal might then run off with my new hood ornament and hubcaps, thereby hopelessly damaging my reputation within the tribe? 
 
Or how about that cheap plastic “woodgrain” on our old station wagons, or those tacky vinyl roofs so we could pretend we owned sexy convertibles? They are like the automotive equivalents to toupees: no one is really fooled, but we continue to play the game. 
 
Make no mistake, I appreciate style as a supplement to substance, all the while remaining wary of craving the former at the expense of the latter. If it is within my means to drive a Rolls-Royce, I should do so for its impeccable craftsmanship, not because I wish to strut about like a Saudi prince. 
 
And I fear I have unwittingly just caught myself in the same trap, by rambling on for too long about the evils of pursuing the image. It should make no difference to me if another man prefers a hood ornament or a toupee, as long as I stand by my principles. I should worry less about the depths of his motives, and instead focus a bit more on the integrity of my own intentions. 
 
It is easy to slip back into resentment, to condemn what is on the outside, when I must attend to what is on the inside, with purity and simplicity. Where there is understanding, there will be virtue, and where there is virtue, there will be happiness. This insight comes from a direct reflection upon my nature as a creature of reason and will, not from idle theory or wishful thinking. 
 
Let there be ships, and swords, and carpentry tools, and paneled station wagons with glorious hood ornaments, and let me be mindful of why only the presence of honor can imbue them with any good for us. Virtue makes us, and vice breaks us. 

—Reflection written in 10/2013 

Wisdom from the Early Cynics, Diogenes 33

One day seeing a runaway slave sitting on the brink of a well, Diogenes said, "Take care, my lad, you don't fall in." 

Seeing a boy taking clothes at the baths, he asked, "Is it for a little unguent (ἀλειμμάτιον) or is it for a new cloak (ἄλλ' ἱμάτιον)?" 

Seeing some women hanged from an olive tree, he said, "Would that every tree bore similar fruit." 

On seeing a footpad he accosted him thus: 

"What mak'st thou here, my gallant? 
Com'st thou perchance for plunder of the dead?" 

Being asked whether he had any maid or boy to wait on him, he said "No." 

"If you should die, then, who will carry you out to burial?" 

"Whoever wants the house," he replied. 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 6.52 

Wisdom from the Early Stoics, Zeno of Citium 73

The good are also, it is declared, godlike; for they have a something divine within them; whereas the bad man is godless. 

And yet of this word—godless or ungodly—there are two senses, one in which it is the opposite of the term "godly," the other denoting the man who ignores the divine altogether: in this latter sense, as they note, the term does not apply to every bad man. 

The good, it is added, are also worshippers of God; for they have acquaintance with the rites of the gods, and piety is the knowledge of how to serve the gods. 

Further, they will sacrifice to the gods and they keep themselves pure; for they avoid all acts that are offenses against the gods, and the gods think highly of them: for they are holy and just in what concerns the gods. 

The wise too are the only priests; for they have made sacrifices their study, as also the building of temples, purifications, and all the other matters appertaining to the gods. 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.119 

A Proper Warning

The many will be deeply offended, and a very few will understand. 

It is exactly at it should be . . . 

A World Split Apart 14

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

HUMANISM AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 

How has this unfavorable relation of forces come about? How did the West decline from its triumphal march to its present debility? Have there been fatal turns and losses of direction in its development? It does not seem so. The West kept advancing steadily in accordance with its proclaimed social intentions, hand in hand with a dazzling progress in technology. And all of a sudden it found itself in its present state of weakness. 

This means that the mistake must be at the root, at the very foundation of thought in modern times. I refer to the prevailing Western view of the world which was born in the Renaissance and has found political expression since the Age of Enlightenment. It became the basis for political and social doctrine and could be called rationalistic humanism or humanistic autonomy: the proclaimed and practiced autonomy of man from any higher force above him. It could also be called anthropocentricity, with man seen as the center of all. 

The turn introduced by the Renaissance was probably inevitable historically: the Middle Ages had come to a natural end by exhaustion, having become an intolerable despotic repression of man’s physical nature in favor of the spiritual one. 

But then we recoiled from the spirit and embraced all that is material, excessively and incommensurately. The humanistic way of thinking, which had proclaimed itself our guide, did not admit the existence of intrinsic evil in man, nor did it see any task higher than the attainment of happiness on earth. It started modern Western civilization on the dangerous trend of worshiping man and his material needs. 

Everything beyond physical well-being and the accumulation of material goods, all other human requirements and characteristics of a subtler and higher nature, were left outside the area of attention of state and social systems, as if human life did not have any higher meaning. Thus gaps were left open for evil, and its drafts blow freely today. Mere freedom per se does not in the least solve all the problems of human life and even adds a number of new ones. 

And yet in early democracies, as in American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual human rights were granted on the ground that man is God’s creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. Such was the heritage of the preceding one thousand years. Two hundred or even fifty years ago, it would have seemed quite impossible, in America, that an individual be granted boundless freedom with no purpose, simply for the satisfaction of his whims. 

Subsequently, however, all such limitations were eroded everywhere in the West; a total emancipation occurred from the moral heritage of Christian centuries with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice. State systems were becoming ever more materialistic. The West has finally achieved the rights of man, and even to excess, but man’s sense of responsibility to God and society has grown dimmer and dimmer. 

In the past decades, the legalistic selfishness of the Western approach to the world has reached its peak and the world has found itself in a harsh spiritual crisis and a political impasse. All the celebrated technological achievements of progress, including the conquest of outer space, do not redeem the twentieth century’s moral poverty, which no one could have imagined even as late as the nineteenth century.

Seneca, Moral Letters 76.5

Hence that in man is alone a good which alone belongs to man. For we are not now seeking to discover what is a good, but what good is man’s. And if there is no other attribute which belongs peculiarly to man except reason, then reason will be his one peculiar good, but a good that is worth all the rest put together. 
 
If any man is bad, he will, I suppose, be regarded with disapproval; if good, I suppose he will be regarded with approval. Therefore, that attribute of man whereby he is approved or disapproved is his chief and only good.
 
You do not doubt whether this is a good; you merely doubt whether it is the sole good. If a man possesses all other things, such as health, riches, pedigree, a crowded reception hall, but is confessedly bad, you will disapprove of him. 
 
Likewise, if a man possesses none of the things which I have mentioned, and lacks money, or an escort of clients, or rank and a line of grandfathers and great-grandfathers, but is confessedly good, you will approve of him. 
 
Hence, this is man’s one peculiar good, and the possessor of it is to be praised even if he lacks other things; but he who does not possess it, though he possess everything else in abundance, is condemned and rejected. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 76 
 
When searching for our highest good, that which is specific to our human nature, it is critical not to confuse the essence with the accidents. If I happen to have a gift with words, they say I should be a lawyer, and if I happen to be good with numbers, the tell me to study engineering, and if I happen to be tall, they put me on the basketball team. They are missing the forest for the trees. 
 
No. What stands behind any our individual temperaments, what all of us share in common? It is that pesky power of free judgment, which settles the worth of any other capacity. Will I practice the law with honesty? Will I construct a machine with responsibility? Will I play in the game fairly? Will I, first and foremost, be a man of character, regardless of where I find myself? 
 
All the other qualities of our lives will pale in comparison to the virtues that guide them. To miss this necessary fact is, I will dare to say, the root of all our troubles, the very reason we so often find ourselves in conflict and in misery. Return to the source, and you restore the sanity. 
 
I am now very careful about what I view to be a profit, a success, or a victory. Sure, I may have won the contract, but at what expense to my soul? Observe very carefully how people offer their approval or disapproval, because it reveals everything about their deepest priorities. As Plato said, is it good because we desire it, or do we desire it because it is good? 
 
Where I now work, a place full of folks who consider themselves cultured and pious, I honestly believe the best man I know is the fellow who does the gardening. He praises someone for being “a stand-up guy”, and he admonishes someone for being a “snake”. While I don’t imagine he has ever read Seneca, he understands perfectly what it means to judge solely by the standard of personal honor. He is wiser than any of us so-called professionals. 
 
If we strip away the bells and whistles, what is left of the man? The riches, the fame, the talent, or the charm will come and go, while at the core is either a stand-up guy or a snake, a gentleman or a scoundrel. We ignore this insight at our own peril. 
 
I don’t know that being sincere and loving will win me any popularity contests, though it will certainly put me in the right company. 

—Reflection written in 10/2013 

Songs of Innocence 3

The Ecchoing Green (1789) 

William Blake (1757-1827) 

The Sun does arise

And make happy the skies. 

The merry bells ring,

To welcome the Spring.
The sky-lark and thrush,
The birds of the bush,
Sing louder around,
To the bells chearful sound,
While our sports shall be seen
On the Ecchoing Green. 

Old John with white hair
Does laugh away care,
Sitting under the oak
Among the old folk.
They laugh at our play,
And soon they all say
"Such such were the joys,
When we all girls & boys,
In our youth-time were seen,
On the Ecchoing Green." 

Till the little ones weary
No more can be merry
The sun does descend,
And our sports have an end:
Round the laps of their mothers,
Many sisters and brothers,
Like birds in their nest,
Are ready for rest:
And sport no more seen,
On the darkening Green.