23) Stoicism - Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations"

so this is our second second on stoicism our first session was reading Epictetus is enchiridion literally translates to handbook and we noted that Epictetus was a slave and perhaps this maybe makes sense because stoicism seems like the sort of the sort of worldview that could come in handy if you were a slave now could come in handy if you're in a kind of situation where you don't have much control because stoicism teaches us how to cope with not having control of things in fact it's it's trying to pinpoint this let's start with a little bit of just a little bit of recap of what was going on with Epictetus --is stoicism what do we remember from our last session yeah Karen so okay we have the Stoics having a kind of some kind of like almost like a fatalism right some kind of idea of a natural order that it's divine which is to say perfect perhaps right unassailable and even if it weren't perfect necessary so what's the point in complaining about it there's some kind of divine natural order the way in which it's specified as natural as opposed to maybe supernatural gets us in this position where we can think about this in a theological sense but it's got to be a theological sense that at least dovetails with with natural law in creation right so we could take a completely non theistic approach to this we can just think of it as like look nature just is a certain way and that's not going to be changeable or we can say that like the gods will it thus but either way it's divine in nature it's natural and necessary and this was important for the stoic because if it's necessary and can't be otherwise then it's none of your business you can't control it you can't change it so don't try not only don't try don't worry about it don't stretch out your feelings towards like wishing that nature were other than it is because nature can't be up in than it is this is part of what it is to be nature is that it's the necessary order of things what else do we have not necessarily from Cameron whose notes apparently are very thorough what about the rest of you guys yes Susan yeah we're gonna get there's like this constellation of like birch irrationality and pleasure right think of and I don't know that we've really quite solved this just yet but that certainly came out in our treatment of epictetus maybe particularly as a way of trying to understand the difference between the Stoics and the Epicureans because Epicureans were also articulating this kind of relationship between this triad of concepts what was it again what were the three things in it in that constellation one of them was virtue right yeah virtue rationality and pleasure somebody explain to me how did the Epicureans make sense of the relationship between these three things where do the Epicureans start what's the kind of like fundamental starting point for epicurean thought it's a pleasure seeking right so we'll start with pleasure but it's not just kind of like aimless irresponsible pleasure seeking it's a rational sort of it's an enlightened pleasure so again this is why the Epicureans sometimes might surprisingly look like they're not all that pleasure seeking right you'd think of it the Epicureans would be those two kind of taste of all of the finer things in life and they would do whatever felt pleasant right if it feels good do it that might we might think like that's the slogan that's the bumper sticker that every epicurean is driving around with on their car if it feels good do it like whoa not quite so fast because it's got to be an enlightened approach to this hedonistic pleasure seeking life which means rationality is helping us get pleasure in a responsible sustainable way in a way where we're not going to go after something that we think is pleasant and perhaps is pleasant has like actual pleasant consequences for me when I get it but it also comes along with this baggage of a whole lot of painful that maybe isn't worth the trouble and rationality is what allows me to seek pleasure in an intelligent and efficient sort of a way so say the epicurean seemingly what about virtue where does virtue fit in this should we be virtuous is it pleasant to be virtuous whew silence is it because you wouldn't know never been virtuous I hear people say it's nice does pursuing pleasure in pursuing virtue do these things line up at first glance maybe no right but maybe it's the first glance that makes us think that the Epicureans are going to be licentiousness eaters right if I think to myself well I could seek pleasure oh there's there's pleasure in this like big old pile of cocaine lots of pleasure right there so I'll go right after it without thinking carefully about like what's going to come along with that the rationality dimension of this might say like whoa hold off there what if I say to myself you know what would be pleasant if I manipulated this person into sleeping with me I'd get some pleasure there is it rational is it virtuous it's not doesn't seem virtuous right I'm lying I'm manipulating another person there's something perhaps unjust about it well then why shouldn't I do it if this is a pleasure seeking lifestyle why not lie cheat and steal it's a great way to get pleasure this is what through silica sand Glaucon were telling us in Republic 1 & 2 is that like hey you know the quickest and most efficient route to all of the nice stuff that's injustice injustice is the quickest most efficient route to all of the things that you want to pleasure is it why be virtuous if you're leading a pleasure-seeking life is it because virtue leads to pleasure perhaps this could be an extension of the application of rationality to our pleasure seeking is that like PS maybe we can have virtue as these kind of like shorthand arguments for why it's rational to not lie cheat and steal because ultimately it's not very pleasant if you like eat and steal people will begin to happen they'll begin to hit you they won't trust you anymore you'll get a little short-term charge out of it but as soon as your reputation catches up with you not so pleasant anymore now we still have problems of like what if I have a magic ring and when I turn it inward then like I can get away with things and like it doesn't affect my reputation at all still a little bit of a puzzle but we can totally understand how virtue was important for the Epicureans the Epicureans will say like you must be courageous if you are not courageous you will be miserable you will be unhappy you will not maximize pleasure if you're cowardly if you are a liar if you are unjust if you are intemperate if you can't control your own desires these are all of the things that we were discussing under Aristotle as virtues specific virtues and there are the sorts of things that enable you to flourish to be you die monistic to live a like a happy life right to engage in the sort of activity that is appropriate for a human being we can certainly think there's like room for argument there's a little bit of wiggle room that like got pried open and republic one and two that might still seem like ooh I'm not really sure how much virtue is going to be there out to pleasure but the Epicureans are making what seems like a pretty straightforward argument that says like look if this is the fundamental thing if this is what we're after this and this are the things that help us get here but that still makes this one fundamental rationality and virtue are only good in insofar as they're useful for the attainment of pleasure what else do we have from the oh right so that's the Epicureans what about the Stoics do the Stoics think that like pleasure is like what we're seeking here did you get this impression when you're eating this one of my favorite bits and Marcus's meditations it's from book five it's one that I think almost every single student can like immediately identify with did you guys catch this book 5 chapter 1 when in the early morning you are reluctant to get up have this thought in mind like is there anybody here who's like oh this pertains to me listen up when in the early morning you're a reluctant to get up have this thought in mind I rise to do a human's work edit to be a little less sexist a I rise view a human's work am i still resentful as I go to do the task for which I was born and for the sake of which I was brought into the world was I made to warm myself under the blankets but this is more pleasant you tell yourself were you born for pleasure were you born to feel things not to do them do you not see the plants and the sparrows and the ants and the spiders and the bees perform their proper task and you can contribute as far in then lies to the order of the universe is this a familiar experience you're in bed the blankets are warm and comfortable out of the bed it is not warm and comfortable I think Nike did a commercial about this that it's like a great commercial that has a woman who wakes up in the morning and you like she's got to go run but like her bed is talking to her and saying like don't go it's comfortable in here and she like gets out of that and goes running instead of staying in bed I can imagine the Epicureans maybe thinking themselves like no no the bed is pleasant but running makes you healthy and healthy is like a long-term sort of thing but that's not the route that Marcus takes here he doesn't say like the real route to sustainable pleasure is to get out of it he says no no no no just like squash that right off the bat don't even start entertaining this idea that like but the bed is more pleasant you're not made for pleasure what are you made for for doing things not feeling things we can see how maybe the Stoics get this reputation for kind of being cold emotionless not capable of enjoying the nice things in life and perhaps this is why we can imagine stoicism as an appropriate sort of worldview moral philosophy for when you have to deal with not having those nice and pleasant things it's add one more thing into the mix here to like be thinking about just to kind of frame stoicism it's that that's serenity prayer that we mentioned at our last meeting we all like relatively familiar with it that three-parter mmm this kind of grants me the patience to accept that which I can't change what I can't control because I think control is control and and like freedom this is a really big deal in stoicism in a way that it's not like we haven't encountered this before but the Stoics are like laser focused on the idea of control and freedom what can you control in what ways are you free and in what ways are you constrained we know that there's a divine and necessary natural order that can't be changed this represents a major constraint that like you you ought not try to rail against you ought to how did we say virtue is for the Stoics it's conforming your desires conforming your thinking with the necessary natural order this is how you're going to be happy otherwise you're just going to be upset you're going to be sitting there wishing that 2+2 was 5 when it's not grant me the patience to accept what I can't control the courage it's a change what I can control what's that last part the all-important last part yeah and the wisdom and the wisdom to tell the difference we started getting shades of it we started getting the shades shades of this a long time ago but certainly for the Stoics these two steps are both easier said than done the patient this is why like we're praying to God for these things like please can I please have the patience to accept what I can't control because I don't know about you it's one thing to say don't worry about things that you don't have any control over it's another thing to actually not worry about them but are we buying into the notion that it just makes no rational sense whatsoever to worry about things that you have no control over are we buying into this that this is what we want for the things that we can't control what we need is the patience to just accept them the things that I can control well it makes no sense to complain about them either you can't be stressed you can't be frustrated about that which you do not control that's like completely irrational also irrational to be stressed enough set and frustrated about the things that you can control why is that because if you can control them make them the way you think they should be if you don't want to make them the way that you think they should be then recognize that you just you don't want them to be that way right it wasn't important enough for you to like actually do what needed to be done in order to make things the way that you wanted if you can't control it don't worry about it if you can control it don't worry about it do it and then the all-important maybe I don't know is this the hardest part or is this the easier part knowing how to tell the difference between the two what is in your control for the stoic your own thoughts is that it it's like there's the whole rest of the cosmos and even like aspects of your body to this kind of came up when we were talking about potatoes Epictetus identifies the body as something that's just not in your control other people can take control of your body ask a slave they know other people can totally take control of your body it is not entirely within your control even if we think that it ought to be entirely in your control and then it's not just other agents it's not just other people who might try to take control of my body it gets diseased nature itself runs its course through my body there's there's the athlete's foot fungus that wants to live on my foot and so it's eating my foot and I'm like I can't do anything about that but that's though right I can totally do something about it and my mom in control of my own body or am I totally in considering this I'm doing this you're like yeah but I could break your arm against your will I can grab your hand and say stop hitting yourself the body is a little bit this is going to come in handy when I'm wondering about the extent to which I have any control over my own body for sure the natural things like death like illness like other ways in which my body seems to like not be in my control and might be embarrassing that well timed really loud fart right in the middle of an exam when the whole room is silent yeah yeah didn't have complete control over my own body don't worry about that that just happens that happens to everybody this is how the stoic would respond to the loud fart in the room they'd be like that's me nothing nothing funny about that the dour stoic is just like this is natural necessity not funny not embarrassing don't worry about it cancer don't worry about it just happens do what you can but like focus on the things that are within your control and identify the things that are not and let him go yeah that's what's within your control right you can go get chemotherapy in here like God but chemotherapy is very uncomfortable no I'm mad and frustrated that's how it is either you want the treatment or you want the disease right one of them is going to be preferable to the other and some folks do say this they're like the treatment is worse than the disease here right the cure is worse than the disease in that case so like I don't want it but like identify like what it is that you want and choose it that's what you have control over and don't wish that you could get like treatment for your cancer that tasted like bubblegum and didn't make your hair fall out and stuff like that just recognize that like this is part of what dealing with it I wish I wasn't the sort of thing that got cancer you are the sort of thing that can get cancer maybe you got the cancer because you smoke cigarettes your whole life they're like is that in your control what about death maybe it's that like it's not the pain of disease it's the prospect of death should I fear death now epicurean said now because when you're here death isn't and when death is here you're not Stokes are saying something kind of similar as well and they're also pointing out that it's a natural necessity right it's an inevitability of every life is death not in your control at all I mean I can smoke a bunch of cigarettes right I can engage in all kinds of risky behavior that might hasten my death should I engage in risky behavior it's within my control the Starks are telling me to take control of what I can but it's not necessarily telling me what to do with that control this might be an oversight for them we're also noting here that like Epictetus in particular gave us a whole lot of advice about how to cope with this aspect the patience to accept that which I can't control this is the kind of lesson that you have to learn from somebody who's a slave or a powr a soldier or like a recovering cancer survivor or something like that folks who had to like figure out how to let go of the things that they had no control over but what about folks what about that which we do have control of them what do we have to learn from folks who are in positions of control and influence and they can make things happen what should we do with that that power that ability to like maybe not completely control like other people saying my body is this kind of ambiguous thing I don't I don't know like I'm kind of in control of it I'm kind of not what about other people are they not in your control at all it certainly seemed if I was to take epictetus word for this it kind of seems like other people are just like let those folks go they lie they cheat they steal oh I'm angry don't be it's not in your control it's not in my control at all in many ways it seems like stoicism has this kind of like inward turning especially in the way that mirror was suggesting that like what you ultimately have control over is your own mind this retreat back into like yourself and what you have complete control over it's easy to read stones in this way particularly through Epictetus with Marcus we get a slightly different inflection a slightly different set of emphasis in fossa and part of this can be explained by the fact that Marcus was not a slave Marcus was the emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius was the emperor of Rome when Rome was at its most powerful Marcus Aurelius is on the shortlist of like people who are like the most powerful people in human history maybe Genghis Khan is in the next maybe Alexander's in the mix maybe Augustus Caesar is in the mix there to like but Marcus Aurelius is like if Marcus Aurelius wants to get drunk and take the rest of the day off he totally can there will be no consequences if Marcus Aurelius wants to sleep with that person over there he totally can he can order that it be done if Marcus Aurelius wants beautiful jewels if he wants like the most delicious food he can have it with no consequence to himself but this is not the kind of person that Marcus Aurelius is Marcus Aurelius was he was the the fifth of what are usually referred to as the five good emperors maybe some data as to like how good all five of them were going from Nerva to was that nervous Adrian Trajan Antoninus Pius and then Marcus Marcus is also he's emperor of Rome from 161 to 180 in the Common Era put some in you know a ripe old age he had been picked as the future emperor of Rome at a young age Antoninus Pius like picks out this guy Marcus Aurelius who's the son of a son of a kind of a noble family of provincial administrators in Spain Marcus's from Spain and then he gets brought to Rome to be educated he's this guy who shows promise everyone's like have you seen this young boy Marcus in this way that lots of folks in the eighth darah are really interested in young men and not entirely for like salacious reasons they're interested in young men because they're like these are like our future leaders like keep an eye on the ones who were showing promise and try to groom them for leadership so that when the time comes they're ready to do it and Marcus is somebody who spent almost his entire life being trained how to be the emperor of Rome him and is he's adopted by Antoninus Pius his other adopted brother Lucius verus who is nothing like Marcus Aurelius at all the other candidate for emperor of Rome Lucius verus is this guy who's he's not serious he's not studious Marcus is totally these things he's serious he's studious he's a stoic like almost almost right out of the womb he's a stoic and he loves reading philosophy and he loves thinking about this stuff and he's like in complete control of himself and he doesn't have any frivolous desires or anything like this he's able to deal with frustration well I think this is kind of like maybe valuable tools for any sort of a student as well I sometimes see students who get they get angry and they get frustrated when they make mistakes and when they fail but like you got to have a growth mindset about this stuff right you can't you can't take small safe failures in the classroom so seriously that you don't want to try again the whole point here is that like if you think of every single failure as an opportunity to learn something from it and kind of to be better next time then maybe this is the kind of attitude that you need and this seems like the sort of attitude that young Marcus has not his adopted brother Lucius verus they actually get appointed Co Emperor's for a little while Lucy its beerus dies in 169 c ii and so for just a little more than ten years Marcus Aurelius has complete control over like everything that the Roman Empire can touch which is like almost every its Spain its Britain it's the Middle East it's Greece its northern Africa it's starting to work up into Germany as well this is as big as the Roman Empire will ever get and Marcus has full reign over it for about ten years you think he's happy does he seem happy you read his meditations this is a diary these meditations are awfully personal did you get that impression this is something that Marcus wrote for himself this is maybe that one of the first times we've seen this Epictetus is and karidian is compiled lecture notes kind of like Aristotle's writings what survives today of Aristotle as stuff that his students put together same with Epictetus as enchiridion and principle it's a co-principal discourse these are things that are put together by his students and are intended to be published intended for other people to read Marcus's meditations were not meant for you and me they were meant for Marcus he this is Marcus talking to himself so it's a pretty intimate view of somebody's thought process and you'll do this by the way any of you guys like write for yourself keep a journal keep a diary yeah Toni you go back and is it just to get it out or do you go back and revisit it and reread it yeah yeah something they have these journals too that are like they have a spot for that day for five years right you go through it and then like when you get to the end of the book you come back again and go through it again so every time you do a new entry you have like what was last year and the year before and the year before that on the same page what's it like to go back and revisit the things that you wrote to yourself do you ever when you're writing are you ever writing to your future self are you just are you just writing your perspective of what's going on right now desires yeah I think one of the noteworthy things about Marx's meditations is that it seems like he is he's not only writing for himself he is coming back to this and he's writing with the expectation that he is going to come back to it because a lot of this just reads like daily affirmations or like advice to himself coaching some of its cheerleading like don't worry about this sort of like you can do it you can do the thing the Emporer thing like it'll be okay the Germanic hordes like you can handle it there's plenty of stuff in here where it seems like Marcus's it's not always cheery too cheerful though either a lot of times it's admonishing himself there's a fine tradition of meditation writing in the history of philosophy this is the first time we've encountered anything like it in this class I would say probably one of the first instances of meditative writing where somebody is writing for themselves we're gonna start off the history of modern philosophy class next semester for anybody who's taking it with Rene Descartes who writes a set of six meditations those are like phony meditations he's not really writing for himself there's a big fat dedication at the beginning of it that says who it's really for it's for the like esteemed faculty of theology at the Sorbonne because Descartes wants to get his physics taught in the Universities instead of Aristotle's physics so it's made to look like he's thinking with himself but not really Marcus is really is something that's written for himself we'll also see it st. Agustin in the medieval era writes some meditations brutally self-effacing like hugely critical meditations where like Augustine just he doesn't cut himself any slack whatsoever and those seem like honest and kind of like Oh weights our culture CH but not in the same way that Marcus is kind of writing advice to his future self expecting to come back to it this is like it's got this aphoristic style that epictetus is enchiridion had to that sometimes makes it a little bit difficult to do philosophy with but makes it an excellent sort of thing to keep on your nightstand or next to the toilet or like someplace where like you're going to be able to like read these messages on the regular that business about like how to get out of bed in the morning when the when the the blankets are warm and it's like not fun outside that is something that I need almost every day particularly at the end of the semester particularly at the end of the fall semester when it's cold and gray out what he ends up saying about this is fascinating the next paragraph of this when he's saying were you born for pleasure to feel things or to do them he says for those who say like no no no I'm gonna stay in the blanket so I'm gonna stay here where it's warm just five more minutes mom Marcus says you do not love yourself if you did and sometimes we talk about this like I need a day for self-love where I like stay in the bed with the warm blankets self-care I'm taking care of myself here Marcus says no no no that person does not love themselves if they did they would certainly love their own nature and its purpose other people love their own craft and wear themselves out in the performance of it without bath or food your you love your own nature less than the metalworker loves the art of working metals the dancer the art of dancing the money lover his money or the lover of glory his precious reputation they and their passionate eagerness sacrificed food and sleep to promote the objects of their passion whereas you believe that public affairs are less important and less deserving of your devotion public affairs by the way that's Marcus's business that's his job he's the Emperor of Rome he has like he has to do every morning when it's like yeah but the blankets are wrong it's like no the entire world depends on what Marcus is going to be doing so get out of bed there's work to be done same I dare say with you is that true at least while the semesters on every day you got stuff to do is it worth doing if it ain't worth doing don't do it right pick something else and do it if you ever find yourself in a position where you're like you know what's better than the stuff that I have to do today staying in bed and just like feeling cozy and warm then like you must not really like the things that you've chosen to do because those things have got to be more important than just just I don't know like how much pleasure should you be able to take what is it that Marcus says after this didn't you refuse to perform your task and you do not hasten to do with your nature demands but one must also rest you might say to yourself certainly I agree make sure however has set a limit to rest as it has to eating and drinking and you go on rest and when you go on resting beyond that limit beyond what is sufficient that ain't good yeah you need to rest but up to a certain point the point at which you wake up maybe this happens sometimes you ever wake up and you're just like I am not rested enough I need to go back to sleep in order to get the rest to be functional the rest of the day but not oh because it's nice right there's a difference between the two you need rest in order to do the things you need to do doing the things you need to do that's what you should be pursuing not pleasure mere pleasure is a small thing compared to these other things compared to virtue with Marcus we get the sense that virtue is the it's the central concept in this constellation it's being your best insofar as pleasure is valuable it's in the ways that it helps you to be your best that you know that like it's going to be easier to do pleasant things than it is to do painful things that like I shouldn't really concern myself with how pleasant or painful things are I should just concern myself with how worthy they are to do but I know it's gonna be easier to do the things that are pleasant so maybe y'all maybe I'll try to like engineer my surroundings so that the things what I want to do are the pleasant things does that make you ever do that for yourself you're kind of like well the things that you want to do you'll find a way to like make it a treat clean up your room let's make a game out of it cuz that's fun I don't know is that is that like to Mary Poppins to juvenile do you do it with your studying alright I'll study for another hour and then I'll get to watch an episode of a television show or something like that make that reward so that kind of like okay this is going to help me do it if I didn't have that reward I don't know if I could motivate myself to study somebody like Marcus will say look if the studying is a good thing you should want to do it but I get I get that you're trying to make it easier for yourself you're trying to train yourself like Aristotle said these desires are trainable through habit we get a sense of Marcus as a person so far is there anything else to say about market oh there's one more thing to say about Marcus that whole business with like him getting picked early on as like a promising young man who like this guy could be a leader so let's let's groom him to be a leader this seems to play into a theme that we've seen frequently already throughout the class this idea of like a philosopher King that yeah is this where you're going to go Frank yeah go ahead say your piece about the philosopher King about Marcus Aurelius a philosopher king who is trained from early on to be a philosopher king yeah what do you think about this is it is a stoic is somebody like Marcus and the impressions that you get from him in his meditations is this a good leader is this something who you would want to be I don't know that we want anybody to be like the Emperor we might have some ideas about like just government that would say like no Emperor's thank you but like I don't know president like you think it should a president be a stoic I hear some people think some kind of confident noddings of yes anybody no president shouldn't be a stoic Brian why not it's the empathizing with other people think that the stoic is too inward turning right yeah okay good good this is kind of where I wanted us to we're a little further than just starting off here today we're really more than 30 minutes in but I wanted us to get to this point where it's kind of like it seems like the stoic turns inward the stoic doesn't have enough empathy towards other people maybe this is one of the reasons why Marcus Aurelius his son by the way is so just so horrible we've seen this before too we saw this in me know that conversation about like great men with shitty sons and this is like one of the reasons why it's so important to try to like identify the promising young men because you can't just expect that great men are going to be able to teach their kids how to be good people and maybe one of the reasons why Marcus and Sun is so awful and becomes Emperor by the way to like as all of us who saw gladiator know that like the first Dumbledore gets killed by Joaquin Phoenix and Joaquin Phoenix becomes the Emperor and he's parable not 100% historically accurate but like the broad-strokes are pretty much what happens Marcos names his biological son Commodus to be the next Emperor maybe if you were watching gladiator like no no he wanted Maximus to be the Emperor but then Commodus murdered him and no real evidence of that but Marcos names his biological son and his biological son is a terrible person maybe because his father was a motional II understood desperately wanting his approval and other people's approval and this is the last thing that you want in a leader somebody who's desperate for everybody's approval that like they must be constantly lauded and cheered and like people saying like we love you you're great like that's the last thing that you want in a leader and this is what we get but I think in Marcus's meta take what I don't necessarily get a portrait of a warm and loving father from this in fact there's almost no mention of his children and maybe this is the sort of thing where like an emperor doesn't have to an emperor in like 160 AD like it's probably not even thinking of himself as responsible for parenting at all but also maybe has more important things to do than to raise his kids let's hire other professional people to do this but yeah hmm maybe we don't want a stoic as a as a parent we want somebody more empathetic but maybe even as a representative maybe even as a leader we want somebody who can feel our pain instead of saying like from personal experience nobody who's complaining wants to hear from a stoic nobody who's saying like this all these horrible things happen to me nobody wants to hear you say that like look either it's in your control or it's not in your control in either way there's nothing to complain about so like don't you feel better now everyone's like off like I don't I don't want to hear that right now that's not helpful it just makes me feel inadequate this is maybe not what we want or it's not it's not very flattering but also I don't know that it's fair to say that Stoics generally and certainly Marcus realized I don't think it's fair to say that they're completely inward turning that they are not concerned with other people whatsoever but this is maybe worth putting in red over here with a question mark dou x - 2 inward - kind of self-centered maybe this whole business about not worrying about other people because they're not completely within your control and this is the sort of thing that I think anybody who ascends to a position of power quickly realizes they think they imagine that they're gonna have complete control when they get to that position of power and they quickly realize like no you don't have very much control at all and it's a huge disappointment and then you complain about how unfair it is that like everybody's a hater and all of that stuff is it true that it's - interfacing - self-centered not concerned with other people or is it just it's trying to find another way to think about your relationship to other people yeah your baser instincts yes yeah all the time that can maybe reinforce some of the things that that's right yeah if somebody's gonna be a leader like a parent maybe needs to be like appropriately empathetic but not in this way that just that doesn't change what can be changed and not in this way that like encourage our encourages our sadness and frustration and anger about like things that can't change and we might think it like the way that you emphasize are the small child that like falls and skins their knee as you say like I know that happens sometimes happens sometimes when you're playing that like you are like you're playing so vigorously that you fall down and when you fall down and hurt your knee and it hurts when you do this and when it hurts like that you cry all right now what are we going to do now like we're not just going to sit on the ground and cry all day right what next and this seems to be both stoic and like maybe appropriately empathetic right we don't want to just give people what they want to hear whatever makes them feel good in the short term we want to give people like what is actually going to make them better and sometimes that's tough love and sometimes it's empathy but it's got to be focused on what we can control and recognize that like we're not going to have full control we can we can try to help other people but they gotta meet us at least halfway if it's gonna work yeah Cameron it's tough I would say it's complicated right the extent to which I will say anything about the Stoics and emotion the answer is going to be like well it's complicated because they're going to recognize that like it is part of the divine natural and necessary order that we feel things but remember Epictetus is also going to identify that like that feeling is just an impression and like there's the impression and then there's the judgment that I make about it Marcus says this frequently it's littered all throughout meditations 2 through 5 he's like making these kind of identifications that whether or not something is bad is all about your judgment it is not bad all on its own it is not unpleasant all on its own unpleasantness is a secondary quality of things things aren't bad your response to them is to like be angry or upset or sad or frustrated about them all it takes is a shift in perspective to not feel bad about it anymore now that's one of those things that like easier said than done right I have complete control over the way that I take my emotions and respond to my emotions even if I don't have 100% control over like how I'm feeling I can register it acknowledge it and then let it go I think at one point somebody's talked about not in this class but in another class was talking about can think of the emotion as knocking on the door but it's up to you as to whether you let it in and we know too that like you can focus you can fixate you can kind of like wallow in sadness and listen to like sad music and like call up your friends and complain about how terrible your life is but that's not accomplishing anything and it's not making you any less sad but I need to vent you might say like I need to rest yeah alright you need to vent get it done and move on so I don't know does that answer the question they would be sympathetic if they're a good stoic they would be sympathetic it would be appropriately sympathetic they would find the virtuous mean of sympathy you can be too sympathetic right you can be this kind of obsequious sympathetic you can certainly be too cold the right kind of sympathy is the sympathy that's going to help you move forward we get this from Marcus the first bit of book two I think is a fascinating piece say to yourself in the morning another morning thing you get the impression maybe Marcus wrote in the morning say to yourself in the morning I shall meet people who are interfering ungracious insolent full of guile deceitful and anti-social is that true like throughout the day you're gonna meet some how should you feel about that before we get into what Marcus's advise about this is throughout the day you are going to meet some how should you feel about it now how should you deal with it when it happens should you be angry with people when they're deceitful and mean and rude Frank says no because the Stokes probably gonna say you should never be angry right you should be angry when it's useful is it useful to be angry with people when they're rude and deceitful mean and unjust yep unless yeah the Stoics might criticize well if it's unproductive then yeah certainly not whether or not you can fake anger in order to like get the achieved result yeah maybe that's just kind of that's good rational prudence that's kind of like that's the virtue that concerns being able to competently get around in the world but maybe it should be felt as well that's kind of maybe is a little bit more Aristotle than it is stoicism that like now maybe you should actually feel the anger as well but feel it in the appropriate way and do the appropriate sorts of things with it let's pick back up with what Marcus was saying about all of the and as Emperor room you're gonna meet lots of them like everybody like everybody's a sycophant everybody wants something from you when you're at the top right everybody this is what people who like win the lottery always say that like out of the woodwork kind of all of these people who want something from them now they have become like that because they have no understanding of good and evil but I who have contemplated the essential beauty of good and essential ugliness of evil who know that the nature of the wrongdoer is of one kin with mine not indeed of the same blood or seed but sharing the same mind the same portion of the divine I cannot be harmed by any one of them and no one can involve me in shame I cannot feel anger against him who is my kin nor hate him we are born to labor together like the feet the hands the eyes and the rows of upper and lower teeth I love that image by the way the rows of upper and lower teeth were made to work with one another to work against one another therefore is contrary to nature and to be angry against a man or turn ones back on him is to work against him you should feel pity for people who act like they're like they don't get it they don't get like how to be good this is maybe like we saw this from Socrates when he was saying that like nobody acts badly on purpose everybody's always doing it out of ignorance everybody who does something that's unjust it's because they they're trying to do their best but they just don't know how and we might say the same thing about like that all of the various annoying and frustrating and bad people that we meet throughout the day is that like they just don't know any if you're gonna feel anything at all towards them feel pity and perhaps that pity is going to encourage you to help them do better but to help somebody become a better person is not the sort of thing that like you can do all by yourself it takes two to tango they're right they have to be interested and maybe we might even think of ourselves as naturally in opposition to somebody that I am like the natural enemy of somebody else there maybe we might think that like competition is natural and competition maybe brings the best out of ourselves so like I should be trying to outdo my neighbors this is why I like that idea of like we should work that we're made to work together like hands like feet like the upper and lower teeth upper and lower teeth like how do your what do you what do teeth do the sole of the eye is sight what's the sole of teeth looking pretty in a picture come on like what did he do thank you and they have to be opposed right like the upper and lower teeth have to be like ah they're like fighting it's kind of Heraklion tension of like opposition the top teeth are trying to like beat the bottom teeth in the bottom teeth or no no they're working together to chew up the food and this is it to the extent that we think of ourselves in opposition to any of our fellow humans at all or to anything in the cosmos to the extent that we're gonna think of ourselves as like in opposition to something it's the way that top teeth are opposed to bottom teeth that were actually working together to get something done and for the top teeth to hate the bottom teeth is like one of the most absurd things that a body could like possibly first of all teeth don't hate but like if you could imagine this if you're like you're part of one thing with everybody else humans are naturally social we heard this from Aristotle we're hearing again from Marcus it's littered throughout the meditations that humans are naturally social it is part of the divine natural and necessary order that humans live and work and cooperate with other human beings there's a kind of a whole ISM like a big like bold and and kind of like extreme holism an almost le attic holism in which marcus is talking about this kind of cosmic scale this is one of the it's gonna help us not get too bent out of shape about small stuff to help us like not sweat the small stuff which any good stoic is going to tell you to don't sweat the small stuff and it's all small stuff don't sweat anything there's no reason to be frustrated about anything one of the tips that can help you get over your anxiety about things that you can't control is to recognize that in the grand cosmic scheme of things none of it really matters whether you live or die in the grand cosmic scheme of things not whether you live or die at all but like whether you die today or you die 10 years from now that's not gonna significantly alter the cosmos it's not that big a deal all of do you find this like frequently happening to yourself you get like really emotionally invested in something that's small and all it takes is like zoom out a little bit and try to put a little bit of perspective on this and suddenly you're like yeah it's not that big a deal oh my god I got a bad grade on my exam guess what nobody cares I this is maybe like a terrible thing to tell students like yeah you should try your hardest and learn but the grade part maybe that's gonna be relevant for the first job that you get maybe that's going to be relevant for like getting into a graduate program but after that nobody's gonna ever look at your grades again your happiness does not depend on the grades that you get it might depend on how much you learn but not about the grades and the grand scheme of things an exam grade doesn't really matter that kind of hole isn't that kind of like zooming out to like recognize that like you're just you're part of an entire cosmos and a slightly smaller scale of that is like you are part of a community you want to get a little bit bigger than the community but smaller than the cosmos you're part of humanity you are like one human in a grand organism of all humans and to recognize that like you have a place in that this is part of what connects us to other people is recognizing that like there are people just like me and were made to work together I can't hate you I can't be angry with you at most I can feel a little bit sad that you're not doing as well as you should but even that I shouldn't get too wrapped up in the sadness at least not in any way that's going to prevent me from doing what I can to help you do better so that like we can all perform together like the hands and the feet and the teeth there's this kind of holism that's maybe even like sometimes flirting with Ellie addict holism that like all is one that also kind of comes with this loss of self that when I start focusing on the whole I'm not such a big deal anymore except in the way that I'm a part of the whole we get this similar kind of obsession with impermanence almost a Heric idæan sort of approach to impermanence something that we saw with epictetus where he was saying like when you kiss your child goodnight remind here's a whisper to yourself that like my child is gonna die I'm gonna die and my wife is gonna die and everybody they love is gonna die be keenly aware of that impermanence and recognize that it's not a scary thing if you're thinking of like what a horrible thing to think it's not a scary thing it's this recognition that like individual people will come and go but the hole will always be the hole and that's the important thing to focus on that you're a part in a hole and insofar as you're a part in the hole you need to play your part maybe your part is slave maybe your part is Emperor whatever your part like whatever your station like wherever like you found yourself thrown into this crazy kooky cosmos figure out like what's my place and play your part and to do that is to square your will with the natural order to do that is virtue virtue is playing your part as well as you can if you're the Emperor of Rome if you're the Emperor of Rome and and marcus marcus bemoans this he says you know what would be nice is having a chance to like go back and read philosophy but you know what you don't have time for philosophy anymore marcus you're the emperor of rome now there's stuff to be done you don't have time for like that the intellectual comfort of reading books you don't have time for the warm blankets you got to play your part and there's a lot to be done no matter where you are if you're a slave if you're an emperor if you're a college student if you're a professor there's work to be done and it's it's valuable work if it ain't valuable work pick something else figure out like where you will best be spent in the whole that in like the the relatively short life that you have that you're going to perform as well as you can with that with that fleeting time that you have and do it to the best of your ability sometimes we'll get folks who will talk about cosmopolitanism I think particularly with somebody like Marcus we get we get a really keen and clever sense of like the etymological roots of cosmopolitanism state cosmopolitan today people think it's a vodka and cranberry or they'll thing and like it's a somebody who's kind of like world wise or something like that cosmopolitanism literally means that the cosmos is your Palace Paulus's the city the cosmos is the whole universe the whole universe is my city I'm at home in the entire universe that's cosmopolitanism and we get probably like no better representative of this than Marcus Aurelius who is kind of like the whole of the gods like to the extent in which like we can think of one government has taken over as much of the cosmos as humanly possible I don't know Rome at the height of its power is like pretty close that the entirety of the world is Rome and Marcus is the leader of Rome wherever he goes he goes up into Germania he's at home there he needs to find a way to be at home there if that's where he needs to be play your part if you play your part well that's virtue and virtue is enough if you're looking for more than virtue if you want virtue plus pleasure Marcus is gonna say something like ah come on like pleasures not better than virtue pleasure certainly not enough to distract you from virtue virtue is enough this should be enough to like make you happy to make you flourishing anything else that you're missing from that is less important and no rational person would care about it more there were a couple in Gabe do you have your hand up earlier all right yeah yeah yeah so first of all we'll note that like play your part we've got a kind of like relationship between part and whole that's kind of there right so you can't completely go your own way as far as the Stoics are concerned you can't say like I have no part in this in this circus I'm leaving all the humans behind and I'm gonna go off and be a hermit in the woods Marcus says like that's not really playing your part you've kind of decided that you're gonna be something other than human Aristotle said that like people who don't need friends are either less than human or they're more than human but they're not human humans need like other people so you can't completely do it on your own although I would say that and maybe this is starting to kind of step a little bit outside of stoic sensibilities there's a sense in which we do kind of create our own parts we create our own society as well like Rome Rome didn't just happen Rome was built by people our communities don't just naturally happen they're built by people and so we can build them in whatever way as we see fit and it's probably worth noting and this is the sort of thing that came up in in Republic - that like if we're going to talk about a just virtuous person nobody can be perfectly just or virtuous nobody can be their best play your part to the best of your ability right that's the part that's within your control play your part to the best of your ability and that might mean recognizing that I can't be my best in an undress Society I can't be my best when the people that I'm surrounded with are not at their best I can't just snap my fingers and make it different though I can't turn an unjust society into a just society I can't turn my vicious neighbor into a virtuous person just by wishing it I gotta put some work in and even then it's not guaranteed I kind of like if I want up if I want to be a professional basketball player like I don't know is that within my control maybe at this point my life like no like that ship has sailed but if I was like 13 years old and was thinking to myself like I don't know I really like this basketball thing like can I put the time in can I put the effort in can I do the work that's required in order and I might say like that works too hard then we'll come back and say oh I guess you didn't really want to be a professional basketball player if you wanted to if you wanted to do that you should recognize that it comes with all of this work but even then I might recognize that I could put the work in and still not make it there's a lot of fields like this professional athletes musicians actors these are like there are lots of them academia it's like totally one of these fields we're putting in the work just ain't enough all on its own there's maybe like a little bit of stuff that's just not completely within your control as to whether or not you're gonna break it and be famous and be able to kind of like have a career of this or whether it's the sort of thing that like you were working for but it just I mean for somebody like me I think one of the things that's holding me back is like I'm just not tall enough this isn't to say that like there aren't short people in the NBA I'm taller than Muggsy Bogues was is he still alive right but that makes it awfully hard right so I don't does that answer your question Gabe that like there are natural limitations that we're going to be faced with and some of those natural limitations include the fact that like I'm only in control of my own mind and actions and these can influence other people but I'm not in this way that like they're in my control the way I'm in my control but I can try to convince them and I gotta find a way to get good at it too I can't I can't be this I can't be tactless when I address like somebody's being unjust I can't be like you get your together and be like part of the whole like they're not gonna respond well to that I gotta find a way to maybe kind of like we were talking about empathizing with the child who falls in skins their knee there's like a way to do it effectively yes well alright so I like him I'm gonna like channel the stoic here what you like doesn't matter it's not about what you like it's about what your part is it's about yeah and this is maybe some one of those things that like some of us are starting to realize there are things that I'm good at that I don't enjoy and there are things that I enjoy that I'm not really good at and I'm trying to figure out like what I'm gonna do with the rest of my life what I'm gonna be when I grow up I'm trying to figure out do I want to be something that I like or do I want to do something that I'm good at and they might not be exactly the same thing the Stoics seems like they're gonna say do it you're good at rather than what you like although I will say that like somebody like Aristotle will say I don't know how good you're gonna be at it if you don't like it because like one day one gray November day it's gonna be cold and you're gonna be in bed and it's gonna be warm and comfortable in bed and you're gonna be like should I get up and go to work and you're not gonna want to because you don't enjoy the work if you enjoy the work you're gonna be more likely to put in the labor that makes you good at it I would say like try to find both if you can camera you don't know your part well you know some of your parts right you know you're a citizen of the United States you know that you're your parents child no no no you can be much more but like you can start to think in terms of like if I don't know what my part is just yet I can recognize that I have some parts that are relatively clear right I can figure out what I like doing and I can try to figure out what I'm good at doing and try to find the intersection of those two sets to the best of my ability yeah the search is definitely part of it right I mean not if you're an emperor who's like plucked from Spain at a young age and everybody says like you're gonna be the next Emperor now and then like and then the Emperor dies and then your Co Emperor dies and it's like it's it's nobody but you who's gonna make the decision about what to do about the Germanic hordes that are knocking on the door of the Empire like that's a situation where like you just don't have any choice in the matter like that's your part it was handed to you if you're a slave also that's your part it's handed to you but yeah if you're one of us contemporary humans that's cursed with all of the freedom to like choose many parts then that choosing is that choosing is your lot your part is in part to choose what your part is to figure out what you're going to do with yourself not everybody throughout human history has had that luxury that luxury is also a bit of a like a crushing responsibility sometimes you sometimes like think like it would be easier if somebody just told me what to do not really though right it would be easier if people told you what to do and it was stuff that like when you did it you were like we that's fun but the thing about being told what to do by other people is sometimes they tell you to do and you're like I don't want to do that now like tough do what I say I don't think you'd be better off as a slave I think that it is the sort of thing that you can kind of recognize that like the choice is something that's within your control and like do something good with that control try to figure out how to play your part and try to figure out like what kind of part do I want it to be should it help other people whatever I do with my life should it help other people yeah I think so it shouldn't hurt other people at the very least right well that might that might narrow the field down a little bit right fuelling yourself things that I'm good at things that I enjoy and it helps other people and I can make enough to pay the bills with it those four constraints might might help you pick out like what your options are you'll have a small finite number of options from there yeah Garrett yeah my my could yeah and I think you should you should be indignant about being enslaved right right there's a difference between accepting right as long as if you can strive for better wait should you strive for better if it's not possible to get better but if it is possible then you should strive yeah yeah there's there's that little bugga bear again it's all about the wisdom and tell the difference so yeah I agree it it does seem like sometimes this might be a recipe for complacency particularly towards things like pleasure things like death things like injustice like we maybe should be we should be fearful of death at least a little bit we should be fearful enough of death that we avoid it when we can to an extent maybe this is getting into the reflection draft territory there are like two big options for this one is help us try to separate the Epicureans from the Stoics how you feeling about that like do you get how they're very similar but maybe importantly different this little constellation is helpful that selection from meditation five for Marcus about like were you made for pleasure or were you made for doing things that might be the sort of thing that you're like well like the Epicureans are all in the in the like the wings of the conversation being like yeah of course you were made for pleasure stay in bed if it's a sustainable pleasure this is really one of the few simple pleasures in life is enjoying a warm bed on a cold day be like the person at the banquet then right take five minutes to enjoy it and then say like alright now I got to get to work I don't know Marcus might say no get right out of bed you're not made for feeling pleasure we might say like yeah you're you can feel pleasure clearly you were made it's part of you the divine natural necessary order that I'm a pleasure feeling sort of an organism so I should recognize that like I should maybe take some kind of enjoyment of the simple things in life that don't really cost much how hard is it to stay in bed for five more minutes and like really enjoy it not hard at all is it gonna ruin my day yeah not really maybe the stroke in the Epicurean will kind of like haggle over those small things the other option on this reflection draft is about death though and whether or not like this is this is a prescription for too much complacency towards death but I think a lot of that might come down to this question about like the wisdom would tell the difference between what's in your control and what's not in your control and I think a lot of it might come down to this question of is avoiding death the sort of thing that leans into virtue or is it the sort of thing that's leaning away from virtue because it's totally possible to of what like Socrates could have avoided his death at least for a little while he could have postponed his death by running away when credo comes to get him socrates could have maybe postponed his death or at least avoided the kind of death that he had by being a little less prickly a little less provocative and a little more ingratiating to the jury during his trial and apology he almost goes out of his way to provoke them by saying like not only have I not done anything wrong I'm a gift from the gods and you should all reward me he didn't have to do those things but he did do those things and those things unquestionably hastened his death it was within his control to live a little longer but he didn't do it is he being a good stoic there he says he doesn't fear death Stokes don't fear death yeah maybe it's on the right track you can avoid death in shameful ways it's coming for you eventually maybe that way to think about it is if you know that you must die and you must try to die well how does the virtuous person who died died that way nice place to leave things from book three here speaking of death we should observe things like these this is book three entry two we should observe things like these that the incidental results of natural phenomena have some charm and attractiveness for example when a loaf of bread is being baked some parts break open and these anybody here baked bread those little kind of craggily cracking bits when you bake bread those are awesome those are some but they're like imperfections in the bread he goes on to talk about how figs burst open when they're very ripe when fruit is like really really ripe it is like at this tipping point it's already kind of started to drift into beginning to rot we know this about fruit like when it's ripe it's oh it's like this knife's edge between like ready to eat and and tipping and beginning to rot you try to avoid that rot you have under ripe not quite yet ripe fruit the very closeness of decay adds a special beauty to olives that have ripened on the tree the same is true of ears of wheat as they bend to the ground Marcus was talking about how like there's something about something the way that it comes into its own the way it like reaches its own perfection that's already beginning to point towards death and decay death and decay are part of any life and they're part of what's beautiful about it too he goes on to talk about how humans who love nature who are not at war with nature and trying to make two plus two equals something other than for trying to like try trying to make their will change the divine natural and necessary order and you're never gonna win that fight folks who are doing that are not going to be able to see what's beautiful about death and decay folks who love nature though they will be able to see this they'll look upon with as much pleasure upon the gaping jaws of actual wild beasts as upon representations of them in painting or sculpture he will see a kind of fulfillment and freshness in the old whether man or woman he'll be able to look upon loveliness of his own slave boys with eyes freeze from west let's ignore that last part if you can think of death as beautiful then maybe you're ready you're ready to be a stoic this is what the stoic is asking like you need to be able to think of death as not all deaths some deaths are shameful I can think of plenty of deaths that I'm like that's not like one of the reasons why I'll never skydive is because I know like that's a dumb I'm not saying that it's likely I'm gonna die skydiving but if I did that would be a dumb death I would have plenty of time the whole way down to be like this was avoidable and stupid if you just don't get out of the way of traffic as its bearing down on you that's not a noble death that's not that's not a death that could be beautiful the kind of death that's beautiful is the one that's born with dignity the one in which like you capitalize on all of the things that you've been developing your entire life Socrates said philosophy is preparation for death maybe that's what it takes you got to be a little bit philosophically inclined to be able to see the beauty in death that's uh like lives this class has come to an end don't be sad that it's over be happy that it happened I'll see you guys on Thursday and we'll talk about skepticism

Channel: Adam Rosenfeld

Views: 3,135

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Ancient Philosophy, Hellenistic Philosophy, Stoicism, Marcus Aurelius, Virtue, Pleasure, death

Id: YbAY_xNLReE

Length: 75min 0sec (4500 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 19 2019