readoldthings | Entries tagged with stoicism

Another note on Anger from Seneca.

How often we seem to grow angry with Clodius for banishing Cicero, with Antony for killing him! Who is not aroused against the arms which Marius took up, against the proscription which Sulla used? Who is not incensed against Theodotus and Achillas, and the child himself who dared an unchildish crime? Singing sometimes stirs us, and quickened rhythm, and the well-known blare of the War-god's trumpets; our minds are perturbed by a shocking picture and by the melancholy sight of punishment even when it is entirely just; in the same way we smile when others smile, we are saddened by a throng of mourners, and are thrown into a ferment by the struggles of others. Such sensations, however, are no more anger than that is sorrow which furrows the brow at sight of a mimic shipwreck, no more anger than that is fear which thrills our minds when we read how Hannibal after Cannae beset the walls of Rome, but they are all emotions of a mind that would prefer not to be so affected; they are not passions, but the beginnings that are preliminary to passions. So, too, the warrior in the midst of peace, wearing now his civilian dress, will prick up his ears at the blast of a trumpet, and army horses are made restive by the clatter of arms. It is said that Alexander, when Xenophantus played the flute, reached for his weapons. None of these things which move the mind through the agency of chance should be called passions; the mind suffers them, so to speak, rather than causes them. Passion, consequently, does not consist in being moved by the impressions that are presented to the mind, but in surrendering to these and following up such a chance prompting.

Among faithful Catholics, for whom the confession of sins to a priest is necessary for salvation, there is an issue known as scrupulosity. This is the process of constant self-judgment and self-recrimination which can drive a person insane if it goes too far.

Now, whether the Catholic Church, by mandating confession, sets people up for this sort of mental disorder is beside the point. If you look at manuals on how to make a good confession, scrupulosity is often addressed, and the would-be penitent reminded that they do not have to confess, as sins, those fleeting thoughts and emotions which enter their minds in response to external stimuli.

The sin is not a sudden feeling or thought. The sin is acting upon the sudden feeling or thought.

***

I've noticed that the comments have dropped off as I've pushed this particular piece of Seneca's, and I'm going to turn to something else soon. But there are at least two reasons I want to work with this one.

The first is straightforward enough. I think Seneca is right about the passions in general and anger particularly. When I was growing up, when a family member would fly off the handle and go on a screaming fit, it would be attributed to their "Italian temper." Later on in life, I heard the same things about "Irish tempers" and "Polish tempers." On a similar note, I've heard the following reasons given for drunkenness: Irish, Polish, German, Italian, Russian, Japanese, Korean. I conclude that people simply like making excuses for their bad behavior. (It's worth noting that in almost every case, the individuals in question were American, at least according to their passports.) I don't want to be that way.

The second is that anger, as I've written before, our society is designed to lead us about by our passions. PR men, advertisers, and political hacks use the instincts toward rage, fear, lust and sociability to overcome our reasoning minds and lead us toward whatever behaviors they like. They use tv shows, commercials, memes, and social media tricks like "Downvotes" and "Like buttons." And we end up like cattle, led to despise certain groups and behaviors, support this or that candidate, and repeat the words of others instead of thinking our own thoughts.

Just a few minutes ago, I looked at Facebook, and I saw the following "conversation." One woman posted a lengthy account purporting to be the story of a man who received the coronavirus vaccine and had a very bad adverse reaction. Another woman commented "I am grateful to have received my vaccine this week. Trust the science." Now, "Trust the science" is not even grammatical, since "The science" is not a discrete thing, preferably a person, in which one can place trust and distrust. Moreover, I can guarantee that the woman who insisted that we "trust the science" has not spent so much as 30 seconds looking at or considering any of the scientific research around the vaccine, nor would she even be able to do so if she wanted to. And, of course, the words "Trust the science" are not her own. It's a slogan which was probably cooked up by the kinds of think-tanks whose job it is to produce easily-marketable talking points. She either heard it on TV or read it on the internet somewhere.

Of course, the first woman is just as guilty. Her part in the conversation consisted of re-posting someone else's words, verbatim, without comment. Does she have her own thoughts on them? Who knows. In both cases, you have human beings acting not even like animals, because animals at least make their own yowls, cries and growls. They're acting, instead, like robots. When you were a kid, did you ever turn two wind-up toys loose on the kitchen floor, to try to get them to "fight" each other? That's virtually all that most of us are these days. Little toys, wound up and set against each other by people with the minds of children.

In the name of God, let's try and be better than that! "If you can control yourself, no one else can control you."

More Seneca:

There can be no doubt that anger is aroused by the direct impression of an injury; but the question is whether it follows immediately upon the impression and springs up without assistance from the mind, or whether it is aroused only with the assent of the mind.

Our opinion is that it ventures nothing by itself, but acts only with the approval of the mind. For to form the impression of having received an injury and to long to avenge it, and then to couple together the two propositions that one ought not to have been wronged and that one ought to be avenged - this is not a mere impulse of the mind acting without our volition. The one is a single mental process, the other a complex one composed of several elements; the mind has grasped something, has become indignant, has condemned the act, and now tries to avenge it. These processes are impossible unless the mind has given assent to the impressions that moved it.

Maybe we can remember this, and be slower to wrath when YouTube or the television gives us the impression of a vicarious injury.

Seneca describes our age of Facebook politics:

Reason grants a hearing to both sides, then seeks to postpone action, even its own, in order that it may gain time to sift out the truth; but anger is precipitate. Reason wishes the decision that it gives to be just; anger wishes to have the decision which it has given seem the just decision. Reason considers nothing except the question at issue; anger is moved by trifling things that be outside the case. An overconfident demeanour, a voice too loud, boldness of speech, foppishness in dress, a pretentious show of patronage, popularity with the public - these inflame anger. Many times it will condemn the accused because it hates his lawyer; even if the truth is piled up before its very eyes, it loves error and clings to it; it refuses to be convinced, and having entered upon wrong it counts persistence to be more honourable than penitence.

More Seneca:

Aristotle says a that certain passions, if one makes a proper use of them, serve as arms. And this would be true if, like the implements of war, they could be put on and laid aside at the pleasure of the user. But these "arms" which Aristotle would grant to virtue fight under their own orders; they await no man's gesture and are not possessed, but possess. Nature has given to us an adequate equipment in reason; we need no other implements

I'm always happy to see anyone criticizing Aristotle

A final note from Seneca's On Anger, to say farewell to 2020:

"It is impossible", says Theophrastus, "for a good man not to be angry with bad men." According to this, the better a man is, the more irascible he will be; on the contrary, be sure that none is more peaceable, more free from passion, and less given to hate. Indeed, what reason has he for hating wrong-doers, since it is error that drives them to such mistakes? But no man of sense will hate the erring; otherwise he will hate himself. Let him reflect how many times he offends against morality, how many of his acts stand in need of pardon; then he will be angry with himself also. For no just judge will pronounce one sort of judgement in his own case and a different one in the case of others. No one will be found, I say, who is able to acquit himself, and any man who calls himself innocent is thinking more of witnesses than conscience. How much more human to manifest toward wrong-doers a kind and fatherly spirit, not hunting them down but calling them back! If a man has lost his way and is roaming across our fields, it is better to put him upon the right path than to drive him out.

Reflecting on the year just past, I find myself greatly tempted to anger with my fellow Americans. I can't figure out how it's possible to believe that what one sees on the television is real, or not to realize that major media corporations manipulate the mind and emotions of their viewers on purpose. At my worst, I want to start screaming at people for behaving little better than cattle.

This is precisely the behavior that Seneca would have me avoid. And isn't he right? Haven't I been equally as foolish? Don't I need pardon from time to time, and, given that, hadn't I better offer it to others-- even if it seems that they've deliberately replaced their brains with the voice of Don Lemon? And if they are acting like cattle-- can you blame a cow for being a cow?

While the TV news has been terrible, 2020 has been, for me, one of the best years of my life, and I'm sorrow to see it go. Thank you to everyone who has been reading and commenting on this blog. See you next year, everybody!

More from Seneca, On Anger:

May virtue be spared the calamity of having reason ever flee for help to vice! It is impossible for the mind to find here a sure repose; shattered and storm-tossed it must ever be if it depends upon its worst qualities to save it, if it cannot be brave without being angry, if it cannot be industrious without being greedy, if it cannot be quiet without being afraid - such is the tyranny under which that man must live who surrenders to the bondage of any passion.

I had a situation recently where I had to confront someone-- an extremely unpleasant individual, who I dislike immensely. When I think about this person, I'm stunned at how a human being could let themselves become so vicious, and so needlessly cruel. And yet, during the confrontation, I lost my temper, and the whole thing degenerated into a shouting match. What did that accomplish?

That's the sort of thing Seneca is talking about, here. We should be able to be brave without anger; and work hard without being greedy; and be quiet when it is appropriate, not because we are intimidated into silence.

It's easier said than done!

More Seneca, because we all need this right now.

God, I say, is showing favour to those whom he wills shall achieve the highest possible virtue whenever he gives them the means of doing a courageous and brave deed, and to this end they must encounter some difficulty in life. You learn to know a pilot in a storm, a soldier in the battle-line. How can I know with what spirit you will face poverty, if you wallow in wealth? How can I know with what firmness you will face disgrace, ill fame, and public hatred, if you attain to old age amidst rounds of applause, - if a popularity attends you that is irresistible, and flows to you from a certain leaning of men's minds? How do I know with what equanimity you would bear the loss of children, if you see around you all that you have fathered? I have heard you offering consolation to others. If you had been offering it to yourself, if you had been telling yourself not to grieve, then I might have seen your true character. Do not, I beg of you, shrink in fear from those things which the immortal gods apply like spurs, as it were, to, our souls. Disaster is Virtue's opportunity.

Let's continue with Seneca's On Providence:

Among the many fine sayings of one friend Demetrius there is this one, which I have just heard; it still rings in my ears. "No man," said he, " seems to me more unhappy than one who has never met with adversity." For such a man has never had an opportunity to test himself. Though all things have flowed to him according to his prayer, though even before his prayer, nevertheless the gods have passed an adverse judgement upon him. He was deemed unworthy ever to gain the victory over Fortune, who draws back from all cowards, as if she said, "Why should I choose that fellow as my adversary? He will straightway drop his weapons; against him I have no need of all my power - he will be routed by a paltry threat; he cannot bear even the sight of my face. Let me look around for another with whom to join in combat. I am ashamed to meet a man who is ready to be beaten."

I don't want to belabor this point, but I'll say only this: I've faced many hard things in this lifetime, including violence and death. I know others who have faced similar things-- often they're combat veterans, recovering alcoholics or drug addicts, or both. I find that such people have an appreciation for the goods of life that people who have never suffered simply cannot have, and that they also have an ability to remain unperturbed in the face of adversity.

I don't love suffering and I don't wish for any more in this lifetime. I give thanks to God for the moments of peace I have been afforded, for my teachers, my family, and all the blessings which Providence has granted me. But suffering comes, nevertheless, and my prayer is that I will always be ready to face it as a brave man, ready to face down whatever Fortune has to bring to me.

Today, a passage from Seneca's work On Providence--

No evil can befall a good man; opposites do not mingle. Just as the countless rivers, the vast fall of rain from the sky, and the huge volume of mineral springs do not change the taste of the sea, do not even modify it, so the assaults of adversity do not weaken the spirit of a brave man. It always maintains its poise, and it gives its own colour to everything that happens; for it is mightier than all external things. And yet I do not mean to say that the brave man is insensible to these, but that he overcomes them, and being in all else unmoved and calm rises to meet whatever assails him. All his adversities he counts mere training. Who, moreover, if he is a man and intent upon the right, is not eager for reasonable toil and ready for duties accompanied by danger? To what energetic man is not idleness a punishment?

Wrestlers, who make strength of body their chief concern, we see pitting themselves against none but the strongest, and they require of those who are preparing them for the arena that they use against them all their strength; they submit to blows and hurts, and if they do not find their match in single opponents, they engage with several at a time. Without an adversary, prowess shrivels.

These are words to remember in hard times. If we follow Plato, we had at least some role in choosing to be born in this place, at this time-- or else it was chosen for us by guardians who are wiser than we.

I was born in the early '80s. That makes me either a very young member of Generation X or a very old Millennial, depending upon which timeline you follow. I like the term X-ennial, referring to those of us who straddle the generational cusp. We were born into the world prior to the rise of the Devices, but we came of age with them. We were also born into a world in which the country was at peace and its power unquestioned-- but we came of age with the global wars and the rise of the surveillance state. Now we're entering a new era in which all of the trends of the preceding two decades are converging upon a kind of bizarre medicalized totalitarianism, with a creepy racial undercurrent. To put it bluntly, it sucks.

Earlier in the same passage, Seneca says that "God does not make a spoiled pet of a good man; he tests him, hardens him, and fits him for his own service." If the times are hard-- and they are-- let us be willing to say so, but let us also give thanks for the opportunity to become stronger, and wiser, than we were.

You can never go wrong by looking to Epictetus, though the following saying is a very difficult one.

Never say of anything, “I have lost it,” but, “I have restored it.” Has your child died? It is restored. Has your wife died? She is restored. Has your estate been taken away? That likewise is restored. “But it was a bad man who took it.” What is it to you by whose hands he who gave it has demanded it again? While he permits you to possess it, hold it as something not your own, as do travelers at an inn.

None of the external things of life are ours. Not our homes or our possessions, not our spouses or our children, not even our bodies, and not even our minds. All of them are on loan. If we can keep this in mind, then, instead of being overcome when we lose them, we will be grateful for the time when we have them.