Link to other articles
I was reading a bit of Marcus Aurelius' classic "Meditations". I've only read a bit of it so far, and on this web page I will write down some thoughts I had while reading the first book of the Meditations. I plan on eventually writing analyses for each chapter of the book.
I'm currently reading a few books in parallel (including the Meditations), and really like the books I've been reading. For me this is a new hobby, I've never been much of a reader previously; but it's a good thing I got into it. In general, I plan to write down my thoughts on what I read in article format. This article is my first attempt at that; and I'm thinking of going in depth into the text, "into the weeds". I'll probably comment on large chunks of the text in these articles, especially for the better books. Hopefully this ends up being a decent way of conveying information.
Thoughts on Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, Book 1: nature, virtue, utilitarianism, rationality, virtue in society
This section is mostly acknowledgements and detailed gratitude towards the men and women who Marcus Aurelius holds in great esteem. This section gives a glimpse into the things valued by Aurelius (and the stoics in general).
Most of the acknowledgements in this chapter are easy to understand. Aurelius presents his gratitude to certain people, and gives reasons why, and those reasons usually speak for themselves; it is usually easy/obvious to see why Marcus Aurelius puts value on the things that he does. It's a waste of time to comment on those obvious ones, but there are some lines that are interesting and worth commenting on.
Like my other articles, this is going to be written in a straeam of consciousness fashion. But overarchingly, the sequencing of the sections in this article will follow the order of the relevant sections in the book.
Meta-level: the author has credence through his own honesty
On a meta-level, book 1 clearly portrays Aurelius as a positive person, someone truly grateful and loving of the virtues he comments about. There is no trace of ulterior intent to be found here; one can both see and feel that Aurelius' acknowledgements really do come from the heart. In terms of the reader seeing this, the context of the Meditations proves Aurelius' honesty, as these were meant only as a personal notepad rather than for public consumption, so clearly in the distinct dichotomy of "being merely perceived as a good man" versus "being the good man"; the context alone proves that Aurelius is in that rare morally glorious (rather than socially glorious) second category. In terms of feeling this; one can perceive the honestly and love radiating from the language alone. The language stirs up a "gut feeling" that Aurelius isn't a phony, that he's not a guru or fake moralizer, and that he means what he says.
Be not an irrational partisan
There is a passage where Aurelius is grateful to his governor:
"From my governor, to be neither of the green nor of the blue party at the games in the Circus, nor a partizan either of the Parmularius or the Scutarius at the glatiators' fights"
Those gladiator duels and games were very popular in ancient times, and just like today's sports championships and pop culture rivalries, people had strong preferences and vigorously supported their beloved teams/athletes.
One might wonder why Aurelius was so against this mentality. Even today, it is common and "part of the culture" to go out to the football game and cheer on your home team. It is probably more socially appealing to be a big fan of some team than it is to not be a fan of anyone. One could say there's nothing wrong with going out and having fun supporting your team or cause in a public competition. However, Aurelius is using the gladiator games, and fan support, as a metaphor for general "partisanship"; more specifically, "useless" or "irrational" partisanship. It is this concept that Aurelius rallies against.
Why does he rally against partisanship? To clarify this, it makes sense to illuminate the "grand scheme" of Aurelius' beliefs, which are highly enmeshed in stoic philosophy (I really love reading the Meditations, and other great ancient philosophical texts, in part because of how connected all the passages are to some "grand scheme" philosophy that embeds itself in all the thoughts; the parsimonious and harmonious nature of these philosophies, and nature itself, is evident upon reading these, and the passages shouldn't ever be taken in isolation, but framed according to this grand scheme). Throughout the Meditations, there is a recurring theme of a battle between shallowness and profundity. This takes on many forms; for example, the battle between instant gratifications and strength through the resistance of these temptations, or the battle between sensuality and rationality, or the battle between distraction and the essentials. All of these "battles" reduce to the same blueprint of battle. Aurelius was an adherent to the philosophy of stoicism, and I've not studied stoicism at all (I've not even read the Wikipedia page), but it's clear that choosing the right hand side of these battles (resistance, strength, rationality, essentials, profundity) was of paramount importance to them and is a core tenet of their philosophy (I tend to agree with this, with some caveats). I'll comment more on those tenets as they appear in passages in the book; but the point is that rationality and focus on essentials and "the good thing" are understandably considered virtuous by Aurelius.
Partisanship goes against those virtues of rationality, righteousness, and avoiding distraction. Think about that context of the sports game provided by Aurelius; people are strongly emotionally attached to one of the two sides in the competition (blue or green, the Parmularius or the Scutarius). Kind of like how we have Yankees fans, or Steelers fans. Making the obvious analogy to today's sports teams, one can obviously see that this kind of partisanship is an affront to rationality. Why support the blue team over the green? Why support the Steelers over the Packers? Notice that there is never any rhyme or reason to any of these preferences, but they remain strong preferences. People go as far as to form alliances and bond over such trivialities. Group mentalities and rivalries form over them. Violence and spats can materialize from them. But over what? The fact that such trivialities form the basis for human bonding (instead of traits that actually matter), and sow the seeds of division, and incite violence and animosity, is absurd to think about. The fact that a useless factor becomes the one leading to actual important aspects of life such as bonding and division sullies the sanctity of those things. Group mentalities unavoidably come hand in hand with conflict against other groups, and irrational adherence to one's own group; both of these are important aspects of life, and things like conflict, violence, and authority are moral matters to be taken seriously. Partisanship as the signature of these groups and conflicts makes a mockery out of them, and goes against righteousness.
The main point is that those gladiator fights don't really matter, and thus, it is important not to put any emotional attachment on them. Those emotions influence our actions and ways of life, and modulate the importances and values we place on things. To put emotional attachment on something that doesn't matter, and to let these trivialities deform us into partisans, is clearly against the stoic philosophy. These things are distractions; instead of putting emphasis on what really matters and on what is good, our time, energy, and eventually concepts of value, would get sucked dry by giving into partisanship of some irrelevant cause.
Do not underestimate the destructive power of partisanship. By definition, partisanship is not something rational; it is done on a purely irrationally emotional basis. When we give such emotional importance to something irrational, clearly our rationality is blinded; this would be a scary situation and one to be avoided. Because if our rationality is blinded, the gateway for chaos opens wide, and havoc can spread its wings while slipping right past us as we were too focused on the gladiator match to take notice. A testament to the power of partisanship is its omnipresence, across history and across concepts. Aurelius used sports games as a metaphor, but the concept is general and applies to everything big and small. This is not a mere concept of the past; partisanship is extremely common today and it is not slowing down. Despite what the media tells you, people are not becoming less biased, and are not becoming more open minded. Swaths of people are entrenched in partisanships without even knowing it. Think of politics, causes, ideologies, even circles of friends; the irrational partisanships in these things are obvious, and imagine all of the mayhem unleashed by these "larger scale" partisanships arising in politics or beliefs.
We can make a link to my previous article on da Vinci and "readers of books" vs. true scientists. Readers of books form clear partisanships with the authors and ideologies espoused by whatever books they memorized, and I make the distinction with the "true scientists" or "geniuses" who are driven towards nature rather than books, and thus have the power to get closer to the truth; these "true scientists" are beacons of rationality, while the readers of books (partisans) drive us towards distractions and circlejerking and away from the faculty of our own minds. I think the stoics would agree with my take in that article. We should avoid acting according to partisanship, and guide ourselves instead by rationality.
Intend well; don't abuse, appreciate instead
Marcus Aurelius is grateful to Diognetus for teaching him:
"Not to breed quails for fighting, nor to give myself up passionately to such things"
Taken literally, this might seem like an odd thing to care about. The obvious contemporary analogy is to dog fighting. However, like the previous quote on gladiator fights, this passage is a metaphor which applies to things in general, including the direct subject matter of quail fighting.
The imagery of "quail fighting" is jarring for a reason. Quails are beautiful birds, and it is unfathomable to think of them ever hurting humans; rationally, they are the last fighters someone would think of locking in a gladiator ring.
Quails fighting in a gladiator ring is unnatural. Another main concept recurring throughout the Meditations, and I assume stoic philosophy in general, is that of the supremacy of nature. Things arise according to nature, and nature is good and beautiful. And an actor (you) should act according to nature; an actor should avoid any action that goes against the code of nature, or that would evidently damage or desecrate the natural world in some way. The action of forcing quails into a gladiator ring emphasizes that concept. Quails are not meant for such brutality, it is not their nature, it is in fact the polar opposite of their natural configuration.
The metaphor goes a bit deeper than passively stating "things should be in their natural configuration". Aurelius' quote is framed in terms of an actor. Aurelius here reminds himself to not breed quails for fighting. Embedded in that phrasing is a focus on intention. An action in a vacuum, observed without any personal attachment or view on motivation or internal state, means nothing; it is merely some occurrence in the infinite sea of natural occurrences. What matters is the intention behind the action; the same physical action has different meaning depending on this motivational context. Breeding quails with the intent of having them fight when they are of age is tantamount to long term planning for violence. The important part is not the breeding of quails, but the fact that the actor would put in all that time and effort for something so immoral and unnatural, instead of spending it on something good and meaningful.
Perhaps we can make the intention here even clearer; there is the intention of means and the intention of end. In this example of the quail, the end the actor is aiming for is that of monetary profit (think of betting on a dog fight), through the means of quail fighting. The actor breeds the quails, to force them to fight, to hopefully gain profit. Neither the means nor the end are honorable here. Unnatural means in pursuit of an unnatural reward. The end modulates the means and makes it even worse; the actor is acting so immoral... just for profit? When an actor is morally/rationally destabilized both in terms of means and end, there can be no limit to how irrational and immoral they will act, even for trivial matters. If the actor is willing to engage in such a bizarre and awful action as breeding beautiful and peaceful quails for fighting in a gladiator ring (yes, one can argue that quails are not peaceful to each other in nature, but that is really beside the point; making gladiators out of quails is never natural), they will attempt many other bizarre and awful things without problem of conscience. They will breed more and more quails, hurting more and more creatures of nature for their own meaningless and empty ambitions. They will move from quails to macaws, because they are more profitable to bet on. These are the consequences of an utilitarian value system. It is a grave mistake to think that psychopaths can only be born; they can be molded as well, often by their own hands. When one's passions become aligned with money, or power, or vague notions of "social acceptance", evil is no longer a separate concept, it has become an intrinsic part of the individual's existence, and seen as the new good. It is at this point that Machiavelli becomes a personal hero instead of Martin Luther King or Jesus. Perhaps this description is jarring, but it is sadly very easy to see every aspect of the world from this lens without conscience. Just give in to temptation a few times, and the resistance dwindles; and the desire to resist eventually dissipates. Practice utilitarianism a few times, and it will have its claws in you. Most people aren't even aware or afraid of the beast on their backs; most Machiavellians do not know they are Machiavellians, and psychopaths do not mind that they are psychopaths. If one is lucky enough to be even slightly separate from that world of utility and profit, the concept of that existence should stir up an unpleasant feeling deep within, and the ease at which one can fall deep into that spell should be extremely frightening. Those who can still see right and reason should run as fast and as far from any world where one is passionate about the wrong thing. No wonder Aurelius tells himself not "to give himself up passionately to such things" as quail fighting. Otherwise he will be too busy breeding quail after quail to write his Meditations or rule Rome with a good hand.
There is an intricate link between unnatural and irrational. Nature is the source of all things, and science, mathematics and logic are potent only due to their unveiling of reality/nature (see again my article on da Vinci). To try and force unnatural uses amounts to living against science. Note that this is distinct from further probing nature to make a new discovery or to disprove previous theories, because such actions move toward nature; but breeding quails for fighting clearly admits no such scientific intention, it is a way of life against nature and against science. Man is not greater than nature, and cannot defeat nature or wrest it to his own contradictory will. Man is only greater than nature when he sinks into it; when one lives with a view towards the laws of nature, only then will he be able to be in control. Looking away from them is tantamount to deluding oneself, and in an environment as harsh and unempathetic as nature, delusions about the principles of the embedded shaping forces of the world is a strategy that only leads to death. On a meta-level, believing that we have the authority to pervert nature for our own ambitions, that our desires should take the greatest precedence if they deviate from the natural way, is the greatest delusion: we delude ourselves into thinking we should and can delude ourselves, and believe erroneously that these delusions will lead to a "better" life (more on this later). Utilitarianism amounts to trying to dominate nature; mere men sticking out their chests with their heads held up high, walking slowly in the woods; so slowly that nature creeps up on them, and hits their willingly exposed solar plexes, and cracks their arrogantly cocked jaw. It is not merely that one should not dominate nature; one cannot dominate nature. Nature is always more powerful. Nature is the nature of force itself. This article has more about nature and exploitability.
One could raise a counterargument and state that acting in these utilitarian ways are natural. That humans evolved for such ways of life, and that these ways are what kept humans in the world to begin with; and even further, that living acording to these stoic philosophies is what is unnatural. That living according to good and morality is the unnatural thing, and an artefact of the societies, policies, and religions that arose themselves from the utilitarian processes. One could then say that the philosophy is contradictory, since it is against nature. However, this is misleading, and I would provide two responses. I will not elaborate on them just yet; I will flesh them out for later sections of the Meditations. But to respond to the supposed "contradiction", I will argue that there is no contradiction, because the nature held as the arbiter consists of a hierarchy of physical nature at the low level and moral/aesthetic nature at the higher level, though they overlap inextricably. The nature focused on in this philosophy and other ancient philosophy involves the aesthetic nature. That will open a can of worms, but the argument of "humans are naturally pleasure-seeking animals chasing dopamine hits" touches only the "physical" aspect of nature and therefore misses the point. The second response I would give is to strongly emphasize that there exists an aesthetic aspect of nature; so arguments like the one outlined here, which assume a worldview in which physical equations are everything, and that there is no overarching value in things, are not valid if one were convinced in the existence of aesthetics, meaning nature is indeed aesthetically modulated. But either way, succumbing to a worldview like the one described is extremely undesireable for many reasons. But I will get to all these more in depth in later analyses of the book.
Final observation on this. Going back to the imagery of "quail", and how it is unnatural to place such an animal in a gladiator ring; it is worth mentioning that "quail" and such birds in general are archetypally associated with beauty and purity. Think of a bird or a dove, and the visceral feeling is generally a pleasant one. To force them into the opposite, disturbing concept of brutality and war and harm can be described accurately as abuse. The use of an object in nature in some unnatural way (means) for some unnatural purpose (end) can always be described as abuse. This links again to my da Vinci article; where I in no good terms describe readers of books as utilitarian in their use of their knowledge. They too are abusing the concepts of knowledge and science, as they manipulate them for unnatural and ulterior purposes involving power or social status. Bringing back the concept of the genius from that article, their admirable characteristic is their love of nature. This is by definition natural; the opposite of Machiavellian. Nature is beautiful; quails should be treated as quails, and admired for their beauty, not abused. Abuse strips things of their beauty and meaning. You cannot beat nature, there is nothing more beautiful than nature, and nothing more ugly than going against it. Strive for beauty, not profit. Strive for good, not abuse.
Truth, intuition
From Rusticus,
"I learned not to be led astray to sophistic emulation, nor to writing on speculative matters"
Leonardo da Vinci made a similar comment in his notebooks; criticizing the thinkers of his time for focusing so much on completely speculative and unproveable theories instead of the ones that are right in front of their faces, theories that can be directly experimented upon and accurately theorized about. The point of view boils down to chagrin towards religion, and support of science. It is worth claifying my definitions of religion and science. By religion, I refer to fundamental, emotionally charged beliefs which carry enormous weight in the believer's consciousness, but that are purely speculative, and shared equivocally by an entire social group. By science, I refer to things that can be reasoned about, even if there is an unavoidable degree of assumption, the whole of the discipline is based in rigour and rationality, and science is a subject independent of society or group belief; the truth is the truth no matter what anyone thinks. My definitions do not implicate divinity or aesthetic. Those things are not necessarily part of religion, they can be part of science as well, depending on the frame taken. Divinity and aesthetics can be reasoned about, and under that frame they belong to science. However, many established religions tend to state certain "laws" of divinity and aesthetic without further comment, and adherents to the religion thoughtlessly take them for granted, and generally take everything else said by the leaders of that religion for granted as well. Likewise for something like a physical theory; this can be framed either in terms of religion or science, jarringly enough. If you think about it, the large mass of population takes any physical theory for granted as soon as the news or their professors give glowing reports of them; at this point it fits easily within the mold of religion. In that article on da Vinci which I won't bother to link anymore, the readers of books I mention clearly follow religion even though most of them would consider religion foolish (since Nietzche and Dawkins said so). These scientific theories might even be more susceptible to the religious numbness than divinity or aesthetic; because it is much harder for the average person to reason about advanced scientific theories than it is to think about aesthetics, which are always accessible. A huge amount of the population believes in the theory of relativity, and I think that says it all. It's not that the theory is wrong, it's just that most people are not physicists, let alone geniuses, and probably cannot even tell you what the theory says, but they believe it anyway. Once again, we can cut them some slack, because it is extremely difficult to say anything about such matters due to constraints on both knowledge and intellect and ability to experiment. The point is that "religion" and "science" are concepts that go beyond mere "divinity vs. physics", and any statement can fit into either category.
However, it is also important to distinguish religion from axiom. Axioms (unproveable base tenets, assumptions, faith) is always present in any belief, even the scientific ones, and even the mathematical ones. Religion is not defined by the presence of unproveable beliefs, but by lack of rationality. Science rests on axioms but involves rational operations on those axioms. Religion does not. Disagreement is fundamental to science; but religion inherently involves all members of the religion unflinchingly believing the same thing. To avoid misunderstanding; when I say "disagreement is inherent to science", I mean it is unavoidable due to our incomplete knowledge, and is welcomed. However, if we were perfect beings, there would be no such disagreement; there is one truth. In other words, if we were all perfectly knowledgeable and perfectly rational, we would all converge to the same belief. In other words, if we reached the final level of science, all scientists would share the exact same belief. So to clarify, it is not necessarily wrong when everyone shares the same belief, in fact the most rational state is for everyone to share the same belief. What is wrong is when the belief in something is inherently tied to everyone else believing it. This is like looking away from the truth, and is analogous to the reader of books consuming knowledge for the sake of some social status, power, or other self-soothing; it looks away from nature, and thus ends up away from nature. Science takes the opposite angle: it aims towards only the truth, and even though the truth is independent of social perception, there is a singular truth; so if people were good scientists, they would ironically form a much more aligned group than any religion could provide, since they would believe the same thing and rationally. This is similar to a passage in my da Vinci article where I claimed that lovers of nature have potential to be better at individual subjects than single-focused experts in those individual subjects could ever hope to be. But the lover of nature is better than the expert because he arrives to a better end with better means.
Back to the quote. The subject of philosophy can also be interacted with through either a religious frame or a scientific frame. When Aurelius mentions he learned "not to be led astray to sophistic emulation", he is referring to that religious frame: philosophers authoritatively and influentially writing about things they cannot know anything about. This would snatch one away from the realm of rationality (see how this is a recurring theme?) and into the realm of pure speculation, which is once again not a world anyone should willingly fall into. It is important to see that Aurelius mentions avoiding both being led astray by speculation, and also avoiding writing on speculative matters. Like the previous section, there is an emphasis not only on perception of the world, but on action in the world. Aurelius wants not only to avoid believing in speculation, but also to avoid being speculative himself.
It is clear that Aurelius (perhaps unconsciously) makes an implicit distinction betwen the religious frame and the scientific frame, because he himself acts as a sophist in the Meditations, and if he were to claim that all sophists are the same, writing about unproveable matters, then he would be a hypocrite, because he does the exact same thing in this entire book. However, Aurelius is absolved because his points are rational ones, even though they do indeed rest on a bed of axioms. Cult leaders and gurus cannot say the same. From a perspective of intention, speculative philosophers have a draw not because of the validity of their points, and the validity of their point is not emphasized at all in their writings; yet they still have a strong draw, because of the emotional impact of their points. People lap up their teachings and manuscripts to fill some inner hole other than their gap of knowledge. Flowery words and charisma have this pleasurable effect. Speculation on destiny and the divine, and perversions of concepts heroism and being "chosen", are likewise bound to attract people desperate for a quick fix of their own insecurities and desires to be more than what they think they are. Gurus "breed quails for fighting", using inherent human desires to lead people away from the truth (and instead toward the leader's own ambitions). And blind adherents of these teachers also breed quails for fighting, abusing archetypes and potential for unnatural uses instead of using them to think outside the box they gradually sink into. But once again, everyone is taught, and everyone is a teacher; the distinction is whether rationality and love of nature enter the equation. That is what distinguishes a good sophist from a bad one.
There is another implication in his quote, which is that these speculative directions are a waste of time. Why read speculative matters which uselessly elaborate about obvious matters? Why waste time writing about speculative matters when one can do something that is actually, directly meaningful? Leonardo da Vinci asked the same question: why waste time on speculative theology, which amounts to an unproveable circlejerk, instead of investigating the natural world right in front of you, which is actually observable and malleable for experiment, and actually testable? (I'm not saying all theology is bad, but you get the point) Philosophizing like this is a waste of time because often the subject matter in question is itself direct and obvious; intuitive. For example, the nature of good; one doesn't really even need to delve deeply into this, or give a rigorous treatment, because good is so intuitive that one can be perfectly good at any point in time without reading a complicated treatise on philosophy. And one doesn't need to spend years in a study, attempting to rigorously arrive at theoretical, fundamental principles of goodness, to be good. In fact, such theoretical attempts can't even add much at all; we already feel the goodness in our hearts, so it is futile to theorize about what is already directly harnessable and intuitive. "Theorizing" is only important as a step towards bridging the gap between our imperfect knowledge and mental faculties and the reality of things; but aesthetic value and morality are already directly there and theorizing can only serve to lead us away from that reality. No rigorous theoretical treatise about aesthetic value can ever be complete and perfect to begin with, and usually ends up with the opposite result, and leads to some complicated system that is both misleading and false, and no such system can be developed without huge splashes of speculations; all for nothing, because the best system is the intuitive one. Aesthetics are intricately intuitive to begin with, since they are axioms of our consciousness. So following the intuitive carving of these matters is both the only perfectly accurate way, and the simplest possible way, it really is the best of both worlds. Aurelius makes that point; these speculative sophistries distract from the direct and obvious thing right in front of our eyes.
However, I would be very careful when saying "avoid speculation" as a blanket statement. I've mentioned that every belief has axioms at the end. Everyone operates, at some level, according to false axioms; our rationality is never perfectly aligned with nature. In the end, the only ways to get significantly closer to nature are by peeling back these axioms, and thinking of new ones, and following the trajectory that arises; and thought at that level is based on speculation. Even beyond axioms; random speculation of things can lead to a new nuggets of truth, and this is always true for paradigm shifting ideas. Exploration, creativity, thinking outside the box; all of these things intricately involve speculation.
It is important to bridge this gap. It is important not to give yourself to constant speculation, especially about things that are either unimportant or already intuitive; but at the same time, one should not be a statue. See this article; what I am saying amounts to the point about "pure yin" and "pure yang" both being unsustainable. Yin and yang are always embedded in each other. Aurelius' point about avoiding speculation applies mostly to the level of "way of life"; one should not live a purely speculative lifestyle. This relates to utilitarianism, where one is never satiated. Speculating all the time leaves no time for satisfaction, or for appreciating the laws of nature; in fact one would never realize there is a static nature at all if they keep speculating. It is the enemy of discipline. It leads only to chaos and nothingness. At the same time, a life without speculation is a life without imagination or creativity or growth; a cold life devoid of beauty. One should walk a balance, and one will get the best of both worlds by balancing yin and yang. Going all the way with either yin or yang is against nature.
Embellishment, art
Aurelius also learned from Rusticus:
"To abstain from rhetoric, and poetry, and fine writing"
These arts serve to romanticize their subject matter. They explicitly take certain subjects and wrap them in flowery language and depiction.
The stoic mindset is one of seeing nature as it is. Things like poetry, with their outward emphasis on romanticization, can be seen as taking one away from nature. They can be seen as providing an unnatural view of the things in nature. A stoic would probably say that the only natural state is the thing in itself, free from the embellishments of flowery linguistics. There is a stoic emphasis on removing passion; poetry is a clear manifestation of passion. The essence of poetry can be seen as the exact same essence from which dissapointment, depression, and strong hatred arise. Seeing everything as "purely natural", and freeing from "unnatural" romantic or poetic embellishment of them, voids all of those things.
Although I see his point, I cannot agree with Aurelius on this one. Aurelius kind of defeats himself when he emphasizes being passionless. Aurelius himself is not passionless; on a meta-level, the Meditations themselves provide proof of that, and it is clear that Aurelius is passionate about nature, and goodness, and the focus on discipline over bodily temptation. Everyone who has something to say is passionate. All of Aurelius' statements here rely on a concept of an "aesthetic truth" which permeate the world, and Aurelius is evidently deeply moved by this beauty in nature. But if this beauty in nature exists, then why on earth should we run away from passion, if this natural beauty is so wonderful? We should not strive to be passionless, but rather passionate about the right thing. I've briefly mentioned that a lot of the passages in the Meditations could be clarified by explicitly mentioning a distinction between pure physical processes and aesthetic, math and art, yin and yang; though of course neither exist in an isolated vacuum. Related to this is a dynamic between the external natural world and the acting self, who is at once part of nature, but has the free will that enables him to act according to moral aesthetic. Part of this aesthetic is to appreciate the natural configuration of things, which is most harmonious and most beautiful; but paradoxically this entails separating oneself from them through our action. To act like an animal is to render ourselves unconscious, like a purely natural object; our consciousness and free will are what enable us to experience beauty, and we should strive to remain in that state. It's a complicated dynamic that involves both entwinement and separation. It is difficult to describe, as I've mentioned above, it is impossible to lay out all the principles of the aesthetic nature that envelops us and is greater than us, so I won't even try.
That was a bit of a tangent, but I mentioned how nature is beautiful, but also that nature has both physical and artistic components. They are never completely separable, so the artistic component is in everything. Aurelius would agree with this, otherwise he would not care so much about nature. If the artistic component is part of nature, perhaps poetry is not necessarily unnatural after all. Of course, there can be unnatural poetry; when something that is unnatural is romanticized, then the poetry itself is unnatural; and this amounts to false passion. But there exists some poetry, some art, some music, that clearly brings out that natural beauty; beyond rational examination, it is felt. When this natural synthesis exists, then we should commend the art, and not rally against it; if we love nature so much, then the art did its job. The problem is not all passion, but false passion. False passion is unnatural, but so is passionlessness.
Focus not on appearance
He also learned from Rusticus:
"Not to walk about in the house in my outdoor dress"
Walking in his house in an outdoor dress is symbolic of focus on appearance. One who does this is internally directed towards all of those outward ambitions: social status, power, money, materialism. He identifies with those things, and that is what gives him drive and is what determines his opinion of himself and of everything else. His actions and beliefs are all modulated by that utilitarian materialism. If you got this far in the article, it should be clear why Aurelius is against that.
Undeviating
He learned from Apollonius:
"To be always the same, in sharp pains, on the occasion of the loss of a child, and in long illness"
This line's worth is pretty obvious, but I just wanted to emphasize the link between this statement and the concepts of exploitability throughout this article.
Strength and nature
Another lesson from Apollonius:
"The same man can be both most resolute and yielding"
Nowadays there is a false association between "strong person" and "forging your own way" (essentially "dominance") that is beaten into our skulls. Dominance is not the ingredient for strength. A stoic would say that strength comes from adherence to nature. This makes sense; one who understands nature knows how to overcome anything, and knows what to focus on. Even the concept of "overcoming", and things to overcome, are radically different when one adheres to nature rather than one's own selfish ambitions. A good and strong man who is aligned with nature has the wisdom to know that he is never perfect, and when he is wrong, and to know when to resist his own temptations, and understands the value of trusting others. This man understands the virtue of yielding. No man is greater than God, no man is more powerful than the nature which molded him. An selfish utilitarian will seek the opposite; to try and dominate everyone and everything towards his own will; this is an absurdity, and such people drown in their own delusion. The strong and good man is both resolute and yielding; resolute in his adherence to the right thing, and thus always yielding to it.
Another example of this: a stoic philosophy would put emphasis on things that are important, and things that are unimportant. Means to ends that are purely within the physical world (utilitarianism, shallow pleasures, etc.) without concept of aesthetic are considered unimportant, which synonymous with "something to avoid". One big thing in this category is that of "ego". Wanting to be right, wanting to be appreciated and respected, wanting to be on top of others; all of these things are considered unimportant. Often and unavoidably, we find ourselves in situations where our ego and the right thing are in conflict, or at the very least, situations when our ego tries to involve itself in unimportant trifles (the two concepts are the same in the end). A specific scenario here is an argument with a friend over some trivial concern. Both of you believe in different things relating to this unimportant concern, and cannot seem to come to an agreement, much to the chagrin of each other. Tensions are ripe for the picking, and the ego generally directs people towards an "attack" or "dominance" mentality in such situations, especially in a group context. In such situations, one should step back. Are our own deluded notions of superiority, and stubborn inability to back down from our mistakes, modulated by some subject matter that was so trivial in the first place, more important to us than friendship and respect between people? It is not. If you didn't care about this "friend" in the first place, or if the "friend" was only there to support your own social status, there are deeper problems to solve; but assuming there is truly a degree of respect and friendship, then yielding is the best thing by leaps and bounds. Follow the right thing, unflinchingly.
Utilitarianism vs. love
From Fronto:
"Generally those among us who are called Patricians are rather deficient in paternal affection"
We can easily associate Patricians, stereotypical circlejerkers of "high class", with materialism and utilitarianism. There are levels of concepts; even if something rests on a questionable foundation, the thing in itself can be viewed under a lens of rationality, aesthetic, and natural use. Money is one such concept. Say what you will about the evils of money, but disregarding that, the "natural use" of money in itself is, of course, to be used. The nature of money is to be a means to an end. Sustaining a pile of money is unnatural. Patricians tend not only to stack their mountains of gold, but to make sure that mountain is grand enough and placed strategically to be visible by the public. Patricians have a strong focus on utilitarianism; whether for social acceptance, for dominance over others, or for an endless loop of more profit and power.
Utilitarianism is the language and philosophy of both psychopaths or junkies; an utilitarian is one or the other depending on how far ahead he can plan, and usually ends up on a spectrum of both. A psychopath is incapable of love because he only cares about the next utility, and "love" is both a distraction from that and not understandable or fathomable to begin with, because there is no material profit from such a concept, and if someone felt the beauty of love and ethic they would not look towards utilitarianism to begin with, since aesthetic is stronger and more powerful. Likewise, an addict is incapable of love because they are too busy fluctuating between seeking their drug and being numbed by it; their life revolves around this, and adapts to it.
The point being, utilitarianism and love/aesthetic/ethics are fundamentally incompatible. There is no "utility" from loving your children unless viewed as some future investment for yourself, or for your immediate reputation, but even if viewed from that frame, it will always be an immensely cheap approximation to love, and drawn towards the shortcuts to those utilitarian ends rather than the separate value of "loving your children". Children are objects from that worldview. It's no surprise that powerful and successful people are deficient in paternal affection, and in every other kind of aesthetic sensibility.
Care about your friends
From Catalus:
"Not to be indifferent when a friend finds fault, even if he should find fault without reason, but to try to restore him to his usual disposition"
When a friend finds fault, there is an implication that something is disturbing him. Even when he does so "without reason", we are not to remain indifferent. There are two, irreconciliable frames we can take: the utilitarian one, and the virtuous one. From the utilitarian frame, it is understood that one will remain indifferent to such fault finding; after all, someone else's problems (even if they involve you) are distractions and separate from one's grand ambitions. This indifference is especially easy to achieve if one can convince himself that the other person's problems are "without reason". However, friendship is a concept in the realm of virtue; it is not merely some utilitarian allyship or convenient acquaintanceship. Friendship is something aesthetically valuable, and friends are important and loved. If a friend is disturbed, even if irrational, the focal point should not be the rationality of his facts but the pain in his heart. An utilitarian would say this "negativity" is a distraction and that those material things are what matter; but an utilitarian does not have any concept of true friendship to begin with. Listening to virtue; it is in fact the shimmering material that is the distraction, and the friendship that is what matters. We must attend to what matters; we must help our friend in times of need or trouble or conflict. We must put in effort to restore him to his usual disposition.
Friendship and humanity are often emphasized in Aurelius' notes. Goes to show that virtue and good ways of life should involve those social dimensions. If you think of virtue, a lot of it involves dynamics between oneself and others. Secluding oneself is not the way; it is unnatural.
Good faith
From Severus:
"To believe that I am loved by my friends"
Contrast this to the world of utilitarianism, where gossip, manipulation, ulterior motives, concealed jealousy and resentment, and suspicion are omnipresent. That mindset closes a feedback loop, and those who act under the tenet that other people actually operate like this will operate according to those very same principles. Yes, it is utterly naive to believe everyone is good, and that is not the case, indeed most people are not good. However, be wary to not take that principle too far; do not let the world of acquaintances propagate to the world of friendship. Treating friends with suspicion is contrary to the point. I must emphasize that there is a specific concept of friend that is different than mere ally or acquaintance; most people confuse acquaintances, or people fun to hang around, as friends; these sayings apply only to real friends with mutual care and respect between both, beyond utility.
Instead, if one thinks of their friends with faith, respect, and good intention, even if there exist some false positives, life through that positive lens is uncountably more satisfying than living a life devoid of any surrender to aesthetic and beauty, lived in constant suspicion.
The respect of others, through virtue
From Maximus:
"I observed that everybody believed that he thought as he spoke, and that in all that he did he never had any bad intention"
There are a few other instances in book 1 where Aurelius praises someone by mentioning "everybody observed a virtue in this person". Clearly these people were widely admired for their virtue. Even reading that passage above stirs up a noble feeling in the reader. There is nothing more deeply, instantly respectable in this world than strong adherence to virtue (I'm not talking about "theatrical virtue" where people make shows out of actions generally associated with virtue, since this is just utilitarian and can be smelled out by anyone paying attention, virtue is not about mere lists of actions anyway but I'll get to that in another article).
I've mentioned a few times in this article and the past one on Leonardo da Vinci that lovers of nature (which I'll now make synonymous with "virtuous people") have more potential for competency at specific skills than those who focus single-mindedly on them. Here's another example of this. So many people are driven by and fueled by social status, and the actions they take hone in only on this goal. To pursue this endless goal, people tend to hone social strategies involving dominance, well-placed disrespect to some and respect to others depending on their positions in the current social hierarchy, and pleasant lying and acting, to name a few; as these things seem like the easy and short conduit to social status. But all of these strategies pale in comparison to the immense impact that virtue has on people. Even if being good will certaintly lead to conflict, it always ends up more respectable by others (though not by everyone, of course) than any socially strategic proxy.
Leadership and virtue
He is grateful to his father for his ability:
"to bring me to the knowledge that it is possible for a man to live in a palace without wanting either guards or embroidered dresses, or torches and statues, and such-like show; but that it is in such a man's power to bring himself very near to the fashion of a private person, without being for this reason either meaner in thought, or more remiss in action, with respect to the things which must be done for the public interest in a manner that befits a ruler."
I guess his father was also some powerful ruler. In the previous section I mentioned that virtue and the respect of others are not incompatible (in fact, virtue is what begets the strongest respect). Closely related is leadership, and leadership and virtue are also strongly compatible.
The most common kind of leader is the utilitarian one. They enter positions of power in the interest only of their own power. Their ambitions are only selfish, and their actions and plans on the throne are committed under the lens of solidifying and expanding their power.
The mass of naive citizens believe that the leaders of the world are automatically of the highest caliber of man; that they can confidently sit back and relax and trust the leader to navigate everything to the right direction. Then, other more "rational" individuals scoff at these naive folk, and make it clear that power only corrupts, and that rulers only care about their own power, and that the world is a cold place, and that people on all striata of society and the hierarchy are selfish. These people are generally correct; things do tend to operate this way, everywhere and at all levels. But they don't have to.
A leader does not have to be selfish. Instead of ruling out of regard for their own ambitions for power; the other sensible reason to aim towards leadership is out of regard for the wellbeing of the governed populace. A ruler motivated by the natural and virtuous end of leadership, and who of course is backed up by ability, would clearly be the best kind of ruler (someone who desperately aims to rule despite a clear lack of competence is definitely not the "virtuous ruler" anyway).
Aurelius describes his father in that fashion of the "good king". He illustrates that his father had followed those same principles he layed out in the Meditations, and these principles are reflections of virtue, and detachment from utilitarianism. Ruling does not have to be for personal power. A good king is possible, and would make the best king.
Though, when it comes to becoming the ruler (in other words, when an individual is aiming towards the leadership position, but is not yet the leader), things can get more complicated, depending on the conditions of populace in question. Thinking of safe, comfortable countries, it is plain to see that a virtuous candidate would get eaten alive when placed in competition with the other skilled orators, snake oil salesmen, and ruthless tyrants who all want a piece of the throne. In the end, becoming the leader boils down to winning the election, which is dependent on the votes of the populace; a comfortable populace can never be expected to vote or make decisions according to virtue. They will vote for the most conniving candidate, or the most dramatic actor. This is the case of a comfortable society; a comfortable populace has properties far different than an uncomfortable and endangered one. Thankfully, in the case of a comfortable populace, the leadership role would be far less appealing to any virtuous person to begin with, since the populace is already comfortable; and leadership is far less important, all that is needed is someone who won't burn everything to the ground. In such a society there are more meaningful ways to contribute. So it is both expected and completely fine that a virtuous person would not win those elections. However, the groups living in uncertain times or chaotic situations are the ones where leadership matters most. And in these situations, there are two roads that can realistically be taken: the one of rationality, and the other of irrationality. It is clear that in stressful and uncertain times, minds are particularly susceptible to irrationality, and can be easily led astray. But rationality also has a strong impact in these times; and this is where one can and should be virtuous, and where this valour is clearly visible to the people. Therefore, when it matters, a virtuous person clearly does have the potential to become a leader.