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Ancient Philosophy As a Way of Living:
Cynicism
by Jacob Bell on April 18, 2022
By Jacob Bell, Contributing Writer, Classical Wisdom
I’ve made some rather strange and unexpected decisions that fall outside of the social and
economic norms of our 21st century. The American Dream, at least for me, is dead… and in a
way, I may be loosely following the Cynic dream instead. I say loosely because the Cynics of
Ancient Greece were a very radical group.
The school of philosophy known as the Cynics emerged sometime around the 5th century
B.C.E., and began to fade out nearly one thousand years later, in the 5th century C.E. The Cynics
played an important role in influencing several other schools of philosophy, such as the Stoics,
who adapted and evolved many of the core tenets of Cynicism (and left out much of the
craziness, such as public defecation…)
Statue of an unknown Cynic philosopher from the Capitoline Museums
in Rome. This statue is a Roman-era copy of an earlier Greek statue from
the third century BC.
As opposed to the speculative philosophy of figures such as Plato and Aristotle, Cynical
philosophy was a lived philosophy. The Cynics developed philosophical theories as a means to
living well, and they disregarded the majority of abstract philosophy.
The Cynics argued against a superficial life, in favor of “a life lived in accord with nature.” For
them, living in accordance with nature meant following a path of self-sufficiency, freedom, and
lucid reasoning. They believed that social conventions had the ability to hinder the “good life,”
and could lead to corruption by, “compromising freedom and setting up a code of conduct
that is opposed to nature and reason.” Kinda sounds like the hippy at the house party if you ask
me…
Are Hippies Cynics?
For the Cynic, nature could provide plenty of entertainment and pleasure. They found comfort
and happiness in simple pleasures such as going for a walk, feeling the warmth of the sun, and
drinking a glass of cool water on a hot day.
All of which I agree with by the way… except I would swap out the water for a nice cold craft
beer, which would probably be too pretentious for the true Cynic. Oh well.
This is because the Cynics denounced luxury and wealth. They believed that in its pursuit, man
had to busy himself day in and day out with unnecessary tasks. For the Cynics, a life of frantic
action for the sake of wealth or power was absurd. This sort of living would cause both the
ancient and modern man to stray from nature, and would instill in him a need for
superficialities that would never be satisfied. Never being satisfied, and always wanting more,
man would become a slave unto his desires.
The most famous among the Cynics was a man named Diogenes of Sinope, often referred to as
Diogenes the Dog due to his radical behavior, including public defecation. Clearly, he took
Cynical philosophy to the extreme. He embraced pain, hardship, and poverty. He lived in a
ceramic tub, ate scraps, and gained most of his goods through begging. Diogenes the Dog
passed the time by making fun of social convention, and calling attention to the absurdity of
robotic-like behavior by those around him (even to the likes of Alexander the Great!)
“Alexander and Diogenes” by Caspar de Crayer. Diogenes once asked Alexander the Great to
stand out his light.
Diogenes viewed much of mankind’s pursuits in a Sisyphean manner. That is, just as Sisyphus
carried the boulder up the mountain day in and day out, just to have it roll back down, man’s
pursuits for wealth and power were just as futile and meaningless.
We needn’t follow the exact values set forth by the Cynics in order to benefit from their
wisdom, because, well, that would be following a social convention and would defy the whole
idea of Cynical philosophy! Instead, we can see the benefit in simplicity, and we can look
inward to our own values. We can unchain ourselves from restrictive social convention, and
cultivate a life that we find fulfilling, and which brings us meaning.
I’m not suggesting that you quit your day job, or that you pursue an ascetic life. In staying true
to the Cynics, it would be wrong for me to tell you how to live. But it’s not necessarily a bad idea
to take a Cynical perspective and reevaluate things from time to time in order to pursue what
you find internally fulfilling and meaningful. After all, no matter our state of wealth or poverty,
none of us gets out of this alive, and so we might as well be the ones to choose the boulder
that we carry up the mountain day in and day out.
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