Episode 078 - Ethical Issues Arising In the Formation Of Societies
Date: 07/09/21
Link: https://www.epicureanfriends.com/thread/2083-episode-seventy-eight-ethical-issues-arising-in-the-formation-of-societies/
Summary
Section titled “Summary”Martin reads Book 5 lines 1105–1240, covering the fall of kings, the rise of laws and magistracies, and the origins of religion. Discussion focuses on the opening line about living on little — unpacking the Latin parque, Vatican Saying 63 on frugality’s limits, Torquatus’s three-category framework for desires, and the bread-and-water passage as an illustration rather than a prescription for permanent asceticism.
The second half covers ambition (Martin: directed toward pleasure it is necessary), political participation (Laertius: “will pay court to a king if occasion demands”), the sequence from warlords to kings to magistracies (Martin on Germanic tribes choosing leaders by mutual consent), and the misreading of “live unknown” as permission to disengage from civic life entirely.
Transcript
Section titled “Transcript”Cassius:
Welcome to Episode 78 of Lucretius Today. I’m your host, Cassius, and together with my panelists from the EpicureanFriends.com Forum, we’ll walk you through the six books of Lucretius’ poem and we’ll discuss how Epicurean philosophy can apply to you today. We encourage you to study Epicurus for yourself and we suggest the best place to start is the book Epicurus and His Philosophy by Norman DeWitt. For anyone who is not familiar with our podcast, please visit EpicureanFriends.com where you’ll find a complete description of our goals and our ground rules. If you have any questions about those, please be sure to contact us at the forum for more information. In this episode 78, our goal was to read approximately Latin lines 1105 through 1240 of Book 5. But due to the important ethical implications and interest of the subject, we covered only a small part of that in the discussion. So today we’ll break well short of the material that we actually read and we’ll come back next week to tackle the part we don’t get to today. Now let’s join Martin reading today’s text.
Martin:
But if men would govern their lives by the rule of true reason, to live upon a little with an even mind would be the greatest riches. This little no man can fear to want, but men strive to be renowned and powerful, that their fortune may stand firm upon a lasting foundation and the wealthy cannot fail to live at ease. All absurd. For those who labor to reach the highest honors make a very unhappy journey in the end. Envy, like a thunderbolt, strikes them from the pinnacle of their glory and tumbles them down with scorn into an abyss of misery, so that it is much safer as a subject to obey than to wish for empire and to govern kingdoms, that those that will tire themselves in vain and spend their blood and their sweat in climbing the narrow track of ambition, for the highest of them all are blasted with envy as with the thunderbolt. And the higher they are, they are the more exposed, since they depend wholly upon others for their wisdom, and try things more by their ears than by their understandings. This is the present case. It always was so. And ever will be. Those kings being slain, the former majesty of their thrones and their proud scepters were laid in the dust, and the beard — the noble ornament of kings — all stained with blood, is now trodden under foot, and weeps over its expiring honor. For we eagerly spurn at what we too much feared before. The government now returned to the rabble, and the very dregs of the people, whilst everyone reached for empire and the supreme power for himself. And therefore the wisest among them taught the rest to settle a magistracy and to establish laws by which they could be governed. Men grew weary of living in a state of force, and were worn out with continually bickering among themselves. And therefore of their own accord more readily fell under the power of laws and the bonds of justice. For everyone in his resentment pursued his revenge with more violence than the equity of the laws would now allow him. And therefore men were tired of this forceful way, which laced all their pleasures of life with the fears of punishment. For force and wrong entangle the men that contrive them, and commonly recoil upon the heads that plan them. Nor is it easy for that man to live a secure and pleasured life, who by his conduct breaks through the common bonds of peace. Though he has the cunning to deceive both gods and men, his heart always trembles for fear of being discovered. For men often talk in sleep, and are said to reveal things when they are delirious by a disease, and to bring to light their plots that had been long concealed. And now I shall show the cause that first dispersed the notion of the gods throughout the world, and filled the towns with altars and all those solemn rites to be performed, and holy ceremonies now in use, when victims smoked on every sacred fire. And what fixed awe in the minds of men that built new temples to the gods in every corner of the earth and compelled men to celebrate their festivities — it is not so hard to show the cause. For mankind, in the beginning of the world, were used to see divine and glorious forms even when awake. And in their sleep those images appeared in more majestic state and raised their wonder. And these they thought had sense. They fancied that they moved their limbs and spoke proud words, suitable to the grand appearance they showed and to the mightiness of their strength. They ascribed eternity to them because the constant stream of images incessantly came on in form the same, that could not change, and therefore could not die, because no power they thought could crush beings so strong and so large in size. And they thought them infinitely happy because they were never vexed with the fears of death, and in their dreams they saw them do things strange and wonderful with ease and without fatigue. Besides, they observed the motions of the heavens were regular and certain, that the various seasons of the year came orderly about, but could discover nothing of the causes of these revolutions. And therefore they had this result: they ascribed everything to the power of the gods, and made everything depend on their will and command. The habitation and abode of these gods they placed in the heavens, because there they saw the sun and moon were rolled about. The moon, I say, they observed there, and the day and the night, and the stars, the starry night, the blazing meteors wandering in the dark, the flying lightning, the clouds, the dew, the rain, the snow, the thunder, the hail, the dreadful noises, the threatenings and loud roarings of the sky. Unhappy race of men, who ascribe such events, who charge the gods with such distracted rage, what sorrows have they brought upon themselves, what miseries upon us, what floods of tears have they entailed upon all posterity! Nor can there be any piety for a wretch who with bowed head is ever turning himself about towards the stone, to creep to every altar, to throw himself flat upon the ground, to spread his arms before the shrines of the gods, to sprinkle the altars abundantly with the blood of beasts, and to heap vows upon vows. To look upon things with an undisturbed mind — this is piety. For when we behold the celestial expanse of the great world, and the heavens spread over with the shining stars, when we reflect upon the courses of the sun and moon, then doubts that before lay quiet under a load of other cares begin to awake and grow stronger in us. What are the gods endued with so great power that can direct the various motions of all the bright luminaries above? For the ignorance of causes gives great uneasiness to the doubting mind of man. And hence we doubt whether the world had a beginning and shall ever have an end. How long the heavens, the walls of this world, shall be able to bear the thrust of such mighty motion, whether they are made eternal by the gods, and so shall forever roll on and despise the strong power of the roaring age. Besides, what heart does not faint with the dread of the gods, whose are the limbs that will not shrink when the scorched earth quakes with the whirlwind stroke of lightning and the roaring thunder rolls over the whole heavens? Do not the people and the nations shake, and proud tyrants, struck with fear of those avenging powers, tremble in every limb lest the dismal day come to punish them for the baseness of their crimes and the arrogance of their speeches.
Cassius:
Okay, thank you, Martin, for reading that today. We have been in our podcast going happily along through Book 5 talking about formations of worlds and animals and language last week, and now all of a sudden we just pop into some of the most important ethical aspects of Epicurean philosophy, it seems to me. And we’ve also been trying to do about a hundred lines a week and doing that fairly easily, but today there’s so much packed into this. I’m not sure whether we’ll get through all of what we have read today or not, but we’ll certainly make a start of it. So if we go back to the very beginning, our opening today is “if men would govern their lives by the rule of true reason and live upon a little with an even mind, that would be the greatest riches.” And that opens up one of our most ongoing and important discussions about the meaning of Epicurean philosophy and its ethics. And so to resolve that question for us, we’ll turn to Don.
Don:
Boy, I find it interesting that he does — I mean, a lot of this that I see, he’s getting directly from Epicurus and he’s paraphrasing various and sundry Vatican Sayings and Principal Doctrines in here. And there’s just, as you said, there’s a lot packed into this small space.
Cassius:
Well, where we were last week, and this is probably a particularly good one to make sure we have continuity from week to week. In the lines beginning 1105, he had talked about the kings and how they began to build cities and found a citadel and that they parceled out and gave flocks and fields to each man for his beauty, or for his strength, or understanding. But then he says thereafter property was invented and gold found, which easily robbed the strong and beautiful of honor, for the most part. Strong men and however beautiful their body, they follow the lead of the richer men. And so last week that particular transition is important for us to have here this week, because he has opened up the discussion that what was perhaps a more natural order of strength and beauty and understanding among people became altered by the introduction of property and money. And so that’s the context of this first sentence where he says to live upon a little with an even mind would be the greatest riches. Now just so — one of the ways we always ask that question is: does a statement like this mean that we should set our target for as little riches as we can possibly get by on?
Don:
Well, see, that’s the thing. And one of the things that I think you sort of implied there was that I always try to go back to what they actually say in the Latin, and the Latin word there for “little” or however it’s paraphrased there is parque, which the definition at least in Lewis and Short is “sparing in anything, especially an expenditure, in a good or a bad sense.” And so some of the synonyms that he uses are frugal, thrifty, economical, but then also parsimonious and that sort of thing. So there can be both a good and bad sense there. So I think that if he’s just saying that we should live frugally and thriftily and economically and within our means, I don’t think that that is too controversial at least from my personal perspective. But then I think some people take it to the extreme and say that it’s mandatory that you live on as little as possible and that sort of thing. But I don’t think it necessarily means that, if we’re looking at frugal and economical and thrifty — those sorts of synonyms seem like a positive way to put it to me.
Cassius:
Yeah, let’s talk about that for just a little while. And Martin, let’s turn over to you. Is it your practiced way of life to get by on as little as you can possibly get by on?
Martin:
How to say this partly — I mean I eat a lot of porridge, so that one would mean it’s pretty much “live upon a little.” But I also go out to restaurants and eat more expensive food, so it’s just a mixture. So I can live by porridge. I am happy enough that I like it, so that in principle I could live just on that by taste. But of course I choose for fun, and also to assure a more balanced nutrition, also to go for more luxurious meals. And I think this is pretty much what I think an Epicurean would do, as long as this luxurious type of food is still within our means and doesn’t cause health problems.
Cassius:
I think it’s a good way to put it. And I think that one of the things that seems to jump out to me is that at least once a month they had some sort of big celebration in the garden with the twentieth and those sorts of events with all the other ones that Epicurus put in his will. So there were obviously times for celebration and feasting and that sort of thing.
Don:
Yeah, that’s my perspective as well. And we shouldn’t go any further before we quote the applicable line from the Letter to Menoeceus, and it is: “independence of desire we think a great good, not that we may at all times enjoy but a few things, but that if we do not possess many we may enjoy the few in the genuine persuasion that those have the sweetest pleasure in luxury who need it least, and that all that is natural is easy to be obtained, but that which is superfluous is hard.” So right there, what is he saying by “superfluous”? And I think that’s where a lot of people bring in the idea that anything other than the barest minimum to keep you alive is superfluous, and I don’t think he’s saying that at all.
Cassius:
Right. And another of the key texts to include in that discussion would be Vatican Saying number 63, which Bailey translates as, “frugality too has a limit, and the man who disregards it is like him who errs through excess.” So again, if that’s a reliable quote from Epicurus — and I think it is — he’s definitely not telling you to aim at the lowest possible as if you’re trying to aim at asceticism, as if somehow the lowest possible is a goal in itself. I think you always have to keep in mind that the goal — you can consider that to be just a logical application of it or you can consider it however you like — but pleasure is what he always focuses on as the end. And if you put anything else like asceticism or frugality or parsimony or just “living simply” as the end, you’ve substituted something else for what Epicurus says, which is pleasure.
Don:
Exactly. Exactly.
Don:
Yeah, I don’t have a problem — I have source amnesia as far as where it’s actually said — but I don’t really have a problem with the idea of Epicurus experimenting with intermittent fasting or that sort of thing, just to see how much it would take for him to find pleasure in something. I don’t really have a problem with that. But I think that people take that idea and say that he did that all the time. And of course, it’s the bread and water and a pot of cheese that is so overdone — I suppose we have to mention it — but that doesn’t necessarily mean he did that all the time.
Cassius:
I can’t quote the full text of what you just said — that’s one of the fragments I think — but that’s the one where he says that all he needs is bread and water and a bit of cheese to compete in happiness with Zeus. Isn’t that what you’re remembering?
Cassius:
And again I see that as one of those — whether you want to call it a thought experiment, or just a reduction to the absurd, or just illustrating it by taking something to its logical conclusion — that food is not what makes us happy, food is not the only pleasure in life, and none of these things that we think about in terms of money or wealth or fame or anything is by any means the only thing in life.
Don:
Yeah, it looks like Seneca talks about the bread and water too, in his letters. So Seneca is quoted as: “The things which we actually need are free for all, or else cheap. Nature craves only bread and water. No one is poor according to this standard. When a man has limited his desires within these bounds, he can challenge the happiness of Jove himself, as Epicurus says.” So Seneca quotes him as saying that. And that, to me at least, says that yes, it’s true that we can live on bread and water, and if we’re alive we can find pleasure in the everyday things and all that kind of stuff. But it doesn’t say that he lived on bread and water all the time. And I think that’s something that you see all the time — you see it all the time online and in discussions.
Cassius:
Exactly, exactly. Yes. That’s almost everything that Epicurus has come to stand for in modern discussion, it seems like — living simply and putting absence of pain as your greatest goal, and by doing that you can basically, as long as you have a subsistence living, you’re pursuing Epicurean philosophy according to so many references you see on the internet. And we can spend the whole day talking about this issue and how all that plays itself out, but introducing it is maybe the best we can hope for today. There’s another — we’re doing a pretty good job of finding some of the key texts and at least making reference to them today — and one of them that we probably should also add, without going too far into the natural and necessary discussion which is closely related to this, there is the section of Torquatus’s narrative in On Ends where he says this: “Nothing could be more useful or more conducive to well-being than Epicurus’ doctrine as to the different classes of the desires. One kind he classified as both natural and necessary, a second as natural without being necessary, and a third as neither natural nor necessary. The principle of the classification” — and this is the part that I think is significant — “the principle of the classification being that the necessary desires are gratified with little trouble or expense. The natural desires also require but little, since nature’s own riches, which suffice to content her, are both easily procured and limited in amount. But for the imaginary desires, no bound or limit can be discovered.” And I guess the reason I cite that is I don’t think he’s laying down a hard and fast rule to tell us always to go for the bottom or the minimum. He’s saying that when you look at any choice, you should evaluate how hard it’s going to be to get it, and what kind of pain is going to come from it, and how much pleasure is going to come from it. And that that principle of the classification is what you should look for — not looking for a bright-line list that says always go for the smallest amount you can possibly get by on.
Don:
Exactly. Exactly. Yep. I think that’s a very good reference to have there. I was looking at the Greek Anthology too, and there’s a quote from Epicurus that’s listed as: “I revel in the pleasure of my humble body, employing water and bread, and I spit upon the pleasures of extravagance, not for their own sake, but because of the difficulties which follow from them.” So it was all about how difficult it was to get something, how difficult it was to keep it — and if we’re talking about the desire for fame, or the desire to have something extravagant for supper every night, you know, that’s going to be a difficult thing to get. So I think that it comes back to how difficult it is to get and to maintain something, which is what he’s looking at when he’s talking about what things to choose.
Cassius:
Yeah. Even as we go through the next couple of paragraphs, I think we’re going to see some more illustrations of that. I don’t want to jump too far ahead right now, but we’re going to talk about how he’s really focusing to some extent his discussion on kings and them being deposed and slain and so forth. But then he either hints or explicitly states that the remedy for that was to establish laws and magistracies. So somebody’s got to be a magistrate. Does even wanting to be a magistrate, is that too high a goal? Or is that the equivalent of attempting to be a king? I don’t think he’s trying to say that everybody should just live as low as possible. He’s saying they should live according to the circumstances so that they generate the most pleasure that they can for themselves at the least amount of pain. In other words, it’s a scale. Go ahead, Don.
Don:
This is an interesting idea too, because one of the things that I struggle with is Epicurus saying that Epicureans should take advantage of the stability of the government and not be involved in the government. Is he saying that as long as society is stable and has laws and has people to enforce those laws, it’s okay not to take part in the government? I think we’ve had this discussion online too — does the Epicurean just sit back and take advantage of stable governments and just kings and stuff like that? Or do they actually take part in the political actions of the day?
Cassius:
Right. That’s a very deep subject as well. My position being, of course, that I think he does take part, but only in a way that is rationally related to his calculation of what’s going to bring him the most pleasure and the least pain. That’s not something he can just say, “I’m just never going to participate,” or “I’m always going to participate.” He has to look rationally at the situation. There are some references in the biography by Diogenes Laertius, I think, that are relevant to what you just said there. One of the lines I’m looking at says, “he will pay court to a king if the occasion demands.” And then, “he will gather together a school, but never so as to become a popular leader. He will give lectures in public, but not unless asked.” And I think there’s some material in some of the Sedley commentaries I’ve seen as well that there is a definite limit to how much of a distance Epicurus advised people to take. There are clearly going to be circumstances in which you do need to inject yourself into the public sphere if it’s necessary and appropriate for your future happiness.
Don:
And that brings up another section or another common trope that I see in Epicurean discussions too — is the whole “live unknown,” two words that have just been blown out of all proportion. And I think the ones that you read there sort of give that impression that you don’t want to insert yourself, you don’t want to be a blowhard just to get attention, but you have to decide where you’re going to have the most impact and where your presence is going to be a benefit to yourself and society at large. Because you talked about how you can start a school but don’t make it a big production and don’t just pull people into you just to blow yourself up. Then, “you will give talks if asked” — it’s like, sure, I’ll give a speech, but you aren’t the first one to run in and say, “Let me talk, let me talk, let me talk.”
Cassius:
Yeah. Well, why don’t we — we spent the whole time talking about the first sentence so far — why don’t we go a little bit further. And let’s see, the next sentence would be this: “this little no man can fear to want, but men strive to be renowned and powerful that their fortune may stand firm upon a lasting foundation and the wealthy cannot fail to live at ease.” You know, okay, that’s another theme I wanted to sort of bring out today. As I read this material, especially when he’s talking about kings and empires and so forth, I do have a sense that he is focusing on the highest level as clearly the part to evade the most — in terms of wanting to be a dictator or king or really one of the highest leaders of society. And to me, that doesn’t necessarily rule out your more limited involvement. I find it interesting that he talks about how the higher you go, the more likely you’re going to be to be hit by a thunderbolt, metaphorically speaking. So I think that what he’s saying too is that the higher you go in government, the more unstable your position actually becomes. “Envy like a thunderbolt strikes them from the pinnacle of their glory and tumbles them down with scorn into an abyss of misery.” Of course, in the next sentence here he says, “so that it is much safer as a subject to obey than to wish for empire and to govern kingdoms.”
Cassius:
Well, you know, I don’t want to obey, but I don’t want to wish for empire and govern kingdoms either, you know. I want to live my life largely as I want to live it and let other people live theirs as they wish. And there’s a section that I wish I could quote in actually one of the Platonic dialogues where one of the people takes that position, and I’m not going to be able to quote it today. But I don’t think personally your only choice is to be an emperor or to live in a cave, and that would be a false option to suggest. But having said that, it’s not illegitimate to make the observation he’s making here — that it’s a whole lot safer to be living in your small house in the suburbs out of the big picture than it is to be a king or to go after building an empire.
Cassius:
And again this is all very important stuff. The next sentence I’m looking at: “let those that will tire themselves in vain and spend their blood and their sweat in climbing the narrow track of ambition, for the highest of them all are blasted with envy as with a thunderbolt, and the higher they are the more they are exposed, since they depend wholly upon others for their wisdom, and try things more by their ears than by their understanding.” Well, you know, ambition can be a dirty word in the world today, and I can understand why. But I don’t think that translates into always just going for the minimum you can go for. I can’t imagine that Epicurus thought that ambition as a concept — or at least as we understand it today — is always wrong.
Don:
I think it goes back to what does it take to get there, because from what I’m seeing in the other sections too, it seems to be that he’s saying you know the unnecessary desires are the ones that you have to just strive and struggle with and that you’re not going with the flow, so to speak.
Cassius:
And saying that is helpful, but again I think you have to parse down: what does it mean to strive, and how much effort is okay? And maybe that’s the point we need to be making at this particular point too — I think the biggest error that people can make here is to think that there is a bright line, to think that there’s an absolute standard and something that they can look to. Certainly in Epicurean philosophy you wouldn’t look to God or to Platonic ideals or whatever. But I think today people think in those terms and they think there’s a magic answer for them as to what is necessary in life and what is not. And I think that if you read Epicurus as saying that there’s a bright line, I think you can make a big mistake. Because again — suppose you’ve got a one-room cave and you decide you’d really like to have a two-room cave. Is that ambition? Is that necessarily wrong in Epicurean philosophy to wish for two rooms to your cave instead of one?
Don:
Well, you’d have to say why do you want your second room — is it to keep up with the Joneses in the next cave over and so they have one room so you have two rooms, or is it because you actually need the room for storage, or if your food is going bad you need another room to keep the food in, away from the cave bears and that sort of thing? So is there a good reason or is there a vain reason to have your second room in your cave?
Don:
So you’d have to look at the reason, your motivation for it. I think you’d also have to look at what is the cost — what are you going to have to do to get it? Are two-room caves right next door very easy for you to find and it’s just a matter of moving over there, or do you have to raise an army and go after and start conquering the village in order to get it? And I think that addresses the idea of living moderately or living economically, living within your means. Because you have to see what are your personal means — I mean do you have the money to do it, and is it not going to hinder you in other parts of your life? Then go ahead and do it. If it’s going to take all the money you have to build your second room in your cave and you’re going to be penniless and have a problem getting food afterwards, then that’s probably not a good idea to add your second room on right now.
Cassius:
Well so what if somebody comes to you, Don, and says, “Well, you know, Don, what you’ve just said is very complicated. I don’t know how to make that calculation in my own life. I came to you to give me the answer. I came to you to teach me Epicurean philosophy so I would understand what the right answer was. Why aren’t you giving me the right answer?”
Cassius:
And you close the door and you say, “Have a nice day, and figure it out for yourself.”
Don:
That’s the thing. I think you’ve hit on something there. I think Epicureanism is very much a philosophy of personal responsibility, because as you said you can’t point to a divine text, you can’t point to the gods, you can’t point to culture — it’s all about how it affects you as an individual. Your own personal pleasure — and your own personal pain — you use to calculate what would be the right path to go down. As Rolfe Humphreys would say: that’s the way things are. I’m not saying it’s a great thing, and I can understand people being sad that there’s no God to tell us what to do, or being upset that there’s no formula that gives us an absolute rule. But that’s the way the universe operates, based on atoms and void — that’s just the way things are. There is no absolute answer to these things that suits everybody all the time everywhere. And I think that scares some people. I think that it’s not easy. But in some respects it is — if you listen to your own pain and pleasure and calculate your courses of action based on that, and looking forward know what this action is going to do for you in the future, it can be very simple, or you can make it very complicated.
Cassius:
This is probably part of that bitterness that Lucretius has talked about several times — that you need to rim the medicine cup with honey to get people to drink it down. Because until they understand, they can be repelled by the idea. It’s so much easier to think that God will answer these questions for them, or that they can just go to a particular book and be told what to do. You know, as Lucretius has mentioned here, it’s much safer to obey than to wish for empire — so it would be safer if there were an absolute answer to be given to these questions. But it’s just not there in the way the world operates. It’s up to you to use your faculties and follow prudence and wisdom for the purposes of living happily.
Don:
I really have to go back and I’ve been trying to find the word that translates as “obey” in there, just to see what the implications of that word are. So I will try and find that and post it to the forum later on.
Cassius:
Right. I mean that clearly is a subject that they talked about pretty regularly — was how to deal with the kings and dictators and so forth and whether you should pay court to the kings or not. I think they had a lot of back and forth about whether it was correct for a philosopher to do that or not. Martin, we haven’t heard much from you. I want to make sure that as far as ambition goes — how do you place the word ambition in context in Epicurean philosophy? What’s good ambition versus bad ambition, or is all ambition bad, or how do you analyze that?
Martin:
Ambition directed toward pleasure is actually what we need. I mean we need something to drive us to do the things which we need to get the pleasure we’re aiming at. So that ambition to get to pleasure — which I don’t have when I’m just meditating in the cave — then this is certainly something to go for.
Cassius:
And so maybe we can move on after that comment there. But stating it that way is another example of the issue that I see so often in discussions of Epicurus on the internet — it is very easy to just say that ambition, as a word, as a concept, is something that Epicurus denounced and said you should get rid of all your ambition. There’s the quote about — I forget who he said it to — but he said to somebody that if you wish to improve his life, reduce his desire. Do you remember the exact quote?
Don:
It was to him that Epicurus addressed the well-known saying, urging him to make Pythocles rich — but not rich in the vulgar and equivocal way — and then the quote is: “If you wish,” said he, “to make Pythocles rich, do not add to his store of money, but subtract from his desires.”
Cassius:
Okay. And it would be easy to take a passage like that and translate it into something that’s just a flat rejection of all ambition. But I certainly don’t think that would be a legitimate way of looking at it. And in such a thing — now that we brought that up — that’s what I was forgetting was the context in which he was saying it. Was he talking about just happiness? If you want to make him happy, reduce his desires — that would be again another situation to go looking at the original word. But you said “rich,” so it sounds like he’s talking in the context of money, and I think he’s definitely using “wealthy” in a metaphorical sense, because I think that’s some of that clever wordplay that Epicurus can do in his writing — he will use one word to mean a couple different things.
Don:
The one that I always like is the one where “we are not compelled to live under compulsion” and he uses like the same word three times in different ways.
Cassius:
Let me try to move us past the first passage we have here for today. But before we go from the first passage — let me just once again note the last part of this. In this Brown translation it’s kind of denouncing these people because “since they depend wholly upon others for their wisdom and try things more by their ears than by their understanding.” Now, you could use that one for the many times when people talk about, “oh, the Epicureans just did exactly what Epicurus told them to do. They never used their own minds. They never disagreed with each other. They just simply accepted exactly what Epicurus said.” But this is a pretty clear statement — presuming the translation is good — that you don’t depend wholly upon others for your wisdom, and you don’t just try things more by your ears than by your understanding. Wisdom and understanding are very important attributes of being a competent Epicurean.
Cassius:
I don’t know — again, I hope that the Latin backs up what Brown says here — but “this is the present case, it always was so, and ever will be.” That’s almost like a biblical “this is the eternal state of mankind.” And the thing that struck me as Martin was reading that, and you bring it up again, is the idea of the political figure, the politician who takes a survey and whatever the survey says, that’s what they say. And if another survey says something different a few days later, then they take that position. And so they’re just waving in the wind with public opinion and they don’t use their own rational mind to sort of figure out the best course of action.
Cassius:
Yeah, okay, well, now looking at the clock I see that we’re not even getting past the first two passages here today in our discussion. So I’ll put something in the podcast to break it up. If we go to the second passage, we now start talking about the interesting aspect of how the kings get slain, then he talks about the very dregs of the people who enjoy bringing the mighty down, but how men got weary of living in a state of force and eventually of their own accord fell under the power of laws and the bonds of justice. And so there’s a lot in there too. I don’t want to make too light of it. Don, you want to attack it?
Don:
Oh yeah, I think that he’s definitely talking here about the formation of that idea of his natural justice, and that it’s always a compact among a community, and that there’s nothing imposed by nature — because obviously he’s talking about situations here where people were running amok and committing all kinds of crimes, and that’s why they had to finally decide that if they were going to continue to live as a community they needed to come up with some sort of framework under which they all agreed that okay, this is how we’re going to conduct ourselves.
Cassius:
Martin, what do you think about this one?
Martin:
Let me check some words. So this one is a bit — I’m still trying to figure this one out. So he is describing first the overturning of the king, and then it seems he jumps back to how it happened — a long, long time before that — something that was even before rule was established. But I’m not sure whether I see this right, whether “and therefore the wisest” and so on — he would go back in the past before the kings and explain how it happened that people would accept kings. Is that correct?
Cassius:
Now that you mentioned that, it does seem like he’s going back and talking about before the kings came along.
Cassius:
I wonder if there’s a problem with one of the manuscripts, that some sections got transposed and that’s how they’ve stayed. But I think you’re absolutely right — it seems like they’re going back and talking about before the kings came into power. Okay, now I’m not entirely with you guys yet. I think we’re talking about what’s listed as paragraph 1136 now. I certainly see where they’re talking about deposing kings. But do you think that there’s an implication that the use of laws and magistracies had been there before the kings? I was thinking that the kings came first — I was thinking that the kings were sort of a logical extension of the individual local warlords, or whatever, the individual powerful people running around in small tribes. I didn’t see an implication that there were laws or magistracies before the kings. But do you guys see that somewhere?
Martin:
I think he looks at this more from a general perspective. So that means — because kingdoms wouldn’t start just from nothing. So you first needed to have some organized village, then an organized assembly of villages, and eventually it would be a big enough area that you could call it a kingdom. And so something had to happen first at the basic community level. And I think it’s really going back to that level. Because in most cases the effect of the evolution is that the old king is dead and the new king takes over the power — so that means it’s just the succession between the kings. And what he’s talking about there is really something different.
Cassius:
Now this may be again an interesting difference in perspective based on Martin’s Germanness and what I would perceive as the cooperativeness-and-get-along-with-each-other background that maybe is more Germanic than is like in the United States. I’m thinking of like little robber barons — what would you describe it, Don? If you’re following the idea that humans are first forming themselves into small little tribes and so forth, I’m thinking that the earlier form of organization would be just the strongest man of the tribe exerting his will over the local people around him, which essentially makes him a little local king or local dictator as the first thing that would occur. So straighten me out, Don — what’s going on?
Don:
It just seemed like we were talking about the formation of laws and things like that a little while ago, like a couple sessions ago, and now we’re again talking about the same thing.
Cassius:
Now I agree with that, there might be some back and forth in the text here. But in just looking at this passage separately, I think I heard Martin saying that he’s talking about within this passage — society might have a richer history, and that’s what Martin said a moment ago — is that you know certain types of people… You were talking last week or the week before, Martin, about a more communal or community-oriented type of culture, like perhaps as in Africa, I remember using that example. I guess you could see some societies just going immediately into a local law-agreement type of arrangement. But I’m thinking that there are also going to be societies where you’re just going to basically have the rule of force by the strongest of the local people, and he’s not going to care about what other people think. And definitely that seems like what he’s talking against — because the one line here is “for this reason men grew sick of a life of brute force” — so he’s definitely looking at getting some laws in place, and not just might-makes-right.
Martin:
I mean, if you look back at what is known about the ancient Germanic tribes, it was a mutual thing. It was not that the leader of the tribe would just be something like a powerful guy imposing his power — it was the other way around. The people chose him because he was the strongest, or the best leader, or he was the one who was lucky in leading people. He had luck when he was leading troops in an unavoidable fight. So they basically swore allegiance to him because they expected him to protect the community in the best way possible. And they would then help him because he knew he could organize them in the way that they could defeat enemies. So it was more like this mutual thing. And if a king or leader — typically they wouldn’t even be called “king” by those ancient Germanic tribes — if he was no more lucky, then one ambitious guy could easily push him away. And that new ruler would then be accepted normally easily because he showed that he had the fortune to take over.
Cassius:
Exactly, so you’re saying that if somebody seemed to be able to lead the community and to get things done, and the tribe was in a better spot than they were with the old guy, they would accept the new guy because, “hey, we’re in a better situation now.”
Martin:
Yes, exactly. It was pointed out that it was highly unusual that one leader after an injury was limping — and normally if the leader was limping he was immediately replaced, because that meant he had lost his fortune, the ability to win. But there was one leader who was so well regarded that despite eventually limping he could still keep being the leader. But it was pointed out that this was an exception that was not the rule. Normally if the leader was limping or in any way badly affected, that would be the pretext that the next guy in line would use to push him aside.
Cassius:
Well, I think we got off on this discussion because we’re talking about what this might say as to whether there was any issue of sequence. In fact, I think what I remember is that Martin was trying to process whether there was an implication that you would go from kings back to an earlier type of order. And I don’t want to introduce another set of factors, but almost certainly you’d have to think about what Lucretius was thinking of through the Roman example — because I’ve always thought there was some ambiguity in the story of Romulus and Remus versus the formation of the Roman Republic with the deposing of the Tarquinian kings. You’ve got to probably factor in something that these people would have been thinking about, since he was a Roman writing to another Roman.
Don:
That’s a good point. I hadn’t thought of that, because the kings came first in Roman history and then the Republic came after that. So you know, if you put it that way, I guess that does seem like that’s what this paragraph could possibly be referring back to as well — because if the kings were deposed and then there was some disorder after the kings, and then they decided to try and drop some codes and laws, and then that’s where the Republic came from, so you can see that as a parallel with this paragraph.
Martin:
It doesn’t really match, because these kings were not Roman kings — they were from another people which ruled over the Romans at that time. So basically by deposing those kings they also got rid of the rule of that other people above them, so it was more like a liberation for the Romans. So it doesn’t really fit into this one. I really think this refers to… there’s a jump in the paragraph going from toppling a king to — long before kingdoms were established — how society came to be organized. Because if you look also at the history around the time of Lucretius, already basically the Empire had been established, and this would not go away — it would not be replaced by something else. It’s just that another emperor would take over.
Cassius:
As we begin to think about bringing today to an end, I would say that probably the second passage we ought to bring back to the issue of again whether there’s a bright line or not — because the line I’m focused on right now is “therefore the wisest among them taught the rest to settle a magistracy and to establish laws by which they would be governed.” I think when he says that the wisest among them taught that, that is certainly an approving attitude towards what happened, and that doesn’t mean that they all retreated back to live in their own individual caves. They set up a legal system, they set up magistracies — somebody has to be the magistrate. And I don’t think it’s wrong under the Epicurean picture to wish to be a magistrate or to wish to have a legal system. And you could say that that is ambitious as well.
Don:
And I think that it’s important to note that the Epicureans would prefer a stable just society in which to live, because then that makes it easier to pursue your own pleasure.
Cassius:
And I would say to that — of course that’s the right answer. The idea that these people out there on the internet will say that Epicurus says to go live in a cave, never participate in government — that is the stupidest thing I can possibly think of. And I have a feeling if Epicurus were here to say that, he would be as upset about it as I would be right now in my kind of caricature of the question. Because it is so ridiculously short-sighted to think that you have the ability to retreat into a cave and live by yourself and just never have the problems that intrude from the outside world affect your life. If you don’t watch what’s going on, if you don’t participate as necessary in order to maintain your circumstances in that kind of steady state that you’d like them to be in, then you’re not going to live as happily as you could otherwise.
Cassius:
There’s no guarantee that you’re going to be successful in managing those circumstances, so there’s always the possibility that you’re not going to succeed and that you’ll get into a war and be taken down unjustly by criminals or something like that. But if you don’t use some degree of observation and some degree of prudence to evaluate your circumstances and adjust to them — then to me, if I were Epicurus and I heard somebody suggesting that I had a bright-line view of living in a cave, I would slap them in the face.
Don:
Yeah. I mean, you have to go back to — I mean the whole idea of the “live unknown” thing that people take sometimes, you know, living solitarily and living by yourself and not being involved, just doesn’t make any sense in the whole context of — I mean the school was founded in a garden and he welcomed people into the group, and so there was a whole group ethic in being part of a community of Epicureans. That doesn’t make any sense if you try and extrapolate to living a solitary life somewhere. That was never a part of the philosophy.
Cassius:
Right. I think this probably is a good point for us to begin to draw today’s discussion to a conclusion. So Martin, what final thoughts for today? Since we’ve gotten maybe twenty percent of the way into the text that we were supposed to get into today, but it’s still been an important and I think good discussion.
Martin:
No, I’ve said everything. I’m fine.
Cassius:
All right, well Don, I will look forward to talking about the gods next week.
Don:
That’s right. We’re basically continuing this thought and taking a couple of variations of it. But next week, if we keep it at this rate, we’ll take three weeks before we get through these passages we set out for today. But this is some really interesting stuff that I think has general interest among the people who follow Epicurus and Lucretius. So we’ll try to give it the attention that it deserves.
Cassius:
And with that maybe we should close for today and come back next week. So thanks a lot.
Don:
Thank you.
Cassius:
Okay, bye bye.
Don:
Bye.