Environmentalism

Seneca seems to be an environmentalist, but a strange one. He maintains that nature is under man's domain. In On Benefits, he writes:

So many pleasant groves; fruitful and salutary plants; so many fair rivers that serve us, both for recreation, plenty, and commerce: vicissitudes of seasons; varieties of food, by nature made ready to our hands, and the whole creation itself subjected to mankind for health, medicine and dominion.

But he also gives this amazing portrayal of environmental destruction, in Of a Happy Life:

How long shall we covet and oppress, enlarge our possessions, and account that too little for one man which was formerly enough for a nation? And our luxury is as insatiable as our avarice. Where is that lake, that sea, that forest, that spot of land; that is not ransacked to gratify our palate? The very earth is burdened with our buildings; not a river, not a mountain, escapes us. Oh, that there should be such boundless desires in our little bodies! Would not fewer lodgings serve us? We lie but in one, and where we are not, that is not properly ours. What with our hooks, snares, nets, dogs, etc., we are at war with all living creatures; and nothing comes amiss but that which is either too cheap, or too common; and all this is to gratify a fantastical palate. Our avarice, our ambition, our lusts, are insatiable; we enlarge our possession, swell our families, we rifle sea and land for matter of ornament and luxury. A bull contents himself with one meadow, and one forest is enough for a thousand elephants; but the little body of a man devours more than all other living creatures.

Wow. This section has got to be one of my favorite Stoic writings. Notice he doesn't blame businesses, the government, or society. He places the blame on us, and our desires. Stoicism is a cure, but only on an individual level.

The Stoics can see the problem, but even they do not seem to believe that Stoicism will ever be universal. Because of this, it is not a practical solution for environmental problems. But all those that can recognize the truth, and can curb their own appetites should do so. Limiting our desires will not only help the environment, it will make us lead better lives.

Introduction to Stoicism

This blog kind of jumped right into things, because I was writing for myself. I still am (this blog has virtually no readership at the time of this post), but in case someone does stumble upon it, a summary of Stoic thought might be helpful.

First, I'm not an expert. Second, the Wikipedia entry is a fine place to begin. That entry is a well-rounded article, but here I am only presenting a very short summary of the facts that I find interesting.

The history of Stoicism starts with Zeno the Stoic at around 300 B.C., and became popular among the Greeks, and later, the Romans, being eclipsed by the adoption of Christianity not long after the death of the most famous Stoic, Marcus Aurielius. Most of the writings we have are from the later period of Roman Stoicism.

Modern usage defines Stoicism as a sort of dour unshakability. The unshakability part is right, but Stoics are really supposed to be joyful. I'll explain why shortly.

Stoic philosophy is based on logic. We have to really understand the truth, the reality of all we experience, and we do this based on logic and knowledge. From that logic, the Stoics have figured out a way of life that is designed to maximize our morality and our serenity.

The key insight promoted by the Stoics is to realize that we have no control of our destiny, and therefore by desiring things we cannot control, we invite unhappiness, anger, envy, and more. Because of this, we should not desire things that we cannot be guaranteed of having. Instead, we should desire only correct behavior from ourselves, and this is indeed within our reach (although difficult). So, for example, if you are filled with greed, instead of asking how you can become rich, it's better to ask how you can learn to decrease your dependence on money.

The Stoics take pains to point out how empty everything we work for. Fame is transitory; even the most famous will one day be forgotten. Money can only buy things, and the truth is that we don't need much.

Furthermore, we should prepare ourselves from the blows of life. We will eventually part with everything we love, because either we or they will be destroyed. Change is constant, and nothing we treasure will remain. Emotions such as grief are not to be suppressed, but neither should they grow beyond what is healthy. To be consumed beyond reason with grief is as bad as to give in to lust or avarice.

The Stoics invited us to detach ourselves from our fate, but they also wanted us to be involved in society. They were not hermits and were only somewhat ascetic. This is not a religion, although the Stoics tended to be religious. There are no sacrifices to be made here, except your desires.

According to the Stoics, accepting and practicing their philosophy will allow us live in morality and tranquility, whatever happens.

That's the basics. For a more thorough treatment, I highly recommend William B. Irvine's writings. From there, you can start to read the works of the Stoics themselves.

Control

Humans have a deep-seated psychological need to feel in control of their lives. In Daniel Gilbert's great book, Stumbling Upon Happiness, he describes our lives as a boat in the ocean. We feel better having our hand on the oars, even if our efforts are drowned out by the currents underneath. This is of course illogical, but as many illogical things are, deeply human.

Besides the illogical thinking, there's a more harmful side-effect for the need to control. When faced with tragedy, we always think that it can somehow be brought under control. If only Bob was more careful, he wouldn't have lost control of his car in the ice, killing himself. If only Janet was a better mother, her son wouldn't have robbed that bank. These are things we find ourselves thinking when hearing about misfortunes that really are pretty random. If helps us assure ourselves that events are controllable, and understandable. This is a persistent error in human thought, and has brought a lot of misery. To take just one example, autism was thought to be a defect in parenting, so perfectly fine parents found themselves not only having an autistic child, but also being accused of having caused it as well. The habit of blaming the victim must be as old as human nature.

Blaming the victim comes across in subtle ways, one of which is the "positive thinking" meme. Many people say you must be positive during adversity. Especially with medical issues. But, as a recent New York Times article points out, this is a myth. Studies have shown that personality or positive thinking has no outcome on illnesses. There are things you can do to help yourself, such as take your medicine regularly and be informed about your sickness, but ultimately, you have little other control over how your illness will go.

Stoicism is more clear headed. You don't have to control your life. In fact, you have no control, as the Stoics repeatedly point out. What you need to do is to behave correctly. That's it. You don't have to have a positive outlook if you are sick. In fact, that would be wrong, since the Stoics always insight on knowing a true accounting of things. Instead, you just have to behave correctly. It isn't easy, but it is possible in all circumstances.

This isn't a letting go of control, of course. It just shifts it. We don't control others, or nature, or anything else external to us. We can only control how we handle things. So we trade off the notion of a sweeping but illusory control with a self-contained but true control. With true control, perhaps, we might get true happiness. Others will benefit too, as we stop blaming the victims.

Seneca's On Anger

I recently read Seneca's essay On Anger. He makes a compelling case for the problems of anger, and makes a decent rebuttal to the charge that anger is sometimes useful. For handling anger, Seneca generally gives the normal Stoic philosophical points: essentially saying there is no use getting angry if you have not been harmed.

Seneca includes many quite gruesome and horrible examples of anger, which make pretty good stories (more on this in a later post). I like to imagine that if he was writing today, his examples would include the textbook case on the stupidity and futility of anger: Zidane's provocation and expulsion in the 2006 World Cup Final, which arguably cost France the World Cup.

I've been trying to get anger under control in my own life, and I think I have. I don't believe I ever had an unusually bad problem. Just normally bad. I'd get angry at my kids, my spouse, my computer, anything. What's worse, getting mad at an inanimate object, or getting angry at your loved ones? I still do lose control, occasionally. But not that much, and I don't get as angry. There's another benefit as well: by me not getting mad, everyone seems to be getting along better.

I've become used to checking my anger, and, surprisingly, sometimes I no longer even feel it. I don't even get mad at the idiot on his cell phone standing right at the top of the stairs to the subway. Now, I can accept the subway idiot as a fact of life, and just go around.

Inhuman

See not that your feelings to the inhuman are not those of the inhuman to the human.

- Marcus Auerlius

One of my current favorite Stoic quotes.

Mindfulness & society

Stoics talk a lot about society, and how important it is. We are social animals. I'm interested in differences between Stoics and other self-help methodologies, and the insistence on our inherent sociality, and the stress on being a good part of society is fairly unique to the Stoic school.

I was watching a great YouTube video on mindfulness from Dr. Siegel. He makes a very interesting case for the importance of the middle prefrontal cortex, a central, highly integrated region, in behaviors that we consider fairly essential for healthy human behavior. He lists the following functions of the middle prefrontal cortex:

1. Regulate body (heart / lungs, etc.)
2. Enable attuned communication
3. Balancing of emotions
4. Extinguishing fear
5. Enabling pausing before action
6. Insight (self-knowing awareness)
7. Empathy
8. Enabling morality
9. Intuition

What is interesting is that many of these functions are either explicitly social or enabling effective social behavior. Dr. Siegel notes that these sort of represent what we think of as a "soul". I think that's sort of correct, but I'd have to add that memories are also a really important part of that abstract concept. At any rate, the linkage of these concepts into a single unit is a fascinating concept, and I think it is a powerful support for the Stoics claim of the primacy of social behavior.

Even more interesting to the concept of society is Dr. Siegel's note that, in one case he describes, a single member of a family that does not have a healthy middle prefrontal cortex harms the harmony of the entire group, and causes the mental health problems to spread. Society is important; we need to be mentally healthy to contribute well to it, and by contagion, mental health problems can damage the network and damage all the participant's mental health.

Marcus Aurelius writes:

As you are a member of society yourself, so every action of yours should tend to the benefit and improvement of it. So that when you do anything which has neither immediate nor remote reference to general advanatage, you make a breach in your life, destroy its unity and are as really guilty of seditious behavior as a malcontent in an assembly, as far in him lies, disturbs the general harmony.

New Years Resolutions

New Years Resolutions, although evidently an old practice, aren't talked about by the Stoics as far as I've read. But, I think that the modern method of stating goals as desired outcomes is not very well in keeping with Stoic philosophy.

For example, if your goal is to lose weight, this is actually something you don't have direct control over. We can't control our weight directly, but only our actions that are likely to lead to weight loss or gain. So, instead of a goal that says you want to lose weight, set a goal that says you will not eat unless hungry. Or a goal that says you will only eat a dessert once a week. These are goals that can be accomplished, and since they can be accomplished, they are easier to stick to.

To take another example, instead of having a goal to get promoted at work, which is something out of your control, you can have a goal to improve the quality or quantity of your work.

In essence, we are less setting goals than setting good habits for us to follow. This seems much easier, and much less stressful, than goals.