A bit of a beef with Hannah Arendt

Other than each of the three-dozen plays written by Shakespeare, Montaigne's Essays and Marcus Aurelius' Meditations have most profoundly influenced whatever unity my philosophy of life possesses. The combined works' most salient "oneness" is what might strike some readers as a paradox worthy of the Tao Te Ching: The plays, Essays and Meditations see, interpret, confront and cope with the world in arrestingly nonmoralistic, deeply ethical ways. (Opinions differ, as they say, but mine is that morality is cultural; ethics, innately human.)

Why in the name of otherwise pleasant Sunday afternoons are you bringing this up? you may be asking. Fortunate for me, I have an answer. In this morning's inbox I received from The Hannah Arendt Center its weekly newsletter. Most often it's written by the Center's academic director, Roger Berkowitz of Bard College, and most often I'm in agreement with the good professor on his chosen topic. Today, though, I was dismayed by his rather aggressive assault on the philosophy of Aurelius' Meditations: Stoicism.

In Berkowitz's partial defense, his piece is a pointed attack on neo-Stoicism (I didn't even know there was such a thing). But his broader, sweeping attack is on the philosophy in its ancient form. I not only disagree with his adverse sentiments about Stoicism 1.0, I will add, in the spirit of congenial debate, that in overlooking Stoicism's nuances, Berkowitz unfairly judged antiquity's school of thought. What's more, Ms. Arendt was unjust as well, which Berkowitz makes clear in his quotes.

Now, probably, you're also wondering why I'm bringing up the subject of Berkowitz-Arendt's inhospitable interpretation of Meditation's philosophical basis. The answer: In their framing, Stoicism's current popularity is stinking up an already troubled America in much the same way it further fouled the Roman Republic's late years. "Arendt," writes Berkowitz, "notes the coincidence of the rise of the Stoic retreat from the world with the 'desperate conditions' of the failing of the Roman Republic.... Roman thinkers felt deeply the impulse 'to escape a world that had become unbearable' — as Lucretius [who by the way was an Epicurean, not a Stoic] writes with a foreboding of disaster — 'everything is gradually decaying."

In short, as Berkowitz and Arendt would have it, Roman stoic philosophers, in that most mistakenly familiar of stoic ways, simply shrugged their shoulders and gave up, escaped reality, ignored impending calamities with contemptible indifference. Again, citing Arendt, Berkowitz writes that the Stoics "Cicero, Epictetus, and Seneca sought to 'think one’s way out of the world.' Wisdom comes to be understood as the art of living that rescues 'life from such storms and so much darkness.'"

Therefore, contend Arendt and Berkowitz, ancient Stoics' brand of withdrawal from reality translates into a contemporary Stoic's abject indifference to the vast ruinations and thoroughgoing corruption of Trumpism. Full, flaming tyranny and totalitarianism to follow.

The thesis is just wrong (about Stoicism, not Trumpism). Early Stoics concerned themselves principally with ethics, that is to say, virtue's attainment, the development of an inner, peaceful strength which in turn would assure one's happiness. It's true that these ancient philosophers were also determinists, yet they rejected the easy path of resignation from their surroundings. For their determinism was of a rather squishy breed, one which left in life some space for freedom of will. (There goes another paradox.)

Indeed, Epictetus promoted the opposite of resigning from the disquiet of daily life when he wrote, "It is difficult circumstances that show real men." Or, consider Seneca: "Excellence withers without an adversary.... Good men should ... not be afraid to face hardships and difficulties"; instead, they should "turn [them] to a good end."

Asserts Berkowitz, "What the Stoics discovered — how to protect the mind from the chaos of the world — is being repackaged today to help us survive" all the crazy shit being dumped on us by a depraved imbecile who'd be flipping cow flesh today had it not been for the exceptionally Donald-lucky congress of two preceding, very privileged and wealthy people.

This repackaging "threatens to be a form of surrender" — "a strategy not of resistance but of accommodation," concludes Prof. Berkowitz. If that is what "neo-Stoicism" teaches, then I certainly agree that such teaching is to be harshly condemned. It's rather a shame, however, that he so closely conflates archetypal Stoicism with some new version of significant unlikeness. Though unrequested, on his behalf I shall extend apologies to William, Michel and, most of all, Marcus.

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