Nietzsche’s Prophecy: The Great Unlearning of Morality

~by David Aiken~

The media are having a heyday with the assorted moral and legal challenges that are splitting and coring the traditionally held socio-religious beliefs and practices that permeate our Western societies. The affirmation of gay marriage by the US Supreme Court in 2013 effectively guillotined the conventionally held American and Christian belief that marriage is between one man and one woman. And obviously, as has been asserted by some, when traditionally held moral beliefs and religiously held opinions begin dropping like flies on the table, all things then become possible in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. There is no doubt about it: it is mighty slippery on society’s slopes, and the Times They Are (still) A-Changing.

Activist singer Bob Dylan is no doubt surprised to have lived long enough to see the Supreme Court reverse itself and declare de facto, by proclaiming unconstitutional the Voting Rights Act, that race is no longer an issue in America (evidence being, obviously, our black ‘Kenyan-born’ former president). And US Republican Congressional Representative Louie Gohmert, “accomplished idiot” and bigot,  has lived long enough to predict, in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s willingness to consider alternative social forms of marital union, that bigamy and polygamy will also eventually become legal forms of family-making and breaking in American. The Future attends us, and we wait breath abated.

So, what if all this social change and all these challenges to traditional morality really do portend the dawning of a new age for America? Is doomsday at hand? Will America, as we know her, cease to exist? Well, yes, and no. Already in the late 19^th century Nietzsche gave prophetic voice to the inevitable advent of profound philosophical changes that must eventually come about both in our actions as well as in our moral consciousness – because we have been too long Christianized. It would seem that the bill is finally coming due for 2000 years of Christian influence. And We the People are once again become the pioneers in a New World adventure. This time, though, America’s Manifest Destiny is leading us into a philosophical wilderness beset with novel and diverse pitfalls and traps, and, failing the emergence of a new Natty Bumppo, “near-fearless warrior” and proto-Marvel superhero, to lead us through the wild highways and byways of this changing intellectual and moral landscape, the only reliable Pathfinder we have to rely on in this new world order is not our Belief, but rather our own Intelligent Reasoning.

My Meditative Philosophical Meandering this month strives to shadow some after-effects of an Idea expressed by Nietzsche perhaps most clearly in his 1888 book The Antichrist, which is the only book completed in what was to have been a four volume series entitled the Will to Power.

Now for reasons that must make sense to them, professional philosophers and other Nietzsche interpreters have chosen to translate into English Nietzsche’s formulation of this Idea, the Umwertung aller Werte, through an unenlightening, immensely unattractive, and scrupulously pompous locution – rendering it as the Transvaluation of Values. Yes, the German expression does mean quite textually: transforming the value of our values; but it is also patently obvious that the English translation is, among many other not-so-nice things, pompous, because it carefully seeks to obscure through hoity-toity and self-important scholarly lingo a rather straightforward philosophical idea – that a time of Great Unlearning is dawning for Western Christianized peoples and cultures.

So while my present Meditative Philosophical Meandering is entirely that of a freewheeling libre-penseur, no blame can be traced back to Nietzsche for this. However, the springboard that propels me into this, my philosophical free-fall, yet remains faithful to Nietzsche’s original idea—the idea of a Great Unlearning, an inversion of morality that is yawning like a philosophical abyss in front of a Western European civilization o’er-hasty for the tumble.

For Nietzsche, in a world in which an individual’s existence is the only anchor for any possible truth about Life and living, the foundational experience for an authentic life must take place in the moment of the Great Unlearning. This is in fact the story of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, who was himself destined to become the first voice of this Unlearning, who was himself, much like his antagonistic prototype John the Baptist, an isolated prophet crying out on the highways and byways a new message of good news—“make straight the way of Man.” The Prologue to Thus Spoke Zarathustra is important to this overarching narrative precisely because Zarathustra had himself also to become aware of, and then deliberately unlearn, all the hidden little beliefs, opinions, unarticulated moral principles, and culturally inherited ethical practices (e.g., dead bodies and their need to be honored) that were imperceptibly, but effectively, framing and therefore defining the possibilities of his Thinking. Zarathustra had to unlearn his moral Self before he could get on with the job of becoming a proto-Jack Kerouac come to lay out before the world of the 19^th century and beyond the story of a new “road trip” in which the hero, Man, journeys back from Über-Tier (more-than-animal) to nothing-more-than-Tier (Human All too Human § 40).

           

The details of this psychological journey, this road trip toward the freedom of the individual mind, are then made explicit in Zarathustra’s First Discourse (“The Three Transformations of the Mind”). The first leg of our cognitive transformation comes about when we realize that the Self is a Beast of Burden (= camel, or the Beast + its Burden), when we become aware that we carry around in our minds, for the duration of our stopover in this twilight zone, the Burden of inherited moral, cultural and intellectual baggage. The second leg of our transformation comes about when we seek, and find, the courage to accept the Self as Hero (= lion), when we realize that we must stand, oh how very alone!, in the deserted corners of our mind to fight against the phantasmagorical onslaught of our inherited superstitions and beliefs and values. Finally, the ultimate leg of our transformative journey into freedom, which is to say into the possession of our own Thinking, comes about when we awaken to the Self as New-born (= child), when we have become The Ultimate Outsider, alone in a world packed full of constructed values, now able to “see” that, like a great symphony, the World is also a composition, which is only heard as, in, and through a perceptual and conceptual paradigm called Kosmos. As the Child, the Outsider to the Kosmos, we are finally now free to follow out of our own initiative, unconstrained and with awareness, the paths that the World opens up before us.

         

  In Nietzsche’s vision of the world, for the individual to become free, for him to enter into the possession of himself as a specific and creatively distinct Self, there must be a very deliberate Unlearning of those “culturally” encrusted values that have molded and framed us in our perceptions and conceptions. We must, each and every one individually and in the privacy of our own solitude, shake ourselves loose from society’s “one size fits all” cupcake mold.

            To be sure, Nietzsche’s Great Unlearning was directed principally at inherited moral belief, which is intellectually oppressive precisely because it is anti-here-and-now-human-life, and which grows up out of the religious mind like great unwieldy and bothersome weeds; but of course his greatest battle was pitched against the Dragon of the West, which has been too long protecting the deep-rooted weeds sprung up out of Judaeo-Christian death-promoting morality. So the Great Unlearning in the world of the West would be to become aware of the pervasiveness of the weed-growing root-system of Judaeo-Christian morality, then to fetch the weed-whacker of Reason and whack those weeds into individual and thus collective oblivion; and then to start all over again with constructing for ourselves life-affirming values and principles for action, which would flow out of an essentially pro- and fully- human space. So, Nietzsche writes in the Will to Power (Der Wille zur Macht, n. 30; 1888)

The time is coming when we must pay the bill for having been Christian for 2000 years: we have squandered the Center of Gravity [das Schwergewicht] that allows us to live, and for a while we will not know whence we have come or wither we are going. With precisely that same abundance of energy that has generated among men such extreme over-estimations of mankind, we continue unexpectedly to collide with contradictory estimations.

           

When we are birthed into this place, we are not simply popped out neutrally into the big-wide world, and voilà presto, we begin growing as pure, self-defining plants. Rather, we are seeded into a cultural context that, quite independently from our bodies and brains, actually serves, unbidden and automatically, to provide for each one of us a necessary and invisible cultural “shape,” an exoskeleton for our personal I/Self. The question, Who am I?,  does not reference something physical, nor does it point to some brain function. Rather, this “who” is constructed like a puzzle: carefully, unconsciously at first, and piece by piece, out of all the various and sundry cultural influences that surround us. This is one reason why education is so important, and why the study of feral children so fascinating. The one teaches us about journeys whither—toward visions of what we can become if we choose to go on the various journeys the world has on offer; the other shows us a possible journey whence—from what we were and will likely remain, in maybe a more measured, perhaps softer form, if, by choice or laziness, we disregard the Life-world of journeys through the wasteland of Thinking.

The philosophical quest prophesied by Nietzsche now stands before us to accomplish—to transvalue, to deliberately invert our inherited values. What is it that we most value? Justice? Equality? Goodness? Power? Peace? Money? Life? Why is it that we value these ideas, and are these ideas fundamental to the Human Animal in his full glory as both wholly human and profoundly animal?

           

Aside from the obvious importance of the individual journey on this road to personal psyche, there is also the collective journey. In a darker period of modern Western history, Martin Heidegger spoke in his Kanzeler’s Address of the “geistig-volklichen Daseins” of the German people—of the unfolding of the Unenlightenment destiny of the German Volk and its historical blooming into world history as a German moment of self-realization in being-itself. The results of that awakening into Unenlightenment brought the world to its knees, and between 70-85 million individuals, world-wide, into their graves.

For America and the American people, however, because of their historical commitment to Enlightenment philosophical principles, there remain possibilities for a different historical destiny. That said, on the American journey to ‘We the People’, we are now arrived at a philosophical fork in the road. In one direction the road will lead us into a socio-religious life, with its autocratic and unenlightened tendencies, which is even now unfolding before us with its gaping maw yawning like the doors of the thought-prison it is; but it is the predictable because long familiar road. In another direction there is the secular life- the new, the unthought-of, the untested, the unbounded, the free. What is left for us, individuals of interest, to do as We the People approach, by fits and by starts, this fork in the road? That is entirely the question. And the opportunity.

To the Magical Man: it is left to you to drop to your knees to appeal to the Outrageous Deity of the “steep heavens,” and thereby to enter into the Great Silence of the impotent skies. For you others, the Thoughtful Ones, put on your thinking caps, become involved in the life of We the People—for there is much work, much thinking to be done.

Thinking philosophically is a dangerous and lonely game—and certainly not an attractive or comforting enterprise for the normal clan-animal. Especially when the quest that Nietzsche has put before us is nothing less than to see the world of men with new eyes, to reconsider, and to recast the exposed and crumbling intellectual foundations of the moral self in a world becoming new. That bill has now come due.

(Original essay reprised and reworked from Phrontisterion, July 2013)

Further reading on Nietzsche’s Great Unlearning on Phrontisterion:

·      https://nonimprimatur.blogspot.com/2019/09/great-unlearning-i-elvis-has-left.html

·      https://nonimprimatur.blogspot.com/2013/09/one-nation-under-god-pseudo-romance.html

·      https://nonimprimatur.blogspot.com/2014/12/december-januarys-essaysupermen.html

The pursuit of Happiness and the Well-Demoned Life.

~by David Aiken~

We live in a time subjugated by ‘Hallmark Cards’ pseudo- or pop-philosophy, and wir Philosophen, as Nietzsche would have said, “we philosophers,” should definitely be engaged in the quest of examining, eternally and recurrently, the various aspects of this our present maudlin Zeitgeist. The Days of our Lives are being interpreted for us through a lens of sugarcoated fancies. And through our rose-tinted sentimentalist glasses we perceive a world-of-men thoroughly, but implausibly, saturated with saccharine notions of joy & happiness, love & marriage, and ever ready to hum along with the nanny, “raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens…”

            Then, when we finally stride across the threshold of simple-minded belief to enter into the torrential onslaught of Real-Life, we seem startled to find ourselves roaming around the quagmires of an intellectual Wasteland. And slowly, ever-so-painfully-slowly, we realize that we are also troubled by another disturbing ditty that has begun haunting our footsteps, and which sounds strangely familiar, like something Bilbo Baggins might have softly hummed upon leaving his beloved Shire:

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

Now it may well be that Life is like a box of chocolates, as Mrs. Gump one day informed her naïve young son, Forrest; one could just never know what one was going to get. But surely Life seems much more like an exchange with a Cheshire Cat—ONE DAY Alice finds herself wandering around on an Adventure in Wonderland, and so many people seem to her a bit daft… but then she meets a puss from Cheshire that, maybe by way of wanting to comfort her, explains that in fact everyone is mad, to which Alice responds:

But I don't want to go among mad people"(...)
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

The conversation goes downhill from there, of course, when, as Alice politely asks for directions: "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" the Cat laconically responds:

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to" (…).
"I don’t much care where--" said Alice.
"Then it doesn’t matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"--so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you’re sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

Which brings us right the way ‘round to our meander in the intellectual Wastelands of the world-of-men, and to our question about whether Happiness is really the syrupy kind of subjective past-time suggested by the countless voices of our Zeitgeist. Is Happiness a value or a virtue? Is it a goal to be pursued? Is it even desirable to be happy? Opinions abound.

            But just to problematize the question un tantinet reductively, let us consider whether Hitler, Time Magazine’s 1939 Man of the Year, was a happy camper as he was planning and then setting into motion the new Reich’s takeover of the knowable universe. Now just the idea of a Happy Hitler is generally enough to induce a pukefest in the normal John Q. Citizen of the democratic variety. Yet the answer to our question is undoubtedly “yes,” upon appropriate study and reflection, even though most of us prefer to believe that Hitler was one sick f&%# and that he definitely could not have been happy—not really!

So, just intuitively and just maybe it might perhaps begin to dawn on us that Happiness, which at first blush might be thought to be a value in and of itself, probably is not; and that we should take the time to rethink its position on our virtue/value list!

The point to our little excursion into our crazed social imagination is to suggest that, despite its quasi-unassailable status as an Iconic Idea in the popular view, Happiness per se has no universal definition or value upon which we all might conveniently agree. It is both obvious and inescapable that one man’s happiness can easily be another man’s misery. Indeed, this is precisely the philosophical rub.

The text that serves as the primary springboard for our reflection is from the second section of the Declaration of Independence (adopted July 4, 1776), in which Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) posits the following: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

First, though, is it even possible for us Moderns to reconstruct with any precision what the early American philosophe was thinking when he penned the Declarative and Independently minded expression, ‘the pursuit of Happiness’? Well, in addition to the infinite number and variety of pop-philosophical cultural opinions on the question of Happiness, there are also at least three reasoned schools of scholarly opinion on the question of what ideas were informing the 3^rd U.S. President as he penned these famous and, for us Moderns, famously woolly words. As always, though, scholarly debate is worth just about what you would pay to go hear it, and there is a voice for every viewpoint—the good, the bad, and the lame.

One good opinion, which I happen to favor personally, concerns Jefferson, the philosopher of Epicurean or Stoic thought. Stoicism teaches that personal happiness is integrally allied to self-control or self-governance (cf. Jefferson, vol. XV, 219ff. of the 1903 Library Edition). Jefferson writes in especially enthusiastic terms of Stoic Thinking as it was handed down in the writings of Epictetus, and even considered doing a new translation, “for [Epictetus] has never been tolerably translated into English.” A point on which he and I are in copious agreement.

On Epicurus and Stoic moral thinking, Jefferson sets forth the following formulaic definitions (XV, 223ff): Happiness = the aim of life; Virtue = the foundation of happiness; Utility = the test of virtue; Pleasure = active and Indolent; and Indolence = the absence of pain. By Indolence, it is clear from the context that Jefferson is referring both to the idea of body indolence, from the Latin indolentia, which is to be free from bodily pain, as well as to the Stoic notion of ataraxia, or the tranquility of mind that characterizes someone who is free from worry and distress.

The influence of Stoic philosophy was widespread among early American philosophes, and clearly also informed the thinking of the roughly contemporary American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), which is evident in his famous essay, Self Reliance. This well-documented and pervasive Stoic connection, of course, would seem strongly to suggest that Jefferson’s “pursuit of Happiness” should best be construed as a personal philosophical attitude of Independence of Mind toward the world-of-men.

Very predictably, however, there is also a second scholarly school of thought on this question—that it is rather the English Enlightenment philosopher and empiricist, John Locke (1632-1704), who informs both Emerson’s as well as Jefferson’s thinking, and that Jefferson’s “pursuit of Happiness” is best understood in terms of Enlightenment empiricism imported from England. This is a plausible consideration, and is indeed representative of the mainstream scholarly opinion—that the Jeffersonian “pursuit of Happiness” derives from Locke’s political philosophy and is best interpreted in that light.

To be sure, this is certainly a scholarly opinion; although it is arguably feeble. In each of Jefferson’s references to Locke (cf. Jefferson, vols. VIII, 31; XI, 222; XV, 266; and XVI, 19) he speaks, almost nonchalantly, about Locke the materialist; and while he makes specific references to Locke’s writings, categorizing Locke as ‘the man to read’, Jefferson’s enthusiasm on the subject is certainly, well, stoically restrained. This stands in stark contrast to the glowing and vigorous recommendations he gives for the Stoic philosophers, praising both specific thinkers as well as the moral tradition.

What one can find perhaps most persuasive in the argument for a Lockean influence on Jefferson’s “pursuit of Happiness” is, first, that Jefferson clearly says that Locke is the go-to philosopher for wonderful ideas on materialism, which interests Jefferson as an alternative philosophical framing to the normative Christian worldview.

Even more interesting as an unstated argument, however, is Jefferson’s reliance upon Lockian language-music in his creation of the Declaration of Independence. Locke defines property as a person's "life, liberty, and estate." That is a catchy bit of writing from Mr. Locke, rhythmically speaking; and Jefferson’s writing is in no wise inferior when he writes concerning certain unalienable Rights, among which "are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Yet it also seems almost gratuitous to point out that, although it is obvious that Jefferson liked and borrowed the rhythm of Locke’s phrasing, he nevertheless disagreed with the idea of the phrase, thus changing Locke’s English “and estate,” to the American “pursuit of Happiness.”

There is at least one other mainstream scholarly opinion on the question of how to interpret Jefferson’s “pursuit of Happiness,” which is advanced by the historian Garry Wills; but this opinion seems to limp a little too much through the arcane and recherché to be persuasive in the context of this reflection.

§ Wind-up. Additional philosophical support for the interpretation that the “pursuit of Happiness” is best understood as a personal philosophical attitude of Independence of Mind, might also come from Aristotle’s notion of eudaimonia—what Heraclitus might have translated as the well-demoned or well-daimoned life. Let it be said, however, that while there are certainly traces of Aristotle in Jefferson’s writings, relevant to politics, republics, and materialism, there is no indication that he was in any way inspired by the Stagirite’s Virtue Ethic.

For the General Record, though, and because we are reflecting on the question of Happiness as an Idea, it was Aristotle’s contention that we should actually thrive in our lives. Even more, though, according to Aristotle this eudaimoniac-thriving, which we Moderns generally translate as happiness, is in fact the ultimate purpose of human existence. Aristotle’s eudaimonia is linguistically reminiscent of the Socratic Daimon; and we must remember that it is Socrates who gave moral direction both to that philosopher and to Stoic thought in general.

So, even beyond Jefferson’s Declarative Announcement in its favor, there are many philosophical reasons for why Happiness or Thriving or Independence of Mind should come to occupy a prominent place in our hearts and thoughts as a Philosophical Value. Nevertheless, once the foundations of right thinking (read: Philosophy) give way to populist fancies, definitions for ideas such as Happiness become much fuzzier, and we Moderns are left with questions, such as: What does happiness mean to you?, which do not necessarily lead us to meaningful answers, because they also lead us to the admission that Hitler was undoubtedly as happy as a Nazi clam. Any answer to this type of fuzzy question is, philosophically speaking, a castle built on sand.

So, is there more to life than being happy? There are indeed some scientists out there “who are cautioning against the pursuit of mere happiness”; and others who suggest in the same vein that trying too hard to be happy in fact makes us unhappy. Philosophically, however, it might be argued that such an understanding, and therefore research grounded in that understanding, is fatally flawed by Science’s fundamental mis-understanding about the essentially philosophical (read: non-empirical) nature of the question. But then again, just like all the rest of us, scientists are also subject to “zeitgeistic” opinions and attitudes about happiness, and to the sweepingly sugarcoated, saccharine-fueled sentimentalism that continually seeks to supersede the hard work of Informed Thinking.

To answer this question in kind: For us Moderns, at least in the U.S., who have been nurtured directly or indirectly on the Jeffersonian notion of We the People, is it possible for us to conceive as meaningful, philosophically speaking, an individual life where Thriving, either in body or in mind, is dislocated from the individual life? Or is it possible, philosophically speaking, to conceive of as meaningful a personal life where the individual is called to yield up his Independence of Mind, or where his I of M is trained out of him through tutelage in an impoverished educational system? Would this not be tantamount to an unintentional Abolition of the Cogito, which Heidegger actually intentionally argues for in Being and Time? But this implies the disintegration of the Enlightenment Individual, which must inevitably leave us, both as individuals and as a people, vulnerable to every possible form of totalitarian regime?

In and through his Enlightenment writings Jefferson crafted a philosophical Model of the Reasoning Man, into whose hands he put the reins of Political Power. And the only real burden he placed on this Reasoning Man is that he should be educated, in the sense that he should be informed about Things of State. Because there is nothing more appalling to Reason than to put power over the lives of ‘We the People’ into the hands of those who choose a path of willful ignorance and self-service.

Is there more to life than being happy? If, by happiness, one means to affirm the Individual as Self-governing Thinking-Thing moving toward the Virtue of reason, then, no, there can be nothing greater in life. Following in a long line of earlier and like-minded Stoic philosophers, Jefferson invites us to welcome and embrace Happiness as a Virtuous Habit of the well-demoned Mind, so that we might be faithful in working to secure for ourselves, and then perhaps for the world, those certain unalienable Rights, among which are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of this Happiness.

(Original essay reprised and reworked from Phrontisterion, June 2013)

Further Phrontisterion reading on Stoicism:

·      https://nonimprimatur.blogspot.com/p/epictetus-handbooklinks.html

Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.16.1.1_Deceptive Appearances.

~by David Aiken~

§ 2 “Ench”, 1.16.1.1

TRANSLATION (AIKEN)— Whenever you happen to see someone weeping loudly in sorrow, either because his child is absent and travelling far from home, or because his personal circumstances are in desperate straits, (2) be on your guard not to be carried away by ‘appearances’—thereby concluding that the person is in those sorrowful or dire circumstances because he is the victim of actions that are outside of himself. (3) Rather, let us be first ready to think, with respect to this person and his distress, that (4) it is not the outside event that is afflicting him (for it is not afflicting anyone else), but rather, that it is the personal attitude one has about these things, which is causing the sorrow.

So, (5) while you certainly should not hesitate to sympathize with this person in words, nor should you be afraid to engage in conversation with him, and even, should it so happen, to commiserate together. But continue nevertheless to be on your guard (7) so that you do not also grieve, as well, from within yourself.

2 “Ench”, 1.16.1.1

            (1)   Ὅταν κλαίοντα ἴδῃς ἐν πένθει ἢ ἀποδημοῦντος τέκνου ἢ   (1)
ἀπολωλεκότα τὰ ἑαυτοῦ, πρόσεχε μή σε ἡ φαντασία συναρπάσῃ
ὡς ἐν κακοῖς ὄντος αὐτοῦ τοῖς ἐκτός, (3) ἀλλ’ εὐθὺς ἔστω πρόχειρον
ὅτι “τοῦτον θλίβει οὐ τὸ συμβεβηκός (ἄλλον γὰρ οὐ θλίβει), ἀλλὰ
τὸ δόγμα τὸ περὶ τούτων.” μέχρι μέντοι λόγου μὴ ὄκνει συμπερι-   (5)
φέρεσθαι αὐτῷ, κἂν οὕτω τύχῃ, συνεπιστενάξαι· πρόσεχε μέντοι μὴ
καὶ ἔσωθεν στενάξῃς.

Ms. Carter

16. When you see anyone weeping in grief because his son has gone abroad, or is dead, or because he has suffered in his affairs, be careful that the appearance may not misdirect you. Instead, distinguish within your own mind, and be prepared to say, "It's not the accident that distresses this person., because it doesn't distress another person; it is the judgment which he makes about it." As far as words go, however, don't reduce yourself to his level, and certainly do not moan with him. Do not moan inwardly either.

§ A note on Ms. Carter’s translation

Ms. Carter’s translation of the opening phrase gives us a choice between two reasons for the person’s grief, either he is “weeping… in grief because his son has gone abroad,” or because his son is dead. However, there does not seem to be any second-level or metaphorical sense behind ‘his son has gone abroad’ in our Epictetian text (ln. 1= apodemountos / ἀποδημοῦντος), which would justify adding the phrase “or is dead.” Apodemountos has the sense of: to be away from home, be abroad or on one’s travels; of foreign service; or metaphorically, simply to be absent (but not necessarily in the sense of ‘dead absent’). Epictetus’ use of ‘grieving’ (en penthei = ἐν πένθει) seems to be in a true and original Greek cultural sense of a parent who grieves that his child is traveling far from home in foreign climes. A more emphatic second-level reading, of grieving for the death of a son, although the expression would remain the same, seems an unjustified, because unnecessary conclusion from this text.

That said, for an entertaining and truly second-level illustration of this expression, Metrodorus, the grammarian (ca. 6^th AD), tells a story about a certain Diophantus who grieved for the loss of his son who died (Greek Anthology 126, pp. 93-95; Loeb, trans. WR Paton, Vol. V, London: Heinemann 1918). Metrodorus relates famously, in a mathematical riddle, this ‘other’ death-related grieving that is afflicting Diophantus! Per the Wikisource, the riddle goes like this:

'Here lies Diophantus,' the wonder behold.

Through art algebraic, the stone tells how old:

'God gave him his boyhood one-sixth of his life,

One twelfth more as youth while whiskers grew rife;

And then yet one-seventh ere marriage begun;

In five years there came a bouncing new son.

Alas, the dear child of master and sage

After attaining half the measure of his father's life chill fate took him. After consoling his fate by the science of numbers for four years, he ended his life.'

This puzzle implies that Diophantus' age x can be expressed as x = x/6 + x/12 + x/7 + 5 + x/2 + 4, which gives x a value of 84 years. However, the accuracy of the information cannot be independently confirmed.

Which brings us back again full circle to Ms. Carter’s unnecessary and gratuitous addendum. Our text from Epictetus reads simply: “Whenever you happen to see someone weeping loudly in sorrow” for either of the following two reasons: “either because his child is absent and traveling far from home, or because his personal circumstances are in desperate straits,” then be on your guard.

§ Impressions about Impressions.

Rapt of Sabine Women

The image in line 2 is luscious: “be on your guard not to be carried away by ‘appearances’ [prosexe me se e phantasia sunarpase = πρόσεχε μή σε ἡ φαντασία συναρπάσῃ].”

(2) be on your guard not to be carried away by ‘appearances’—thereby concluding that the person is in those sorrowful or dire circumstances because he is the victim of actions that are outside of himself.

After the ‘be on your guard not’ bit [= πρόσεχε μή σε], the subject of the sentence is phantasia [ἡ φαντασία]. So, the image here is that, if you are not paying careful attention, your phantasia will literally pick you up and cart you off unceremoniously like one of the unfortunate Sabine women of Roman lore. So, a literal ‘don’t let the phantasia carry you away’ yields in Phrontisterionese, “be on your guard not to be carried away by ‘appearances (phantasia).”

Phantasia is a big word for Stoics in general, which Phrontisterion has treated more extensively elsewhere. But to encapsulate:

“§ A Fantastical Excursus. On the question of phantasion, a genitive plural from phantasia [φαντασία], and which means appearances or surface level, its use is rather straight-forward in our text here from Epictetus, in that it is juxtaposed with the deeper, more radical and fundamental sense of kata phusin [kata» fu/sin]. Essentially, phantasia has everything to do with superficiality and appearances – what one perceives or sees; the external and transient aspects of a thing; its accidental versus its essential qualities, to put a dandy Aristotelian spin on it.

That said, however, phantasia is a rather magnificent word all in all, and covers lots of territory in Greek literature, from the philosophically rich to the quotidian and banal, encompassing phenomena such as ghosts, things invented, imagination, etc. Were he to have translated himself into ancient Greek, for example, Immanuel Kant would definitely have used phantasia to translate his noumenal sense of Verstandeswesen or Hirngespinste (Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, 13: 292).

     

All of that mouthful rehashed, however, the use of phantasia here in Enchiridion §16 does not seem to be especially formal or epistemologically restrained. Rather, its use seems to be precociously phenomenological: from the point of view of the simple human observer to any given situation, we tend to draw conclusions about what it is we think we are observing. The issue, then, if issue there is in this text, is whether our conclusions are overly hasty, and thereby incorrect, because we have interpreted inappropriately the event to which we have been privy. So, in the line-up of imperatives:

1.     Ln. 2. “Be on your guard not…” [prosexe me se = πρόσεχε μή σε] is a 2nd person singular present active imperative. And we are asked to watch that we do not allow ourselves to become persuaded [to be snatched and carried away; to be carried clean away; metaph., carry away with or by persuasive arguments] “not to be carried away by ‘appearances’ [e phantasia sunarpase = ἡ φαντασία συναρπάσῃ].]

2.     Ln. 4. “Rather, let one be simply/directly/immediately ready [let it be easy = ἀλλ’ εὐθὺς ἔστω πρόχειρον ὅτι…]

3.     Ln. 5-6. τὸ δόγμα [feeling / judgment] ; do not hesitate [imperative] ; [adapt yourself; accommodate] ; [but do not be afraid to engage in conversation with him]

4.     Ln. 7. “be on your guard” [πρόσεχε μέντοι μὴ = 2nd sg pres imperat act]

TRANSLATION (AIKEN)— Whenever you happen to see someone weeping loudly in sorrow, either because his child is absent and traveling far from home, or because his personal circumstances are in desperate straits, (2) be on your guard not to be carried away by ‘appearances’—thereby concluding that the person is in those sorrowful or dire circumstances because he is the victim of actions that are outside of himself. (3) Rather, let us be first ready to think, with respect to this person and his distress, that (4) it is not the outside event that is afflicting him (for it is not afflicting anyone else), but rather, that it is the personal attitude one has about these things, which is causing the sorrow.

So, (5) while you certainly should not hesitate to sympathize with this person in words, nor should you be afraid to engage in conversation with him, and even, should it so happen, to commiserate together. But continue nevertheless to be on your guard (7) so that you do not also grieve, as well, from within yourself.

 (1)   Ὅταν κλαίοντα ἴδῃς ἐν πένθει ἢ ἀποδημοῦντος τέκνου ἢ   (1)
ἀπολωλεκότα τὰ ἑαυτοῦ, πρόσεχε μή σε ἡ φαντασία συναρπάσῃ
ὡς ἐν κακοῖς ὄντος αὐτοῦ τοῖς ἐκτός, (3) ἀλλ’ εὐθὺς ἔστω πρόχειρον
ὅτι “τοῦτον θλίβει οὐ τὸ συμβεβηκός (ἄλλον γὰρ οὐ θλίβει), ἀλλὰ
τὸ δόγμα τὸ περὶ τούτων.” μέχρι μέντοι λόγου μὴ ὄκνει συμπερι-   (5)
φέρεσθαι αὐτῷ, κἂν οὕτω τύχῃ, συνεπιστενάξαι· πρόσεχε μέντοι μὴ
καὶ ἔσωθεν στενάξῃς.

§ On the nature of World.

We do not have direct access either to the truth or to the fact of worldliness. So, for Epictetus it is imperative that each one of us pays attention to interpret, as carefully and correctly as we can, events that we perceive. We players on the world stage evolve, individually, inside the context of {worldliness—exteriority + perception—interiority}. And in this complex and mostly muddled relationship we have with World, we discover external events and situations that Life brings our way as they reveal themselves to us in moments of internal emotional response. But appearances are deceptive; and our emotions, for better and for worse, are very poor indicators of accuracy, and unreliable teachers of truth.

The Stoicism of Epictetus is not unique in seeking to discourage us from trusting in our emotional responses and our emotional attachments to events. Equally, in its interest to lead us toward a spirit of detachment, Buddhism speaks to us of tanha, which derives from a concept that describes ‘thirst, desire, longing, and greed’, which can be both physical and mental. According to Buddhist thinking, tanha is conceived of as an originating link in the chain of inevitability leading to dukkha, which is to say suffering and pain, which in turn commits us to the relentless cycle of samsara, repetitive becoming and dying. Tanha, says our wiki-source,

reflects a mental state of craving. Greater the craving, more is the frustration because the world is always changing and innately unsatisfactory; craving also brings about pain through conflict and quarrels between individuals, which are all a state of Dukkha.

So, there are both Western and Eastern thought traditions that seek to persuade us not to be led astray or ravished by our emotional responses to World. Epictetus expresses this idea as the mind’s philosophical liberation from tyranny. According to Starr ("Epictetus and the Tyrant,” 23-24)

What Epictetus then gave to his students was the Stoic doctrine, very much as Musonius and Seneca had given it in the past two generations; but the emphasis of Epictetus was subtly different from that of his predecessors. He was not concerned with death and wealth, as was the aging, wealthy Seneca; nor did he echo Musonius' idealism and humanitarianism in discoursing on social relationships. The issue before Epictetus was at once higher and narrower, that of freedom. By Oldfather's count, the concept of freedom appears some one hundred and thirty times in Epictetus, or six times as frequently as in the New Testament. Epictetus' doctrine of freedom was again that of the Stoa, and we can parallel much of what he says in Seneca or in Musonius; still, in Epictetus the doctrine appears with a greater intensity than in any other Stoic. Freedom lies within the individual; the ills of the world cannot assail that inner freedom.

§ Appearances that deceive from outside.

The vast majority of the moral applications of this idea in the West, such as those found in the NT or in the fabulizing literature of Aesop and La Fontaine, revolve around the idea that someone or something outside of ourselves, perhaps even something as abstract as Descartes’ concept of a mauvais génie, is attempting to deceive us, about something, with some degree of deliberation. This is the stuff of farce and tragedy; and entirely banal because unexceptional. In a World full of appearances, it is in fact the quotidian of human perception to mis-take.

In the Bible, for the pristine example, there are any number of stories that seek, like our text from Epictetus, to put us on our guard from intended as well as unintended deceptive appearances that come to us from outside ourselves, when we misinterpret or misread the signs concerning events that we see.

·      In the OT book of I Samuel (Chapter 1) Hannah is introduced as part of the family of Elkanah, one of two wives, and unable to have children. The other wife, Peninnah, is described as her rival (1:6), and she has had a number of children (1:2, 4). This rivalry went on for a number of years, until on one occasion Hannah rushed to the tabernacle to poor out her grief before the Lord (1:10). Although the reader, the observer to this story, has the benefit of the narrative backstory about Hannah, and thus knows that Eli the priest only knows what he sees and does not have any of Hannah’s actual story. He sees only a desperate woman praying. So, based on appearances, Eli jumps to the conclusion that Hannah is drunk, and he rebukes her drunkenness (1:13-14). Hannah of course responds that she is not drunk, but only lamenting and wanting to pour her soul out to the Lord (1:16). At which point Eli offers her words of blessing (1:17).

·      In the NT Jesus warns to ‘judge not, that you be not judged’ (Matt. 7:1); and the story of Eli misinterpreting, and then taking the time to rethink, and to be willing to reinterpret correctly the actions of Hannah, is perhaps the best illustration of the meaning and purpose of that latter injunction. The story of Eli and Hannah is a comedic illustration of Jesus’ command ‘to not judge’ in the sense that it has a happy ending, because Eli admits his mistake, changes his thinking, and goes on to form a lasting bond with Hannah and her family (2:19-20). But it goes without saying that happy endings are not the necessary or inevitable outcome for when we misread events.

There are any number of other biblical admonitions that agree with Epictetus’ caution against jumping to hasty conclusions:

·      “These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Col. 2:23).

·      “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matthew 7:15).

·      “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore, it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15).

·      “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment” (John 7:24).

There is also a plethora of other proverbial wisdom literature that agrees in spirit with Epictetus’ warning to be on your guard not to be carried away by appearances. The clear moral of the story of one of Aesop’s fables, for example, The Ant and the Chrysalis, is that appearances are deceptive.

 An Ant nimbly running about in the sunshine in search of food came

across a Chrysalis that was very near its time of change. The

Chrysalis moved its tail, and thus attracted the attention of the Ant,

who then saw for the first time that it was alive. "Poor, pitiable

animal!" cried the Ant disdainfully. "What a sad fate is yours!

While I can run hither and thither, at my pleasure, and, if I wish,

ascend the tallest tree, you lie imprisoned here in your shell, with

power only to move a joint or two of your scaly tail." The Chrysalis

heard all this, but did not try to make any reply. A few days after,

when the Ant passed that way again, nothing but the shell remained.

Wondering what had become of its contents, he felt himself suddenly

shaded and fanned by the gorgeous wings of a beautiful Butterfly.

"Behold in me," said the Butterfly, "your much-pitied friend! Boast

now of your powers to run and climb as long as you can get me to

listen." So saying, the Butterfly rose in the air, and, borne along

and aloft on the summer breeze, was soon lost to the sight of the

Ant forever.

In a variation on the same proverbial trope, Jean de la Fontaine reminds us repeatedly that, “Of fables judge not by their face; They give the simplest brute a teacher’s place” (The Shepherd and the Lion). For example, he entertains us in this sense with his fable of THE ASS IN LION'S SKIN (V,21):

 An ass clad in a lion's skin,
                        Spread terror all around,
              And though he was an ass within,
                  Each trembled at the sound!
A portion of Jack's ear by chance peeped through,
And the whole trick at once exposed to view.
Ralph with a cudgel did his office quick,
Wild stared the folks who did not know the trick.
They were surprised to see that Ralph, at will,
           Could drive a lion to the mill.

Many great people famed in France,
By whom this apologue's familial- grown,

Are chiefly for their courage known
By the bold equipage in which they prance.

Or again, in Book VI (1668), fable 5, in a tale called The Cockerel, the Cat, and the Young Mouse:

A youthful mouse, not up to trap,

Had almost met a sad mishap.

The story hear him thus relate,

With great importance, to his mother:—

‘I pass’d the mountain bounds of this estate,

And off was trotting on another,

Like some young rat with nought to do

But see things wonderful and new,

When two strange creatures came in view.

The one was mild, benign, and gracious;

The other, turbulent, rapacious,

With voice terrific, shrill, and rough,

And on his head a bit of stuff

That look’d like raw and bloody meat,

Raised up a sort of arms, and beat

The air, as if he meant to fly,

And bore his plumy tail on high.’

A cock, that just began to crow,

As if some nondescript,

From far New Holland shipp’d,

Was what our mousling pictured so.

‘He beat his arms,’ said he, ‘and raised his voice,

And made so terrible a noise,

That I, who, thanks to Heaven, may justly boast

Myself as bold as any mouse,

Scud off, (his voice would even scare a ghost!)

And cursed himself and all his house;

For, but for him, I should have staid,

And doubtless an acquaintance made

With her who seem’d so mild and good.

Like us, in velvet cloak and hood,

She wears a tail that’s full of grace,

A very sweet and humble face, —

No mouse more kindness could desire, —

And yet her eye is full of fire.

I do believe the lovely creature

A friend of rats and mice by nature.

Her ears, though, like herself, they’re bigger,

Are just like ours in form and figure.

To her I was approaching, when,

Aloft on what appear’d his den,

The other scream’d, — and off I fled.’

‘My son,’ his cautious mother said,

‘That sweet one was the cat,

The mortal foe of mouse and rat,

Who seeks by smooth deceit,

Her appetite to treat.

So far the other is from that,

We yet may eat

His dainty meat;

Whereas the cruel cat,

Whene’er she can, devours

No other meat than ours.’

And the moral of this tale? Remember while you live,

It is by looks that men deceive.

§ Deceptions from the inside and the philosophical moment.

As was suggested earlier, most of the moral applications of this idea in Western literature revolve around the idea that deception comes to the observer from the outside, from World. The world is a deceptive place; its deception, or illusory nature, is banal because run-of-the-mill, the stuff of farce and tragedy. Epictetus, however, does not seem here in §16 to be solely concerned with those who try to deliberately mislead or gaslight us concerning the meaning of what we think we are observing in the world. Rather, he is additionally concerned with the much more philosophically rich idea that we might also, in fact, be deceiving ourselves. As we observe the world flow by, Epictetus encourages us not just to rely on what we think our body is perceiving. “Rather,” he says in line 3,

let us be first ready to think, with respect to this person and his distress, that (4) it is not the outside event that is afflicting him (for it is not afflicting anyone else), but rather, that it is the personal attitude one has about these things, which is causing the sorrow.

So, (5) while you certainly should not hesitate to sympathize with this person in words, nor should you be afraid to engage in conversation with him, and even, should it so happen, to commiserate together. But continue nevertheless to be on your guard (7) so that you do not also grieve, as well, from within yourself.

The verbal phrase used by Epictetus here in line 3, which Phrontisterion has rendered as let us be first ready to think (proxeiron [estin] = πρόχειρόν [ἐστι]), does not literally mean to think, as we who are accustomed to post-Kantian categories of interpreting mental activities are commonly wont to understand the expression. Rather, Epictetus uses here a 3^rd person present active hortatory or admonishing subjunctive of the ‘to be’ verb [esto = ἔστω], which invites us to ‘let it be’ (esto) instantly easy [ἀλλ’ εὐθὺς ἔστω πρόχειρον] (proxeiron [estin] = πρόχειρόν [ἐστι]) that…. In other words, this, insists Epictetus, is the very first interpretation that should instantly and easily ‘be at our finger tips’, quite literally; this is the very first thought that should readily come to mind when we observe whatever is happening in front of us: that (4): the problem the grieving person is lamenting is not out-there in the World (because no one else seems to be reacting to the same event). Therefore, says E., the sorrow the individual is experiencing does not come from World, but rather from that person’s own subjective attitude toward what he is perceiving. And per normative Stoic thinking, the individual certainly has control over his own personal attitude or feelings. For Epictetus, as for the Stoics in general, harm does not come at us from out-there in the world; rather, it comes to us from ourselves and our own poor thinking and poor choosing.

TRANSLATION (AIKEN)— Whenever you happen to see someone weeping loudly in sorrow, either because his child is absent and travelling far from home, or because his personal circumstances are in desperate straits, (2) be on your guard not to be carried away by ‘appearances’—thereby concluding that the person is in those sorrowful or dire circumstances because he is the victim of actions that are outside of himself. (3) Rather, let us be first ready to think, with respect to this person and his distress, that (4) it is not the outside event that is afflicting him (for it is not afflicting anyone else), but rather, that it is the personal attitude one has about these things, which is causing the sorrow.

So, (5) while you certainly should not hesitate to sympathize with this person in words, nor should you be afraid to engage in conversation with him, and even, should it so happen, to commiserate together. But continue nevertheless to be on your guard (7) so that you do not also grieve, as well, from within yourself.

Further reading: Phrontisterion’s translation of Epictetus’ Handbook

·      Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_Section §1.15.1.1_On Well-mannered Dinner Parties. Or, Living Courteously.

·      Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_Section §1.14.1.1_If Wishes Were Horses…. Or, How to Avoid Being a Slave.

·      Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_Section §1.13.1.1_ More on Making Intellectual Progress; October 2018

·      Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_Section §1.12.1.1_Wrong Thinking About (Perhaps) Right Action; September 2018

·      Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_Section §1.11.1.1 On the Ownership of Things; August 2018

·      Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.8.1.1, 1.9.1.1 and 1.10.1.1_Bits & Bobs of Fine Advice: Being presumptuous; December 1, 2017

·      Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.7.1.1; Seafaring Ways; October 1, 2017 

·      Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.6.1.1.; On Receiving Compliments. On Possessions, & on What is Rightfully Yours. July 1, 2017

·      Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.5.1.1. ABOUT SH#T THAT HAPPENS; January 1, 2017   

·      Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.4.1.1. On Activities. BATHING HABITS…., AMONG OTHER THINGS; August 1, 2016   

·      Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.3.1.1. ON THINGS… AS THINGS. Or, AN OLD ONTOLOGY; July 1, 2016   

·      Liberty Through Grammar... Epictetus’ Enchiridion Expanded_§1.2.1.1-1.2.2.1; June 1, 2016    

·      More On the Question of Freedom_Or, How to be the Consummate Control Freak_Epictetus Expanded_§1bis; August 1, 2015

·      Epictetus' Enchiridion Expanded_§1_On the Question of Freedom; July 1, 2015

References and related reading:

·      Nilsson, M.P. A History of Greek Religion. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2^nd edition, 1956).

·      Hansen, William F. "Greek Mythology and the Study of the Ancient Greek Oral Story." Journal of Folklore Research 20, no. 2/3 (1983): 101-12. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3814523.

·      KURKE, LESLIE. "Plato, Aesop, and the Beginnings of Mimetic Prose." Representations 94, no. 1 (2006): 6-52. doi:10.1525/rep.2006.94.1.6.

·      Van Dijk, J. G. M. "The Function of Fables in Graeco-Roman Romance." Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, 49, no. 5 (1996): 513-41. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4432661.

·      Bonhöffer, Adolf. Epiktet und das Neue Testament. (Berlin: Alfred Töpelmann Verlag, 1964 (reprint))

·      Starr, Chester G. "Epictetus and the Tyrant." Classical Philology 44, no. 1 (1949): 20-29. http://www.jstor.org/stable/267078.

·      Parker, Charles Pomeroy. "Musonius the Etruscan." Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 7 (1896): 123-37. doi:10.2307/310476.

·      HERSHBELL, JACKSON P. "Epictetus and Chrysippus." Illinois Classical Studies 18 (1993): 139-46. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23064441.

·      Phrontisterion on Aesop: https://nonimprimatur.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-tale-of-wolf-dog-and-collar.html