The Practicing Stoic. Ward Farnsworth
noble nor shameful. Therefore they are neither good nor evil.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.11
Epictetus also discussed more directly what things we should consider good and therefore regard as sources of delight. Again, he discourages excitement about externals; we should be delighted, or not, with the quality of our understanding, not with the properties of things that aren’t up to us.
Don’t be elated by a superiority that belongs to another. If the horse in its elation were to say “I am beautiful,” one could endure it. But when you in your elation say, “I have a beautiful horse,” be aware that you are elated by the good of the horse. What then is yours? Your way of handling impressions. When you are handing them in accordance with nature, that’s when to be elated. For then you will be elated about a good of your own.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 6
3. Externals and liberty. Epictetus had been a slave. He and other Stoics often spoke of dependence on externals as itself a variety of slavery. Someone attached to externals is enslaved to whoever controls them; Stoic philosophy thus is a way to liberation. Epictetus regarded volition, or will, as one’s true self, and as the only part of us that is free.
Whoever then wishes to be free, let him neither wish for anything nor flee from anything that depends on others: otherwise he must be a slave.
Epictetus, Enchiridion 14
If you gape after externals, you will inevitably be forced up and down according to the will of your master. And who is your master? Whoever has power over the things you are trying to gain or avoid.
Epictetus, Discourses 2.2.25
Man is not the master of man, but death and life and pleasure and pain. Bring me Cæsar without these things and you’ll see how calm I am. But when he comes with them, amid thunder and lightning, and I am afraid of them, what else do I do but acknowledge my master, like a runaway slave? So long as I have only a sort of truce with these things, I’m like a runaway slave standing in a theater; I bathe, I drink, I sing, I do everything in fear and suffering. But if I free myself from these slave-masters – that is, from those things by which these masters are fearsome – what more trouble do I have, what more master?
Epictetus, Discourses 1.29.60
It was a lively feature of Epictetus’s classroom style that those who worried or complained about externals would customarily be denounced as slaves.
No good man grieves or groans, no one wails, no one turns pale and trembles and says, “How will he receive me, how will he listen to me?” Slave, he will act as he sees fit. Why do you care about other people’s business?
Epictetus, Discourses 2.13.17
In short, if you hear him say, “Wretched me, the things I have to endure!” call him a slave. If you see him wailing, or complaining, or in misery, call him a slave – a slave in a toga with purple trim.
Epictetus, Discourses 4.1.57
A toga with a purple border was the attire of Roman senators.
When you see someone groveling before another man, or flattering him contrary to his own opinion, you can confidently say he is not free. And not only if he does this for a mere dinner, but also if it is for the sake of a prefecture or consulship. People who do these things for petty ends you can call petty slaves, while those who do them for grand purposes can be called mega slaves, as they deserve.
Epictetus, Discourses 4.1.55
Seneca saw all of us as slaves in something like this way.
I was pleased to hear, through those who come from you, that you live on familiar terms with your slaves. This befits a sensible and well-educated man like yourself. “They are slaves.” Nay, men. “They are slaves.” No, comrades. “They are slaves.” No, they are lowly friends. “They are slaves.” No, they are rather our fellow-slaves, if one reflects that Fortune has the same rights over them and over us.
Seneca, Epistles 47.1
Show me who is not a slave. One is a slave to lust, another to avarice, another to ambition, and all are slaves to fear. I will name you an ex-consul who is slave to a little old woman, a millionaire who is slave to a serving-maid; I will show you youths of the noblest birth in serfdom to pantomime players! No servitude is more disgraceful than that which is self-imposed.
Seneca, Epistles 47.17
Pantomime players were not silent mimes. They were troops of singers and dancers who would enact scenes from myth and legend. It was a popular form of entertainment in Rome, and the most successful of the players were celebrities.
If you would attain real freedom, you must be the slave of philosophy.
Epicurus, quoted in Seneca, Epistles 8.7
Compare Montaigne:
True and effective servitude is only a concern of those who willingly submit to it and those who try to acquire honor and wealth from the labors of others. One who is content to sit by the fireplace, and who knows how to manage a household without falling into quarrels and lawsuits, is as free as a Duke of Venice.
Montaigne, Of the Inequality Amongst Us (1580)
4. Adding nothing to externals. This chapter has been devoted so far mostly to a single Stoic aim: letting go of attachment to externals. A related set of teachings involves the problem of viewing externals clearly. We have trouble resisting externals because they seem appealing or frightening or otherwise impressive; but they seem that way because we haven’t learned to see them as they are. Seneca thought it worthwhile to look at our reactions the way we do at the reactions of children. The point as applied to externals we like:
How contemptible are the things we admire – like children who regard every toy as a thing of value, who prefer a necklace bought for a few pennies to their own parents or their brothers. What, then, as Aristo says, is the difference between us and them, except that we elders go crazy over paintings and sculpture, making our folly more expensive?
Seneca, Epistles 115.8
Aristo of Chios was one of the early Greek Stoic philosophers, and a colleague of Zeno of Citium – the founder of the Stoic school. The same point as applied to externals we fear:
So remember this above all, to strip away the disorder of things and to see what is in each of them: you will learn that nothing in them is frightening but the fear itself. What you see happening to boys, happens to us too (slightly bigger boys). Their friends – the ones they are accustomed to and play with – if they see them wearing masks, they are terrified. The mask needs to be removed not just from people but from things, and the true appearance of each restored.
Seneca, Epistles 24.13–14
To help with this removal of the mask, the Stoics offer two techniques general enough to discuss here (more specific advice will come in later chapters). First is the practice of adding nothing when an external presents itself. As soon as an event happens, we are quick to assign it a meaning. It is tagged as good news or bad news, as a reason for excitement or outrage, and so on. Or we give it a place in a story that we tell ourselves, long-running or new. Then we react to those labels and narratives and imaginings. Stoicism regards this process as a trap. The assignments of value or meaning that we attach to things are usually half-conscious, borrowed from convention, and false or unhelpful. They nevertheless determine how we feel and what we think and do next. So the Stoics say that our thinking should be slowed down, and imagination should be viewed with distrust – not imagination in its creative capacity, but imagination as “the enemy of men, the father of all terrors,” as Joseph Conrad once called it. When confronted with a report or an event or an object, in short, the Stoic tries to just see it as it is. Any additions are made with care.
“His ship is lost.” What has happened? His ship is lost. “He has been led off to prison.” What has happened? He has been led off to prison. The notion that he fares badly, each man adds