Addendum to XLI

Enchiridion XLI had some commentary on the question of whether 'excessive' exercise is good or bad. Here is an opinion from Socrates, as related not by Plato -- whom we usually read for discussion of Socrates -- but by Xenophon, a friend whose great fame comes from his work as a soldier, mercenary, and horseman. Indeed his work on horsemanship is the earliest treatise I know of on the topic; and his discussion of his mercenary work, the Anabasis, is one of the great works of Western literature. This comes from Xenophon's Memorabilia, Book 3. As in the prior example, the Olympics are cited. I have highlighted some particularly relevant parts.

"Just as much as the competitors entered for Olympia,” [Socrates] retorted. “Or do you count the life and death struggle with their enemies, upon which, it may be, the Athenians will enter, but a small thing?  Why, many, thanks to their bad condition, lose their life in the perils of war or save it disgracefully: many, just for this same cause, are taken prisoners, and then either pass the rest of their days, perhaps, in slavery of the hardest kind, or, after meeting with cruel sufferings and paying, sometimes, more than they have, live on, destitute and in misery. Many, again, by their bodily weakness earn infamy, being thought cowards. Or do you despise these, the rewards of bad condition, and think that you can easily endure such things? And yet I suppose that what has to be borne by anyone who takes care to keep his body in good condition is far lighter and far pleasanter than these things. Or is it that you think bad condition healthier and generally more serviceable than good, or do you despise the effects of good condition? And yet the results of physical fitness are the direct opposite of those that follow from unfitness. The fit are healthy and strong; and many, as a consequence, save themselves decorously on the battle-field and escape all the dangers of war; many help friends and do good to their country and for this cause earn gratitude; get great glory and gain very high honours, and for this cause live henceforth a pleasanter and better life, and leave to their children better means of winning a livelihood.  

“I tell you, because military training is not publicly recognised by the state, you must not make that an excuse for being a whit less careful in attending to it yourself. For you may rest assured that there is no kind of struggle, apart from war, and no undertaking in which you will be worse off by keeping your body in better fettle. For in everything that men do the body is useful; and in all uses of the body it is of great importance to be in as high a state of physical efficiency as possible. Why, even in the process of thinking, in which the use of the body seems to be reduced to a minimum, it is matter of common knowledge that grave mistakes may often be traced to bad health. And because the body is in a bad condition, loss of memory, depression, discontent, insanity often assail the mind so violently as to drive whatever knowledge it contains clean out of it. But a sound and healthy body is a strong protection to a man, and at least there is no danger then of such a calamity happening to him through physical weakness: on the contrary, it is likely that his sound condition will serve to produce effects the opposite of those that arise from bad condition. And surely a man of sense would submit to anything to obtain the effects that are the opposite of those mentioned in my list.

“Besides, it is a disgrace to grow old through sheer carelessness before seeing what manner of man you may become by developing your bodily strength and beauty to their highest limit. But you cannot see that, if you are careless; for it will not come of its own accord.”

That all seems opposed to Epictetus' dictum, as recorded in a discussion among men who were famous for wartime courage and activity. Naturally, I endorse the Socratic and Xenophonic view.

Enchiridion XLIII

XLIII

Everything has two handles: one by which it may be borne, another by which it cannot. If your brother acts unjustly, do not lay hold on the affair by the handle of his injustice, for by that it cannot be borne, but rather by the opposite—that he is your brother, that he was brought up with you; and thus you will lay hold on it as it is to be borne.

Sometimes I find it very easy to bear that someone needs to be cut out of my life, whoever they were before. This is possible to do when it must be done, as everyone who has walked away from a once-beloved who proved to be incompatible with you has learned. Sometimes even a cousin who develops a drug problem (and consequently a theft problem) can be cut out without much trouble. Still, one might say in the case of a brother that normally there ought to be a duty of blood that overcomes that.  

More broadly considered, this is a general principle. If one were in a failing state like the Weimar Republic, one could bear it because one knew it would pass and worked as well as one could for something better. If the state then failed more completely, as Weimar did, one could bear it because one could do little to support the new state and only one's duty to family and friends. 

Yet there comes a point at which things are not to be borne. The Stoic here is advising you on how to survive and learn to live with horrible things. That is a breaking point between their philosophy and my own, which holds that death is preferable to dishonor. Somethings ought not to be borne; somethings, even 'semblances,' must be opposed by a decent internal soul. Even if it destroys us.

Poll: Democrats Support Suspending Rule of Law to Crush Truckers

Sixty-five percent of Democrats told the Trafalgar Group so, anyway. I am not sure Americans fully understand how grave a violation of what we would ordinarily consider to be the rule-of-law this Canadian move is. They just know that they hate the truckers, and wanted to see them crushed, and the government crushed them.

Well, for now it has, although if the truckers decide to fight they could easily blockade several parts of the Canadian economy that would compel the regime to surrender fairly quickly. Canada remains extremely vulnerable to this strategy, which is partly why the government is willing to throw out their whole legal tradition and basic Constitutional protections in order to oppose it. 

Yet it is important to grasp just how severe a violation of the rule-of-law this move really is. The Canadian government has ordered banks to freeze the bank accounts of people merely suspected, not proven, to have supported the truckers in any way -- without a court order or any due process, and barring you for suing for damages over it. Some bank accounts have been frozen for donations as small as $40. For the price of dinner out, the government is willing to see you lose your life savings and home if you can't pay  your mortgage. I can't think of any crime involving $40 that isn't a misdemeanor, not a felony.

Those small, deadly donations were not made to a terrorist organization, either, but to a perfectly legal registered nonprofit. So it is not just that the donors are being punished for a crime without due process: they are being punished for behaving in a perfectly legal way, and without due process.

Even for those who engaged in civil disobedience and therefore did break some law, the laws involved are minor violations:  literally they are honking too loud, or parking a motor vehicle in an unauthorized location, or refusing verbal police instructions. Civil disobedience does normally require that you accept the lawful punishment for your choice to express discontent in an extralegal manner, but these are '30 days if convicted at trial' offenses, not 'held-without-bail and then ten years in prison' offenses under the laws that actually existed at the time of the actions. Ex post facto laws have been created, and are being retroactively applied, which is a violation of ordinary Anglo-American principles of justice (it would be formally unconstitutional here).

So your life can be destroyed by ex post facto laws that targeted perfectly legal behavior, or what were minor violations of civil order at the time they were done, on suspicion alone and without due process. These powers are totalitarian in scope, in other words: they presume not only to govern according to the law, but to change the law after the fact to fit whatever they decide they wanted to govern. All aspects of life, including those currently strictly legal, fall under this scope.

Those are only the broad-brush strokes of the challenge. There are other worthy issues, for example, the fact that actually violent protests in Canada from left-wing actors are never punished in any similar way. In three weeks of trucker protests, they committed not one single assault or battery or violence of any kind; in that environmentalist protest, they set wildfires and destroyed construction equipment, then attacked responding security and Royal Canadian Mounted Police with axes. Equality under the law, then, is also being violated here.

Ultimately this a much more serious challenge to the Western tradition of liberty just because it's being done in a once-secure Western state. If bedrock principles like the rule-of-law, no ex post facto laws, and equality under the law can be simply set aside in Canada, it can happen anywhere.

There is also a pragmatic danger. Venezuela did this kind of thing once Chavez took power, and declined from being one of the richest and happiest nations on earth to an impoverished tyranny. Canada could follow a similar route, even with all its wealth -- Venezuela also had wealth, and still sits atop massive oil reserves. Not only would that be terrible for Canadians, Americans must consider that we could end up with failed or failing states on both of our long land borders. Although taking on qualified truck-driver refugees would actually benefit our economy, the costs of Canada falling into a Venezuelan-style death spiral will be bad for us as well as them. 

So reflect carefully, everyone, on just how serious this action by Trudeau really is. It is not just winning a political fight: it threatens the death of some of the most basic principles of our whole political tradition.

Enchiridion XLII

 XLII

When any person does ill by you, or speaks ill of you, remember that he acts or speaks from an impression that it is right for him to do so. Now it is not possible that he should follow what appears right to you, but only what appears so to himself. Therefore, if he judges from false appearances, he is the person hurt, since he, too, is the person deceived. For if anyone takes a true proposition to be false, the proposition is not hurt, but only the man is deceived. Setting out, then, from these principles, you will meekly bear with a person who reviles you, for you will say upon every occasion, “It seemed so to him.”

This reminds me strongly of the Quakers, as explained in the excellent 1947 John Wayne movie "Angel and the Badman."

Quirt: That on the wall [indicating an inscribed plaque]. "Each human being has an integrity that can be hurt only by the act of that same human being and not by the act of another human being." Is that Quaker stuff? [Penny silently affirms the question.] You mean, nobody can hurt you but yourself? 

Penny: That's a Friends' belief.

Quirt: Well, supposin' somebody whacks you over the head with a branding iron? Would that hurt?

Penny: Physically, of course. But in reality it would injure only the
person doing the act of force or violence. Only the doer can be hurt by a
mean or evil act.

Quirt: Are there very many of you Quakers? 

Penny: Very few. 

Quirt: I sort of figured that.

 There aren't a lot today, either.

Why can't a woman be more like a man?

 This is getting very Meta.  Facebook removed the following Bee post for "hate speech."

Enchiridion XLI

XLI

It is a mark of want of intellect to spend much time in things relating to the body, as to be immoderate in exercises, in eating and drinking, and in the discharge of other animal functions. These things should be done incidentally and our main strength be applied to our reason.

Calls to moderation are a regular feature of Greek philosophy, and all philosophies strongly informed by them. It is interesting that 'exercise' is included, here, though; remember in XXIX striving to win the Olympic Games was offered as an analogy to philosophy. Here we seem to be counseled against Olympic ambitions, but to seek philosophy with our real strength.

There is a counterpoint in Aristotle, where he offers an account of the soul that also summons us to philosophy as the main and most proper human pursuit. Yet we should strive to master our lesser faculties, just because it makes it easier to be good at philosophy. A healthy body will think clearer thoughts, and not being distracted with illness and medications and treatments of various sorts, the pursuit of health is wise just because it improves our ability to philosophize. 

A Teachable Moment

I don't know if these are the sort of people who learn lessons, but they have at least been presented with an opportunity.

According to Antifa protesters who took over the presser, identified by the Post Millennial as “Hailley Nolan and Dustin Ferreira,” the previous night their comrades had gone to confront members of the notorious Portland area biker gang [motorcycle club], the Gypsy Jokers. Police say at least one of the Antifa militants was armed (which they usually are).

That went exactly as well as you'd expect.  

The Asheville Celtic Festival

Glorious, two years on from the last occasion. Albannach was there, and they performed the best live show I’ve ever attended. 

Thousands came, mead flowed and beer, Highland games and swordplay, a great time for all. 

To Hell With the Washington Post

Not to put too fine a point on it.

The primarily White supporters of the Freedom Convoy argue that pandemic mandates infringe upon their constitutional rights to freedom. The notion of “freedom” was historically and remains intertwined with Whiteness, as historian Tyler Stovall has argued. The belief that one’s entitlement to freedom is a key component of White supremacy. This explains why the Freedom Convoy members see themselves as entitled to freedom, no matter the public health consequences to those around them.

Historian Tyler Stovall can jump in the lake too. How about an alternative perspective, less in favor now than once in Washington and elsewhere:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Emphasis added, because emphasis is needed. 

Enchiridion XL

XL

Women from fourteen years old are flattered by men with the title of mistresses. Therefore, perceiving that they are regarded only as qualified to give men pleasure, they begin to adorn themselves, and in that to place all their hopes. It is worth while, therefore, to try that they may perceive themselves honored only so far as they appear beautiful in their demeanor and modestly virtuous.

It is unusual to hear ancient philosophers speak about women; Aristotle was famously incurious about them, at least in his writing. Socrates apparently said something like, "By all means marry; for if you get a good wife you shall become happy, and if you get a bad one you shall become a philosopher."

Epictetus has said little enough about women, but it is kind and decent: understand why they might seem vain, for society puts little value on anything except their attractiveness, on which everything for them may depend; but honor them rightly, for virtue and character. 

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

Don Surber brings up the other Canadian protests that apparently GoFundMe is okay supporting and Trudeau isn't using emergency powers against. From the Vancouver Sun:

Very early Thursday, just after midnight, Coastal GasLink security called RCMP for help, reporting it was under attack by about 20 people, some wielding axes.

RCMP Chief Supt. Warren Brown, commander for the north district, called the attack a “calculated and organized violent attack that left its victims shaken and a multi-million dollar path of destruction.”

Coastal GasLink said in a statement the attackers surrounded some of its workers in a “highly planned” and “unprovoked” assault near the Morice River drill pad site off the forest service road.

“In one of the most concerning acts, an attempt was made to set a vehicle on fire while workers were inside,” said the company in a statement. “The attackers also wielded axes, swinging them at vehicles and through a truck’s window. Flare guns were also fired at workers.”

 

"No"

Nunchuk, a bitcoin outfit, responded politely to the Canadian government's request that it freeze the bitcoin assets of its customers:

Then it added:

EdgeWallet also sent back a polite response, saying its considered response to this important request was "No."

Enchiridion XXXIX

XXXIX

The body is to everyone the proper measure of its possessions, as the foot is of the shoe. If, therefore, you stop at this, you will keep the measure; but if you move beyond it, you must necessarily be carried forward, as down a precipice; as in the case of a shoe, if you go beyond its fitness to the foot, it comes first to be gilded, then purple, and then studded with jewels. For to that which once exceeds the fit measure there is no bound.

Fascism in the North

 

Illicit Profit

The Department of Justice goes Communist. 

Inflation is treason, comrade. 

Enchiridion XXXVIII

XXXVIII

As in walking you take care not to tread upon a nail, or turn your foot, so likewise take care not to hurt the ruling faculty of your mind. And if we were to guard against this in every action, we should enter upon action more safely. 

Enchiridion XXXVII

XXXVII

If you have assumed any character beyond your strength, you have both demeaned yourself ill in that and quitted one which you might have supported.

What is a character beyond your strength? It is a character that professes that it can determine events in the world outside the mind. This is a great human desire; even Aristotle falls prone to it in the later parts of the Nicomachean Ethics, in which he describes the virtue of courage as the virtue that wins wars. In the earlier parts he is more careful: virtues are to be judged by probability of outcome, and courage is said to be a virtue even though it is sometimes the very thing that destroys you. On average, however, courage works out with reasonable reliability. In the later books, he offers what philosophers sometimes describe as a 'thicker' version: courage wins wars, and thus wars are in a way a competition of virtue. The most virtuous in this particular way will be the winner.  

That is not true. The bravest does not always prevail. To assume a character that asserts that it is so courageous as to be undefeatable is to lie to one's self, and to those who believe you. Many a man has promised his wife and children to return from the war victorious, and then never returned at all. It was not because they were not brave men.

Epictetus suggests that lying to yourself is demeaning; and asserting a greater power than you have is a lie. A better man would not lie to himself, but would be honest about his limits as well as his powers. 

If you abandon that honest character in order to assert more boldly than you can really defend, then you are exactly as he describes in this chapter. You quit the honest character you could have defended, and demeaned yourself by lying. This is not virtue, neither courage nor any other.

Thought Crimes Will Be Prosecuted

Pastor Artur Pawlowski, who remains in solitary confinement for 23 hours per day, according to his lawyer, was arrested last Monday after he spoke to members of the trucker blockade along the U.S.-Canada border in Coutts, Alberta, on Feb. 3.

During a 20-minute speech to the truckers, the pastor urged them to "hold the line" against government overreach without resorting to violence. They had reportedly reached an agreement to abandon their blockade of the U.S. border and travel to Edmonton until changing their minds following Pawlowski's address.

So, the crime is having given a speech urging continued defiance of the government.  It's not even "he incited defiance," because they were already engaged in defiance when he got there. He just persuaded them to keep it up a while longer.

Enchiridion XXXVI

XXXVI

As the proposition, “either it is day or it is night,” has much force in a disjunctive argument, but none at all in a conjunctive one, so, at a feast, to choose the largest share is very suitable to the bodily appetite, but utterly inconsistent with the social spirit of the entertainment. Remember, then, when you eat with another, not only the value to the body of those things which are set before you, but also the value of proper courtesy toward your host.

Courtesy towards your host is a praiseworthy thing; overall, this section is another that is similar in tone to the Havamal in several respects. 

A greedy man, if he be not mindful,
eats to his own life's hurt:
oft the belly of the fool will bring him to scorn
when he seeks the circle of the wise.

Herds know the hour of their going home
and turn them again from the grass;
but never is found a foolish man
who knows the measure of his maw.

The translation of the first line is confusing, because it gives 'it is day / it is night' as already in a disjunctive form. That makes it hard to get the point about why it lacks force as a conjunctiver argument. In symbolic logic, the two propositions look like this:

∀x(Dx∨Nx) [Disjunctive: "For any time x, either x is day or x is night"]
∀x(Dx∧Nx) [Conjunctive: "For any time x, x is day and x is night."]

The point is just that a proposition about day/night works well as a disjunctive in ordinary language, and not at all well as a conjunctive. Although, notice that the conjunctive is also* a true statement: at any time x on planet Earth, it is both day (on the light side of the planet) and also night (on the dark). One might also make arguments about the disjunctive's truth conditions during periods of twilight or dawning. 

* Strictly speaking a true disjunction is satisfied, i.e. evaluates as true, at least one of the conditions is true. Thus, the disjunctive is true if it is either day or night, or both day and night; and thus the disjunctive is true and the conjunctive is true. There is another logical operator called 'exclusive OR' that is like the disjunctive, but only satisfied if -- in the present case -- D is true and N is false, or alternatively D is false and N is true. It would not be satisfied if D and N are both true at the same time, as is really the case on Earth. 

Enchiridion XXXV

XXXV

When you do anything from a clear judgment that it ought to be done, never shrink from being seen to do it, even though the world should misunderstand it; for if you are not acting rightly, shun the action itself; if you are, why fear those who wrongly censure you?

Timely advice for the peaceful protesters in Canada today. For us all, perhaps, soon enough.

Canada's Prime Minister to Invoke Emergencies Act

The Prime Minister is too scared to talk to the truckers, whom he regards as such a threat that he is invoking these extraordinary powers for the first time in Canadian history. This act replaced what was previously called the "War Measures Act." 

Whatever one thinks of the position of the truckers on vaccine mandates, their core complaint has been the way in which the democratic legislative branch has been stripped of its lawmaking function in favor of executive assertions of 'emergency powers.' This complaint was fully justified even before this move: last week honking became an arrestable offense, and parking in a proscribed area a felony punishable with a year in prison and a hundred-thousand dollar fine. No legislature considered these updates to the motor vehicle code: they were asserted by bald executive privilege. 

Now the Prime Minister is going for what amounts to wartime powers to crush a peaceful, if robust, domestic protest movement. 

Options for resistance to this abuse of authority are significant, however:

These options are nonviolent, but it is not clear that the Canadian government can defeat them. Even if they take to shooting blockaders, they still may not be able to move the trucks. 

UPDATE: Emergencies Act invoked. Anyone supporting the truckers, or being a trucker, is to have their bank accounts seized without warrant or court order; banks immunized against any damages they cause. The legal excuse for this is "counterterror laws," i.e., perfectly peaceful (though effective) protests are now terrorism in Canada. 

ATF: Happy Snitch on Your Beloved Day!

Ex-boyfriend, or girlfriend, or ex-husband, anyone really.

Sean Davis and Jesse Kelly have candidates for them.

Enchiridion XXXIV

XXXIV

If you are dazzled by the semblance of any promised pleasure, guard yourself against being bewildered by it; but let the affair wait your leisure, and procure yourself some delay. Then bring to your mind both points of time—that in which you shall enjoy the pleasure, and that in which you will repent and reproach yourself, after you have enjoyed it—and set before you, in opposition to these, how you will rejoice and applaud yourself if you abstain. And even though it should appear to you a seasonable gratification, take heed that its enticements and allurements and seductions may not subdue you, but set in opposition to this how much better it is to be conscious of having gained so great a victory.

This is especially excellent advice for those considering an extramarital affair, I think. 

There's a problem here with some pleasures, though, which are not obviously semblances in the sense that he has been using the term. A good drunk gets in where you live; it's as real as any other internal experience, an elation of the mind whose activity and experience is our proper business. A woman (or man, for some of you) might seduce by outward semblance, and bewilder the mind with her beauty; her attention might be thrilling and exciting in the way he is discussing here. A drink isn't like that. There's no excitement to be had in looking at a bottle or a glass; a good Scotch tastes good, but some of it doesn't even do that. The whole experience is in the mind.

You can still easily do what he's talking about: delay, and then think through two potential tomorrows. Wouldn't you rather wake up early, feeling good physically and also good about your virtue in having done the right thing? Wouldn't you rather avoid a day of hangovers and reminding yourself that you only feel bad because you didn't stop yourself from feeling bad? The advice is still worthy; I just question to what degree it counts as a semblance. That may be why drug and alcohol issues are so difficult for people to overcome; it's a thing that lives in one's own proper seat of power. 

Canada Clears Ambassador Bridge

The bridge had been closed for a week of business days. It sounds like almost everyone had gone home of their own accord by this morning.

"A 27 yr old male was arrested at Huron Church Rd at Millen St. for a criminal offence in relation to the demonstration. Officers will intervene when necessary to ensure the safety of the public & maintain peace & order," the Windsor Police tweeted late Saturday. 

The arrests come after a Canadian judge ordered the protesters to vacate the area on Friday. Windsor Police said Sunday morning they are taking a "zero tolerance" policy toward "illegal activity." 

Only two pickup trucks and less than a dozen protesters blocked the road to the bridge before police moved in.

That means they can put the blockade back, using trucks that aren't easy to tow, whenever they want. Round one is over at the bridge, but not elsewhere. 

UPDATE: The American Mind has a piece by a central organizer on the future of the work, and their intent to remain outside Parliament until they win or are removed by force.

A Small Story of No Particular Importance

Durham’s court filing claims that Hillary Clinton’s campaign paid a tech company to hack into Donald Trump’s servers in his residence and in Trump Tower during the presidential campaign. The surveillance continued on into the White House when he became president.

It can't be important because it's not mentioned at all on the front page of the Washington Post today, nor the New York Times. ABC mentions someone being stoned to death in Pakistan, but not anything about this. Even FOX has nothing about it on the front page. 

Well, it's just a court filing. 

UPDATE: Not on the front page, but FOX did at least have a story about it.

Enchiridion XXXIII

XXXIII

Begin by prescribing to yourself some character and demeanor, such as you may preserve both alone and in company.

Be mostly silent, or speak merely what is needful, and in few words. We may, however, enter sparingly into discourse sometimes, when occasion calls for it; but let it not run on any of the common subjects, as gladiators, or horse races, or athletic champions, or food, or drink—the vulgar topics of conversation—and especially not on men, so as either to blame, or praise, or make comparisons. If you are able, then, by your own conversation, bring over that of your company to proper subjects; but if you happen to find yourself among strangers, be silent.

Let not your laughter be loud, frequent, or abundant.

Avoid taking oaths, if possible, altogether; at any rate, so far as you are able.

Avoid public and vulgar entertainments; but if ever an occasion calls you to them, keep your attention upon the stretch, that you may not imperceptibly slide into vulgarity. For be assured that if a person be ever so pure himself, yet, if his companion be corrupted, he who converses with him will be corrupted likewise.

Provide things relating to the body no further than absolute need requires, as meat, drink, clothing, house, retinue. But cut off everything that looks toward show and luxury.

Before marriage guard yourself with all your ability from unlawful intercourse with women; yet be not uncharitable or severe to those who are led into this, nor boast frequently that you yourself do otherwise.

If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you, but answer: “He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone.”

It is not necessary for you to appear often at public spectacles; but if ever there is a proper occasion for you to be there, do not appear more solicitous for any other than for yourself—that is, wish things to be only just as they are, and only the best man to win; for thus nothing will go against you. But abstain entirely from acclamations and derision and violent emotions. And when you come away, do not discourse a great deal on what has passed and what contributes nothing to your own amendment. For it would appear by such discourse that you were dazzled by the show.

Be not prompt or ready to attend private recitations; but if you do attend, preserve your gravity and dignity, and yet avoid making yourself disagreeable.

When you are going to confer with anyone, and especially with one who seems your superior, represent to yourself how Socrates or Zeno* would behave in such a case, and you will not be at a loss to meet properly whatever may occur.

When you are going before anyone in power, fancy to yourself that you may not find him at home, that you may be shut out, that the doors may not be opened to you, that he may not notice you. If, with all this, it be your duty to go, bear what happens and never say to yourself, “It was not worth so much”; for this is vulgar, and like a man bewildered by externals.

In company, avoid a frequent and excessive mention of your own actions and dangers. For however agreeable it may be to yourself to allude to the risks you have run, it is not equally agreeable to others to hear your adventures. Avoid likewise an endeavor to excite laughter, for this may readily slide you into vulgarity, and, besides, may be apt to lower you in the esteem of your acquaintance. Approaches to indecent discourse are likewise dangerous. Therefore, when anything of this sort happens, use the first fit opportunity to rebuke him who makes advances that way, or, at least, by silence and blushing and a serious look show yourself to be displeased by such talk.

These are interesting maxims, as nearly all pertain to semblances and how to relate to them. In a way this doesn't seem like the proper business of a Stoic; on the other hand, you can imagine Epictetus saying "one must do something from day to day during ordinary activities, so here's some guidelines." 

They remind me of the opening verses of the Havamal, and indeed much of the advice is the same: advice to tend towards silence in company, advice to be moderate at gatherings and feasts, advice to think about how others will receive your boasting and, therefore, to avoid it.

For the unwise man 'tis best to be mute

when he come amid the crowd,

for none is aware of his lack of wit

if he wastes not too many words;

for he who lacks wit shall never learn

though his words flow ne'er so fast.

The advice about how to respond to insult is hard to keep today, for the habit of so many is to go to the worst insults possible right off the bat. It would be a bold man who responded to accusations that one is a racist Nazi white-supremacist sexist misogynist fascist by saying, "Well, but what about my other faults?" Yet something like that might be more effective than either denial -- which is pointless, because it will not be believed and anyway the accusations are obviously false -- or apology, the latter of which is never accepted and instead taken to be proof of your deserving punishment. 

* The note at the original says this is probably Zeno of Cyprus, the founder of the Stoic school, and not the Zeno you know from earlier commentaries. 

Enchiridion XXXII

XXXII

When you have recourse to divination, remember that you know not what the event will be, and you come to learn it of the diviner; but of what nature it is you knew before coming; at least, if you are of philosophic mind. For if it is among the things not within our own power, it can by no means be either good or evil. Do not, therefore, bring with you to the diviner either desire or aversion—else you will approach him trembling—but first clearly understand that every event is indifferent and nothing to you, of whatever sort it may be; for it will be in your power to make a right use of it, and this no one can hinder. Then come with confidence to the gods as your counselors; and afterwards, when any counsel is given you, remember what counselors you have assumed, and whose advice you will neglect if you disobey. Come to divination as Socrates prescribed, in cases of which the whole consideration relates to the event, and in which no opportunities are afforded by reason or any other art to discover the matter in view. When, therefore, it is our duty to share the danger of a friend or of our country, we ought not to consult the oracle as to whether we shall share it with them or not. For though the diviner should forewarn you that the auspices are unfavorable, this means no more than that either death or mutilation or exile is portended. But we have reason within us; and it directs us, even with these hazards, to stand by our friend and our country. Attend, therefore, to the greater diviner, the Pythian God, who once cast out of the temple him who neglected to save his friend.

Divination has fallen out of favor in the West since Epictetus' day, although of late there is an interest in things like Tarot cards and whatnot. What the Romans and Greeks thought they were doing was seeking counsel from the divine. It was at this time considered a perfectly decent thing to do, to try to consult the divine beings through their appointed oracles.

Socrates got himself killed doing this, as Epictetus invites us to remember by invoking him. The Oracle of Delphi told him that he was the wisest among Athenians; and he (claimed, at least that he) did not believe it. So he went about questioning those who called themselves wise, and showing that they were not wise in fact. He, at least, knew that he knew nothing: and therefore he was wiser than they, who thought they knew something they did not in fact know. 

Once again I have highlighted what I take to be the most important part for our purposes. Whatever happens, you can make the right use of it -- the best use, by doing the right thing in the face of whatever it is. No one can stop you from doing that. As long as you always do the right thing in the face of whatever comes before you, in a sense it hardly matters what does come before you. That is the sense in which "every event is indifferent and nothing to you." Events arise, and perish: duty is done in the face of each and if done, that is enough.

Prayers for Truckers

Tonight the claim is that 'all measures are on the table,' as convoys appear in France, Australia, and New Zealand as well. 

Yesterday, [Ontario Premier] Ford’s government froze nearly $11 million of their money.

Today, Ford declared a state of emergency and said anyone blockading border crossings or Ottawa streets could be hit with a $100,000 fine or a year in jail.

People have been living with governments enacting a steady stream of unconstitutional edicts with no parliamentary oversight and little political opposition, so I’m not sure “state of emergency” feels like much of a departure from what’s become the new normal.

It’s this descent into the permanent emergency that has galvanized the trucker convoy in the first place.

That's why they can't afford to lose -- and neither can we. Support your local outlaws.

A Thoroughly Pleasant Interlude

 A glass of wine and Tatiana Eva-Marie singing

And another, in French

Lethal

A retired Marine officer has wise words that will, sadly, not be heeded. 

Enchiridion XXXI

XXXI

Be assured that the essence of piety toward the gods lies in this—to form right opinions concerning them, as existing and as governing the universe justly and well. And fix yourself in this resolution, to obey them, and yield to them, and willingly follow them amidst all events, as being ruled by the most perfect wisdom. For thus you will never find fault with the gods, nor accuse them of neglecting you. And it is not possible for this to be affected in any other way than by withdrawing yourself from things which are not within our own power, and by making good or evil to consist only in those which are. For if you suppose any other things to be either good or evil, it is inevitable that, when you are disappointed of what you wish or incur what you would avoid, you should reproach and blame their authors. For every creature is naturally formed to flee and abhor things that appear hurtful and that which causes them; and to pursue and admire those which appear beneficial and that which causes them. It is impracticable, then, that one who supposes himself to be hurt should rejoice in the person who, as he thinks, hurts him, just as it is impossible to rejoice in the hurt itself. Hence, also, a father is reviled by his son when he does not impart the things which seem to be good; and this made Polynices and Eteocles mutually enemies—that empire seemed good to both. On this account the husbandman reviles the gods; [and so do] the sailor, the merchant, or those who have lost wife or child. For where our interest is, there, too, is piety directed. So that whoever is careful to regulate his desires and aversions as he ought is thus made careful of piety likewise. But it also becomes incumbent on everyone to offer libations and sacrifices and first fruits, according to the customs of his country, purely, and not heedlessly nor negligently; not avariciously, nor yet extravagantly.

I think the bolded word is more properly "effected." The Perseus Project translation agrees with me.

I have italicized what I think is the hinge of this chapter. Confer with Aristotle's dictum that 'The Good is what all things desire.' This becomes important, in a different way, for Aquinas. For Aristotle, it is obvious that all things desire to continue to exist, to perfect their existence, and to extend it (as through reproduction). The good of a thing, say a dog, is that which allows that thing to flourish: food, shelter, a relationship with a kind master, a chance to breed. 

The good per se is thus, as Aquinas notes, existence; but not, he warns, the kind of existence that we things have. It is existence in the divine sense, which is everlasting and eternal and incapable of eradication: a kind of good to which our souls aspire, but which we cannot have without yielding up our own natural good. Yet in coming to know the divine, as much as we can, we realize that God is truly good in a way that no earthly thing is. The nature of his existence proves that his goodness is truer than ours: Good itself.

In Epictetus dictum is complicated by the possibility of error: beings desire (and thus pursue and admire) that which causes them to flourish, or appears to; and they "flee and abhor" those things that harm them, or that appear to do. Yet, he says, we can fall into error if we mistake good and evil: if we take it to be human existence, as he notes, the man who loses a wife or a child may come to flee and abhor the gods who are presumably in charge of fateful events such as that. The danger of falling into impiety, of hating the gods instead of loving them, lies in failing to see the philosophical truth about what is truly good and, therefore, evil.

Now re-read Enchiridion XXVII. Aquinas' view is not Epictetus', who is centuries too early. His view of what the true good for humans is, and is not, is laid out there. The gods built the good for us into the world, and we should never doubt it -- nor should we doubt them and their goodness, either, because they built us a world in which the human good is both available and attainable. Mistaking the random acts of fate for evil is an error; just as, for Aquinas, it will prove to be an error to mistake human survival for the true good, the latter being a kind of existence that we do not have naturally but might obtain through divine grace. For Aquinas too the good is available and attainable, and via a divine action that made it so: but it is a different conception of the good.

Hamburger Misogyny

See how long you can listen to this without laughter. I made it to “girls and women.” But don’t worry. If that doesn’t get you, there’s more! 

The whole room breaks out in laughter at one point. 

Boots Not Made for Walking

A top nuclear DOE official the Biden administration has hired has an interesting choice of footwear.

Sam has worn his stilettos to Congress to advise legislators about nuclear policy and to the White House where he advised President Obama and Michelle Obama on LGBT issues. He shows young men and women everywhere he goes that they can be who they are and gives them courage. Once, while he was walking around Disney World in 6 inch stilettos with his boyfriend, a young gay boy saw Sam with his boyfriend and started crying. He told his mother, ‘”t’s true, Mom. WE can be our own princess here.”

I shouldn't talk. I've worn both cowboy boots and combat boots to the White House campus, though in my case it was just the Old Executive Building / Eisenhower Building to meet with the NSC. Sometimes you just need to go with what feels most comfortable on your feet.

He has identified the contradiction

The title of this Intelligencer piece is "Pro-worker conservatives are just union-busters in disguise," though what the article itself is saying is closer to "Conservatives are appealing to workers more and more, even though we believe the workers are mistaken about their own best interests." A conservative worker might put it a different way and say "Pro-union progressives are just union-boss-lovers in disguise, and will drop the actual workers in the ditch without a second thought."

"The Republican Party," the author complains, "has an interest in spotlighting the political divides between culturally conservative workers and progressive union officials."  As usual, the leftist spin is not that union officials are ignoring the preferences of the members whose dues buy their country houses, but that Republicans have pounced on a weakness and engaged in their usual divisive tactics, using a wedge issue to show union members that they have a good reason to resent the use of their dues to support a party whose platform they abhor.

The author complains further that "Republicans do not need to advance working-class interests in order to gain working-class vote share."  Now, why might that be?  Because workers have an idea what they want out of a political system, and the Democratic party platform ain't it?  Are we really supposed to believe it's unfair that Republicans can get workers to vote for them because they have outperformed Democrats in identifying what the workers want?

Enchiridion XXX

XXX

Duties are universally measured by relations. Is a certain man your father? In this are implied taking care of him, submitting to him in all things, patiently receiving his reproaches, his correction. But he is a bad father. Is your natural tie, then, to a good father? No, but to a father. Is a brother unjust? Well, preserve your own just relation toward him. Consider not what he does, but what you are to do to keep your own will in a state conformable to nature, for another cannot hurt you unless you please. You will then be hurt when you consent to be hurt. In this manner, therefore, if you accustom yourself to contemplate the relations of neighbor, citizen, commander, you can deduce from each the corresponding duties.

That very first premise is widely challenged by contemporary philosophy, which wants to consider duties as universal in character. Rawls, famously, argued that we should imagine (because we cannot actually do it) devising the moral rules in a 'veil of ignorance,' behind which we should know nothing about our actual circumstances. Some who consider themselves Kantian thinkers argue that Kant's dictum that you can only act properly under a maxim that could be expressed as a universal moral law requires treating all people exactly equally -- but Kant, of course, would never have accepted that you ought not to pay special attention to your father. Kant's actual moral vision was highly conservative, once he got around to spelling it out in the Metaphysics of Morals. It's only people who stop with the Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals -- which is far more popular, being both shorter and more theoretical -- who can imagine he would have endorsed any such thing.

Epictetus says something that would have been morally obvious to everyone in his age, and in every earlier age, and almost every subsequent age. That it has become controversial points to the weakness of our own.

This view of duty expands outwards in accordance with the relations we bear to each other. I owe duties to my family that I do not to others; to my neighbors that I do not to others; to my fellow citizens that I do not to others. (This too is now highly controversial among the Managers, who would have us bear duties to the entire world while washing citizenship of any meaning: disloyalty to the demos from those who describe themselves as democrats.) Doing your duty in each of your relations satisfies your duties to the semblances you encounter of the things outside. 

In fact, though, you have only done your duty to yourself. You have behaved as one ought to do, given what you think you know your relations and duties to be. In that way you have lived with honor, and thus can rest in honor. The injustice the semblances may produce is their own concern: you know you have done right, and are satisfied.

A Legal Dispute

Julie Kelly hits upon an interesting fact: the Justice Department has been lying in its indictments about the whereabouts of two people, Mike Pence and Kamala Harris. I don't think she's right about the legal argument she's advancing, but it is interesting that the government apparently refuses to tell the court the truth here as elsewhere. If this conduct was so bad -- Cocaine Mitch himself called it an "insurrection" just this week -- surely just laying out the plain facts would do? 

Confront Your Skin

 NPR worries about your choice of emojis, and wants you to worry too.

Woke Oppressors

REI is having a dispute about whether to unionize. The leadership decided to hold a podcast to talk about it.

Wilma Wallace:

Hi REI. My name is Wilma Wallace and I serve as your Chief Diversity and Social Impact Officer. I use she/her pronouns and am speaking to you today from the traditional lands of the Ohlone people.

So I'm here chatting with Eric Artz who serves the co-op and all of us as CEO....

So just to recap for the audience on Friday January 21st we were notified by the National Labor Relations Board that the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union filed a petition for an election at our SoHo store in New York. And since then I'm sure you've heard from lots of employees across the co-op. Maybe we can start by you sharing some of what you've heard.

Eric Artz:

Well thank you Wilma. Thanks for hosting and hello to everyone that is listening. For those of you who I have not had the chance to meet, I use he/him pronouns and I'm speaking to you today from the traditional lands of the Coast Salish peoples.

Spoiler: they are not in favor of allowing their workers to unionize. 

The atmosphere did it

It was the atmosphere that prompted the shooting!--I didn't say the people who created the atmosphere "caused" the shooting, so I didn't commit libel. From John Sexton, one of the better contributors at HotAir:

If accusing Palin (or her PAC) of clear incitement to mass murder when in fact there is no such connection at all doesn’t constitute reckless disregard for the truth, what could possibly qualify? In a way, even Bennet’s own argument supports this. Saying he was too rushed to do a proper job of it is just a way of justifying his own reckless behavior, i.e. if he’d only had more time, he’d have looked into the truth of what he was writing. The jury may decide the law protects the Times even in this case but if so then it’s hard to see how why “reckless disregard” was included in the law at all.

Lowdown Freedom

Trucker convoy has "weaponized freedom" to "undermine democracy." The preservation of the freedom of ordinary common folk was the whole point of the latter as I had always understood it. Canada doesn't have our Declaration of Independence, with its philosophical justification for government; but what really is the point of democracy if it isn't to protect the rights of common people? 

Common people will have common faults, and their common sense will just mean embracing the kinds of things that make sense to common folk. It's only those kinds of things any government can do whose legitimacy is broad-based, for the common people are by far the most of them. Democracy was never meant to be for the great and the good; that's aristocracy, which has its own faults. They are worse faults: the Arabs say, "The mistake of the wise man is equal to the mistakes of a thousand fools."

So they'll drink too much, and some of them will cheat on their spouse; they'll have some prejudice, sometimes, against the people who are different. But they won't leave thousands of American citizens stranded in Afghanistan, or sell the place and all its ancient liberties to a totalitarian China. They won't murder millions like Mao did to try to make some titanic change. I'm not one of them, but I'll ride with them. My loyalty is always to them: as decent as they can be, as free as they can be. May God keep them -- He must love them, having made so many -- and may God defend the right. 

Enchiridion XXIX

XXIX

In every affair consider what precedes and what follows, and then undertake it. Otherwise you will begin with spirit, indeed, careless of the consequences, and when these are developed, you will shamefully desist. “I would conquer at the Olympic Games.” But consider what precedes and what follows, and then, if it be for your advantage, engage in the affair. You must conform to rules, submit to a diet, refrain from dainties; exercise your body, whether you choose it or not, at a stated hour, in heat and cold; you must drink no cold water, and sometimes no wine—in a word, you must give yourself up to your trainer as to a physician. Then, in the combat, you may be thrown into a ditch, dislocate your arm, turn your ankle, swallow an abundance of dust, receive stripes [for negligence], and, after all, lose the victory. When you have reckoned up all this, if your inclination still holds, set about the combat. Otherwise, take notice, you will behave like children who sometimes play wrestlers, sometimes gladiators, sometimes blow a trumpet, and sometimes act a tragedy, when they happen to have seen and admired these shows. Thus you too will be at one time a wrestler, and another a gladiator; now a philosopher, now an orator; but nothing in earnest. Like an ape you mimic all you see, and one thing after another is sure to please you, but is out of favor as soon as it becomes familiar. For you have never entered upon anything considerately; nor after having surveyed and tested the whole matter, but carelessly, and with a halfway zeal. Thus some, when they have seen a philosopher and heard a man speaking like Euphrates—though, indeed, who can speak like him?—have a mind to be philosophers, too. Consider first, man, what the matter is, and what your own nature is able to bear. If you would be a wrestler, consider your shoulders, your back, your thighs; for different persons are made for different things. Do you think that you can act as you do and be a philosopher, that you can eat, drink, be angry, be discontented, as you are now? You must watch, you must labor, you must get the better of certain appetites, must quit your acquaintances, be despised by your servant, be laughed at by those you meet; come off worse than others in everything—in offices, in honors, before tribunals. When you have fully considered all these things, approach, if you please—that is, if, by parting with them, you have a mind to purchase serenity, freedom, and tranquility. If not, do not come hither; do not, like children, be now a philosopher, then a publican, then an orator, and then one of Caesar’s officers. These things are not consistent. You must be one man, either good or bad. You must cultivate either your own reason or else externals; apply yourself either to things within or without you—that is, be either a philosopher or one of the mob.

I didn't say anything about the last chapter because I think it's self-explanatory. That doesn't mean I don't think it's important.

This chapter, as the note at the original mentions, is almost the same as a parallel part of the Discourses, where  arguments and discussions are laid out in fuller form.  Since it is in its fuller form, I will also leave it be save to answer questions you may have.

Enchiridion XXVIII

XXVIII

If a person had delivered up your body to some passer-by, you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in delivering up your own mind to any reviler, to be disconcerted and confounded?

Enchiridion XXVII

XXVII

As a mark is not set up for the sake of missing the aim, so neither does the nature of evil exist in the world.

This mysterious line is of immense importance. A single sentence, this lays out the conclusion to an argument whose premises are unstated. The argument is a proof, whose consequence is a view of the problem of evil similar to that adopted by St. Augustine.* 

As noted before, the Enchiridion records only the summary conclusions of the Stoic school that Epictetus founded, and not the underlying arguments. Lacking the unstated premises, the proof's force and its consequences may not be obvious. 

So here is a reconstruction of how the unstated premises might be stated:

1) All things come to be because they order themselves by their own nature, or because they are put into a particular order by someone or something else. (Aristotle Physics 1)
1a) An example of the first is living beings, which grow into what they are because of internal processes like digestion that let them turn other parts of the world into material for their own order. A child grows into an adult because it is realizing its own internal natural principles of order.
1b) Examples of the second include artifacts, which are made by someone else; and accidental features of nature like weathered riverbeds or seashores. They become what they are because of an external activity.

2) Things like human beings that are internally ordered have a nature; the reason a dog grows into a dog and a man into a man is that their natures differ.

3) Determining the good for a things requires looking at its nature, then; dogs can profit from eating different things than men, for example.

4) Human nature differs from dogs, other lower animals, and plants in that it has an additional capacity for reason that allows it to obtain fuller goods than irrational natural drives.

5) Human nature's highest good is eudaimonia, a flourishing that comes from ordering all your activities in accord with the reason that is the highest part of your nature. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1)

6) This ordering produces virtues (arete), which are excellences of capacity that allow you to pursue the highest good even more fully. 

7) Euidaimonia is reached when you exercise your arete in accord with your reason: thus, you can become happy by living the most virtuous life that is possible for yourself, which reason can tell you how to do.

8) Since this is the highest good for your nature (5), and your nature determines the good for the kind of being you are (3), attaining eudaimonia is the proper mark to aim at in your life.

9) Because the reason that is part of human nature (4) gives you the ability to hit this mark (7), nature can be said to contain a mark that is intended for you to hit and not miss.

Therefore, a mark exists in nature that is happiness and the highest good;

Marks do not exist to be missed, but to serve as targets to be hit. The mark does exist. Therefore nature is such that evil is not its intended end. Good is -- the highest good, and happiness, that comes from learning to hit the mark.

This leads to the solution of the problem of evil, which is that it is not the case that the gods have made an evil world, or a world in which evil is a necessary part. The gods have made a world in which good is the intended mark of nature: by pursuing your rational nature and developing your natural virtues, good and not evil is what you will obtain. Evil comes from people ignoring their reason, or their virtues.

What about random accidents, such as a rock falling upon your child? Those are events of type (1b), things that do not arise from one's own nature (what Kant will later call autonomy) but from outside forces that may be random chance (which Kant called heteronomy). They are not evil, no more than the carving of the river or seashore was evil. They are just the random workings of things that have no will of their own.

Therefore, the existence of the mark proves that the nature of evil is not part of the world. It is a failure by some of us to live up to the good -- to hit the mark that nature has provided. 

*(For St. Augustine, this is placed in the Christian context: God did not create a world with evil in it, nor that is evil by nature, nor in which evil is a necessary part. Gods will is perfectly good; but our free will allows us to fail to attain the goods that God made possible for us, or for others to harm us out of a failure of theirs to pursue the good that God would have wished them to pursue instead of what they chose. Evil is also then a human failing, or a collection of them, rather than a charge that can be laid at the feet of God -- as Job did not do, at least not at first.)

Just what it says on the tin

 The Virginia legislature's Black Caucus contains a lie right in its name.  It's the Black Leftist Caucus, and no black Republicans need apply.  Virginia's new black state representative aired the sad state of affairs on the floor of the House, saying:

Maybe I need to start my own caucus, the Virginia Non-Leftist Black Caucus. Right now it’ll be a caucus of one but that’s okay. As Thoreau said "Any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already."

Enchiridion XXVI

XXVI

The will of nature may be learned from things upon which we are all agreed. As when our neighbor’s boy has broken a cup, or the like, we are ready at once to say, “These are casualties that will happen”; be assured, then, that when your own cup is likewise broken, you ought to be affected just as when another’s cup was broken. Now apply this to greater things. Is the child or wife of another dead? There is no one who would not say, “This is an accident of mortality.” But if anyone’s own child happens to die, it is immediately, “Alas! how wretched am I!” It should be always remembered how we are affected on hearing the same thing concerning others.

Can anyone be so rational or detached about a beloved child? Ought one to be? Even Job tore his garments and shaved his head in mourning over his children, and was said to be blameless for 'he did not charge God with wrongdoing.' Epictetus wants us also not to charge the divine with wrongdoing, and simply to accept it as one of the random things that happens in this world. Which, of course, it is. 

Enchiridion XXV

XXV 

 

Is anyone preferred before you at an entertainment, or in courtesies, or in confidential intercourse? If these things are good, you ought to rejoice that he has them; and if they are evil, do not be grieved that you have them not. And remember that you cannot be permitted to rival others in externals without using the same means to obtain them. For how can he who will not haunt the door of any man, will not attend him, will not praise him, have an equal share with him who does these things? You are unjust, then, and unreasonable if you are unwilling to pay the price for which these things are sold, and would have them for nothing. For how much are lettuces sold? An obulus, for instance. If another, then, paying an obulus, takes the lettuces, and you, not paying it, go without them, do not imagine that he has gained any advantage over you. For as he has the lettuces, so you have the obulus which you did not give. So, in the present case, you have not been invited to such a person’s entertainment because you have not paid him the price for which a supper is sold. It is sold for praise; it is sold for attendance. Give him, then, the value if it be for your advantage. But if you would at the same time not pay the one, and yet receive the other, you are unreasonable and foolish. Have you nothing, then, in place of the supper? Yes, indeed, you have—not to praise him whom you do not like to praise; not to bear the insolence of his lackeys.

The analogue here is Diogenes, whom Plato reportedly called “Socrates gone mad.” 

“A philosopher named Aristippus, who had quite willingly sucked up to Dionysus and won himself a spot at his court, saw Diogenes cooking lentils for a meal. “If you would only learn to compliment Dionysus, you wouldn’t have to live on lentils.” Diogenes replied, “But if you would only learn to live on lentils, you wouldn’t have to flatter Dionysus.”

CDL Proximity Metric

A few years ago, reporters were incensed when they were asked whether they or someone they knew owned a pickup truck -- the Ford F-150 being the most popular line of vehicles in America for decades, and the next two most popular also being pickup trucks. None of the reporters knew anyone with a truck.

In the wake of the Convoy for Freedom, another metric has been proposed: "How far out in your immediate social circle do you need to go to find someone who can legally operate a dump truck?"

I myself own a Ford F-150, so I am zero steps removed in the first metric. I am not too much farther in the second one. I can myself drive a fire truck, which in North Carolina is legal for volunteers without a CDL provided they take an annual weekend certification course. Professional firefighters require a CDL. Since several of my friends are professional firefighters -- the county has a few slots for them, in addition to the volunteers -- the distance is one.

Back in Georgia my next-door neighbor was a big rig driver. He retired after being hijacked and shot, though he managed to wreck the truck to prevent it being stolen (and to allow the police to capture his hijacker). It's a hard job under the best of circumstances, and can be dangerous as well. 

Brilliant Analysis

Nobody believes China's pandemic numbers are remotely accurate: they are clearly lying. As part of its coverage of the Olympics -- which we should be refusing to participate in, both because of the ongoing genocide and slave labor in China and also because we cannot protect our citizens who travel there, as even Nancy Pelosi admits -- the NYT decided to entertain those numbers.

Headline: "Good morning. China’s zero-Covid policy has kept deaths very low. Can it continue?"

Has it, though? Refer to the graph at the first link.

The NYT admits that there is widespread disbelief: "Even if China’s official numbers are artificially low, its true Covid death toll is almost certainly much lower than that of the U.S., Europe or many other countries. Consider how enormous the official gap is."

That is an astonishing bit of reasoning. "Even if they're lying, look how BIG the lie would have to be. They can't be lying THAT much."

I mean, they could be. Their lies over the Great Leap Forward leave us guessing, even today, as to whether only 30 million people died or as many as 60 million people did. They control the state media and have threatened the foreign media on the ground very effectively, while purchasing influence with their parent companies. There's no reason to believe their numbers are remotely accurate, especially since they are also implausible. They're claiming to be doing fifty times as well as Japan, for example, a nation of similar population density and social cohesion but higher technology and far better sanitation. 

UPDATE: The PRC apparently chose to open the games with a synchronized display of smiling and waving Uyghurs, whose families are under threat at home to ensure their cooperation. It is raw, totalitarian propaganda. 

Another Western Interlude

Enchiridion XXIV

XXIV

Let not such considerations as these distress you: “I shall live in discredit and be nobody anywhere.” For if discredit be an evil, you can no more be involved in evil through another than in baseness. Is it any business of yours, then, to get power or to be admitted to an entertainment? By no means. How then, after all, is this discredit? And how it is true that you will be nobody anywhere when you ought to be somebody in those things only which are within your own power, in which you may be of the greatest consequence? “But my friends will be unassisted.” What do you mean by “unassisted”? They will not have money from you, nor will you make them Roman citizens. Who told you, then, that these are among the things within our own power, and not rather the affairs of others? And who can give to another the things which he himself has not? “Well, but get them, then, that we too may have a share.” If I can get them with the preservation of my own honor and fidelity and self-respect, show me the way and I will get them; but if you require me to lose my own proper good, that you may gain what is no good, consider how unreasonable and foolish you are. Besides, which would you rather have, a sum of money or a faithful and honorable friend? Rather assist me, then, to gain this character than require me to do those things by which I may lose it. Well, but my country, say you, as far as depends upon me, will be unassisted. Here, again, what assistance is this you mean? It will not have porticos nor baths of your providing? And what signifies that? Why, neither does a smith provide it with shoes, nor a shoemaker with arms. It is enough if everyone fully performs his own proper business. And were you to supply it with another faithful and honorable citizen, would not he be of use to it? Yes. Therefore neither are you yourself useless to it. “What place, then,” say you, “shall I hold in the state?” Whatever you can hold with the preservation of your fidelity and honor. But if, by desiring to be useful to that, you lose these, how can you serve your country when you have become faithless and shameless?

"How can you serve your country when you have become faithless and shameless?" There is a rhetorical question, since we have endless evidence before our eyes of how such people 'serve.'

This is a larger statement of how to engage in public matters, which have also been called 'semblances' and 'externals.' It is not that you ought not to do it; it is that you ought not to privilege any of them above the maintenance of your own honor, fidelity, and self-respect. If you do no more than provide your country with one more faithful and honorable citizen, you will have done enough. If it is given to you to do more, fine; if it is not, you have fulfilled your real duty by preserving these internal qualities.

It occurs to me that Stoic philosophy is not taught in public schools, except for those who choose to major or take electives in philosophy or history and even then only if they happen to choose that area. Yet what better lesson could we convey to the young than this one right here in today's chapter? It does not matter if you are famous; it does not matter if you are powerful. It only matters to live with faith and honor, and to live so that you hold your head up because you know that you deserve to hold it up. 

Only in that way could you serve your people anyway, whether friend or fellow citizen. 

The clear analogy today is to Mark 8:36, which makes a similar but metaphysically sterner claim. What profits it you to gain a position of service to others if you have lost the faith and honor that would allow you to perform service? Well, it might profit you quite a bit -- again, there are many examples right in front of us of people who have profited from precisely that. Yet I think Epictetus means something very close here to what Jesus said.

Strictly Unconstitutional

The White House calls on all media platforms -- by name, Spotify -- to censor the speech of Americans with whose views they disagree. 

Private platforms might possibly do what they want; that's an argument, though there are significant counterarguments. Private platforms that are explicitly carrying out the will of the government are acting as agents of the state, and are bound by the restrictions on the state. 

Of course the government is already in violation. The courts might correct them, or not; the corporations might choose to do the right thing, or not. There is a point, coming closer, at which the corrective is us. 

If you stop arresting people, arrests will go down

 On the other hand, some of the kids may get killed by someone you didn't arrest.

Enchiridion XXIII

XXIII

If you ever happen to turn your attention to externals, for the pleasure of anyone, be assured that you have ruined your scheme of life. Be content, then, in everything, with being a philosopher; and if you wish to seem so likewise to anyone, appear so to yourself, and it will suffice you.

This begins to be an answer to the question raised by the last chapter; we will see more over the next two days.

What would we do without critics?

Via Neo:  I can't say "Justin Castreau" didn't ask for it.

JP Sears is funny as usual, but he can't hold a candle to the genuine news article Neo linked:  "critics warn that conflating the absence of bloodshed with 'peaceful' protest downplays the dangers of the weekend demonstrations."  Was there violence that didn't quite draw blood?  Well, no, but one person interviewed (duly identified as non-binary, because we need to know) said she knew of at least one child who was afraid to go outside.

That's a DeSantis signature.

I leave you with these words of comfort:

I don't think you have to call the kids in until the "mostly peaceful" klaxons go off.

A Rough Estimate on Ukraine

 Russia continues to redeploy significant assets in ways that look like it is preparing for war. It has chosen to redeploy dozens of deniable Wagner PMC assets from Africa to Europe, and is today moving its Pacific Fleet through the Suez Canal to take up position somewhere closer to Europe -- the final destination is unclear at this time, but even from the Mediterranean they could provide some support. Like the existing deployments of forces on the border, the Pacific Fleet maneuver is expensive and cannot be maintained for a very long time without sacrificing a strategic asset in a strategic region. 

My personal guess is that the Russians will use Belarus to provoke (or more likely fake) a Ukrainian 'provocation' the Belarussians will respond to, allowing Russia to invade under the pretense of defending its allies from Ukrainian aggression. They will use the overwhelming force they are accumulating behind special operations and aircraft fires to rapidly seize and hold the eastern half of the country only, I estimate, where most of the population speaks Russia and conceives of themselves as Russians. If they then consolidate that position, there will be a long front that can be dug in and defended. Western diplomatic pressure to make them concede it will be exactly as effective as it has been in South Ossetia and Crimea, i.e., not at all.

Russia is in a perfect position to steal a march on the West, take the portion of Ukraine that will be easiest to take and easiest to hold, and to do so at a low cost in lives and resources. It's the most sensible play, and in accord with Putin's past operations. They could do something more aggressive, but it would also be more expensive and be more likely to create a long-term problem for them like an insurgency behind their lines.

I'm guessing Belarus will do it this time because their President just publicly issued a more aggressive statement on Ukraine than Russia has done. They've already allowed Russian military assets onto their territory, and are openly inviting many more 'if attacked.' If they're staging up to take the lead, then Russia gets to come in not as aggressor -- the chief war crime -- but as a defender and savior of its (allegedly invaded) ally. This will also serve as a pretense that the Russians are not aggressively gobbling up territory again, though of course the collapse of the West and of American power under the Biden administration has made such realignments inevitable. 

Expecting a play of that sort is probably also why the Ukrainian government is trying to get the Biden administration and others to lower their tone, as they want to avoid any appearance of provoking or encouraging conflict. The last thing they could want at this time is to give any appearance of being an aggressor in this conflict. (CNN analysts are a good reverse barometer, so if you read this analysis you'll see both that lowering the tone is the wise play and also that the Biden administration is almost certain to go the other way, thinking they are being 'muscular' rather than walking into a trap.)

Anyway, that's my estimate of what military intelligence calls the 'Most Likely Enemy Course of Action' (MLECOA). This differs from the 'Most Dangerous Enemy Course of Action,' (MDECOA), which I'm not going to lay out in public. I doubt most Americans care enough about any of this to want to get involved, but the Biden administration has shown a stark disconnect from being able to care about, or even entertain concerns from, ordinary Americans.

Enchiridion XXII

XXII

If you have an earnest desire toward philosophy, prepare yourself from the very first to have the multitude laugh and sneer, and say, “He is returned to us a philosopher all at once”; and, “Whence this supercilious look?” Now, for your part, do not have a supercilious look indeed, but keep steadily to those things which appear best to you, as one appointed by God to this particular station. For remember that, if you are persistent, those very persons who at first ridiculed will afterwards admire you. But if you are conquered by them, you will incur a double ridicule.

Let us combine this advice with the last chapter’s: sometimes the admiration does not come until after you die. Socrates and Jesus both had a few admirers at their executions; numerous artists knew very little commercial success in their lives. Some committed suicide, even, only to have their works become beloved later — Robert E. Howard is often mentioned here, and Van Gogh was just mentioned at AVI’s place. 

In remembrance of death we remember that all of life’s troubles are passing; in remembering that honors often come after death to those who were true to their divine appointment, we might even face death boldly under difficult conditions and circumstances. 

Yet it is striking that Epictetus, who has heretofore cited honors like admiration as mere semblances to be discarded as ‘not our business,’ would cite them here. Is admiration from others a proper ethical concern, or is it not?

The interested might turn to Aristotle’s discussion of whether honor affects the happiness of the dead beginning in Nicomachean Ethics I.10 and followings. Aristotle asked if Solon was right that you couldn’t judge the happiness of a person before death, or if you could. This leads into a general discussion of happiness as an activity (which presumably only live people can execute), but that leads to a puzzle about whether the dead can be less happy if they are later scorned, or if their children suffer, and so forth. He isn’t quite wiling to say these things can be dismissed as considerations even for the dead, for whom they are no longer even semblances.