The Cynic ethos
The Cynic thinks it's all a joke, they rarely take anything seriously apart from treating virtue with reverence. Therefore, Cynics make bad members of society. But, as Fromm described in his The Sane Society, it might be the society that is making people mad.
The Cynic is above all this and doesn't seek the ego enlarging goods and services that society has to offer at the price of what is perhaps most important to a person, that being time itself.
But, I see a contradiction here, the Cynic is inevitably dependent on society to maintain their persona. They criticize and ridicule other people seeking these goods and services that society provides and shames people for doing so and not pursuing the good.
Now, returning to the present, people who behave like Cynics are most often homeless people (at least not the American Transcendentalists, who share a peculiar similarity with the Cynic ethos). These homeless people (here in the US) are often viewed as mentally ill or deranged dredges of society.
Therefore, has Cynicism become a philosophy of the mad, ill, and deranged or can something be salvaged from their philosophy and implemented in modern day life?
The Cynic is above all this and doesn't seek the ego enlarging goods and services that society has to offer at the price of what is perhaps most important to a person, that being time itself.
But, I see a contradiction here, the Cynic is inevitably dependent on society to maintain their persona. They criticize and ridicule other people seeking these goods and services that society provides and shames people for doing so and not pursuing the good.
Now, returning to the present, people who behave like Cynics are most often homeless people (at least not the American Transcendentalists, who share a peculiar similarity with the Cynic ethos). These homeless people (here in the US) are often viewed as mentally ill or deranged dredges of society.
Therefore, has Cynicism become a philosophy of the mad, ill, and deranged or can something be salvaged from their philosophy and implemented in modern day life?
Comments (18)
No, because the mad, ill, deranged, or impoverished people living on the streets did not choose to live there. In our world, 'the streets' is the last stop in economic descent, after which there is very little choice about what happens next.
Quoting Wallows
Fromm thought that societies might invert the meaning of sane, so that insane societies would make otherwise 'mad men' into model citizens. In some ways the German Nazis accomplished that end. In some ways, some societies (like us, sometimes) invert the meaning of mental health, so that the most neurotically and acquisitively driven people are considered to be the supreme beings, like Bill Gates or Donald Trump.)
Some people, today, like contemplative Christian monastics, withdraw from society and live their materially meagre lives in prayer. Some even beg for their food, like some Buddhist monks in SE Asia. That is the sort of thing a cynic might relate to, I suppose. It doesn't appeal to me.
There is a great deal of merit in that suggestion, especially IF one stops at a point well before the logical extremity. The average temperature in Athens in January is a high of 56 and a low of 44. In Minneapolis the January high is 22 and the low is 6. Living on the streets in a clay pot (like Diogenes did) would be better in Athens than in Minneapolis.
Given the environmental crisis currently unfolding, it would be a good idea to radically rethink and retool what we think is necessary.
Well, there can be people who voluntarily choose homelessness. I don't have the stats on hand but you've heard of them too I would assume?
There does, to my mind, seem to be soem crossover between Stoicism and Cynicism. Not sure how or why that is significant but it may be worth exploring?
I might choose to live on the streets rather than live in some of the shelters that are available. (Most of the homeless do not live in shelters, because there are not enough of them. Homeless, btw, doesn't mean literally "unsheltered", sitting in the cold rain. It means not having a home address. One may be sheltered and homeless.
I bet most cynics, followers of Antisthenes and Diogenes, did not opt to live in the streets of Athens, at least for very long. If they did, there was probably be an urban renewal program launched to get rid of them.
Diogenes, living in his amphora (a very large fired clay storage pot) might have been nuts, it's hard to tell at this distance in time. Presumably he was striving to make a large philosophical point. I've cited her before, I'll cite her again. Dorothy Day was a socialist, journalist, single mother who developed into a being a devout Roman Catholic. She started the Catholic Worker Movement (CWM). In some ways she was a cynic. Her calling, starting in the Depression, was to help the homeless and outcast people in the slums of New York. She didn't live in the streets, but she did live with the poor in the CWM's crowded, dirty shelters. She had virtually nothing.
There are probably similarities between the founder cynics and the CWM: The message wasn't "live in a filthy shelter with filthy people. It's good for you." Rather, their method was application of Jesus' command to care for the least of his children. The Catholic Worker lives in poverty in order to be able to carry out Christ's command.
Similarly, the two Prime Cynics probably taught people and lived their example. Diogenes would crawl out of his pot in the morning, wash up in the public bath (maybe), beg for some felafel and flat bread for breakfast, then head off to agitate the rest of the day, feeding whenever somebody offered him a handful of feta cheese and tabouli. He probably never needed to find a larger jar because of weight gain.
Yes, I've read somewhere that Diogenes would walk with a lantern during the day looking for a real man or sage or someone worthy of praise.
I guess they didn't have mirrors back then or Diogenes refused to look at his reflection.
That didn't stop Narcissus.
Oh that poor fellow. It was a profound story when I heard it. I am haunted by it to this day.
The sitting black dog seems to have mange.
:D
Yes, the dogs kept him warm at night.
Here's a link to an Article in Philosophy Now about How to Be a Cynic. DIY.
I looked up Cynic Texts in Google and came up with an article on Wikipedia that suggested most of the texts that survived were put together in the first century A.D., and include material from the pre-Socratics like Heraclitus. They were grouped together in the Cynic Epistles.
--- From Philosophy Now
You've heard of the band, "Three Dog Night"? The name derives from the number of dogs one needs to have on the bed when it is very cold.
Thanks for sharing. Edifying read.
First heard of them.