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Seneca and Social Media

2/22/2021

I have been marinating in the philosophy of the ancient Greek and Roman Stoa and, in particular, Seneca's letter. Seneca was one of the great Roman bureaucrats, orators, and philosophers. His letters weather well, and even though, obviously, Seneca did not have access to modern technology, I wonder what his opinion of the media-scape would be.

I think, on the whole, Seneca would be negative. Social media is mostly a narcissistically driven enterprise interested in clicks, emotive baiting, uncritical thinking, partisan rancour, and censorious attitudes.

Yet, it has helped me access content and has provided fodder for my contemplation - provided that I take the time to contemplate and not plunge into the media-scape for more information. But alas, J'accuse!

But this problem lies with me, of course, and here the Stoics help as well. Still, Seneca's caution about using words in his letters is as proper today as when he wrote it.

Seneca is responding to a friend who listened to a philosopher, Serapio. We don't have Seneca's friend's letter but based on Seneca's response, we can glean what his friend thought of this philosopher's delivery. Seneca's response is a good one for anyone posting on social media, including me.

'His words,' you say, 'tend to be tumbled out a tremendous pace, pounded and driven along rather than poured out, for they come in a volume no one voice could cope with''. I do not approve of this in a philosopher, whose delivery - like his life - should be well-ordered; nothing can be well regulated if it is done in a breakneck hurry...You should take the view, then, that this copious. and impetuous energy in a speaker is better suited to a hawker than to someone who deals with a matter of great importance and is also a teacher.

We, who use the media and produce content no matter how small (such as this blog) or large (such as networks and popular content creators) should take Seneca's letter to heart.

Seneca argues that we should avoid polemics or inflammatory prose in our language. Instead, "language, moreover, which devotes its attention to truth ought to be plain and unadorned. This (the political and popular media rhetoric of his day and ours) has nothing to do with truth. Its object is to sway a mass audience, to carry away unpractised ears by the force of its onslaught. It never submits itself to detailed discussion, is just wafted away. Besides, how can a thing possibly govern others when it cannot be governed itself.

I think we need vigorous, sustained debate on many of the economic, social, and cultural policies affecting our world, particularly post-pandemic.

The Stoics argue that fear should not govern our life, and this emotion should not drive what we know to be the social good. Yes, we need to protect the vulnerable but the cure cannot be worse than the disease. This advice applies to pandemic responses and responses to so-called dangerous ideas on the internet. Free expression and free flow of ideas are essential for humanity. It is part of the divine logos that inheres in each of us who are part of the cosmological whole.

So free expression - YES. At the same time, take heed, though, people communicating on the internet or cable t.v. should embody Seneca's advice on their use of language!

A way of speaking that is restrained, not bold, suits the wise person.

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The Cosmopolitan Stoic

2/8/2021

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The term the cosmopolitan conjures up in the popular mind the image of the wealthy jet setter moving around the world and travelling to different countries with ease on their private jets; sipping champagne and oblivious to the provincial arguments of national politics. In this sense, the cosmopolitan could be the economic, neo-liberal globalist. This is not an attractive look for most progressives these days.

There is deeper sense of the cosmopolitan and one rooted in the Stoic philosophers. It is this Stoic sense of the cosmopolitan that I want to discuss. Much has been written of Stoic cosmopolitanism. The genesis of the term is widely attributed to the Cynic, Diogenese (the polar opposite of what we would understand in the popular mind as the cosmopolitan). When asked where he was from, Diogenes famously replied, “I am a citizen of the world (kosmopolites)”. There has been a wealth of commentary on what Diogenese meant by this phrase. Philosophers and historians agree that the Stoics inherited and developed the idea of the Cosmopolitan directly from the Cynics. There is excellent analysis by Martha Nussbaum and John Sellars on this very question. Sellars' article, in particular, is very good if you want a comprehensive history of the idea of the cosmopolitan in the context of Zeno’s Republic. But I want to offer my own take on what Diogenese may have meant when he said that he is a citizen of the cosmos.

One clear, fundamental doctrine of Stoic philosophy is that the cosmos is ordered and filled with Divine light and intelligibility. This is in contrast to the idea of chaos being a characteristic of the universal order. The Greeks often juxtaposed chaos and cosmos in their narratives and this interplay can also be seen in the first chapter of Genesis as well. Because nature (or the cosmos) had such order and intelligibility, we should strive to live in accordance with its rhythms argued the Cynics. In some ways, we also possessed the light of the cosmos in our consciousness suggested the later Stoics. The mode of this light or wisdom in human consciousness was debated - but what wasn’t debated was the fundamental nature of the cosmos as order, intelligibility and light.

Our lives need to be ordered to the cosmos and not social conventions which actually thwart and frustrate that ability. For this reason, the Cynics eschewed social conventions and the Stoics also argued that the acquisition of wealth or external status would not lead to a fulfilling life and would not make one a philosopher (lover of wisdom). One had to give themselves over to wisdom which in some way had a divine character expressed and shaped by the cosmos. This does not mean that the Stoics believed that wisdom was a revelation of the Divine order (as the Christians would argue). Instead, humans resemble the divine to the extent that they can order their mind as the cosmos orders nature.

But, in order to do so, one had to first discipline the mind and the appetites through struggle. The image of the one struggling or the wrestler is invoked by some of the Stoics. It is this psychological struggle that enables one to break free of provincial attachments and social conventions and manifest the divine wisdom and spark (or fire) of human consciousness.

This brings me to what I think Diogenese meant by being a citizen of the world (cosmos). He was not necessarily referring to political identification with the planet, or even the human species (pace Nussbaum). I think Diogenese meant that his identification was with the transcendent reality of the cosmos. It was this reality he belonged to and lived out of. Whether others shared in that collectivity was not something the Stoics were concerned with. Their politics was in that sense anarchic; they desired neither to rule over or be ruled by anyone. Theirs was a collectivity and “citizenship” based on style of thinking or temperament or philosophical outlook. In that regard Sellars’ analysis of Zeno’s republic is on point in that there is a kind of community or group of people who are “citizens of the world”. But this citizenship cannot be an affectation but must instead be an experiential mode of being – almost like secular monks - but even freer than monks who are often bound by a monastic rule. Nonetheless, there is a rule that the monastic/philosopher/Stoic adheres to and it is the rule of the cosmos as expressed by the sages. But it is different than a vowed life of monasticism although it is a committed lifestyle (and yes an ascetic one at that!)

There is a resurgence of popularity of the Stoics and this cosmic dimension of their philosophy is not something that can be denied as anachronistic and bound in pre-Modern notions. Instead, the idea of the cosmos as, in some sense Divine, is part of the foundation of their ethics and physics. Certainly, the mathematical and scientific representation of the physics can change - and so can the mode or presentation of the conception of cosmos. But one thing is clear – the cosmos is well ordered, logical, and full of life (if not Life itself). Living in accordance with this cosmos is the very foundation of what it is to be a Stoic. And it was this that I think Diogenese was driving at and which animates my philosophy of life as well.

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What is in a meme?

2/1/2021

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The meme is an interesting phenomenon that has accelerated since the internet. Meme’s are primarily very in-group styled images or terms that have deeper resonances to certain ideas or impulses that are part of the community.

It has usually been the right that has had an uncanny ability to create and generate meme’s that circulate widely and then take on different interpretations for different groups for different reasons. Alt tech and different groups develop these meme’s sometimes to denote irony. The meme takes on a life of its own as it is circulated throughout the online community.

This brings me to the Bernie meme. This is an interesting one on multiple levels. The Bernie meme has even surfaced in Canada with Justin Trudeau using it and sharing it on Twitter. But what does it mean?

The meme shows Bernie Sanders sitting in the cold of the inauguration with a winter jacket and hand-made mittens looking bored and curmudgeonly.

I am less enthusiastic regarding the meme as others. They argue that this a new era of just good fun. I do not see it that way. I doubt that I have to share with readers what Bernie Sanders represents in terms of economic and domestic policies in the US. He ran for president in the Democratic primary twice. Both times establishment Democrats moved aggressively to sideline his candidacy.

Neo-liberal economic policies currently drive the planet and the US is a primary leader in that global economy. This ideology largely drives all parties in North America. Those who stand outside of that ideology exist, but as long as the establishment can contain those movements as essentially rump movements that provide a valve for portions of the population so they feel they have a voice in the democratic life of the community, the establishment is happy.

BUT if those movements get too large and dominant, they need to be quashed and crushed quickly. This meme has the effect of representing Bernie as the harmless, eccentric, old uncle - ranting and raving about economic justice as the kids‘ eyes glaze over. They chuckle and say – good old Uncle Bernie. Funny, maybe right in some ways, but essentially harmless.

This meme provides the perfect context to create a powerful image of Bernie in the minds of people. It is a way to contain the ideology he represents to a humorous meme that exists as a sub-culture but will never rise to prominence in the economic order.

Bernie is playing, and being played as, the fool. But you readers should not be fooled – stay alert, awake, aware, and engaged.

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Seneca and Social Media

The Cosmopolitan Stoic

What is in a meme?

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