Month: November 2008

On seeking advice…

Should not the guide be of a wiser and more virtuous sort than the troubled?

Friendship is the only good connected to external objects, as the other goods are virtues and reside in the spirit. Yet friendship is not severed from the internal goods, as a bond of loyalty and compassion is necessarily predicated on the sublime virtues, lest it decay and implode. In this fashion friendship can become a shared good between persons, a pact as resolute as conviction in the cardinal goods, transcendent of the caprice and destruction of fortune. This companionship is the only bond worth pursuing, as all other relationships are worthless and fall to the wayside in the face of misfortune or change of circumstance. Of these latter delusions which fade and are now as they never were, it is ideal to rather devote our labors to great projects, so as to not waste time and patience. But how can friendships based upon the altar of virtue and fealty be constituted? By offering it to all, and holding a high scrutiny of the character of others, albeit a silent scrutiny. In this manner the wise enrich the world with acts of kindness, magnanimity and heroic generosity while expecting nothing back, only content to offer their loyalty to those who value, and more importantly live, in the nature of the camp-bed and cloak, the Greek lifestyle. When we do encounter those tempered of forming a virtuous friendship, we must seize upon it, for that sort of companionship is rare as it is precious. Until then, keep this maxim constantly in mind:

Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company. – George Washington

Gather all we cynics and outcasts-
Bastard line of the insensate kindred.
Monolithic, we are what won’t sway in the wind.
We do not fall.

As we feel deeply and think long,
We give rise to compassion-
This is how we trouble ourselves.
In the mockery of flesh this is dissimilar.

Here malcontents are made,
Wrought forth in the hammering of the human spirit.
A rising of iconoclasts to disunite those bonded in apathy.
Here malcontents are made,
Skeptical of the ascension of man.

All embattled we cynics and outcasts,
Raze and reshape the accepted social ordered for total rehumanization.

–

I am a cynic and an outcast,
A human affront to inhuman beings.

The study of virtue is the study of living well, for a virtuous person cultivates ideal human characteristics with heroic duty in order to establish a constancy of excellent behavior; the virtues are selected cornerstones of goodness, serving as a foundation for proper and exceptional human behavior, qualities which we must strive toward achieving and in the process embody the good life. Rather than live by following mere rules or commands the virtuous person strives to enrich his character, punishing himself more severely than a judge ever could in the face of failure or infraction, looking past laws to focus on greater goods, basing his life on the practice of those ends. Virtue can both be reflected in personal conviction as well as in the aspirations of a larger community; but in both cases must be practiced by individuals in order to come to fruition. In this manner virtue is an exercise rather than a framework, requiring constant embodiment and labor. The classical virtues defined by the ancient Greeks as ideal qualities of a good man include temperance (self-control), prudence (wisdom), fortitude (courage) and justice (honesty, magnanimity). A man practicing the virtue ethic would ask of every thought, action, decision and judgment: am I behaving with restraint, insight, bravery and fairness, am I behaving in an excellent rather than a merely satisfactory way? In this way the vices and moral corruption are avoided: intemperance, imprudence, cowardice (dispiritedness) and injustice. Where personal behaviors fail to adhere to these standards of conduct, self-scrutiny is exercised, contingent on the virtue of justice, as no other man may judge the quality of another, in adherence to the doctrine of things in and outside of our control (ref: Epictetus).

The virtue ethic is in great contrast to most modern ethical systems which judge the good of their actions dependant on legality or the net attainment of happiness. This grubby mode of life leads to civic and communal atrophy, as the nature of people degenerates to mediocrity and a self-centered existence in which desires and indulgences remain untempered in the face of social decay. What makes us obviously happy may not be the wisest choice, and this notion is lost on the contemporary society, which has no knowledge of how to live well or how to judge the justice of a situation, and instead has become reliant upon the opinions of others in guiding their behavior, dangerously corrupted by government and media demagoguery. It must at least be said that the guardians of our society must behave with virtue, as their offices require a more demanding character and greatness of spirit than the common citizen’s pursuits, in that their service impacts the whole of the community. If this latter behavior is governed by desires and a bare and wavering adherence to mediocre laws rather than inspiring ideals, the state disserves the people, more interested in serving its own ends rather than securing the wellbeing and flourishing of its people. A cultivation of virtues breeds exemplary character and behavior, traits most deserving of high offices. In this manner the public servant must embody the virtues so as to fulfill his duty properly.

Yet virtue is not simply a vessel to bring about proper conduct in government, as a virtuous doctor remains steadfast in his labors and treats the grieving with magnanimity and fairness, while a virtuous teacher grades indifferently, treats the misbehaving student with tempered justice and has the courage to defend “controversial” papers against the administration. Virtue is synonymous with behavior consistent with an exceptional human, an aspiration rejected by modern cynics with hollow and meaningless phrases such as “we’re only human,” degrading the human spirit to nothing but a shadow of its true potential. The sole good in life is living well through virtuous conduct and treating fellow humans with love and justice, as nothing else deemed “good” (money, sex, drugs) by the popular society survives destruction or cannot be taken away from us. The “goods” of the common people are transitory and in flux, destroyed in an instant, capricious and at the whims of fortune, while the virtues brand in the spirit. Ultimately, society will not stop decaying until the TV is turned off and serious effort is put toward educating the children in how to behave with prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance.

Grasping happiness has been the eternal quest for a great measure of humanity. Governments have risen and fallen out of a demand for a reprieve from suffering and a return to social justice and fairness, the “pursuit of happiness.” In truth it is neither governments nor religions which can ensure the happiness of an individual but rather the prudent exercise of his reason and will. At the root of unhappiness is the common behavior of attempting to control, expect of or rely upon things which are not surely in our control. Things surely in our control are our own actions, decisions, judgments, aversions, inclinations and beliefs. Nothing else, including our bodies, our fortunes, the opinions of others, the perceptions people hold of us, esteem, prestige, wealth or family are in our control. We must therefore be capable of enduring their destruction as well as events which afflict us in an undesirable way. The wise man desires little outside of expectations of his own virtue and learns to temper his thoughts with this realization of the state of affairs. Failure to adopt this maxim results in an ignorant perception of reality and relationship and opens the door for grief and despondency in the face of the misfortunes of the world.

One can surely go mad in matters of love, for instance, in which he is rejected and finds no fault in his actions. If he believes that the perceptions and judgments of others are the direct result of his own behavior, he would be able to temper his pain with wisdom and fortitude, but if he forsakes himself for being a failure in matters which he had no ability to control, he will be reduced to turmoil and rage. It is the same, in lesser or greater degrees, with all other things which cause us discomfort and pain: we fail to acknowledge that a certain aspect of reality is utterly and completely out of our grasp, and that we are powerless in manipulating it. This is the behavior of most people, who curse the sky when it rains, are shocked when gas prices rise or fall, or become enraged when their material things (outside of their control) are damaged or stolen by others, as if they transcend death.

This misbehavior is a product of an ignorant perception of reality, and in becoming wiser, the individual finds himself less and less torn by circumstances indifferent to him, and is capable of enduring misfortune with character and grace. If he chooses to cultivate virtues, he can take comfort in knowing that no matter what happens to him, he has acted within the limits of his ability, according to his bond, no less, no more, acting with justice and excellence. There is indeed a sense of contentment in focusing on what is within one’s control and attempting to cultivate goodness and magnanimity, remaining strict with the behaviors of self and tolerant of others. It is this system of perception which has founded the basis of modern Cognitive Therapy and Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy[i].

Another element in unhappiness is the desire-based cultures of Western countries. The classical wisdom of the Buddhist and the Stoic philosophers that to desire less is to be happy more has fallen on ill repute in our modern days of vast consumption and ill-tempered buying extravaganzas. As we live in a culture where our socialization process does not commonly seek to define the good of life, it is branded into us through constant media exposure, indoctrination in a cult of material, that the pursuit of property is the ultimate good. While we pursue property we are never content to fill a function but instead extrapolate grade into purchasing and base our identify upon the quality of what we own, forever seeking a “better” item, inspiring a self-destructive chain of needless consumption in quest for the end-of-the-line and non-existent best.

This endless pursuit, in which people work just to fill invented desires, and rest simply to work more, has exhausted our people into lifeless and constantly fatigued shades who find reprieve from their misery in pills and escapism. Rather than seek these self-destructive pleasures we should instead resign to indulge in more modest ones: good company, simple food, learning and self-cultivation, while searing through our other desires with a flame of reason to discover their absurd foundation. With a little bit of self-esteem and clear perception the illusory desires which once filled our lives evaporate as nothing but corporate slogans poured as poison into our ears. It is possible to feel content once again, arriving at happiness by simply breathing one more second than the dead, assaulted by no sense of turmoil when we hear seductions of the newest model iPod being released, instead satisfied to gather some faithful friends to make music through self-determined labors.

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[i] Jules Evans, “Founder of Cognitive Therapy reveals Stoic inspiration,” Registry Report 12 (November 2008): 2-3.

Beneath me, this awful city, it screams like an abattoir full of retarded children. New York. Somebody knows why. Down there… somebody knows. The dusk reeks of fornication and bad consciences. I believe I shall take my exercise.