Every morning I spend a little bit of my precious simulation time studying the wisdom of others. Lately, I have really been immersed in the land of the Stoics. There's just something about a philosophy that derives its name from the word porch, but I digress.
Anyway, one of the books that I am currently reading a chapter from every morning is, Lives Of The Stoics: The Art Of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius. There's something so eye opening about learning about the lives and experiences that shaped the people whom you are trying to learn from. Something that is often lost in our very fast-paced, informational, knowledge-driven lives is the importance of historical and cultural context. It's so easy to hate on an ancient Greek slave owner using our modern ethical sensibilities. Yes, I just said that, #cancel me now.
This morning's chapter was on Cicero. Yes, the Cicero that is mentioned you know, in that little Shakespearean play Julius Caesar, only one of the most prolific figures of the ancient Roman world.
What's interesting about Cicero, is that one can't really call him a Stoic, yet he was a student of stoicism. He apparently couldn't (or didn't want to) apply the whole principled and conscience driven aspects of the philosophy to his life. In fact an, "oracle had warned Cicero early to let his conscience guide his life, not the opinions of the crowd, but for someone as driven as Cicero, such a warning was impossible to heed."
I stopped and thought about that line a lot as I read through Cicero's story. His ambition and drive for notoriety without temperance led him down an interesting and often tempestuous path. There were some very high highs and some super big downers, you know like having his property taken and getting executed.
Not that you can avoid getting executed or having your property taken from you by living a virtuous life, but any student of Stoicism knows that those things (property and wealth) should be preferred indifferents, which means that they really aren't that important in the grand scheme of things. By grand, I mean living the best life while being in control of the only thing you can control, your mind.
Still, as I age, I find myself being less and less judgmental about how people conduct themselves. Some folks are driven by the desire to rise above their station. Some, like in the case of Cicero it seems, are so much so that they make decisions that aren't at all that virtuous, align with what they spout, or cause outright harm. It was later when I was having a conversation with my podcast cohost that I really had one of those consciousness fish-slapping moments regarding this idea.
Almost every Thursday my cohost and I have what we like to call, Therapy Thursday. We both sit down with some form of tea or drink and chew the existential fat for an hour or two. During that time we typically glean a direction for that week's podcast topic or make a decision or two about what we want to do as voices in the world. It's pretty great.
Well, B was telling me about this New York Times reporter who was hanging out on the Clubhouse app. Apparently she was just looking for someone to say something that was horrible, so she could prove her predetermined opinion (Clubhouse is potentially dangerous because unmoderated free speech is bad) with selectively plucked evidence.
You see, this morning I read a tweet from the New York Times that said basically that the media and the elite are concerned about us plebes having "unfettered" access to free and open linguistic exchange. You know, we need to be reined in because the free and open exchange of ideas can result in stuff like racism, sexism, etc...
Well, she found her evidence, apparently some people were talking about how the Wall Street Bets folks call themselves the R word. Forget that they were talking about the word retard in the context of how people were using it to describe themselves, it's a bad word and bad words run amok in places that aren't controlled. Immediately, this creature sounded off about how horrible the platform was, there were people on it disparaging the disabled. Blah, blah, blah, we've all heard the manipulative virtue-signalers battle cries.
Here's the thing. I got to thinking about this lady in context with what I read about Cicero. I don't know her any more than I know Cicero. Interestingly enough though, I wonder if both of them thought that they were good people and were fighting a good fight when they strode around manipulating situations for the furtherment of their own status. Because that's what it is, isn't it? Looking for infractions and taking them out of context, only to shout them to the mob in order to look like a righteous purveyor of virtue isn't really about you being virtuous at all, rather it's about edifying your need for notoriety. It doesn't matter if it was done in a market square in ancient Rome or on Twitter. Manufacturing sensationalism for the sake of enhancing one's own reputation or furthering one's cause is about the one (you) not the many.
That doesn't mean the person doing it is a bad person though. In fact, I am willing to bet they think they are a just creature doing good work. It's just that they aren't overly concerned with their ethics regarding how they get their results or conduct themselves. Therein lies the problem. It's nothing new for humans with passion to use causes and situations to try to elevate themselves, now we just have a much more massive platform to stand on as we do it. I don't think the NYT's lady is evil any more than I think that Cicero was evil. Rather they just have a skewed focus of what is actually important and a propensity to put their notoriety ahead of their held principles. We should all strive to have the discipline to fight for our convictions for the right reasons.
Of course, these are just my thoughts about it all, thoughts of which I am happily open to evolve through discussion. I'm a big believer in the concept of debate not hate. Personal attacks on people when they espouse their currently held ideas on topics is devolving personal discourse and learning at a rapid rate, and I want to be a part of the solution rather than contributing to the problem. So bring on the discussion! I love it!
And unless otherwise cited, all of the images in this post were taken or made on the author's tired of everyone being so gosh darned mean to everyone in order to feel good about themselves or to further their position in life iPhone.
