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Reading the Roman Emperor: Meditations 2.6-10 (Episode 138)
765 Plays4 months ago
Caleb and Michael read through Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. Specifically: Meditations 2.6-2.10.
There are several essential themes in these passages: the importance of self-examination, maintaining focus on what matters, and the philosophical underpinnings of Stoicism. in the Meditations we get to see Marcus Aurelius rehearsing Stoic maxims – and apply that practice to our own life too.
(04:51) Meditations 2.6
(12:04) Meditations 2.7
(18:45) Meditations 2.8
(26:11) Meditations 2.9
(34:34) Meditations 2.10
(48:20) Summary
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Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to Stoicism
00:00:00
Speaker
My big takeaway from these deep readings is that those things to never forget, the nature of the world, my nature, how I relate to the world, what proportion of it I make up, and that I am a part of nature and that no one can prevent me from acting in harmony with it. Welcome to Stoa Conversations. My name is Caleb Ontiveros. And I'm Michael Trumblin. And today we're going to be reading through meditations. So um this podcast is about the practice and theory of stoicism. And one of the best sources for both of those things is Marcus Aurelius's meditations. And we'll be going through some passages from
00:00:43
Speaker
ah book two ah using the Hayes translation.
Criticism and Insights from Meditations
00:00:51
Speaker
It's a good exercise both I suppose personally and something I want to keep on doing in this podcast is to do read throughs, reflect on what some of the classic ancients have said, and you see what lessons we can take from them, both in terms of that aspect of practice, you know how these are people actually implementing Stoicism in their lives, and also, of course, theory. you know How do they think about the philosophy of Stoicism? What are some of the theoretical or historical issues of importance they touch on?
00:01:27
Speaker
Yeah, sounds great. I also am interested to dig into this today, both because it's always lovely to do a deep reading into Marcus's writings. But it's also become popular recently on the internet, at least from what I've seen, to criticize the meditations as a way to learn about stoicism. So I think the argument, I don't know Caleb if you've seen this, but the argument is something along the lines of you know the meditation is not an educational text. It was not meant to be read by other people. It's not a good way to learn about stoicism. And I mean, like everything else, I think it's a bit hyperbolic. There's some truth to it.
00:02:06
Speaker
which is to say if you know nothing about stoicism and you read the meditations, chances are you'll learn something, but you won't be able to reconstruct stoicism. You won't be able to explain it to to somebody else accurately because it's not a book that explains it. It's a book by a practitioner of it. um That being said, there's absolutely things many things to learn from the meditations, especially if we do a deep, careful reading like the kind we'll be doing today. So you know I thought that was, I think that's like an interesting framing and that there's been that pushback in the recent community against the meditations. And like, yeah, point taken, if that's the only thing you read, you might not have as thorough an understanding as if maybe you took a course on stoicism or something like this, but there's absolutely a lot to learn by just seeing an advanced practitioner put into practice. And the the fact that it wasn't meant for other people, that it was a personal journal
00:02:58
Speaker
Add to that, you get a different perspective. Seneca, Epictetus, they're always talking to somebody else, always writing for somebody else. You get to see here, you know, somebody doing, you know, if they're an athlete, this is kind of the practice, the the practice when nobody else is in the gym, nobody's watching them do what they're doing. And there's something that you can learn from that on your journey too. So excited to dig into it. Yeah, there's always that debate, you know, which classic text should you start with? And from that, I feel like whoever was ever pushing the line you just said, they have more of a point when it comes to, you know, maybe Epictetus is better, provides a better layout of some stoic dogma. um Or Seneca has, if you go go through his letters, you get a good sense of the practical uses of stoicism. And certainly some people can come away from the meditations thinking, well, those are a loose collection of thoughts.
00:03:47
Speaker
and it's hard to hard to make sense of them, especially if that's your only exposure to stoicism.
Self-Reliance and Improvement
00:03:53
Speaker
But once you've had some exposure to stoicism, the meditations is that an awesome resource for both, as you say, seeing how someone's putting the maxims into practice, seeing how Marcus Aurelius is rehearsing ah these different stoic lines of thought, um and also, I think, making connections about what was important to stoic practice, what he is always reminding himself about, and also how and we'll talk about this a little, how he interacts with other philosophers, other stoics, how he's one other figure and and in the in the tradition of stoicism.
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah, let's do it. All right, sweet. So we're going to start with Meditations 2.6. Just sort of go through a number of these passages in order. um Many of these, we'll see, they're a mix of self-explanatory ah and also have some of those, ah with some are rather self-explanatory. Others are the sort of thing where you can chew on them for a while and look into the connections that he mentioned, some of those philosophical threads, as it were. All right, so let's start with meditations 2.6.
Soul and Purpose in Stoicism
00:05:13
Speaker
I'll be reading from the Hayes translation.
00:05:17
Speaker
Yes, keep on degrading yourself, soul, but soon your chance at dignity will be gone. Everyone gets one life. Yours is almost used up, and instead of treating yourself with respect, you have entrusted your own happiness to the souls of others." That's the whole passage. You can you know can imagine writing him writing this to himself as a piece of mode motivation. I suppose I think about the Stoics when they meditate on death, the temporary nature of things, there's always that
00:05:58
Speaker
ah urgency, I think, that that brings. you know You only have so much time. Why are you spending time degrading yourself as Hayes translates? you soon as you're Soon your chance at living well will be gone. And here, of course, he's here, Marcus is demanding that You know, he'd be self-reliant to all he can be. His happiness shouldn't be entrusted in others, but instead is, you know, found in living well and aligning himself with the universe, which is an idea we'll talk about more as he, I think he talks more about these stoic ideas of nature as well.
00:06:41
Speaker
Yeah, i think that's I think that's right on. I also think this one's a bit edgy, like it's a bit... Well, he's he's almost like being an Epictetus to himself, you know like how Epictetus will call the students slaves or criticize them, and he's he's doing that to himself. you know He's saying you know you're you're degrading yourself, soon you'll be dead, your chance of dignity will be gone, and what do you got what have you done with that knowledge while you've given away your happiness to other people? ah you've put it in their hands instead. um and i mean that's that's a
00:07:13
Speaker
It's it's it's ah quite a critical passage, self-critical on his part. I think that alllthough all those stoic ideas are right, but this the self-critical aspect of it always stands out to me. yeah Using self-criticism like that has ah can be a powerful tool, but I think, but so of course, you can go too far in that direction.
00:07:36
Speaker
but at other times you need someone to you know put put you in your place. So you're doing things wrong, you ought to do things better while you can. And whether you can play that role for yourself, but others can also also play that role well. This reminds me a little bit about Epictetus, how he talks about ah you know you have that inner witness and you know you ought to live up to the demands of that inner witness or inner spirit guiding Damon. I think it's a similar idea here. Yes, exactly. When we talk about that, this idea of shame and Epictetus or this idea of, you know, just having a conscience, a conscience, just being aware of your potential, what you can live up to and how you're not living up to that potential. Yeah, I think that's exactly what Marcus is doing here to motivate himself.
00:08:31
Speaker
One other call out here is the word for soul, psyche, um is a broad word. you know Yes, keep on degrading yourself, soul. It can mean mind, character, self. So I think what when Marcus Aurelius here is talking about soul, he's talking about what the Stoics took to be the self, that seed of reason. He's not necessarily talking about, or he certainly, I suppose this is somewhat controversial, but he's not necessarily talking about ah some soul that's apart from the material world. that that That wouldn't be the traditional Stoic view since the Stoics were materialists.
00:09:16
Speaker
Yeah, the soul, so the soul is um It's a part of us, but yeah but it's a material um so material aspect. I mean, this would be the same way we thought think today about the mind ah being material in some sense, um or i mean just in a very literal sense. And that that soul, yeah, i think I think the point there is just to not get this this, I would say it's just a Christian idea, right? Like just not get it mixed up with this Christian conception of the soul that leaves the body, that enters the afterlife, that exists eternally. I would say it's Christian, but then also Plato in the Republic,
00:09:53
Speaker
talks about this idea, the same thing, this idea of a soul, a soul that separates from the body, a soul that is reborn into something else. So that idea and of the soul leaving the body, living eternally, is was ah was around in ancient Greece around the same time as the Stoics, but before the Stoics. So the Stoics here are deviating.
Focus and Self-Examination
00:10:16
Speaker
I think you rightly point out deviating by having a soul that's that is more aligned, I think, with with your character, yourself. And when you die the same way, you know your body um disperses into, I guess, the ground and the soil. and the soil
00:10:32
Speaker
your soul might ah you know drift out of your body as a kind of a hot air or something, but it distributes. It doesn't doesn't retain itself. You don't stay yourself ah into an afterlife and you're not reborn or anything like this in in the Stoic picture certainly not as you um But yeah, so he he he's he's referring to that idea and I think as you pointed out like at the soul being character What we mean it well, I think what you can mean by that is that when the stoics talk about you becoming better The same way if I exercise and my body transforms because my body is a physical thing
00:11:08
Speaker
When you practice stoicism, your soul transforms. It becomes a different kind of physical thing, um one that's more resilient to when people insult you, one that's less likely to get riled up, one that's quicker to calm down if you do become angry. So kind of the consistency of the physical matter changes as you as you train yourself. Again, I think the the stoics obviously, I'm not a contemporary neuroscientist and the stoics weren't talking about the brain, but you can think of this in terms of you know the brain is in some way physical and as you train it into certain types of thought patterns, that that it those become entrenched or ah easier to to enact or or fall into and so there's there's actual kind of physical transformation that comes with training
00:11:54
Speaker
And that, I think, is kind of a cool way cool ah side effect of thinking of this of the soul that way instead of this essential thing or unchangeable thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think so. Nice. Cool. Well, moving on to Meditations 2.7, we have Do external things distract you, then make time for yourself to learn something worthwhile. Stop letting yourself be pulled in all directions, but make sure you guard against the other kind of confusion. People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse toward our wasting their time, even when hard at work.
00:12:40
Speaker
I think this one's great. they have I think there's that good advice to, ah of course, make time for yourself to learn something worthwhile. There's no afterlife that provides some kind of urgency. um Don't let yourself be distracted by the next shiny novel thing. Don't bounce between different projects, ah in other words. But at the same time, avoid the trap of obsessive focus on the wrong thing. Make sure to guard yourself against the other kind of confusion. And it's important that's a kind of confusion here.
00:13:16
Speaker
and confusion about what's valuable. ah What's of value isn't necessarily the novel thing, so you shouldn't be bouncing between project and project. That's what Marcus really is writing himself. But one should also be sure to have that purpose in mind, not focus on the wrong thing. yeah ah Productivity isn't useful in unless it's productive work for a a valuable end.
00:13:46
Speaker
Yeah. And I think of that, I think exactly that. I think of that as that kind of stereotypical midlife crisis, which I guess Marcus is maybe on the other side of here, which is this idea of, wow, I've been working really hard on something or I've been focused on a certain project. And it's not that I've been lazy or my potential has been wasted. I mean, maybe some people have a midlife crisis in in that respect, but it's that I've actually spent a lot of energy working towards maybe a career or a kind of life. that I don't actually think is meaningful, I don't actually think is the important one. And so, yeah, just good advice which is stay busy on the right thing because you can make a mistake of being lazy and you can make a mistake of staying busy on the wrong thing, something that doesn't matter.
00:14:27
Speaker
And it's always just worth remembering this is the emperor too. um you know Somebody that's surrounded by many busy people, ah many people who are taking things to be very important, which might be no more important than you know them jockeying for position as the fourth most important person rather than the sixth most important person um you know in the court sort of thing. And so there's a criticize ah criticism of that kind of behavior when you're when you're in those kind of busy rooms. Yeah, for sure. For sure. The fourth most important person in some specific province or something like that. Yeah. Yeah, that's funny. You think, of you know, a lot of us are in this position, like, you know, the third most important ah person of this team and this company in this country and so on.
00:15:18
Speaker
oh like Okay, of course. but from yeah I take it back. That's worthwhile. Yeah, it's important to be good good at one's work, but there is a kind of obsession that one should guard against, I suppose. um Another bit this line brings out to me is just a lot of one sort of motivational one-liners, perhaps even something you get from the Stoics. um it's so off On hearing those, it's easy to overlook you know just how difficult it is to spend one's time well. You know you have ideas, like you know as soon as an opportunity arises, seize it, move faster, move fast, break things.
00:16:02
Speaker
have different projects on your plate. So if you get bored of one, then you can go to the next one against obsessively focus on one single thing. ah Ensure you're never working on the wrong thing or that tension between you know making a number of small bets that could potentially turn out versus actually commit to a certain thing, burn the boats and ensure you succeed. So I think you have you always have that in a lot of ah lines, motivational content, what have you, contradictory messages, of course. um And in a way, Marcus Aurelius is advising himself to steer between two common patterns, some of which he's probably getting advice to you know invest in one of those, you know do
00:16:54
Speaker
invest in this new idea or this new project. you know Someone's interests might be fully behind that and there might even be some good reasons to do it. ah you know Or on the other side, be more obsessive, don't miss any details here and so on. Yeah, that that it's that middle path, that I guess that temperate path. And I often empathize I mean, you you call out this advice, and I think you're right to criticize the advice, you know, seize an opportunity, you know, obsessively focus. There's no content behind these things. And it's the same kind of thing where, I mean, that's one of the things that the Stoics do well is the Stoics combine the virtues. So you don't have this problem. I talk about this a lot, but there's this problem of having, you know, the courageous bank robber is not a good thing.
00:17:43
Speaker
But for the stoics that you can't ever have a courageous bank robber because if you have courage, that then you have knowledge and if you have knowledge, you know, it's wrong to rob a bank. I mean, maybe that would be maybe the stokes would make that kind of rule. So maybe it would be right in a very specific circumstance. but The point is you you you you can't actualize. We want to be careful about glorifying characteristics that aren't necessarily good. And so being incredibly focused is not necessarily good unless you're focused on the right thing. And that's just that's he's he's calling that out. It is important to develop if you if you have the vice of being unfocused and the vice of of not feeling like you can dedicate yourself to things.
00:18:26
Speaker
And it might be the kind of thing where it's easier to get the momentum going and then redirect it, but just the the best people, the best people are focused, but it focused intentionally on a thoughtful subject, not just keeping themselves ah busy or elevating something up to that status when it doesn't deserve it. yeah yeah Yeah, I think it just comes back to these ideas around role ethics, paying attention to where you are, who you are, and you know what's the level of focus that's needed in this moment or what's the level of focus.
00:18:58
Speaker
that's needed in your life. you know What kind of person are you? The kind of person who has that single research project over decades or perhaps more of a generalist manager type who's able to help out a number of different teams, people, and projects and that doesn't require the same same level of ah investment is in a single thing. Cool, cool. ah So moving on to Meditations 2.8.
00:19:26
Speaker
ah Ignoring what goes on in other people's souls, no one ever came to grief that way. But if you won't keep track of what your own soul's doing, how can you not be unhappy? What do you think about that one? It reminds me of two quotes. One is by Marcus Aurelius. The other is by David Foster Wallace. The Marcus Aurelius one is, as a paraphrase, something that never ceases to surprise me how we care about ourselves more than others, but we care about um what other people think more than what we think of ourselves.
00:20:04
Speaker
Um, and that, and then the one by Dave Foster Wallace, which I think came, uh, might be his paraphrase of somebody else is this idea of like, you'll cease to care. about What would people think of you when you realize how little they do? Um, and both of those are just about refocusing. Like it's about refocusing your attention. It's the similar thing to 2.7. 2.7 was about your, your focus is spread all over the place and we need to be focused on the right thing. And this is about. ah Look, you're you're reading into whatever other people think. You're trying to guess the motivations of other people, the intentions of other people, whether or not they like you or dislike you or all these kinds of different questions. But just like, look, you're more important as you should be than what somebody else thinks or or feels. So you should keep track of that. You should pay attention to yourself. You should cultivate yourself.
00:20:59
Speaker
Um, but if you, if you spend your time trying to control the people outside you, you're just going to be unhappy. Um, and you, you must be happy if you get the
Nature, Role, and Philosophy
00:21:07
Speaker
internal stuff right. If you get, if you get the focus on yourself, right. That's, that's what it makes me think of. What about you? No, yeah, that's, I think that's a great two other, those are two great, uh, paraphrases ah of same idea. It's related to this, that it's called the spotlight effect, you know, thinking that as you go throughout the world, other people are always paying attention to you as you walk into rooms, thinking about how you act in a specific situation when, you know, we don't shine the same spotlight on other people. Um, of course we're social creatures and pay attention to others, but we don't, uh, often we do, uh, so in such a way that pays more mind to,
00:21:50
Speaker
what the other person thinks of us, not not like the other person as such. Yeah, that's right. I was thinking about… I was having a conversation with somebody recently and I was like bringing up… We were discussing something something a third person did like six months ago and my friend was like, oh, this is one of those moments where they're like, oh, no, like… i'm just i'm I'm just bringing up an example of where we broke where I broke this rule, where my friend had this self-awareness. We're like, that person probably thinks to themselves, oh, nobody remembers I did that. But little they know we're like talking about it later. was like they They tell us themselves, nobody remembers that embarrassing thing I did. But it was like, we remember, and we're talking about it. That's that's just a bit tongue in cheek. I think it's good advice.
00:22:38
Speaker
obviously in some Obviously, as you said, we're social creatures, people remember, people do think about each other, um but it's ah it's almost always less than we assume it is. um And ah there's a pragmatic point too, so there's a descriptive point that is less than ah we assume it is. And then there's the pragmatic point that it's just not good for you, whereas if you focus what's going on inside your own soul, you'll be in a better place anyway. Right. Right. Yeah. And I suppose you have the idea. It's not good for you. You might end up, you're at ruminating spinning your wheels for no purpose. Um, but also I think the, the positive side of that is what's good for you is some amount of self ah examination you or living the examined life, living the philosophical life, not, you know, spending one's energy thinking about others or others, other social trifles.
00:23:33
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that's a great point, which is with focus. There's only the spotlight effect. There's only one thing in the spotlight, right? So you're both, you're both taking out the negative thing, which is ruminating other people. Then you're introducing a positive thing, which is focusing on yourself. And so that way you're kind of getting double benefits. You're cuz, because you're cutting out the negative and you're adding the positive. So that that's any opportunity you have to do that. It's it's it's a two for one. Right, right. Yep. Nice. Yeah, it's sort of interesting because you have also he's the first sentence is, ignoring what goes on in other people's souls, no one ever came to grief that way. Taken literally, that statement's probably not true, right? Because it does to some extent matter what's going on in that.
00:24:20
Speaker
with other people. The Stoics think it's more how we treat other people, and one factor that goes into treating people well is knowing yeah who they are, where they're at, and so on. so ah Of course, Marcus Aurelius is pushing against that specific tendency to be worried about whether it's in other people's souls and maybe more matters that can concern reputation or ah social matters that aren't that important as opposed to you know worrying about them in ways that are relevant to building a good relationship and so on. Yeah, and that's what makes me think about like worrying about what's going on in someone's soul or you know thinking about that.
00:25:04
Speaker
you know you can kind of You can kind of, if you're actually friends with the person, you can kind of talk to them about it. We only ever do that kind of speculation, rumination, usually ironically in people that are a bit further away from us, which is not kind of the same thing. It's not like don't care about other people. I assume it's not. That wouldn't make sense, but it's you know don't don't ruminate or make assumptions and especially not for those people who, I guess you're not close enough to ask. Yep. Yep. So meditation, those last few passages, they're Marcus Aurelius, and I think just encouraging himself to focus on
00:25:41
Speaker
what matters, taking care of his own soul, and that means cultivating an excellent character, and avoiding you know doing wrong to oneself while you can, you know avoiding vice, and also avoiding distractions, obsession into ah things that are not ultimately of value, and then one specific kind of obsession, perhaps, you know focusing on one's reputation or what's going on with other people. Meditations 2.9 is more theoretical, but it's at the same time comes into a nice, it has ah a nice form of a maxim that makes it practical. So I think that's that's really interesting. So it goes as follows. Don't ever forget these things. The nature of the world
00:26:32
Speaker
my nature, how I relate to the world, what proportion of it I make up, that you are always a part of nature and no one can prevent you from speaking and acting in harmony with it always." So this passage is great because Marcus Aurelius is saying a little bit more about what it means to have an excellent character and that involves knowing the nature of the world and knowing his own nature and I think this is sometimes think something that Marcus Aurelius focuses on a lot but can sometimes be overlooked in in discussions of Stoicism is
00:27:15
Speaker
this focus on those two things and also the fact that they are related. you know We share our rational nature with the whole. So there's that focus on what's the nature of the world. Well, it's ultimately for the ancient Stoics, it's rational, ordered in a specific way, has a specific purpose. And my nature is a part of that purpose. And of course, as a human being, our nature is the one of a rational animal. And the reminding oneself of those
00:28:00
Speaker
ah thoughts is I think a way to take the view from above in the moment, you know remembering in a specific situation. what's, you know, what's the fundamental nature of things has this rational purpose, my nature is rational as well, I share in that greater purpose. And ah no one at the the very end, no one can prevent you from fulfilling that purpose in action. And I think that's a, I think it's a ah really good example, both of theory and practice and and how they come together for the Stoics.
00:28:37
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's really well put. you it's It's theory in that you know it's four ideas that wouldn't make much sense out of context. You have to have done the studying. You just explained that kind of theoretical background. But it's practice in terms of, I'm going to repeat these to myself. I'm going to make them a maxim. As Epictetus says, I'm going to keep them on hand. And what a beautiful four lines. I mean, those four short ones in particular. Don't forget the nature of the world, my nature, how I relate to the world and what proportion of it I make up. And that is ah really cuts to the nitty-gritty of things in such a succinct way. um
00:29:17
Speaker
And yeah, so I think that's really, I'm surprised people don't talk about that more. That's a great encapsulation, as you said, of how the theoretical basis of the the universe and our role in it can can be motivating in times of action and choice and um emotional regulation too. um And that that interplay, as you said, between, because you said the view from above and often, I find the view from above, at least the way that i talk about it it's almost alienating it's like step outside of yourself and imagine you're a cloud or imagine you're a star or imagine you're in the stars but this this what he's doing really well here what you mentioned is that interplay you know don't forget the nature of the world and your nature how you relate to the world and that you're you're a part of it so it's that interplay both between
00:30:07
Speaker
which I really think is probably at the top level of stoicism. you know if If anything, we probably we probably start really self-centered and self-oriented, then we begin to build skills about broadening our perspective view from above, and then that highest level is that synthesis of both of those. I i know i understand the the larger universe, the larger whole, but I understand who I haven't lost, who I am, and I understand the part I play in that. and That interplay, I think we lose quite a bit. Because probably because we're talking to more, somebody like Epictetus or Seneca are talking to more junior people or beginners. But this is a really lovely example of a more so advanced Stoic practitioner trying to maintain that balance, keeping themselves in mind and the whole in mind.
00:30:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's ah that's a that's a really important point. I think ah that that first level of mistake is often having too narrow of a perspective, maybe being too selfish, shaking your opinions too seriously, false opinions, opinions we should be at least suspend judgment about so um as a so as a so would counsel. um
00:31:18
Speaker
But then youre you're always moving up a level. And then when you move up a level, there are new problems you need to deal with. And perhaps if you're better at taking the view from above, taking ah that larger perspective, that ah issue of are you becoming too detached when you take that perspective might start arising and the bestoic is able to synthesize, ah as you say, um and remind themselves that though you can have the hole in mind, you are only a part and you play in a central role as that part with whatever other parts of the hole you happen to interact with and to not become too detached. And you may even see in Marcus's meditations, him struggle a little bit with that that that battle, that sort of problem that comes once you level up and start having that greater perspective, ah where sometimes he talks
00:32:19
Speaker
you know sometimes he talks about the material world and he's really talking down on it or he seems like ah too serious of a character almost. you Don't forget that most things in the natural world are you know trifling things and so on. There's a kind of almost a negativity that might come from that. and maybe ah Maybe that's some amount of projection, of course. Maybe that's something he wrestles with and sometimes that's why it's essential for him here to remind himself how he relates to the world and that he has a part in it, of course. And then in other places, there's that famous ah line about appreciating the beauty of the small things of the parts. That's another way to combat that detachment or that negativity bias about ah you know things you run into into ordinary life.
00:33:11
Speaker
um Yeah, is that the line about the when you say any folks on the particular parts of the line about like the cracking of the bread that kind of that one? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Focusing on the the beauty in the small things in the particular moments in the here and now. Yeah, I think that's that's probably one of the largest meta themes of this is you've got a I can only imagine an incredibly stressed out person performing one of the highest roles of humans. And he's contemplating that transition towards the detachment, the broader view that comes with the view from above, but you also have to stay grounded in order to take your job and role seriously. Otherwise you'll, you just become apathetic, unfeeling like a statue as Epictetus warns against.
Vices and Philosophical Views
00:34:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think absolutely that's something that Marcus is wrestling with throughout this.
00:34:06
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So that that the line comes from Meditations 3, 2.
00:34:13
Speaker
Cool. Do you have anything else to say on that? ah No, great line. I'm go i mean i'm just goingnna um just going to remember that moving forward. The nature of the world, my nature, how it relates to the world, what proportion of it I make up, and that I'm a part of it. um That's great.
00:34:34
Speaker
Alright, so last one for this episode, Meditations 2.10. And here we take a bit of a detour, you know, it's always a reminder that um Marcus Aurelius wrote this, um but the meditation is too interesting because you see him interacting with non-stoics. So it goes as follows, in comparing sins, the way people do, Theophrastus ah says that the ones committed out of desire are worse than the ones committed out of anger, which is good philosophy.
00:35:07
Speaker
The angry man seems to turn his back on reason out of a kind of pain and inner convulsion, but the man motivated by desire, who is mastered by pleasure, seems somehow more self-indulgent, less manly in his sins. Theophrastus is right and philosophically sound, that to say that the sin committed out of pleasure deserves a harsher rebuke than the one committed out of pain. The angry man is more like a victim of wrongdoing, provoked by pain to anger. The other man rushes into wrongdoing on his own, moved to action by desire.
00:35:46
Speaker
So here Marcus Aurelius is ah reflecting on another philosopher, Theophrastus, who was a member of the Peripatetic school, ah which essentially ah was an Aristotelian school. So they're following Aristotle.
00:36:07
Speaker
And in this line, Theophrastus is following his teacher, Aristotle, who says, lack of self-control with regard to anger is less shameful than the kind that relates to desire. So, Aristotle is essentially saying, it's more important to focus on moderating one's desires than the vice of anger or wrongful or a recital would consider as inappropriate anger.
00:36:43
Speaker
um And likewise, you can evaluate someone's character differently depending on whether they have the vices due to ah failure to moderate their desires or a vice related to anger. And interestingly, people read this quote. It's actually some amount of debate. They read this passage and infer that Marcus Aurelius was not a 100% Stoic because the Stoics disagreed with that line of Aristotle. They didn't make any strong distinction between vices due to anger, vices due to moderation. They're both bad. There's not any sense in which
00:37:26
Speaker
one is worse than the other. They're both vices. um ah So it's it's it's interesting interesting to see Marcus Aurelius say, you know, this is good philosophy, this philosophy that is in strict contradiction with the traditional teachings of the Stoic school. Yeah, it's cool to see somebody. I mean, I feel that same way. Like, I don't know how you could read. If you read Aristotle, there's some compelling stuff in there. And Aristotle is very common sensical in his approach to philosophy, almost like he's trying to systematize what ah other people would agree with if you asked them. So the Stoics are very controversial.
00:38:09
Speaker
you know You walk up to a normal person and you say virtue is the only good. It doesn't matter if I took away your house and punched you in the stomach. People would be like, what what are you talking about? ah hu and Aristotle is more commonsensical. and i mean We see this in common sense and I think what Aristotle is getting at here is this idea that The person that is person that has ah vices of desire will, in a vacuum, motivate themselves towards bad action. So you can think of somebody who has, maybe you'd say something like substance use problems, or you think even of these kind of more deviant, yeah somebody is you know
00:38:49
Speaker
a predator in some sense, some kind of sexual predator or something or criminal and in some sense like this. The idea is like you know if theyre they're sitting around in their house, they're by themselves and they're then motivated to go out and plan something terrible. Um, and then we'll go and act that out, let's say, or something that's either harmful to themselves or something that's harmful to others. Whereas the person who's angry, it's more like they have a kind of a sensitivity or vulnerability. They're kind of like defensively flawed. So they go out in the world and you know, somebody shouts something and they punch them in the face or somebody treats them a certain way and and they they just, they can't control themselves. It's that it's almost like they're, what's like they're like triggerable, right? It's like they're, they're sensitive to their environment. Whereas I think the notion.
00:39:36
Speaker
my this is This is what I think Aristotle's getting at is that the notion is that desire is more ah generative um of a vice. And I think that makes sense on a common sense perspective. As you said, the Stoics disagree with this. They're just different kinds of ignorance. Desire is an ignorance about what's worth wanting. you know You want the wrong kind of thing. And anger is an ignorance about what is what is bad and deserving of punishment. you know You think that insult somebody yelled at you is bad, has harmed you and they're deserving of punishment. Both are just kinds of ignorance. But that I think charitably is is the Aristotelian position. and yeah And then as you said, Marcus is wrestling with it and ultimately agreeing with it and doing the same kind of thing he does with Epicureanism sometimes, which is admitting
00:40:22
Speaker
you know I think I read Marcus as somebody who's like, you know, 90% a stoic, but like anything else takes the other bits that he think works really well and helps helps his own life. yeah Yeah, he's not, he's not um although there's some there's certainly some controversy about this, he doesn't write as someone who is doctrinaire about the Stoic ah teachings. ah You see the fundamentals of Stoicism there in his writings, but occasionally, you know he talks a little bit like a Aristotelian, a little bit like a Platonist.
00:41:00
Speaker
and doesn't feel any doesn't feel any pressure to to be otherwise, other than i think maybe think through, think about what's useful from from these different philosophies. um People who want to defend Marcus Aurelius' stoic credentials here will say, no, no, he's not denying the idea that all vices are equal. He's maybe just following another stoic who says that you know anger's an offshoot of desire, which I think many stoics might might agree with that, but there's a specific
00:41:35
Speaker
stoic, uh, stobius who, uh, says that, um, or at least chronicles as others saying that view, holding that view. And I suppose, you know, practically you can think one's worse than the other, but ultimately, you know, the the theoretical read is desire is more important to root out when it comes to deciding, you know, how to work on oneself, how to improve oneself, focus on desire, not uh, you know, reading out cases of, of anger. This is one of the central disciplines of Epictetus. If you attack, uh, your vices of desire, you will inadvertently end up improving, you know, how you respond to external triggers.
00:42:19
Speaker
um Yeah, yeah i mean that's compelling to me when you read it closely. Well, reading this again, he's saying, Theophrastus is right and philosophically sound to say that the sin committed out of pleasure deserves a harsher rebuke than the one committed out of pain. And there's no real reference there to one being worse than the other. It's just about which deserves a harsher punishment. punishment So I guess if you wanted to read him as a if you wanted to say Marcus was a hardcore stoic, stoic all the way, you'd read it as kind of a a lesson about character education, um being that, look, we we need to punish those things committed out of desire more than out of anger, maybe because, you know,
00:42:59
Speaker
ah The person who who's committed anger is probably who did something when they were angry is probably already feeling pretty bad about themselves Has probably already come down from anger and regretted it but the person who's done something out of desire um Maybe they they they need that correction and they need that kind of that rebuking more than the angry person yeah yeah Yeah, that's a good point. I suppose of that that frame of thinking about from someone in a position of power, how do you evaluate it other people's character? Do you take anger to be worse of a mark against them or failures of desire? Maybe failures of desire indicate more or more evidence about someone's character. like you So you have you have that line when you're choosing people to associate with.
00:43:42
Speaker
Or Marcus choosing who to punish, right? Like literally choosing who to punish. Yeah, whether that's yeah whether that's physical punishment or you know legal punishment or simply rebuke, you know his ah you know his words had serious weight ah to them. So you know the negative evaluation of someone, some action would would mean a lot.
00:44:10
Speaker
Yeah, I suppose if you if think about if I think about this in ah cases, we might run across or run across into one's ordinary life. I think if you look at others who are angry, it's quick to ah one can easily move, especially if one's more stoic to that negative evaluation about them, you shouldn't have this confused idea about ah the fact that someone harmed you or you should have this idea that someone harmed you and deserves to suffer because of it. um it's It's quick to move to that judgment while perhaps forgetting that
00:44:53
Speaker
though that judgment might be strictly correct according to the the Stoics, it could also be true that that person was seriously wronged and that might be something that's more important to address than you know the fact that they responded out of anger and in many situations.
00:45:11
Speaker
Yeah, which is to say, so what you're saying is that sometimes, you know, anger can be an inappropriate version of a correct response, right? Like if somebody does something to you, maybe you do need to draw a boundary or you do need to respond and anger can sometimes be this, this exaggeration of something that's warranted or this, this, you know, you, you, you've done something that should be done, but you've gone a bit too far about it. Yeah, I think, ah well, I think if if you get an verbal or altercation with someone, they get angry. There's, I suppose there's two ways in which they might be in the right. One is that, as you just said, they're responding to something. If you think they're doing the right thing, but maybe for the wrong reason, um that's one aspect of it. Their response might be correct, even if they're
00:46:05
Speaker
beliefs about the situation are incorrect. And then there's also the idea that some of their beliefs might be correct, one of those beliefs being that they were wronged in the situation. um So I suppose there are those two two aspects. Stoics have this idea that You can be wrong. Others, of course, can wrong you. They can act ah unethically towards you, and that deserves a response. But anger shouldn't be a part of that. um But they certainly don't want to deny that others can't wrong you. And and so, of course, they'll also say when when other people get angry and with your dealings, it's important it's important not to lose sight of the fact that the angry person might be right in some real senses, even if they've lost their head.
Character and Emotions
00:46:53
Speaker
Yeah, the fact that they, the fact that they're angry, as you said, lost their head, the fact that they're angry doesn't make some of those underlying premises correct. It doesn't, doesn't throw away the entire argument. Whereas desire, at least wrong desire, incorrect desire is kind of, um I suppose, wrong at the beginning. Yeah, yeah, it reminds me of that, of ah there's a quote from C.S. Lewis who has said something to the effect of you know the people who act with courtesy at to the dinner party um and then return home and act with no courtesy at all, had none to begin with. One of those those harsh one-liners, what I think it's focusing on, do you have that
00:47:44
Speaker
a good character to begin with. And perhaps this focus on desire is really trying to zoom in on that and ah strip away, um, you know, facts about the one that's environment that might be incentivizing one to act well or, ah or acts poorly and get, get to the root of things. Yeah, it's more foundational. I agree with that. And so it's more, it's more deserving of rebuke. Yep. Cool. Awesome. Any other thoughts on these? No. I mean, I always love to do these deep readings because the meditation is the kind of thing. If you're like me, you could just kind of zoom through when I enjoy it, but I go really fast. So it's nice kind of slowing down and going through these,
00:48:32
Speaker
um Just to summarize, in my view, that those those themes about focus is really important. That idea at the end about you know the desire and anger are kind of, I would say, ah maybe a hierarchy of of character flaws is something to consider. um but the But my big takeaway from these deep readings is that those things to never forget, the nature of the world, my nature, how I relate to the world, what proportion of it I make up. and that I am a part of nature and that no one can prevent me from acting in harmony with it. That's such a lovely synthesis of those two separate stoic ideas. That that I think is my big takeaway.
00:49:10
Speaker
yeah i think so for me as well i think that's ah really important passage, and I think you see Marcus Aurelius rehearsing teachings of other Stoics there. You have those idea of royal ethics, some of that fundamental philosophy about the nature of the world, the humans, and so on. And he's rehearsing them, putting them into his own words, and it's in the form of a useful maxim. So I think that's something that I'm always thinking about is
00:49:43
Speaker
how to capture these teachings well, often in my own words in ways that I remember. So perhaps that's something that'd be useful for listeners ah if you're listening to this as well, either you know thinking about how you would express these ideas ah in ways that are memorable and you can have ready to hand. Yeah, great. Nice. Thanks, Michael. Thanks, Kyle.
00:50:13
Speaker
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