Again, that’s fair enough but it’s not what the word actually means. That’s not how I use the word and it doesn’t seem to be how Peterson…
So let me try to understand… Your argument is that the word “spurned” necessarily entails the emotional experience of anger? So it’s true by definition that being “spurned” means experiencing pain and anger?
Again, that’s fair enough but it’s not what the word actually means. That’s not how I use the word and it doesn’t seem to be how Peterson was using it either. I don’t think most people use the word to mean that, in my experience anyway, and it’s not what the dictionary definition says it means. For instance, the OED defines “spurn” as “to reject or refuse someone or something, especially in a proud way”. There’s no reference to how it makes the person spurned feel. Someone, by definition, can be spurned and nevertheless feel unhurt emotionally.
Probably the majority of men (and women) have at some point surely been “spurned” or rejected disdainfully by someone to whom they’re attracted. But whether or not they have, what difference would that make to the arguments in the article?
So I hear what you’re saying but it’s not my confusion — it’s just that you’re interpreting the word differently from the way that Peterson…
That would be a valid objection on your part except that it’s easy to demonstrate that it’s not what Peterson meant by “spurned”. You’re using the word, I think, to mean an individual who has been consistently spurned by different women throughout life. Fair enough. That’s not what Peterson is talking about, though. He says “First, he feels small, in front of the potential object of his love, after she denigrates his reproductive suitability” — he’s using the word “spurned” in the more usual sense whereby it refers to someone in a particular incident. He’s clearly says that this is how “every” man feels when spurned, not by all women, by individual women.
So I hear what you’re saying but it’s not my confusion — it’s just that you’re interpreting the word differently from the way that Peterson is actually using it in this passage.
I run a large Stoicism discussion forum and write books about Stoic philosophy. Periodically, we tend to get posts from people who think Jordan Peterson is a Stoic.
In a sense, that’s surprising. As far as I’m aware, Peterson’s never once mentioned Stoicism and there’s no hint in his talks or writings that he’s ever even read the Stoics. Despite this, some people clearly feel that they’re saying similar things. Then again, there appear to be just as many, if not more, people who have concluded that Peterson’s writings are fundamentally at odds with what Stoicism teaches. One of them is, Massimo Pigliucci, author of How to be a Stoic, who recently wrote an article called simply Nope, Jordan Peterson Ain’t No Stoic.
My personal area of specialism is the relationship between ancient Stoic philosophy and modern evidence-based psychotherapy. (I’m the author of six books on philosophy and psychotherapy, the latest being How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, about the Stoic philosophy of Marcus Aurelius.) Peterson is a professor of clinical psychology; I’m a cognitive-behavioural psychotherapist. So we come, as it happens, from virtually the same professional field. I think it would be impossible to provide a comprehensive overview of Peterson’s writings from a Stoic perspective because there would, frankly, be far too much to address in a single article. Instead, I’m going to focus specifically on the topic of anger.
Why Anger?
Anger is the emotion with which the ancient Stoics were most concerned. We have an entire book titled On Anger from the philosopher Seneca, which survives today. The Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius discusses anger so frequently throughout The Meditations that we might even say it’s one of the main themes of that book. Throughout the centuries, overcoming anger has been one of the main emotional challenges for people interested in self-improvement. Today, it’s a topic of central importance to research in the fields of clinical psychology and psychotherapy. Peterson says a number of interesting things about anger. His writings also happen to contain many examples of angry thoughts and feelings, which are worth evaluating from a Stoic perspective.
I think it’s self-evident that Peterson’s views and behaviour have become highly divisive. Although critics view him as an apologist for certain aspects of right-wing political extremism, such as Islamophobia, he has at times distanced himself from the alt-right, claiming to be a “classic British liberal”. Nevertheless, he often seems to deliberately court controversy. Earlier this year, for instance, he had a fellowship from the University of Cambridge rescinded because he posed for a photograph beside a man wearing an “I’m a proud Islamophobe” t-shirt, seemingly alluding to Peterson’s criticisms of the word. Peterson often uses provocative or quite emotive rhetoric in his talks and writings, which I’ll contrast with the Stoic philosophy of language below.
Most of the online discussions about Peterson I’ve witnessed tended to rapidly degenerate into mud slinging and name calling, etc., from both sides: fans and critics alike. Something about him, perhaps his provocative style, seems to evoke intense anger, which is bound to destroy the atmosphere required for rational philosophical debate. That’s my other reason for discussing this emotion: perhaps explicitly focusing on it will help provide an antidote to the anger that often spoils these discussions. Maybe if we’re talking about the pros and cons of anger, it will remind us to avoid letting anger get in the way.
Peterson on Anger
Peterson’s writings contain much that is obscure. However, he lays out his self-help advice on anger concisely enough in book one of 12 Rules for Life.
Psychological forces are never unidimensional in their value, however, and the truly appalling potential of anger and aggression to produce cruelty and mayhem are balanced by the ability of those primordial forces to push back against oppression, speak truth, and motivate resolute movement forward in times of strife, uncertainty and danger.
Peterson’s book subtitled “an antidote to chaos”, implies that anger is typically unhelpful and cruel when it’s chaotic (mayhem). However, he also says that there’s an orderly and righteous form of anger that can help motivate us to fight oppression, assert the truth, and face danger. This is actually a very old notion, which was mainly associated in the past with Aristotle’s philosophy. Anger that’s moderate, having been mastered and placed in the service of reason, is potentially a good thing. As we’ll see, the Stoics gave reasons for rejecting this whole idea.
Peterson believes that violent aggressive tendencies (“seeds of evil and monstrosity”) are an innate part of human nature. In fact, he says the weak acquire strength of character and self-respect precisely by awakening themselves to this realization.
When the wakening occurs — when once-naïve people recognize in themselves the seeds of evil and monstrosity, and see themselves as dangerous (at least potentially) their fear decreases. They develop more self-respect. Then, perhaps, they begin to resist oppression. They see that they have the ability to withstand, because they are terrible too. They see they can and must stand up, because they begin to understand how genuinely monstrous they will become, otherwise, feeding on their resentment, transforming it into the most destructive of wishes. To say it again: There is very little difference between the capacity for mayhem and destruction, integrated, and strength of character. This is one of the most difficult lessons of life.
Whereas some people might say that we should get rid of our anger, in other words, Peterson suggests that it’s more important to harness our violent and destructive tendencies in the service of our major goals in life.
He says we need righteous anger, and even aggression, to protect ourselves as long as it’s “skillfully integrated” into our actions in an orderly manner.
With their capacity for aggression strait-jacketed within a too-narrow morality, those who are only or merely compassionate and self-sacrificing (and naïve and exploitable) cannot call forth the genuinely righteous and appropriately self-protective anger necessary to defend themselves.
He even claims that those who are capable of feeling righteous anger are, paradoxically, more likely to oppose tyranny and less likely to exhibit destructive or violent behaviour.
Peterson’s account of righteous anger seems to conflate feelings of anger with assertive speech and behaviour. He’s basically trying to argue (or rather he’s just assuming) that genuinely assertive behaviour has to be motivated by righteous feelings of anger. Psychologists have generally sought to avoid confusing these two things, though, since the heydey of assertiveness training in the 1970s. It’s possible to behave firmly, sternly, and even be forceful or aggressive, of course, without actually feeling much of the emotion called anger. Peterson doesn’t acknowledge this distinction. His assumption that assertive behaviour requires righteous anger might resonate with some individuals but it’s definitely not going to be everyone’s experience. It’s also not supported by any psychological evidence. Boxers and martial artists, for instance, may employ violent skills externally, with great success, while nevertheless feeling little or no anger internally.
Likewise, it’s easy to point to countless examples of people behaving confidently and assertively, even in the face of provocation, while remaining calm and without righteous anger. Sometimes people say that they feel certain anger is useful in particular situations. What they usually mean is that aggressive behaviour seems appropriate, again overlooking the fact that someone might speak or act “angrily”, just as actors do, without necessarily feeling angry emotions inside. Moreover, in many cases they’re also confusing anger or aggression with assertive behaviour and what they have in mind are situations where confident and assertive behaviour would be appropriate, which could be neither outwardly aggressive nor accompanied by angry feelings.
Throughout 12 Rules for Life, Peterson alludes to his own violent fantasies and feelings of anger. Sometimes these are on a cosmic scale…
Perhaps Man is something that should never have been. Perhaps the world should even be cleansed of all human presence, so that Being and consciousness could return to the innocent brutality of the animal. I believe that the person who claims never to have wished for such a thing has neither consulted his memory nor confronted his darkest fantasies.
Sometimes they’re generalizations about the burning resentment and feelings of revenge he and other men supposedly experience, by nature, whenever we’re spurned by a woman…
The first woman made the first man self-conscious and resentful. Then the first man blamed the woman. And then the first man blamed God. This is exactly how every spurned male feels, to this day. First, he feels small, in front of the potential object of his love, after she denigrates his reproductive suitability. Then he curses God for making her so bitchy, himself so useless (if he has any sense) and Being itself so deeply flawed. Then he turns to thoughts of revenge.
Sometimes they’re about specific incidents in his life… For example, in his chapter in parenting he describes a female psychologist whose toddler his family were looking after for a day. She said the child probably wouldn’t eat — because he’s fussy. Curiously, though, there’s no indication he was malnourished. Maybe she meant he snacks but won’t sit down for a proper meal. Perhaps he’s already eaten a lot before coming over and will eat again when he returns home. These details of the story remain unclear. Lots of normal kids are picky eaters — it’s usually just a phase. Peterson became extremely angry, though, and as he looks back on the mother collecting her child he fumes dramatically: “Then she departed, black, murderous heart unchanged, doomed child in hand.”
In the coda, Peterson wrote about his arguments with his wife:
On many occasions in our nearly thirty years of marriage my wife and I have had a disagreement — sometimes a deep disagreement. Our unity appeared to be broken, at some unknowably profound level, and we were not able to easily resolve the rupture by talking. We became trapped, instead, in emotional, angry and anxious argument. We agreed that when such circumstances arose we would separate, briefly: she to one room, me to another. This was often quite difficult, because it is hard to disengage in the heat of an argument, when anger generates the desire to defeat and win. But it seemed better than risking the consequences of a dispute that threatened to spiral out of control. Alone, trying to calm down, we would each ask ourselves the same single question: What had we each done to contribute to the situation we were arguing about? However small, however distant … we had each made some error. Then we would reunite, and share the results of our questioning: Here’s how I was wrong ….
What he doesn’t mention, though, is that not all couples argue like this. Some do, obviously, but others don’t. Many of his readers will be in relationships where they don’t frequently experience these intense “emotional, angry and anxious” arguments. If not they may notice that their own parents, or perhaps some of their friends who are with partners, don’t argue as much as Peterson describes. To state the obvious: his is not a universal experience.
Peterson suggests what looks at first like a constructive coping strategy: both parties in the argument try hard to identify what errors they’ve made and then share them with one another. (This sounds almost confessional, although he doesn’t use that word.) However, he warns readers that this only works, of course, if you’re really willing to admit a mistake and change. Strangely then he doesn’t point out that it presupposes the other person’s willingness to do the same. If your main strategy for resolving arguments is to admit mistakes to your partner but they refuse ever to do so then you’re potentially going to end up in a very submissive role, which could easily be used against you by a self-centred or narcissistic person. It’s very surprising that Peterson, of all people, would offer this as a coping strategy for resolving arguments without noting the (rather obvious) risk of it being exploited in this way.
Fans of Peterson often “appeal to authority” and say that he’s a “highly respected psychologist”. (Of course, quite often someone may be respected in one field while remaining unknown or being regarded as a crank in others.) He is, they say, basing what he says on rigorous scientific research and logical arguments. So it came as a surprise to me to read 12 Rules for Life and discover that, in reality, it’s largely based on Jungian psychoanalytic (“analytic psychology”) theories, originating in the early 20th century, before the advent of evidence-based practice in psychotherapy. Large tracts of the book contain what I can only describe as a sort of New Age Christian theology, e.g., his discussions of original sin, and so on. Believe it or not, it’s often these Jungian-inflected theological arguments that he appears to use to justify his conclusions. Indeed, little or no scientific evidence is actually cited by Peterson to support the majority of his claims. In particular, he doesn’t provide any psychological research to justify his main assertions about the psychology of anger. He makes no reference whatsoever to the cognitive theory of anger used in modern evidence-based psychotherapy. Often what Peterson says about emotion actually appears to be contradicted by modern research or clinical best practice.
When someone presents what they’re doing as scientific, and uses the jargon of science, but doesn’t actually provide scientific evidence capable of substantiating their claims we call that pseudoscience. It’s been made to look “scientific” but it isn’t scientific. In that sense, in all honesty, Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life is probably the most pseudoscientific self-improvement book that I’ve ever come across, and I’ve read many over the years.
The Stoics on Anger
So if that’s what Peterson says, what do the Stoics say? Well, for a start, the Stoics directly dispute the Aristotelian premise assumed by Peterson that anger can be used constructively and potentially motivates us to do good things. First of all, it’s very easy to demonstrate that anger isn’t actually necessary in this regard. Although people certainly do sometimes achieve positive things as a result of anger, it seems impossible to find examples of things that have only ever been done this way. Presumably righteous anger against the horrors of Nazism or Stalinism has at times motivated some individuals to take a stand against these forms of political tyranny. However, surely other people have done more or less the same things calmly, without having to draw substantially upon any feelings of anger. Individual boxers have perhaps won fights sometimes by allowing themselves to get angry. Surely, others have beaten them at times, though, while keeping a cool head.
That’s important because anger may be sufficient but not necessary to achieve good things, such as overthrowing a tyranny or winning a boxing match. In other words, there might be a better way of achieving the same result. Perhaps there’s always a better way of achieving the same result, without anger. People motivate themselves in lots of different ways, without having to draw upon anger. Moreover, if there were any disadvantages to anger that would tip the balance in favour of alternative ways of responding. Of course there are: anger, in several ways, dramatically impairs our capacity for clear reasoning.
By analogy, it’s certainly true that you can get energy by eating candy. However, you can also get energy from other sources, such as fruit or vegetables, which don’t have the health disadvantages. You might say that anger is an energy but nevertheless what if it’s one of our least healthy sources of energy or motivation? Candy sure gives you energy but it also rots your teeth. What if anger does motivate you but also rots your brain? Anger is a motivation but is it a healthy motivation?
Peterson appears to take for granted the Platonic view of anger as an emotion that’s separate and distinct from reason. The Stoics rejected this view and argued instead that anger wasn’t just a feeling but also a way of thinking about events. To be angry isn’t just to feel your blood pressure rise but it’s also to think something along the lines of “She’s done something really bad and deserves to be punished.” It’s usually also associated with the perceived threat of some injury whether physical or to our status, self-esteem, or other interests. Anger is therefore often the consequence, as the Stoics realized, of fear or perceived loss. Sometimes these fears can be realistic, however they’re very often imaginary — such as the person who talks as though all foreigners of a particular race or religion are potential terrorists threats. Anger, however, is often also grounded in petty misconceptions of this kind such as the belief that someone has deliberately insulted you when in reality they have not.
Stoicism was the original philosophical inspiration for modern cognitive-behavioural psychotherapy (CBT). Indeed, CBT shares with Stoicism the fundamental premise that our emotions are shaped by corresponding beliefs. Albert Ellis, one of the founders of CBT, used to explain this to students and clients by teaching them the famous quote from Epictetus: “It’s not things that upset us but our opinions about them.” The Stoics defined anger as “a desire to take revenge on someone who appears to have wronged you contrary to what is appropriate.” Aaron Beck, the founder of cognitive therapy, defined anger, similarly, as the belief that someone has committed an offense against you (i.e., wronged you) by deliberately attacking the domain of your interests.
That’s the basis of the “cognitive model of emotion” used both in psychological research and in modern evidence-based psychotherapy. However we define anger, the basic idea that it’s shaped by our thinking is crucial because thoughts can be true or false. Suppose I’m angry because I believe that you’ve insulted me in front of my superiors. What happens if I discover that I’m wrong and you didn’t actually do that? What happens if I discover that you actually praised me instead? My anger will probably abate.
Peterson was furious with the psychologist mentioned earlier, for instance, because he believes she has a “black, murderous heart”. What if he’s mistaken about that? What if he’s overstating her level of malice to himself? What if he’s overlooking mitigating factors such as the possibility that the child had already eaten or that he’s misinterpreted her comment about food? Even uncertainty about these sort of beliefs can reduce the emotion of anger. Discovering that our presuppositions are false can eliminate it entirely.
One of the main practices of Stoicism was the description of events using plain language, without strong value judgments or emotive rhetoric — just sticking to the facts. This concept was called phantasia kataleptike, sometimes translated as “Objective Representation” although it literally means an impression of events that retains a firm grip on reality. You could describe this as a sort of anti-rhetoric or counter-rhetoric — an attempt to remedy the distorted thinking and emotional disturbance caused by our use of emotive language. I think that considered from this perspective it’s surely quite obvious that Peterson’s style is directly in conflict with Stoicism. He makes extensive use of emotionally charged language and strong value judgments throughout his talks and writings, something the Stoics thought is bound to lead to arguments, evoke irrational emotions, and distort our thinking. Whereas Peterson says the psychologist had a “black, murderous heart”, the Stoics would have said “the woman said her child doesn’t need to be fed”, sticking to the objective facts without embellishing them, and left it at that. The Stoic use of language was self-consciously at odds with the use of rhetoric associated with the ancient Sophists, who employed language carefully designed to inflame passions, such as anger, in their audience. Peterson’s use of language, very clearly, has more in common with the emotive rhetoric of ancient Sophists than with the rational, philosophical method of Socrates and the Stoics.
For Stoics, a deeper problem with anger comes into focus when we examine the underlying beliefs philosophically. To become angry we have to believe that the offense against us is very serious, as Beck notes, or even, as Ellis would say, that it’s “awful” or “catastrophic”. However, the Stoics reject the idea that anything external can genuinely be that “bad for me”. What matters is the use we make of the experience. It’s irrational, or unphilosophical, to place so much importance on things beyond our direct control. So, in their eyes, we’re always mistaken when we become angry with other people or external events, insofar as we’re necessarily placing too much importance on things that aren’t inherently up to us. We should focus instead, they say, on improving our own character and the way we choose to respond.
For instance, suppose someone else witnessing the incident Peterson describes with the psychologist’s child believes that it appears bad but, unlike Peterson, they remain uncertain about some of the details, such as the precise intentions of the mother. Suppose they consider their own way of responding more important and rather than getting angry with the mother they instead have a feeling that would be better described as one of determination to clarify things, help the child, and perhaps educate the mother if necessary, combined with a philosophical acceptance that the outcome might not be entirely under their control. We might describe that as a more “philosophical’ attitude toward the whole situation — it would be more in line with Stoic wisdom than the anger Peterson describes.
Indeed, the Stoics rightly argued that “anger is temporary madness” and that it tends to distort our ability to reason. Peterson doesn’t mention this as a disadvantage when employing anger as a source of motivation. Anger makes us stupid by narrowing our scope of attention and introducing pronounced cognitive biases into our thinking. We can’t think clearly when angry. Angry people are particularly inept at rational problem-solving, ironically, the very skill most in demand in the face of a crisis. That’s why we often prefer it if our leaders can remain calm in the face of adversity — they’re less prone to make mistakes and place everyone else in danger if they remain level-headed.
Let’s recap what Peterson says in 12 Rules for Life then, with these remarks derived from Stoicism and cognitive therapy in mind.
The Stoics on Peterson
Peterson claims that the risks associated with anger and aggression “are balanced by the ability of those primordial forces to push back against oppression, speak truth, and motivate resolute movement forward in times of strife, uncertainty and danger.” However, the Stoics would basically object that anything anger can do reason can do better. Plenty of people throughout history have fought oppression, spoken truth, and faced danger, without relying upon feelings of anger to motivate them. Anger can certainly be used to help us in these situations but it impairs our ability to reason calmly thereby introducing problems that are frankly unnecessary because we can always achieve the same things without anger. Peterson’s argument here seems obviously unsound. Just because anger is one way of motivating behaviour it doesn’t mean it’s the best way of doing it, or even a good way in most cases.
Peterson himself claims life’s most important revelation in this regard is: “There is very little difference between the capacity for mayhem and destruction, integrated, and strength of character.” Strength of character, in other words, is sublimated anger — anger we’ve somehow learned to channel in a constructive direction. The Stoics, of course, were particularly interested in this question of what constitutes “strength of character”.
And when you do become angry, be ready to apply this thought, that to fly into a passion is not a sign of manliness, but rather, to be kind and gentle, for in so far as these qualities are more human, they are also more manly; and it is the man who possesses such virtues who has strength, nerve, and fortitude, and not one who is ill-humoured and discontented; for the nearer a man comes in his mind to impassibility [i.e., freedom from unhealthy passions like anger], the nearer he comes to strength, and as [over-indulgence in] grief is a mark of weakness, so is anger too, for those who yield to either have been wounded and have surrendered to the enemy. — Meditations, 11.18
For Stoics like Marcus Aurelius, therefore, strength of character isn’t about learning to accept and channel our anger in a positive direction. It’s about completely uprooting anger by transforming the faulty beliefs upon which it’s based and replacing them with a more rational and coherent set of values. For instance, suppose you’re angry with someone for insulting you. If you truly accept that anger does us more harm than the things we’re angry about then your anger will inevitably dissipate because it no longer makes sense. There’s no such thing as “righteous” anger. (Arguably, we should be particularly wary of individuals who’ve somehow persuaded themselves to think of their own anger as “righteous”.) Strength of character comes from recognizing the supreme value of character, and achieving what the Stoics called magnanimity, literally greatness of soul, by which they meant the ability to rise above external misfortunes and view them as relatively trivial in the grand scheme of things.
This concept is largely alien to Peterson’s thinking. For him, anger is natural and there’s nothing intrinsically questionable about the importance it places on external events, such as perceived insults. At least, he doesn’t question the value angry people assign to externals anywhere near as deeply or systematically as the Stoics do. Peterson advises us to cultivate the capacity for “righteous anger” and thereby integrate our chaotic primal emotions. The Stoics would think that’s just more of the same because whether anger is “righteous” or not, either way it’s still an inherently neurotic, demanding way of thinking that places more importance on events that merely befall us than upon our own character and way of responding to events.
Peterson makes it clear that he takes his own “dark fantasies” to be universal, i.e., he’s convinced you’re a liar if you’ve never wished that “the world should even be cleansed of all human presence”. Well, I’m sure he’d just say that I’m self-deceived, but in all honesty, I don’t recall ever having genuinely wished for the destruction of the entire human race, myself, my loved ones, and even my daughter included. I’ve no doubt many people have thoughts like that at times but it’s nonsense to assume, on the basis of no evidence, that everyone shares those sort of dark fantasies, as he calls them, and that they’re somehow common to everyone. They’re not.
That point is crucial for the following reason. Peterson has a recurring habit of observing angry feelings or violent fantasies of his own and confidently asserting that they’re universal. I think it’s clear that he does this precisely because he ignores or minimizes the role of cognition in shaping emotion. He wants to assume that these sort of violent tendencies are just human nature rather than being the product of specific attitudes, beliefs and values, which he and others happen to hold. That’s precisely what the ancient Stoics and modern cognitive therapists would draw attention to, though.
When people said to Albert Ellis “I know it seems irrational but this is just how I feel”, Ellis would say “no, it’s also how you think.” It’s your philosophy of life we’re talking about here. Peterson’s philosophy implicitly assumes that external events justify our anger, and our desire for revenge. The Stoics think that’s total madness. For instance, a great deal of Peterson’s most influential advice about relationships has to do with his assumption that women are capable of “making” men “self-conscious and resentful” by rejecting their sexual advances.
This is exactly how every spurned male feels, to this day. First, he feels small, in front of the potential object of his love, after she denigrates his reproductive suitability. Then he curses God for making her so bitchy, himself so useless (if he has any sense) and Being itself so deeply flawed. Then he turns to thoughts of revenge. How thoroughly contemptible (and how utterly understandable).
Again, notice that Peterson is claiming this is how everyone, himself included, feels to this day. We can take it that he’s being honest if he is indeed including himself in this, and surely many other men have similar feelings to these, but he’s wrong to assume he’s describing the common experience of all men — he’s clearly wrong about that. There’s no way that “every spurned man” feels small, curses God or Being as flawed, condemns himself as useless, and desires revenge.
As noted earlier, Peterson seems to interpret his own angry and resentful feelings toward women as universal precisely because he ignores the cognitive model of emotion and minimizes the role of cognition in determining our emotions. As we’ve seen, Ellis liked to quote the central psychological precept of Epictetus’ Stoicism, which we could now paraphrase as follows: “It’s not being spurned by a woman that makes you angry but rather your opinions about the experience.”
Surely it’s obvious, though, that many men are spurned by women without feeling the sort of violent vengeful emotions that Peterson claims are universal? Sometimes men are spurned by women and they just think “It’s not a big deal, there are plenty more fish in the sea.” Or they think “That’s her loss not mine.” Or they think “I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.” There are as many emotional reactions as there are ways of thinking about the experience and that’s a big deal because the real revelation is that we can identify, evaluate, and transform our underlying beliefs.
Peterson’s writings lead in the opposite direction, though, further into the darkness of a sort of primitive ignorance concerning the nature of our emotions. In his philosophy, presumably like cavemen, we unthinkingly accept our angry and violent tendencies as human nature without questioning the values on which they’re based. Only when we confuse our thoughts with reality and lose sight completely of their cognitive aspect can we say along with Peterson: “this is exactly how every spurned male feels, to this day… then he turns to thoughts of revenge.”
We’ve seen how Peterson described “emotional, angry and anxious” arguments with his wife where “anger generates the desire to defeat and win.” His solution was for both parties to separate, identify areas where they could acknowledge their own errors, and share them with one another, like a sort of confessional. I mentioned my surprise at this strategy because it’s obviously hit and miss by nature, depending as it does on the behaviour of the other party.
However, it also surprised me because most modern therapists would, like the Stoics before them, begin by pointing out that the anger and anxiety are cognitively mediated. Again, to paraphrase Epictetus, “It’s not your partner’s behaviour that makes you angry and anxious but rather your opinions about what happened.” Peterson doesn’t mention anything like that, though. Perhaps there’s no point becoming angry in the first place because when we do so we fall into the fundamental philosophical error of placing more value upon external events than upon the use we make of them.
[When becoming angry with others remind yourself] that it is not people’s actions that trouble us (for those are a matter for their own faculty of judgement) but the opinions that we form about those actions. So eliminate your judgement that this or that is of harm to you, make up your mind to discard that opinion, and your anger will be at an end. — Meditations, 11.18
Marcus, of course, makes it sound easier than it is in practice. It’s good advice, though, and very consistent with the best research and evidence based practice in modern psychotherapy. Nevertheless, it’s virtually the opposite of the way Peterson talks about anger.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, Peterson’s idea is that anger is natural and inevitable. He wants to claim, for instance, that men inevitably feel enraged and want revenge when women reject them. Peterson has a lot more to say about relationships based on this, which we haven’t gone into here because the premise itself seems demonstrably false. Peterson is one of those people who believe that they know the minds of others better than they know themselves and he’s emphatic that even if you disagree with his interpretation of your motives, he’s right and you’re wrong — he’s the expert and you’re deluded. For instance, he thinks you all believe in God (Peterson’s concept of God, of course) whether you consciously admit it or not:
You might object, “But I’m an atheist.” No, you’re not… You are too complex to understand yourself.
That’s a remarkably dogmatic position for someone in clinical practice to adopt, to be honest — a context in which vulnerable clients are notoriously susceptible to pressure to agree with their therapist’s professed expert wisdom. Peterson consistently shows an unusual degree of confidence regarding his own insights into other people’s feelings. However, he also sometimes displays what I can only describe as a surprisingly grandiose vision of his own importance. For example, at the start of 12 Rules he explains how some of his major insights derive from a dream he had of himself suspended christ-like from a crucifix that forms the roof of a cosmic cathedral:
I dreamt one night during this period that I was suspended in mid-air, clinging to a chandelier, many storeys above the ground, directly under the dome of a massive cathedral. The people on the floor below were distant and tiny. There was a great expanse between me and any wall — and even the peak of the dome itself. […] I knew that cathedrals were constructed in the shape of a cross, and that the point under the dome was the centre of the cross. I knew that the cross was simultaneously, the point of greatest suffering, the point of death and transformation, and the symbolic centre of the world.
Some people are drawn to this sort of narcissism like moths to a flame. They like to be told what they’re thinking by someone who claims to be smarter than them. However, it’s difficult to know what to make of all this. Maybe Peterson is just trolling us about religion when he claims to know better than his readers do whether or not they believe in God. When writing of anger, though, he also appears to want to tell people exactly what they feel. They must, he thinks, be harbouring intense rage deep down about fairly common things — such as being turned down by a woman — whether they’re actually conscious of having such feelings or not. Of course, Peterson might be completely wrong about that — he says nothing to justify these sort of claims.
I should mention that in his introduction to 12 Rules for Life Peterson says “I wrote a list of rules, or maxims; some dead serious, some tongue-in-cheek”, speaking of his post on Quora on which the book was based. So by his own admission, some of what he’s saying is “tongue in cheek” — and designed, as he explains, to get maximum attention by provoking a reaction on social media. The contents of 12 Rules for Life, therefore, including his remarks about anger, are perhaps not meant to be taken seriously. Nevertheless, in my experience many of his supporters take his words extremely literally and assume that he’s being totally serious throughout.
Anyway, in contrast to Peterson, the Stoics and cognitive therapists argue that anger, like other emotions, is cognitively mediated. In other words, it’s not just how we feel it’s also how we think. Anger is an attitude, the product of our beliefs and values. That means it’s not inevitable that things like rejection should “make” us angry. Indeed, it should be obvious that people who experience the same setbacks in life often experience very different emotions.
To take responsibility for our emotions and desires the very first step is to be willing to accept that they do not necessarily reflect universal human nature. The next step is to identify the underlying beliefs that shape our feelings and critically evaluate them, which is what Stoicism tries to do on a grand scale, something that leads in a very different direction from Peterson’s philosophy.
Throughout this article you misspell “Stoicism”, the Greek philosophy, as “stoicism” (lower case), the modern concept of an unemotional coping style or personality trait. They’re two different things, though. A lot of the confusion in these discussions stems from people mixing them up.
I’ve enjoyed watching The Mandalorian and recently stumbled across discussion of the Mandalorian code of honor. It reminded me in some ways of Stoic philosophy, about which I’ve written several books — most recently How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius. (The poster for The Mandalorian, coincidentally, happens to resemble the poster for my forthcoming graphic novel on Marcus Aurelius.) I previously wrote an article about Stoicism as a Code of Honor so I decided it might be interesting also to look at the similarities and differences between Stoicism and the Mandalorian “Canons of Honor”.
I’m no expert on Star Wars lore so I’ll be keeping this comparison fairly simple. Stoicism is an ancient Greek school of philosophy, inspired by the earlier teachings of Socrates, which became popular in the Roman Republic and later in the Empire. Its central doctrine is that virtue or excellence of character (arete, in Greek) is the only true good in life.
The main corollary of this is the view that everything “external” to our own character is ultimately “indifferent” with regard to the supreme goal of life. In other words, things valued by the majority of people such as health, wealth, and reputation — even life itself — are less important than the use we make of them. That means that Stoics are expected to engage in a sort of lifelong training, or discipline, in order to maintain emotional resilience in the face of adversity.
Stoicism is what’s known today as a “virtue ethic”. We’re told, for instance, by the doxographer Diogenes Laertius, that the Stoics described their supreme goal as living “honorably” because the perfection of our character requires wisdom, justice, courage, and self-discipline. These four cardinal virtues provide a template for what we might reasonably call the Stoic “code of honor” or rule of life. We can also substitute the word “virtue” for “canon” and read the Mandalorian code, in a similar way, as teaching the virtues of strength, honor, loyalty, and of facing one’s death with integrity.
The fictional culture of the Mandalorians has several elements but for our purposes the most interesting comparison is probably between the Stoic rule of life and the so-called Mandalorian “Canons of Honor” — from the Greek kanon, incidentally, meaning a rule or philosophical principle.
The Canons of Honor consist of four basic slogans, each of which is accompanied by a short explanation.
Strength is life, for the strong have the right to rule
Honor is life, for with no honor, one may as well be dead
Loyalty is life, for without one’s clan one has no purpose
Death is life, one should die as they have lived
So let’s look at each of these in turn and make some comparisons with Stoicism as a code of honor.
1. Strength is Life
For the strong have the right to rule
The Stoic cardinal virtue of self-discipline, or temperance (sophrosune) might be worth comparing to the Mandalorian canon of strength — for Stoics it’s essentially about self-mastery rather than conquering others. On the face of it, though, the Mandalorian canon looks like an example of the sort of primitive morality found in ancient Greek and Roman society before the time of Socrates. It can be summed up in the familiar slogan: “Might is right”. Socrates disputes this concept in book one of Plato’s Republic, where he basically argues instead that a true king, or ruler, is someone who cares for the welfare of his subjects first and foremost. It would not be mere physical or military strength but “strength” in terms of the art of government that would qualify someone to rule, which we should judge in terms of a ruler’s ability to benefit his subjects — much as a good shepherd is one who cares for his flock.
According to one source (Stobaeus) the founders of Stoicism therefore taught that “only the wise man is a king and regal, but none of the base is” and that “only the virtuous man rules, and even if he does not in all circumstances do so in actuality, still in all circumstances he does so by disposition.” Strength of character, not strength of arms, makes one truly kingly. Moreover, kindness requires more strength than aggression.
And when you do become angry, be ready to apply this thought, that to fly into a passion is not a sign of manliness, but rather, to be kind and gentle, for in so far as these qualities are more human, they are also more manly; and it is the man who possesses such virtues who has strength, nerve, and fortitude, and not one who is ill-humoured and discontented. — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.11
Put very simply, Socrates, and the Stoics, would potentially agree that true kingship consists in “strength” as long as this is interpreted not as physical strength but rather as strength of character, self-discipline, moral wisdom, and even kindness. Indeed, for the Stoics, being a true king or ruler is ultimately a state of mind. For instance, Alexander the Great, although outwardly the most powerful man in the known world, was miserable and a slave to his own passions, whereas Diogenes the Cynic, was genuinely free and kingly, though he lived like a penniless beggar. The Stoics believed, paradoxically, that the (inner) “strength” of character reputedly possessed by Diogenes made him a true ruler, whereas the (external) military strength of Alexander ultimately meant nothing in that regard.
2. Honor is Life
For with no honor, one may as well be dead
“Honor” (kalos) is traditionally another name for “virtue” (arete) in Stoic ethics, which variously defines the supreme goal of life as “living wisely”, “living virtuously” or “living honorably”. However, we could also interpret the canon of honor in relation to the Stoic cardinal virtue of practical or moral wisdom (phronesis). Virtue, honor, and strength of character are all synonymous, in Stoicism, with this sort of wisdom.
The way this canon is phrased reminds me of the Socratic teaching that “the really important thing is not to live but to live well”, i.e., to live virtuously and wisely (Plato’s Crito). Socrates and the Stoics believed that life itself is neither good nor bad, but ultimately indifferent. Life is merely an opportunity, which you can use either well or badly, wisely or foolishly, for good or for evil.
Hearten yourself with simplicity and self-respect, and indifference towards all that lies between virtue and vice. Love the human race. — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.31
Indeed, virtue or honor, according to the Stoics, is what makes life worth living, and like Socrates they believe that virtue consists ultimately in a sort of moral wisdom.
This part of the Mandalorian code brings it very close to the fundamental spirit of Stoicism. As long as we bear this Mandalorian principle in mind, therefore, and remember to interpret the rest of the code in that context, the whole thing becomes more consistent with Stoicism. For instance, take the principle we’ve already discussed: strength is life. If honor is life that implies that, for Mandalorians, “strength” must always be exercised with honor. Serving the brute military strength of a powerful but dishonorable political tyrant, for example, would not be consistent with the Mandalorian Canons of Honor. For the Stoics, indeed, strength (of character) and honor are ultimately just two different aspects of the same thing.
3. Loyalty is Life
For without one’s clan one has no purpose
The canon of loyalty is probably closest in scope to the Stoic cardinal virtue of “justice” (dikaiosune), which really encompasses all social virtues. This is the part of the Mandalorian code, though, that seems to be most at odds with Stoicism, which follows the Socratic tradition in embracing ethical cosmopolitanism. Stoics view themselves, first and foremost, as “citizens of the universe”, literally cosmopolitans — and their supreme “clan” would therefore be humanity viewed as a whole. Stoic ethics is based on “familial affection” (philostorgia) and we are to view others, even our enemies, as our “kin”, i.e., our brothers and sisters. It’s often been observed, therefore, that Stoicism appears to have been a forerunner of early Christian ethics, and the Christian concept of the “brotherhood of man”.
As [the emperor] Antoninus, my city and fatherland is Rome; as a human being, it is the universe; so what brings benefits to these is the sole good for me. — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.44
For Stoics, the cardinal virtue of justice consists in the qualities of “impartiality” and “benevolence”, or treating others fairly and with kindness. Our supreme loyalty would be to humanity, although loyalty to one’s nation and family might be understood as subordinate to that. Stoics would for instance, consider sacrificing the interests of humanity in general merely for the benefit of your own family to be vicious, unjust and unethical. You can’t just screw over everyone else out of “loyalty” to your own clan, or nation, in other words, and pass that off as a code of honor. Perhaps, though, the Mandalorian canon that “honor is life” implies that some higher ethical duty supervenes upon primitive clan loyalty.
4. Death is Life
One should die as they have lived
The Greek cardinal virtue most relevant to this canon is presumably courage or fortitude (andreia). This part of the Mandalorian code also has echoes of Stoicism and the important Socratic tradition of melete thanatou, or philosophy as a preparation for dying. The Stoics placed considerable emphasis on overcoming our fear of death, being ready to meet death calmly and rationally. The philosopher Seneca goes as far, indeed, as to say that to learn how to die is to unlearn how to be a slave. Daily meditation on one’s own mortality was therefore a common Stoic practice.
[Remember that] if one considers death in isolation, stripping away by rational analysis all the false impressions that cluster around it, one will no longer consider it to be anything other than a process of nature, and if somebody is frightened of a process of nature, he is no more than a child. — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 2.12
Taken together, the Canons of Honor imply that Mandalorians should live and die with honor, strength, and in the service of loyalty to their clan. As we’ve seen, there may perhaps be scope to interpret that duty as being subordinate to a higher sense of honor, serving the interests of humanity (or rational beings) in general.
All things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them. — Matthew, 7.12
Treat others as you would like to be treated by them. The “Golden Rule”, as it’s known, is one of the simplest and most influential of all ethical principles. In this article, we’ll begin by looking at what it is before exploring some examples found in the writings of Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and other Stoic philosophers.
The Golden Rule is a remarkably simple guide to ethical behaviour, which anyone can understand and try to follow. It’s found in both positive and negative forms:
Do what you would praise others for doing
Avoid doing what you would criticize others for doing
Indeed many people today take it for granted that applying a different standard to other’s actions than we do to our own would be a form of moral hypocrisy.
I explored the ways Stoicism can be used as a guide to modern life in my recent book, How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, but this article will focus on a very simple principle that Stoics used as a guide to ethical action. People often say they find Stoic ethics confusing and want a very clear and simple example of practical advice, well here it is…
Judaism and Christianity
Versions of the Golden Rule have been identified in many different philosophical and religious traditions, throughout history and across different cultures. For instance the Talmud quotes the Hebrew sage Hillel the Elder as teaching:
What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.
This is one of the the Golden Rule’s most famous expressions, alongside several instances found in the New Testament. For example, in addition to the quote from the Gospel of Matthew at the start of this article, there’s also:
And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise. — Luke, 6.31
However, the Golden Rule is also clearly a theme in Greek and Roman philosophy, especially for the followers of Socrates and later the Stoics. The New Testament actually claims that St. Paul addressed a group of Stoic and Epicurean philosophers on the Areopagus, at foot of the Athenian Acropolis, quoting a couple of lines to them from the Stoic philosopher-poet Aratus (Acts, 17.16).
Paul and other early Christians are therefore known to have been familiar with Stoic philosophy. Indeed, Stoicism is believed by many modern scholars to have been one of the key philosophical influences upon early Christian ethics. Whether or not early Christians actually derived the Golden Rule from Stoic philosophy, they must have realized that the Stoics had already been teaching very similar ideas. It’s the ethics of the Socratic and Stoic tradition that we’re going to focus on therefore in the rest of this article.
Socrates and the Golden Rule
Although, the Golden Rule is most commonly associated with Christianity, it was arguably also implicit, centuries earlier, in the Socratic Method or elenchus. Socrates taught that we should cross-examine ourselves regarding our moral convictions. The word he uses for his method, elenchus, refers to questioning a witness in court in order to expose contradictions in their testimony. In the Socratic dialogues written by both Plato and Xenophon that sometimes takes the form of Socrates drawing attention to someone applying a double standard morally by praising or criticizing qualities in others but not in themselves. Socrates described his use of “Socratic Questioning” as a sort of therapy that aims to cure people of their conceit regarding the most important things in life, especially contradictory assumptions about the nature of good and evil, virtue and vice. It’s a cure, in other words, for moral hypocrisy and inconsistency.
For instance, in one of Xenophon’s dialogues, Socrates asks a young man called Critobulus to describe the qualities he’s seeking in a friend (Memorabilia, 2.6). They agree that the ideal friend would have positive qualities such as moral virtue, self-discipline, and kindness. However, Socrates suddenly turns the question around by asking Critobulus how many of these qualities he embodies himself. He’s ashamed to admit that he possesses very few of them. He was judging others by a standard, for being a good friend, that he neglected to apply to himself. Socrates makes him realize that because he finds it fairly easy to describe what behaviour he would praise in others that can potentially serve as a reliable guide when it comes to judging his own character and actions.
In another dialogue, Socrates’ friend Chaerecrates is complaining about his older brother’s behaviour. He wants his brother to treat him with more respect but claims he doesn’t know how to achieve this.
‘I assure you,’ said Socrates, ‘so far as I can see, you needn’t employ any subtle or novel method on him: I think you could prevail on him to have a high regard for you by using means which you understand yourself.’ — Xenophon, Memorabilia, 2.3
It’s not rocket science, in other words. Chaerecrates, though, insists he’s not aware of any magic formula for winning other people’s respect.
‘Tell me, then,’ said Socrates, ‘if you wanted to prevail upon one of your acquaintances to invite you to dinner whenever he was holding a celebration, what would you do?’
Chaerecrates admits that, of course, he’d begin by taking the initiative and inviting the other person to dinner first. Socrates therefore asks what he’d do if he wanted someone to take care of his property while he’s travelling. Charecrates says he’d offer to do the same for them first. What, asks Socrates, if you wanted a foreigner to invite you to their home as a guest when visiting their country? Once again, Charecrates admits that “obviously I should first have to do the same for him.” Socrates, with typical irony, concludes:
‘So you know all the magic spells that influence human conduct, and have kept your knowledge dark all this time! Why do you hesitate to begin? Are you afraid that you will look bad if you treat your brother well before he treats you well?
Of course, our moral values need to be sound in the first place but Socrates quite rightly pointed out that much progress can be achieved toward rationality simply by resolving inconsistencies in our ethical thinking.
The only difference here is that Socrates limits this advice to treating our friends as we wish to be treated by them in return. However, in other dialogues he appears to argue that the wise man seeks to help both friends and enemies. Nevertheless, these examples and others clearly show there’s plenty of “Golden Rule” type thinking to be found in the Socratic dialogues. Indeed, in Plato’s Laws, although it’s not attributed to Socrates, the Golden Rule is stated quite explicitly in relation to property rights:
The principle of them is very simple: Thou shalt not, if thou canst help, touch that which is mine, or remove the least thing which belongs to me without my consent; and may I be of a sound mind, and do to others as I would that they should do to me. — Plato, Laws, 11.913
The Golden Rule in Stoicism
The Stoics reputedly considered themselves to be a Socratic school of philosophy and they drew a great deal of inspiration from Socrates. In their writings, we therefore find the Golden Rule developed into something much closer to its more familiar form, as found in the Christian tradition.
In the fragments from the Stoic Hierocles preserved by Stobaeus, for instance, we find a very clear expression of the Golden Rule:
The first admonition, therefore, is very clear, easily obtained, and is common to all men. For it is a sane assertion, which every man will consider as evident. And it is this: Act by everyone, in the same manner as if you supposed yourself to be him, and him to be you. — Hierocles, Fragments
Hierocles goes on to illustrate this point by reference to the master-slave relationship:
For he will use a servant well who considers with himself, how he would think it proper to be used by him, if he indeed was the master, and himself the servant. The same thing also must be said of parents with respect to children, and of children with respect to parents; and, in short, of all men with respect to all. — Hierocles, Fragments
In discussing the master-slave relationship, the Stoic philosopher Seneca likewise wrote:
But this is the kernel of my advice: Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters. — Seneca, Letters, 47
The same sentiment is expressed elsewhere in more general terms, in a passage where Seneca, without giving the source, presents it as a familiar maxim he’s quoting:
“You must expect to be treated by others as you yourself have treated them.” We receive a sort of shock when we hear such sayings; no one ever thinks of doubting them or of asking “Why?”— Letters, 94
In On Anger, Seneca explains that when growing angry with another person over some perceived transgression, Stoics should remind themselves that they are capable of doing the same or similar things.
No one says to himself, “I myself have done or might have done this very thing which I am angry with another for doing.” — Seneca, On Anger, 3.12
A few sentences later, he expands upon this by also applying a version of the Golden Rule to the problem of anger:
Let us put ourselves in the place of him with whom we are angry: at present an overweening conceit of our own importance makes us prone to anger, and we are quite willing to do to others what we cannot endure should be done to ourselves.— Seneca, On Anger, 3.12
Elsewhere, Seneca applies this wisdom to the question of how best to bestow gifts or favours on others:
Let us consider… in what way a benefit should be bestowed. I think that I can point out the shortest way to this; let us give in the way in which we ourselves should like to receive. — Seneca, On Benefits, 2.1
In one of the fragments sometimes attributed to Epictetus, he writes:
What you avoid suffering yourself, seek not to impose on others. — Epictetus, Fragments
Epictetus, himself a freed slave, continues as follows:
You avoid slavery, for instance; take care not to enslave. For if you can bear to exact slavery from others, you appear to have been yourself a slave. For vice has nothing in common with virtue, nor freedom with slavery. As a person in health would not wish to be attended by the sick nor to have those who live with him in a state of sickness ; so neither would a person who is free bear to be served by slaves, nor to have those who live with him in a state of slavery. — Epictetus, Fragments
Marcus Aurelius nowhere states the Golden Rule as explicitly as either Hierocles or Seneca. The closest he comes is in the following passage:
See that you never feel towards misanthropes as such people feel towards the human race. — Meditations, 7.65
However, throughout The Meditations he does adopt the related assumption that we should treat all others as our “kinsmen” and fellow citizens. For instance, in perhaps one of the book’s most famous passages he writes:
Nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him, for we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away. — Meditations, 2.1
Marcus elsewhere says that someone who is wise remembers “that every rational being is his kinsman, and that to care for all men is according to man’s nature” (Meditations, 3.4).
Regarding the actions of others he writes:
This is from one of the same stock, and a kinsman and partner, one who knows not however what is according to his nature. But I know; for this reason I behave towards him according to the natural law of fellowship with benevolence and justice. — Meditations, 3.11
In one of the most striking passages in The Meditations, he appears to echo the Christian notion of loving even one’s enemies:
It is peculiar to man to love even those who do wrong. And this happens, if when they do wrong it occurs to thee that they are kinsmen, and that they do wrong through ignorance and unintentionally… — Meditations, 7.22
Finally:
A branch cut off from the adjacent branch must of necessity be cut off from the whole tree also. So too a man when he is separated from another man has fallen off from the whole social community. Now as to a branch, another cuts it off; but a man by his own act separates himself from his neighbor when he hates him and turns away from him, and he does not know that he has at the same time cut himself off from the whole social system. Yet he has this privilege certainly from Zeus, who framed society, for it is in our power to grow again to that which is near to us, and again to become a part which helps to make up the whole. — Meditations, 11.8
Conclusion
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. For Socrates treating friends otherwise was a moral contradiction, a double standard, and therefore irrational. He even implies that we should show our enemies with the same regard. A few generations later, the Stoics took his ethical philosophy and developed it into more of a system. Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, had said, like Aristotle before him, that a friend is “another me” (alter ego est amicus). However, we are to strive to make all men (and women) our friends. The Golden Rule gradually become more explicit and took on its familiar form in authors such as Seneca when he admonishes us for being “quite willing to do to others what we cannot endure should be done to ourselves”.
Finally, in Marcus Aurelius, the last famous Stoic of antiquity, we find a systematic emphasis on the ethics of brotherly love, which the Stoics called philostorgia or “natural affection”. We’re to regard ourselves and others as brothers and sisters, even as limbs of the same organism. From this vision of the unity of humankind, it follows naturally that we should apply the same moral standard to others that we apply to ourselves. This is probably one aspect of what the Stoics meant when they described the supreme goal of life according to their philosophy as living consistently.
What if you discovered that the meaning of life was somehow hidden right under your nose?
Suppose the most important idea in the entire universe was written down in plain sight, but overlooked by everyone. That the words, assumed to be nothing but incomprehensible garbage, were being used as a filler — placeholder text for graphic design? That would be pretty ironic, wouldn’t it?
Lorem ipsum is the name given to the (mangled) Latin text commonly used in publishing as a generic placeholder, since around the 1960s. It allows designers to arrange the visual elements of a page of text, such as font and layout, without being distracted by the content. Other Latinate words are occasionally used because it’s assumed just to be garbage. Here is a typical example, though, of some lorem ipsum placeholder text.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Here’s the thing: the Lorem ipsum text isn’t actually meaningless. The Latin was so corrupt that the original source was almost unrecognisable. Nevertheless, in the early 1980s, a Latin scholar called Richard McClintock, based in Virginia, accidentally discovered the source of the passage in a well-known philosophical text. It’s derived from a book called De Finibus, which was written in the first century BC, by the famous Roman statesman and philosopher, Cicero. He was a follower of the philosophy taught by Plato’s successors in what’s known as the “Academic” school.
The Meaning of Life
Although it’s usually just referred to as De Finibus, the full Latin title is De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, which is notoriously tricky to translate into English. Literally, it means “On the ends of good and evil”, but really it concerns different philosophical views about the best way of life, which comes fairly close to what we would refer to today as the “meaning of life”.
De Finibus is a series of five dialogues in which Cicero portrays himself and his friends discussing the major schools of Roman philosophy. After weighing the pros and cons of Epicureanism and Stoicism, Cicero concludes with an account of the “Middle Platonism” introduced to the Academy by his own teacher, Antiochus of Ascalon. Overall, Cicero found himself more in agreement with Stoicism than Epicureanism. His personal brand of Platonism, like that of his teacher, probably assimilated many aspects of Stoicism, as well as Aristotelianism. However, although broadly sympathetic to this eclectic philosophy Cicero also notes its flaws. His conclusion is unclear and may be in favour of a more skeptical form of Platonism. Overall, what Cicero therefore gives us in De Finibus is a fascinating overview of several competing philosophical perspectives.
Cicero’s friend and political rival, the great Roman republican hero, Cato of Utica, is portrayed as speaking in defence of Stoicism. The series of dialogues as a whole is framed in terms of a discussion between Cicero and Cato’s nephew, Brutus, the lead assassin of the dictator Julius Caesar. However, the lorem ipsum text comes from the first book of De Finibus, in which a Roman statesman and philosopher, renowned for his Greek scholarship, Lucius Torquatus is portrayed offering a summary and defence of Epicurean philosophy as a way of life.
The Original Text
So what does the passage from which lorem ipsum comes actually say? Well the placeholder text itself is pretty garbled but the passages it occurs in (De Finibus, 1.10.32–33) basically shows Torquatus defending Epicurus’ philosophical doctrine that the most important thing in life is the experience of pleasure. This idea was widely rebuked in the ancient world, not least by Stoic and Academic philosophers such as Cato and Cicero. However, Torquatus argues that those who criticise the pursuit of pleasure do sonot because they think pleasure itself is bad but because harmful consequences often follow from irrational over-indulgence. The Epicurean philosophy was more sophisticated than this, though. Epicurus proposed that wisdom consists in the rational long-term pursuit of pleasures that are natural and lasting, which he associated with practical wisdom and the attainment of supreme emotional tranquillity (ataraxia).
The central paradox of Epicureanism is that achieving lasting pleasure and freedom from pain often requires us to endure short-term pain or discomfort. We may also have to renounce certain transient pleasures for the sake of our own long-term happiness. Epicurus therefore recommended living a very simple life. For example, someone who is serious about maximising their own pleasure and who pursues it philosophically might judge it prudent to undertake vigorous physical exercise and follow a healthy diet, enduring “short-term pain for long-term gain,” as we say today. Torquatus says that the pursuit of pleasure has undeservedly acquired a bad name because people confuse the foolish and reckless pursuit of short-term pleasures with the prudent long-term pursuit of pleasure taught by Epicurus and his followers.
The whole of the relevant section from De Finibus reads as follows in H. Rackham’s 1914 Loeb Classical Library translation, with the fragments included in the lorem ipsum placeholder text in bold:
But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing of a pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of [Epicurus,] the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?
On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammeled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains.
Although Torquatus is portrayed as defending this philosophy of life, it seems clear that Cicero was unconvinced. In the following chapters, Cato is depicted arguing in favour of the opposing Stoic position. The Stoics believed that the meaning or purpose of life is the pursuit of wisdom and virtue, first and foremost, rather than seeking pleasure or tranquillity. Then again, the Academic philosopher Antiochus’ view is presented as being that the best life consists in a combination of virtue and sufficient “external goods”, such as health, property, and friends, etc. Nevertheless, many people today continue to be drawn to Epicureanism. Maybe this is because it provides a fairly sophisticated account of one of a handful of perennial philosophies of life that recur in different forms throughout the ages.
Cicero took these conflicting philosophical views about the most important thing in life very seriously indeed and tried to carefully evaluate their pros and cons. What do you think? Was this a bad philosophy that deserved to be consigned to the dustbin of history or is the meaning of life hidden in the garbage of the lorem ipsum placeholder text?
I would view them as quite different techniques, to be honest. I actually think it’s quite important to be clear what the underlying mechanism is in different psychological practices. In CBT we tend to place a lot of emphasis on that because clients usually gain more benefit from an exercise when they’re clear about the purpose and how it works — that often requires carefully distinguishing techniques that might appear superficially similar. Of course, sometimes a technique may be effective for several different reasons. Nevertheless, I believe it’s in our interests to try to clarify what the mechanism is that we’re aiming to employ.
