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Diogenes The Cynic, Freedom, And Living In A Barrel (Episode 144)
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Diogenes: the man who lived in a barrel and inspired Stoic philosophy.
In this episode, Michael and Caleb explore the life and ideas of Diogenes the Cynic - one of the most influential and eccentric philosophers of ancient Greece. They discuss:
(00:00) Epictetus on Diogenes' Freedom
(03:21) Diogenes' Life and Connection to Stoicism
(08:29) Diogenes' Approach to Philosophy
(15:59) Looking for an Honest Man
(21:27) Behold a Man – Plucked Chicken
(26:12) The Cup
(30:00) You Need A Master
(34:35) Alexander the Great – So Called
(39:00) Takeaways: Epictetus on Diogenes
(44:48) Favorite Diogenes Stories
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Transcript
Diogenes and the Quest for True Freedom
00:00:00
Speaker
Epictetus says, Dogenes was free. How did he come by this? Not because he was of free parents, he was not, but because he was free himself and had cast away all the weakness that might give slavery a hold on him. And so no one could approach or lay hold on him to enslave him.
Introduction to Stoa Conversations
00:00:25
Speaker
Welcome to Stoa Conversations. My name is Cable Bontavaros. And I'm Michael Trombley. And today we're going to be talking about Diogenes, the cynic philosopher. So I'm going to make a tour into a difference philosophy, but one that had a lot of impact on the Stoics, especially on Epictetus.
00:00:50
Speaker
Yeah, I wanted to talk about, i mean we've done we've done some episodes talking about different philosophers and their philosophy. I wanted to do this one on Diogenes, because as you said, he's such an inspiration to Stoicism.
Cynicism vs. Stoicism
00:01:02
Speaker
um I mean, the there's a direct lineage we'll get into of Stoicism from cynicism and from Diogenes.
00:01:10
Speaker
And he's also just an interesting character, did a lot of eccentric thing, very famous for his kind of shocking approach to life. And so he's, ah he is an interesting person to test maybe your philosophical intuitions or your philosophical positions against. When I think of cynicism, it's almost like stoicism gone a step further and it's like stoicism too far. And stoicism is too far from for most people or very far already for most people.
00:01:39
Speaker
And so it's interesting to see well what happens when we push it further, which of those parts are we okay with and which of those parts do we think are are too much. And we'll get a feel for that as we go over the life and stories of Diogenes
Philosophical Comparisons: Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and Cynicism
00:01:52
Speaker
today. um like One common way to set up stoicism is that it falls in between Aristotelianism and Cynicism. so for the Aristotelian, in order to live well, you need both the external and the internal to go right for you. and You know, you need to be virtuous, but also perhaps have some level of wealth, health and reputation.
00:02:19
Speaker
Um, and then for the cynic, it's just the internal, it's just that internal sense of freedom or virtue that matters. Whereas the Stoics carve a middle path of sorts. They say, you know, virtue is enough, but they are also say leave open this category for the preferred
Stoicism's Preferred Indifference
00:02:38
Speaker
indifference. You know, all things can considered, things like wealth, health are preferable. They are in a sense have value.
00:02:46
Speaker
um even if they're not necessary for happiness. So that's I think is one way to explain why you say the cynics are that next level of stoicism because they just focus on virtue and I think explicitly despise things like wealth and reputation. They don't say they're good at all. The example I was thinking of when you were saying to that is the Aristotelian maybe thinks you need a comfy bed to be happy. The Stoics think you don't need a comfy bed, but you're not going to say no. you know If somebody offers it to you, I'll sleep in that comfy bed and then the cynic is going to reject the comfy bed.
00:03:22
Speaker
It's going to say spit in the face of the person who offered it to them maybe and say, you know you've got this all wrong. You've you've confused me for somebody weak or somebody else. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but that kind of that though that those that three approaches to external goods that you described really well.
00:03:41
Speaker
So do you want to hop into some anecdotes or give some more structure to
The Life of Diogenes
00:03:47
Speaker
Diogenes? I'm going to start with an introduction to his life for those who aren't familiar, who are listening. I'll talk a bit about his background. A lot of the sources I'm getting here are from a different Diogenes, Diogenes Lyertius. He wrote The Lives of Eminent Philosophers. So I think he's around off the top of my head.
00:04:04
Speaker
the second century AD. So he would have been living quite a bit in the future to to these to the Dodgeneys the cynic, but he kind of compiled ah the biographies and and writings and um anecdotes of a lot of famous philosophers. A lot of what we know about the ancient Stoics, not Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus and Seneca, but the ones that came before them like Zeno and Cleanthes, we also know from this book, The Lives of Eminent Philosophers. So a lot of what we'll be pulling on today comes from that. um So a bit of about Diogenes,
00:04:40
Speaker
in his life and you know how he became the cynic he was. So he was born between 412 and 404 BC and cenope, which is a Greek colony on the northern coast of modern day Turkey. At a young age, he was captured by pirates and sold into slavery.
00:04:57
Speaker
And that's actually something I didn't realize until doing the research for this episode is that connection with slavery. um As we'll get to, he was very influential thinker for Epictetus, and there's that immediate connection there about having also lived as a slave at some point.
00:05:13
Speaker
Yeah, at some point he gained his freedom um from slavery and reached Athens. And as a free man there, he learned philosophy from Antisthenes, which was a student of Socrates who was present at Socrates' execution in Athens. So we have a ah lineage there from Socrates to Antisthenes to Diogenes the cynic.
Diogenes' Philosophy of Freedom
00:05:35
Speaker
He's reported to have said that he earned his real freedom from Antisthenes in the form of an education.
00:05:42
Speaker
And that after a learning philosophy, he could never be enslaved again. So there's that theme there of, you know, that you see that something we see in Epictetus a lot, which is that, you know, freedom is is knowledge or virtue or something that's gained internally from a kind of internal mastery. And then once you have philosophy is the root to that freedom. And once you have that, you can't be enslaved or made unfree, even if you're you know literally sold into slavery by pirates.
Diogenes the Gadfly
00:06:10
Speaker
um I would say Diogenes inherited two parts of Socrates' legacy legacy from Antisthenes. So like Socrates, he became a philosophical gadfly, irritating those around him, pushing people to question their beliefs or what they took for granted, their assumptions.
00:06:29
Speaker
And second, and maybe even more than Socrates, Dogenes didn't care about what people thought or about the reputation of others. He was he pursued the truth, and we can we'll discuss this as we get to the anecdotes, whether or not he he did that in a way that was actually helpful ah or was more abrasive than it needed to be. He was certainly pursuing the truth at the expense or without considering how this made him look or his kind of social status.
00:06:57
Speaker
As a philosopher, he dedicated his life to pulling people out of complacency and getting them to question their assumptions, like I i was saying.
Diogenes' Public Acts and Reputation
00:07:04
Speaker
And he he did this a lot by doing shocking things in public. So he was known to urinate, defecate, even masturbate in public. He would sleep in Athens, in the then the streets, in a barrel. He would point at things with his middle finger, which was offensive at the time, like it is today.
00:07:21
Speaker
um and he would accost Athenians. And this this way of living, it earned him the reputation for being like a dog. He was dirty, slept outside, and the word cynic, it derives from the Greek word from for dog. And so when when wherever you hear, you know, Dogenes the cynic, this is what people are calling they're calling him, Dogenes the dog, and um or you know, the one who's like a dog.
00:07:44
Speaker
And that's what the cynics take up. They take up this this i they it's that kind of that twist where they actually take it up as a sign of of pride, right? Instead of rejecting it, instead of taking it as a criticism, they go, yeah, I'm going to meet your insult and actually incorporate it and take it on as kind of our our calling card now. um And in terms of the in terms of stoicism,
00:08:05
Speaker
you know This is what I've described is is a lot further than what we talk about in this podcast or what stoicism would advocate for. Stoicism is not as asking us to urinate or defecate in public. It's not asking us to flip people off. ah especially That's just not something that stoicism photoism is more.
00:08:23
Speaker
pro-social, it's more about you know doing well with others than cynicism is, but the but stoicism is a direct intellectual descendant of cynicism.
Diogenes to Zeno: The Intellectual Lineage
00:08:33
Speaker
So Diogenes, the cynic's main pupil, was Creites of Thebes, um and Creites was the philosophical teacher of Zeno of Citium when he first arrived in Athens. And Zeno is the original founder of stoicism, so you have you know Socrates Socrates is a student, Diogenes, then Diogenes is student, and then Zeno. So there's that there's that direct family tree or lineage.
00:08:59
Speaker
So Stoicism as a tradition, it's just two steps removed from Dogenes. And we see that lineage carried more or less depending on the philosopher. ah We already mentioned Epictetus, but Dogenes is the second most cited epicte philosopher by Epictetus after only Socrates. So in Epictetus's discourses, Dogenes is the person he mentions the most other than Socrates.
Epictetus on the Cynic Calling
00:09:22
Speaker
So that inspiration is felt even though there was a break between cynicism and stoicism that inspiration was still felt and you get in Epictetus these explicit um I guess glorification of cynicism where Epictetus says cynicism is actually a higher calling than stoicism because it's it's it's ah it's a great life but not a life everybody's cut out for. Everybody can be a stoic says Epictetus but not everybody can be a cynic because to be a cynic I
00:09:54
Speaker
requires a kind of resiliency from these external goods, a total willingness to forego even preferred indifference in this extreme pursuit um of truth and virtue. And one thing that Epictetus does to point to the cynics, he says they're almost like,
00:10:14
Speaker
Well, I think the the metaphor he uses exactly is that they're kind of like scouts in a war. They go out ahead. They put themselves at risk. They put themselves in danger. They return to the base with information, right? So the cynic, you know, sleeps in a barrel and then he returns and says, ah, I slept in a barrel and I was still happy. It turns out you don't need a comfy bed to be happy. And they're kind of returning that information to the general population.
00:10:37
Speaker
they're They're bringing these examples back. And so Epictetus um yeah praises them or salutes them for going out and putting doing the kind of harder job, being at the front lines of this experience and bringing that information back to you know the the the rest of us. So that's a bit of background on Diogenes. He's famous for these really funny stories, but anything you want to say on his background or connection to stoicism before we dig into these?
00:11:03
Speaker
Yeah, well, I think it's it's interesting to call out that connection between Epictetus and Diogenes. but They both experienced slavery and to think
The Essence of Freedom
00:11:14
Speaker
of it, they both have have a a philosophical emphasis on freedom. I think it's slightly different in both cases, but it does seem like a core part of Diogenes' cynic philosophy is that it's a way to be free by practicing philosophy.
00:11:33
Speaker
and free in a sense that really matters, that's in a sense more, that's more fundamental than one's political or economic situation. And of course there's Epictetus and he's constantly accusing his students of acting like slaves, slaves to their desires. You know, he is the great example of the successful Roman who's a slave to one of their mistresses and so on.
00:12:00
Speaker
um and also puts forth that positive vision of what it is to be free, to live in accordance with nature. So I think that that is, I think we'll keep on talking about some of the differences um and similarities, but that is a key both biographical similarity and ethical similarity between the two philosophies as this emphasis on freedom and making it more of an internal rather than external matter.
00:12:30
Speaker
i I think you nailed that at the end. That's the that's the shift. his turning well yeah it Taking slave and being free or being a slave and making it something internal, it's something you gain through the study of philosophy. It's not something you gain from money or even from you know ah literally ending your slavery um in in a kind of a relationship sense, nor is it something you lose if you become a slave, right? You still keep your freedom as long as you've achieved this internal state.
Diogenes vs. Plato: The Human Definition
00:13:03
Speaker
And yeah, both of them, it you know, I always feel a bit silly saying that kind of stuff, but it it hits with a bit more pizzazz coming from people who experienced it firsthand, right? Yeah, I think that's, that's like that's right. In a sense, you know, both the two of them earned
00:13:18
Speaker
the the right to make claims like that. ah One other thing I wanted to mention is that Diogenes is a, um he inherited two parts of Socrates legacy. First, and we'll talk about this, especially it comes out in stories of his life. He's a gadfly forcing others to think about their own life differently, being obnoxious and so on. um And then a second, I think, and that's related to this is that he doesn't care about his reputation, like Socrates, perhaps, didn't doesn't care about reputation for his own sake. And I think you can also extend that to some of the other classic externals. The Stoics talk about wealth, pleasure, are things he positively despised.
00:14:11
Speaker
um And, uh, that's, um, that's another way in which the philosophy is more intense than than stoicism. Yeah, there's there's this kind of, I mean, I was just at a, I was just at a wedding last weekend.
00:14:27
Speaker
And, you know, we we got talking to what we do when I talked about stoicism and there's this kind of visceral reaction. People have to stoicism, especially if they've heard a little bit about it, but they don't practice it. And sometimes, you know, Caleb, when we're hosting this podcast and we're talking to each other, we're in so deep, we don't realize I, or I often forget that there's something radical about stoicism, right? Like, like, you know, we were laughing at the wedding about like, you know, think every, like memento mori, just think about the fact that you're going to die. And they were laughing about how.
00:14:56
Speaker
intense and ridiculous that position is, um or not ridiculous, but you know how strange it is, and it can make people uncomfortable. um And you so you forget how radical stoicism is. Stoicism is radical, but it's often radical um I guess maybe in a less active way. It's about, you know, you're kind of leading by example, like Epictetus says again, you know, don't tell people about your philosophy. If you're at a dinner or a party, just act the way you're supposed to act. And that will kind of inspire people or confuse people. Why aren't you getting upset about this? Why aren't you worried about this? Why aren't you feeling angry like everybody else is angry? You'll show it in your example in Stoicism, but there's something proactive about cynicism and Socrates' approach that that I think is the difference.
00:15:43
Speaker
It's both more extreme and then also more intense. One of Epictetus, I keep going back to Epictetus here just because he's so connected to Diogenes, but one of Epictetus's points is that a stoic should not convert. Stoic should not go out and try to teach non-stoics. His point, speaking from whether we agree or not, his point of speaking from experience was just that it's not effective.
00:16:06
Speaker
And the i mean the Socratic and the cynic difference is is to disagree with that, or at least think that we have more of a a role in actually forcing these philosophies in people's faces.
00:16:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think you you mean you see in Seneca as well, the line of thought where it's you're supposed to live um in the city, but not be of the city in a way. You know you play your role while avoiding ah some of the risks or vices that perhaps and is involved in living life with others.
00:16:46
Speaker
and try to carve out that middle path. Whereas, you know, Diogenes is living on the outskirts. of And perhaps that's ah that's a place where a classic objection to Stoicism is that it's not revolutionary enough or agrees too much with the status quo. um And perhaps you get that to some extent because, you know, Stoics live within the system, see what they can do from within the system.
00:17:15
Speaker
um I think there's some historical counter examples of that, but at least that's a common strategy for Stoics and a common objection that people have to different Stoics.
00:17:27
Speaker
But perhaps one benefit of cynicism, one potential positive upshot of it, is that you have the chance for more moral revolutions or moral insight, as it were, from coming from the outside. um And just to connect this sort of longer thought, I suppose, is that the Stoics got a lot of their ideas about cosmopolitanism from the cynics. So perhaps, you know, that's an example of a kind of moral insight or moral view that's novel, um that the Stoics managed to adapt from these people who lived on the outskirts of the city.
00:18:09
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I was in, yeah, my research for the, that was, that was something i I learned in the research for this episode as well, where the, the, the Dodginese, the cynic was actually the first person to use the word cosmopolitan because he was asked, you know, where are you from? And he said, well, I'm, I'm a citizen of the cosmos, right? I'm a, my, my polis is the cosmos. And so he was the one that that introduced that idea, the first person to do that, at least the first recorded person.
00:18:36
Speaker
So that's yeah, it's a great point. That's kind of that's a moral so moral insight that the Stoics have taken from the cynics. Yeah, and maybe that's one that's easier to see endogenes positioned in. Harder to get if you're not the typical Athenian or yeah typical Spartan or what have you.
00:18:54
Speaker
Cool, so let's but let's go through some of these anecdotes or just the kind of stories from Diogenes' life, which will show what he you know what he got up to. And I figure I'll read a story and then we'll we'll unpack it a bit. I think some of these are quite funny. They're some of my favorite parts. So first one is called Looking for an Honest Man. So once Diogenes was walking through his city in broad daylight with his lamp lit.
00:19:20
Speaker
When people asked him what he was doing, he said he was searching for an honest man. When one young man blushed, Dodgeneys responded that this was the complexion of virtue. So we were just giving this example of being upfront and like, you know, accosting people with your philosophy versus being more passive. And so this is an example of he's walking around and in the daylight, holding a lamp, being like, I'm looking for like an honest person. I'm looking for a a good person. And then the second part of that is that a young man blushes, which means he's kind of embarrassed. The the young man actually kind of gets Diogenes's point, which is like, you're all not as good of people as you claim to be.
00:19:58
Speaker
And then Diogenes says, oh, there that that is the complexion of virtue, which is to say, um you know, maybe you're not honest, but at least you acknowledge that you're not honest and you feel a bit of shame and embarrassment when I when i when i do this little stunt. um And that's a good thing. that That kind of means you're on the right track. Well, I like that idea.
The Search for Honesty
00:20:22
Speaker
error is Recognizing error is the beginning of wisdom. I think Dajni is recognized as perhaps, at least that's that response to blush at whatever Dajni said is at least the beginning of ah virtue. I think that's a that's ah that's true in a general generally useful principle, I think. And again, just very abrasive here, going out and just accusing people of being dishonest. um Yeah, yeah.
00:20:55
Speaker
Cool, so next one is called, well, I've called it Behold a Man. So once Plato at his academy, so Dogenes lived at the same time as Plato and they were always kind of getting into, always kind of bickering with each other in Athens. So once Plato at his academy was working with other people at the academy to provide a succinct definition of what a human is. They came up with the definition of a bipedal hairless animal.
Learning Simplicity from a Child
00:21:23
Speaker
Diogenes, hearing this, stripped a chicken of its feathers, carried it into the academy, and and proclaimed, behold, a man, since a chicken walks on two legs and has no hair. I mean, this one's this one's for me is...
00:21:37
Speaker
it is It is a radical pushback against even we we admire these thinkers. you know Think about the pedestal we put Plato on. Think about the pedestal we put Aristotle on, or even Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca. And it's just the kind of slap in the face of that. It's just like, hey, these smart people, they can say stupid things. um and they and And I think also there's a second point, which is like in your attempt to explain the world,
00:22:07
Speaker
You're actually making yourself dumber. You're actually becoming ignorant because you're you're oversimplifying something. You're like, okay, we've we've defined a human. we've closed We've closed the case on what a human is. But it's but it's not a correct definition. And you know if we if we um if we jump too quickly to these kind of, I guess, these dogmatic positions, we can we can miss the truth of the matter. That's what I take from this one.
00:22:33
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. It's a good example of Dajni so often he comes it comes after and maybe the in the in the previous story he came after the typical ah Greek,
00:22:46
Speaker
whereas here he's also targeting one of the idols of philosophers, right Plato, and doing it in really a humiliating fashion. You didn't just mention the counterexample, he just e made it apparent. So I guess that's ah that's another thought where it's related to the methodology of the cynics where often instead of working through arguments like the Platonists or indeed the Stoics, um it's much more a matter of almost rhetoric or showing what's true, what's possible, being abrasive,
00:23:23
Speaker
in this case, showing a clear concrete counter example, but in other cases, maybe using more tools of wit or straightforward conflict to get at some insight.
00:23:37
Speaker
Yeah, I never thought of that before, but I mean, that's the same example with the lamp in the daylight, right? Like he could just be running around the street and be like, you're all not honest. You know, you're all fake, but instead he he makes a kind of spectacle of it. So it sticks with people more. Same thing with the chicken, right? These are, these are spectacles. It's a funny point. Yeah. Yeah. The other kind of spectacle, a kind of recognition of.
00:24:04
Speaker
perhaps the fact that humans don't always work through argument, through dialogue.
00:24:11
Speaker
And I think you we said your second point for the story is that we're also trying to explain what a human is, come up with a definition you're compressing. reality too much. and Maybe this is reading too much into the cynics, but I think in a way they're, they're not very systematic philosophers. And perhaps part of that, if you wanted to give a defense of that approach is that systematicity often obscures reality or is too abstract, too simple. And it's perhaps better to focus on, you know, the concrete, what's in front of you, tools like wit, humor,
00:24:51
Speaker
those are just as important in your philosophical toolkit as ah you know knowing how to construct and evaluate a proper syllogism. yeah it also i mean that' yet that's a That's a good point. It also makes me think of how one of Socrates' strategies, and we talked about this in our episode on the Socratic method, is you get the person participating. And so that's why Socrates asks questions, because once you start asking people questions, you get them participating in their own philosophical education. You you pull out their assumptions, you pull out their intuitions.
00:25:30
Speaker
And so by using wit rhetoric, this kind of spectacle, you're pulling people into the discussion much more than if you were to just provide a couple of premises on why, um, you know, a bi-pedal hairless animal is not an exclusive definition of a human. So you, you, you, you pull people into the, to participating. And that I think is the biggest problem with, with, well, one of the biggest problems would be disinterest, right? More than anything than the skill or.
00:26:00
Speaker
quality of your arguments. If the person isn't interested, you're not going to teach them anything. Yeah. Nice. You want to go to the next one? Yeah, so this next one is a cup. um So Dajanese walks to a river with his one possession, a small cup for drinking water. As he is filling the cup for a drink from the river, he sees a small boy drinking from the same stream, except the boy is drinking from his hands, putting them together to form a small cup. Dajanese is outraged. He exclaims, a child has beat me in the plainness of living.
00:26:34
Speaker
And so, I mean, this is the this is a ah funny one to contrast with the Play-Doh example. Because in the previous, you think, wow, this guy's got a big head. Jeez, he's pretty cocky. Going in there, going into Play-Doh's Academy and calling Play-Doh dumb.
00:26:49
Speaker
But at the same time, he's willing to learn from somebody, uh, from a child. Um, and that I think speaks to speaks to the humility there. It speaks to a, even though he's extreme, he's not on a high horse. He's genuinely trying to learn and genuinely seeing where he can learn and taking that from anywhere, even if that's something that a child is doing well, which is, you know, drinking without a cup, showing that another possession is is not actually necessary for living well.
00:27:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And I think you also see, of course, there's the the theme of not needing external things and reducing the value of, uh, utensils, clothing to say nothing of wealth in general. I need my utensils. Yeah. Yeah. I need my utensils. Take everything else, but leave my utensils, f please.
00:27:46
Speaker
Yeah, so so that's ah that's ah that's another key theme. I think a stoic pushback would be, well, you often need things like cups, utensils to you know live well, to be a good host.
00:28:01
Speaker
save time for your other adventures, whatever it is. um i think I think the stoic claim there would also be that there's no there's no harm in a cup of water as long as it's well used, right? like that's the That's the idea of the indifferent. It's good or bad, depending on how you use it. And if you're avoiding cups because you think they're going to corrupt you, but a cup can't corrupt a good person. It's just the thing you use to drink water, right?
00:28:25
Speaker
A bed doesn't corrupt a good person, it's just a place to sleep. And so thinking of indifference as being not necessary for a good life, but also not corrupting, really indifferent is is the stoic position. So throwing away a cup is is stupid, basically. Yeah, that's right.
00:28:45
Speaker
Yeah, whereas I think there's a the same view always seems like there's something negative about having material ah goods either they are corrupting or or there's something intrinsically valuable about not needing them about this kind of pure independence um that's internal but also in some ways external you know concerns your body you don't need
00:29:14
Speaker
It's good to have your body survive on as little as possible, as little fancy food, as little shelter, and so on. There's almost something intrinsically appealing about that for for cynics. It sometimes seems from these stories.
00:29:31
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I think I aspire to the humility he showed here. I aspire to be the kind of person who can just be disgusted with myself or angry when I see a child being kind or moderate or minimalistic in a way that I can learn from. Like I want to be the kind of person that can learn from everybody, even children, not just great philosophers, but I do disagree with the cynics here. I think it is silly to think you've made some sort of mistake having a cup of water.
00:30:01
Speaker
by the river yeah yeah yeah i think so i think that's right so next one rapid fire um next story is a master so very short one when being sold at a slaver's market so this is while he was still a slave he's reported to have pointed at a man and said sell me to this man
Diogenes' Wit in Slavery
00:30:20
Speaker
he looks like he needs a master And that's just, again, just the wit we were talking about, the punchiness. And it's that that distinction we talked about earlier about internal versus is external. So there's obviously, and it's it's just ironic because it's the contrast.
00:30:36
Speaker
Externally, he's clearly a slave. This person is buying him. Internally, he's saying, I'm a free man, ah you are a slave, and you know I could actually be a good master to you because you know you're a slave, you need a master. Talking about that in making that internal external divide, which You know, these aren't people sitting around debating. This is somebody at a slaver's market, like the kind of the kind of I don't know, the kind of radical perspective that would take to have that perspective in that moment is pretty is pretty shocking and pretty impressive. Yeah, I think it's impressive. And there's also just I think recognizing that you don't need to play the social role that others have assigned to you.
00:31:23
Speaker
and there's something like a a firmness of mind or character or something that or a mark like that ah shows.
00:31:35
Speaker
It kind of it reminds me a little bit about there's a story about Julius Caesar being captured by pirates and the pirates are going to put him up for a ransom and he insists that the price is too low and that they ought to and set a higher price, you know, 20 talents, it's too little, it should be 50. Y'all are morons, worst pirates I've ever encountered. You know, just not acting like someone who, you know, is a hostage and thinks that they need to do whatever to it takes to survive instead of...
00:32:13
Speaker
I think you know Caesar has the attitude that he was Caesar before he was ah captured and he's still Caesar when he was captured, right? And I think you see that in Diogenes as well. you ah It's a very stoic position. I mean, the the Caesar example is a great one. ah Very funny story. um But it's about who you are is something you kind of carry around with you into every situation. It's something internal. It's about your character.
00:32:39
Speaker
And so you could literally be getting sold at a slaver's market. You could be captured by pirates. it doesn't You are not now a slave internally. you don't As you said, you don't have to take on this role that you've been given internally. you' You've been captured by pirates. You don't now have to be pathetic.
00:33:00
Speaker
cowardly, you don't have to be the kind of things we might ascribe to, I mean, pathetic was probably harsh, but you know you don't have to take on the things that we think the way a somebody captured in war has to act, right? It has to be defeated. I should say instead of instead of pathetic, but like, you know, defeated, begging, um things like this.
00:33:21
Speaker
And, you know, maybe that's maybe that's actually the smart thing to do is to is to pump up somebody's ego in that situation or something. But but it's not a necessity, right? You don't have to. You don't have to take on that rule because you carry yourself into each situation independent of those external circumstances. It's a very stoic idea. Yeah, I think so. I think so. And I think there's also the idea just as you said that it's not necessary. It still could be the strategic move.
00:33:47
Speaker
um So even though Diogenes' story, Julius Caesar's story are inspiring, there are equally stories of people essentially acting recklessly brash in such circumstances that ah don't turn out so well for them. yeah So I think that's ah that's another kind of, I think stoic qualification perhaps.
00:34:12
Speaker
I mean, if if caesar got his Caesar got executed there because he was he was talking too much for a prisoner, it wouldn't be such a cool story, right? So the lesson kind of stands outside of that. There's there's a certain amount of pragmatics there too.
00:34:26
Speaker
So one last one, it kind of hits on the same ideas. So ah this last story, it's about Alexander the Great.
Diogenes and Alexander the Great
00:34:34
Speaker
So when Alexander the Great, the most powerful man in the world at the time, traveled to meet the famous Diogenes, he came upon Diogenes on a sunny day lying in the grass. As Alexander stood over him, he asked Diogenes if there was anything he could do for him. Diogenes responded that Alexander could get out of his son.
00:34:55
Speaker
After this encounter, Alexander is reported to have said, had I not been Alexander, I should have liked to have been Diogenes. um And I think that's the same, I think it's the same kind of story, right? Which is that who you are at your, so there's there's there's that idea of you don't need things. I'm not i'm not a slave to any of my desires. I'm not asking Alexander to give me ah money or give me power or give me a political position just because he respects me. There's that kind of minimalism as well. You can see how Diogenes is putting his money where his mouth is and he's not anybody's slave, even the most powerful man in the world. He's he's not slave to anybody else's power. But there's also that idea we just hit before where you carry who you are into every situation. so you know Just because Alexander the Great walks over doesn't mean you have to like sit up, doesn't mean you have to um compliment him or
00:35:47
Speaker
bow or whatever people would typically do, um you could just continue to be yourself. There's no necessity because this person has this kind of social status to change. And you know the kind of moral at the end there was that that actual staying the same garnered respect instead of You know, instead of it being antagonistic, it was actually, Oh, wow. This person is a, is a pure or an equal. It's somebody who Alexander admired. diogenes for it um And I think that's something that I aspire to is.
00:36:21
Speaker
to, I guess, retain my values and retain what's important to me, regardless of if um you know who's in the room or who I'm hanging out with or who I'm talking to. you It's not Alexander the Great, but it might be someone who has some power or somebody that that could do me a favor and to try to not fall victim of, I guess, being a sycophant right or or being a suck up in those kind of situations is something that I aspire to. It's a great story. And I think you captured it, pull out some of the main threads really well. and Probably my favorite story about Diogenes. And it is true that, you know, people who have a very high status, especially figures like Alexander or successful entrepreneurs, athletes, and so on.
00:37:14
Speaker
It is striking how, you know, if they enter a room, you know, the character of everyone else often changes. And there's a kind of force to treat them in a specific way, you know, if you've ever been in these situations, it's That's something viscerally changes about the energy, the social energy of these kinds of situations. And it can probably pull you into playing the role of the sycophon or something of of that nature. So yeah this ability that Diogenes models, I think is a good one to remember if you ever find yourself in these kinds of situations.
00:38:00
Speaker
And I think I guess the most grounded example, because we're not all you know I've never been in a room with Bill Gates or Barack Obama or anything like this. But you know even just if you're a boss, you can even just feel that if your boss walks in a room at a normal job, the energy will change. And you know one idea I've had with that, that that um something my dad used to say, which is to say, you know it's it's not a bad thing if your behavior changes when your boss walks in. But like make sure it's on purpose.
00:38:28
Speaker
Which is to say don't kind of you know, we don't want to be Passively pulled into that energy say, you know, like if I'm gonna strategically change my behavior That's a strategic decision you can make but be intentional about it If you're going to be politically or socially savvy with someone with power be intentional about it Make sure it corresponds to the rest of your value as you mentioned that kind of energy don't just get pulled into that energy because That's kind of the ah the visceral way that humans work. You want to be resilient resilient to that? I think Yeah, that's ah I think that's a good rule of thumb. That that reminder of purpose, I think is ah an important one. I think without that, it's easy to get swept away by whatever the social situation is, the behavior of others.
00:39:14
Speaker
And so so those are the stories, I mean, there's more stories, but those are kind of those were some of my favorites that I pulled out. And I think the reason I did this episode in stories, you already mentioned Caleb, is that he he's not a systematic thinker. He's not somebody who wrote down his thought step by step. These are the 10 steps to cynicism. He's somebody who kind of lived by example.
00:39:37
Speaker
um And I think if you know if you're listening to this, try to take some of think about what those examples mean. Think about what those stories mean. They don't have to mean the same thing to you that they meant to us. They're maybe almost pieces of performance art in a way that can be um you know abrasive, shocking, and are meant to be evocative and and make you think about you know the the way you relate to other people, possessions, power. And Agenise just does a great, great job of that and walks the walk.
Epictetus on Internal Freedom
00:40:08
Speaker
To wrap things up, with these anecdotes in mind and to wrap things up, I'm going to go to a quote of what Epictetus said of Diogenes. So this is from his discourses, book four, chapter one. Epictetus says, Diogenes was free. How did he come by this? Not because he was of free parents, he was not, but because he was free himself and had cast away all the weakness that might give slavery a hold on him.
00:40:36
Speaker
And so no one could approach or lay hold on him to enslave him. Everything he had, he was ready to let go. it It was loosely attached to him. If you had laid hold on his property, he would have let it go rather than have followed you for it. If you seized his leg, he would have let that go. If his whole poor body, he would have let his whole body go.
00:41:00
Speaker
And that that that shows how the notion of Diogenes, and I think Diogenes walked the walk in those ah in those anecdotes and the stories of his life. And that that's a tradition that flowed through to Epictetus. And Epictetus is pointing out, look, you you gained freedom.
00:41:18
Speaker
real freedom as an internal state by controlling your desires, minimizing your desires, minimizing your fears, or rather redirecting your desires and fears to only desire to be a good person and only being fearful of being a bad person. And when you do that, you have no weakness that other people can take advantage of. You have no, I guess, kind of lust or desire that other people can bribe.
00:41:43
Speaker
And so when people threaten you, you're ready to let it go. When people bribe you, you're ready to let that go as well. And that's how you gain freedom, not by having free parents coming from a certain kind of family. And that's, I think, a crucial cynic idea that flows all the way through to Epictetus. Yeah, absolutely. I think that, yeah, that's well put. um And it circles back to this idea of
00:42:08
Speaker
freedom and it being an internal matter and Diogenes models that. And we touched on one criticism of cynicism from the Stoic angle, which is, I think, you know, what are you using this freedom?
00:42:23
Speaker
for and the cynics model autonomy independence um as perhaps independent goods, whereas the Stoic would, you know, I think push for a larger set of virtues, virtues perhaps that are ah more social in nature, at least for the typical person. You know, maybe some people are called to be the gadfly on the outskirts. Diogenes still is a model. People like him with his temperament perhaps on to, you know, lives, lives like that. But most people are not Diogenes and should not, you know, ah should not aspire to be like him. And as such,
00:43:11
Speaker
these practice kind of minimalist attitude, ah perhaps not so useful, you know, the extreme minimalism, and perhaps not so useful. um And maps are not called to be as much of a gadfly or a challenger to common social norms. um So I think that's a ah kind of criticism that the Stoics would make of the cynic project of a whole, even while they allow us to learn a lot from the cynics, and even more than that, believe that some people ought to be cynics in a real sense.
00:43:50
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, if we stick to the rule example, right? It's like any sport, not everybody wants to be this good, the striker and or the forward in soccer. But you know, if everybody's the forward, you end up like the kids playing soccer, there's no goalie, there's no defense. but So it's like, you know, you you you need a You need people to play the role, but that doesn't mean everybody's going to be the same. Everybody can play the same role. That obviously doesn't work. So it's ah it's a way to say, yeah, it's a way to both say cynicism is useful. It's even proper for some people, but it's not for everybody. And statistically, it's it's really probably not for you. Yeah. Do you have a favorite one of the anecdotes that we covered?
00:44:32
Speaker
I also like the Alexander the Great one because I think it's it's so compelling to anybody. um I think i think i like db ah I like the combination of the cup and the beholder man. Just that that exact idea of I'm going to make fun of Plato and I'm also going to like learn from a child. And that is not something that I think many people do. So those that I'm kind of combining two there. but But I love that idea of You know, if I have an, well, I think we all have an, maybe we don't all, maybe it's just me, but whenever we, you know, you get role models, right? And you look up to people and like, I look up to Epictetus in particular of the Stoics. That's my favorite Stoic. I look up to Marcus Aurelius and Seneca as well. And I'm not the kind of person who's like, finds it very easy to candidly be like, well, that was a stupid thing to say. um or You know, like you, that yet that didn't make any sense.
00:45:24
Speaker
And I think that kind of like candid criticism, taking off that rose colored glasses around your intellectual role models is something really valuable. But then also being willing to learn both from Plato, but also from anybody who has good examples at the same time. Yeah, true, true. Yeah. That's a, I think that's a good combination. And you can play sand. Yeah, great. Thanks, Gil. Thanks. Thanks for listening, all.
00:45:55
Speaker
Peace.