Show notes
A Contented Mind and Pure Hands
What is most important? Refusing to let bad intentions enter your mind; raising pure hands to heaven; not seeking any good thing if someone else must give it or must lose it so that it may pass to you; wishing for a sound mind (something that can be wished for without competition); regarding the other things rated highly by mortals, even if some chance brings them into your home, as likely to exit by the door they entered. (Natural Questions III, praef. 14)
This passage strikes at the core of human conflict. Seneca instructs us not to seek “any good thing if someone else must give it or must lose it so that it may pass to you.” Competition for possessions, money, power, prestige, and position is incompatible with the development of moral excellence (virtue) and well-being. Stoicism teaches us that whether we are rich or poor, powerful or powerless, famous or unknown, we should be content with our present circumstances. Moreover, when things are not to our liking, Stoicism teaches us to use those circumstances as an opportunity to develop our moral character. However, we live in a time when the predominant message is quite the opposite. If we are dissatisfied with our circumstances, we are encouraged to complain, sue, petition, protest, picket, march, riot, and even cause civil disturbance and property damage until we get what we want. We are led to believe that if someone has more money, education, power, better health care or housing than we do, an injustice must have occurred. Meanwhile, Marcus Aurelius poignantly reminded himself:
But perhaps you are discontented with what is allotted to you from the whole? Then call to mind the alternative, ‘either providence or atoms’ and all the proofs that the universe should be regarded as a kind of constitutional state. (Meditations 4.3)
I believe this is one of the primary reasons many moderns reject the Stoic conception of a providential cosmos. To accept this Stoic doctrine entails that the cosmos and our current circumstances are as they should be. In other words, we currently have what the cosmos allotted to us, and our current circumstances provide the perfect place from which to begin development of our moral character. That is a message many of us moderns simply do not want to hear because it makes us accountable for our lives. It is so much easier to blame others for our circumstances than it is to look in the mirror and accept responsibility.
Two common misconceptions are used to excuse our righteous indignation at perceived injustices. First, we mistakenly believe that our circumstances dictate or largely influence our well-being. However, circumstances are neither good nor bad; it is only our judgments of those events that can affect our well-being. According to the dichotomy of control, externals do not present a barrier to the development of our moral character or our well-being. Instead, the Stoics teach that our life circumstances are grist for the mill. Epictetus makes this point quite clear in his Discourse titled On providence when he asks:
What kind of a man do you suppose Heracles would have become if it hadn’t been for the famous lion, and the hydra, the stag, the boar, and the wicked and brutal men whom he drove away and cleared from the earth? (Discourses 1.6.32)
In other words, those dis-preferred external circumstances allowed Heracles to become who he truly was. Without them, he would not have become Heracles; he could not have lived up to his potential without those challenges.
The second common misunderstanding comes from the assumption that being content with and loving our present circumstances leads to a form of quietism and thereby subdues any desire to effect change in our personal or social circumstances. On the contrary, Stoicism does not teach us to remain quiet and passive in the face of real injustice. Likewise, it does not teach us to be passive toward dis-preferred circumstances. Regarding Heracles and the lion, hydra, stag, boar, and wicked and brutal men, Epictetus asks:
What would he have turned his hand to if nothing like that had existed? Isn’t it plain that he would have wrapped himself up in a blanket and gone to sleep? (Discourses 1.6.33)
Next, Epictetus challenged his students to welcome and engage difficult circumstances rather than being passive:
So come on, then, now that you recognize these things, and consider the faculties that you possess, and after having done so, say, ‘Bring on me now, Zeus, whatever trouble you may wish, since I have the equipment that you granted to me and such resources as will enable me to distinguish myself through whatever may happen.’ (Discourses 1.6.37)
Finally, we get a dose of Epictetus’ protreptic teaching style as lays us bare:
No, but you sit there trembling at the thought that certain things may come about, and wailing, grieving, and groaning at others that do come about; and then you cast blame on the gods. For what else than impiety can result from such meanness of spirit? And yet God has not only granted us these faculties that enable us to endure whatever may happen without being debased or crushed by it, but has also granted them to us—as befits a good king and, in truth, father—free from all hindrance, compulsion, and restraint, placing them entirely within our own power, without reserving any power even for himself to hinder or restrain them. Possessing these faculties as you do, free and as your own, you fail to make use of them, however, and fail to perceive what it is that you have received, and from whom, but sit there grieving and groaning, some of you blinded towards the giver and not even recognizing your benefactor, while others are led astray by their meanness of spirit into making reproaches and complaints against God. And yet I can show you that you have the resources and equipment that are needed to be noble-minded and courageous, while it is for you to show me what occasion you have for complaint and reproach! (Discourses 1.6.38-43)
Obviously, Stoicism, properly understood, does not lead to quietism. Instead, Stoic practice creates courageous minds for courageous action. We must engage with our personal versions of the lion, hydra, stag, boar, and wicked and brutal men with an intention to act appropriately and achieve a preferred outcome. Nonetheless, we must do so without desiring that outcome or being fearful of its opposite. Additionally, we must act with a reserve clause and the full realization that fate may have different plans. Therefore, we must be willing to accept and love the outcome even when it is the opposite of what we intended. Why? Because for that moment, under those circumstances, that is what the universal Reason of the cosmos produced, and that outcome is “not up to us.” Finally, we must be careful when we intend to seek any external lest we engender bad intentions and create unclean hands. Envy, resentment, and anger have no place in the Stoic way of life. Seneca could not be more clear on this matter; we are not to seek “any good thing if someone else must give it or must lose it so that it may pass to [us].”
We live in a time when some people argue that the desired end they seek, whether it be equality or some form of justice, is important enough to warrant nearly any means to achieve it. However, justice cannot be achieved via unjust means. The moral indignation, anger, and outrage exhibited by so many of those seeking justice is not an indicator of the righteousness of their goal. This form of self-righteous virtue-signaling does little more than stir anger and encourage hatred of others. Far too frequently, it leads to bad intentions and impure hands. We moderns usually reject this kind of self-righteousness when it is exhibited by religious fundamentalists. Yet, we are often manipulated and fooled by secular prophets who promise utopias here on earth. Regardless of the motive or promised paradise, bad intentions and impure hands cannot bring about justice. The end does not justify the means. The “Nature” that we Stoics are instructed to live in agreement with has a cosmic, divine source. It is not the “Nature, red in tooth and claw”[1] of the animal kingdom. As Epictetus teaches us:
When we act for the sake of our belly or genitals, when we act at random, or in a filthy manner, or without proper care, to what level have we sunk? To that of sheep. What have we destroyed? What is rational in us. And when we behave aggressively, and harmfully, and angrily, and forcefully, to what level have we sunk? To that of wild beasts. There are, besides, some among us who are large ferocious beasts, while others are little ones, small and evil-natured, which prompt us to say, ‘I’d rather be eaten by a lion!’ By all such behaviour, the human calling is destroyed. (Discourses 2.9.4-7)
Our modern world is ravaged by a sense of discontent, envy, and rage that instigates and feeds anger and hatred for others who have what we do not have. Far too frequently, that rage boils over into catastrophe as those who have been taught to feel like helpless victims lash out against those they believe are the cause of their unhappiness. As Stoics, we must not be duped by false prophets of either religion or politics who justify unclean hands today for the promise of a utopia tomorrow. As Stoic practitioners, we must not be tempted to desire what other possess. Epictetus mocks those who reach for things belonging to others in Discourses 2.4.8. Likewise, he frequently reminds us that our power, virtue, and well-being are found within:
My principal task in life is this: to distinguish between things, and establish a division between them and say, ‘External things are not within my power; choice is within my power. Where am I to seek the good and the bad? Within myself, in that which is my own.’ But with regard to what is not my own, never apply the words good or bad,...
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