Dog Wisdom (Deep Resistance Part 2)

by W.D. James | Jan 12, 2024

Money can’t buy back your youth when you’re old
Or a friend when you’re lonely or a love that’s grown cold
The wealthiest person is a pauper at times
Compared to the man with a satisfied mindⁱ

– Johnny Cash, Satisfied Mind

Diogenes of Sinope (a Greek town in modern day Turkey) was born around 410 BC, give or take a few years. Not a lot is known for certain about his life and its chronology. Luis E. Navia, in Diogenes the Cynic, gives a rough outline based on contemporary scholarship. Somewhere in his 20s, he left his native city. This had something to do with ‘debasing’ or ‘defacing’ the coinage. His father was a relatively high ranking official in the mint. Whether this tampering with the currency was done directly by Diogenes or his father is unclear. Whether it was done with an eye to personal profit or for some political end, is also speculative. Whether he left voluntarily or was banished, is also debatable.

He traveled for some years, eventually visiting Delphi and the oracle there. After this he lived in Athens where he knew Plato. Sometime later, while sailing to an island just off the coast from Athens, he was captured by pirates. They took him to Crete and sold him in the marketplace. He was purchased by a Corinthian named Xeniades and charged with educating his sons and managing his household. He seems to have regained his freedom at some point, probably with the death of Xeniades. He died around 323 BC.ⁱⁱ Diogenes led a famously austere life, living in a tub (large earthenware vessel), getting his substance from begging, and practicing other ascetic disciplines.

It is also unknown whether Diogenes ever wrote anything. Some ancient sources list a number of philosophical and literary works attributed to him, but nothing has survived. What we have from Diogenes are ‘fragments’ pulled together from various ancient texts that have survived where Diogenes is quoted or represented as having said something. This is not great source material, but a clear personality shines forth from many of the fragments, suggesting they are largely authentic.

Navia also culls the material to provide an outline of Diogenes’ character traits:

…an absolute commitment to honesty, a remarkable independence of judgment, an unwavering decision to live a simple and unencumbered life, a steadfast devotion to self-sufficiency, an unparalleled attachment to freedom of speech, a healthy contempt for human stupidity and obfuscation, an unusual degree of intellectual lucidity, and, above all, a tremendous courage to live in accord with his convictions.ⁱⁱⁱ

Diogenes was a notorious character who often engaged in shameless behavior. But we should remember, there is always a lesson being taught.

Cynicism

Antisthenes, a disciple of Socrates, is usually taken to be the founder of the Cynic school, but Diogenes is who people turn to in order to understand what it was about. It garnered many adherents in the ancient world and Cynic enclaves developed throughout the Mediterranean and flourished for several centuries. Cynicism was taken to be probably the most demanding philosophical path to follow.

Hadot observes that, “The Cynics, for their part, did not argue and gave no instruction. It was their very life that bore meaning within itself and implied an entire doctrine.”^iv That is classic teaching by example. He further notes that, “Cynic philosophy was exclusively a choice of life; it was the choice of freedom—complete independence (autarkeia) from useless needs—the refusal of luxury and vanity (tuphos).”^v The application of this radical commitment to freedom to ethics and political life has led some to credit the Cynics with providing the philosophical foundation for anarchism. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes:

Within political philosophy, the Cynics can be seen as originators of anarchism. Since humans are both rational and able to be guided by nature, it follows that humans have little need for legal codes or political affiliations.^vi

The Cynic path is one of radical simplicity, abrasive honesty, and austere freedom.

Philosophical Practices

To get at the philosophical practices Diogenes exercised and recommended, we need to sort of work backwards. We have some ancient accounts of things Diogenes did. Then, as noted, we have the fragments of what he probably taught. In this and the next essay, I’ll outline five practices. To get at that, I’ll quote several interrelated fragments and then deduce from that some practical implications.

Practice 1: Debasing the coinage

I have come to debase the coinage. (1)^vii

When the Sinopians ostracized me from Pontos, they condemned themselves to a life without me. (25)

To live is not itself an evil, as has been claimed, but to lead a worthless life is. (31)

In the rich man’s house there is no place to spit but in his face. (56)

Against fate I put courage; against custom, nature; against passion, reason. (64)

Pilfering Treasury property is particularly dangerous; big thieves are ruthless in punishing little thieves. (70)

Love of money is the marketplace for every evil. (78)

Sources differ on when Diogenes visited the oracle at Delphi and what cryptic admonition he received there. Most sources say the message was to debase the coinage. If he visited before leaving Sinope (seems unlikely), his activity there was in service to the message and the god worshipped at Delphi (Apollo). If after, then the oracle transformed his crime into a vocation. Given that the crime seems to have involved actual coinage (archeological and other evidence points to problems with Sinopian coinage at this time), this would then mean the command was to debase coinage in a more metaphorical manner. Given that this is what Diogenes spent the rest of his life doing, and that it involves a sort of redemption, I find this version more satisfying.

The essence of this practice is to subvert the artificial ‘coinage’ of cultural/social custom by an appeal to the truth of natural value.

Society builds a pretty façade of approved values. This is represented by the rich man who surrounds himself with a beautiful home and decorations. The only ugly place left is his face and his soul; so that is where you need to spit. Of course, maybe one ought not to spit at all. Well, nature tells us to spit sometimes, custom be damned. When I was growing up, people still chewed tobacco. Most of my relatives to whom this applied were also growers of tobacco. You definitely got to spit when you’re chewing tobacco. They tried to reconcile the natural need with social respectability by inventing spittoons; decorative receptacles into which one spat. The American South has had some talent for reconciling the natural and the social (and some notable failure as well).

Those socially constructed values are upheld by social institutions. With the saying about the treasury being a big thief, Diogenes pierces the façade. Describe and treat social, and especially political, institutions as what they objectively, really, are. This is reminiscent of St. Augustine having a difficult time distinguishing states from robber bands. He finally succeeds: the state is only distinguished from a robber band if it administers true justice. For Augustine, states just about can’t do that and generally don’t even try that hard, so most are equivalent to robber bands.

The saying about fate, custom, and passion could serve as a personal motto for Diogenes and describes his vocation in a comprehensive way. These are the things that would limit our freedom. Fate, the cards we’ve been dealt, personally and historically, want to constrain us. Be brave! Launch yourself against them. Take them on. Custom, the ‘established’ or ‘respectable’ values. Test them against nature, against reality. Do they stand up or crumble into dust? Our passions. This is where we might have trouble admiring Diogenes. We like our passions. And Diogenes, along with the classical Greeks in general, might have too strong a view against passion. But he does not mean passion as in lust for life. He means what we might call our ‘base passions’. Hunger that must be satisfied right now with all the Big Macs it can get. Lust (minus romance, love, mutuality, etc…) that must be satisfied right now. He says ‘think about it’. Make sure you’re going for the highest good, not the lowest. To cut to the chase, there are higher and lower expressions of sex. In a sense, rape and ‘rutting in the mud’ are not unnatural in that they fail to represent natural (male?) desires. But even a little ‘reason’ will tell us there is so much more that is possible in that realm. Moderate the base passion with the ‘rational,’ fuller, understanding of what that has to offer us; what is more fully in line with our human nature and true aspirations. Counterpose the immediate sensation with a considered understanding of the big picture.

Practice 2: Subverting slavery/subordination

It is absurd to bring back a runaway slave. If a slave can survive without a master, is it not awful to admit that the master cannot live without the slave? (6)

I am Athens’ one free man. (13)

The art of being a slave is to rule one’s master. (20)

A: I am Alexander the Great.

B: I am Diogenes the dog.

A: The dog?

B: I nuzzle the kind, bark at the greedy, and bite the louts.

A: What can I do for you?

B: Stand out of my light. (30)

Masters should obey their slaves; patients, their doctors; rivers, their banks. (63)

This is really an application of practice #1, as are the other practices, more or less. The essential point of this practice is to realize that superiority is a natural fact, not a social one; or, perhaps, that real superiority is not the same as social superiority.

By holding that slaves are naturally superior to masters, Diogenes is turning the social hierarchy on its head. His basic supposition seems to be that slaves are productive and masters not, so slaves are more self-sufficient. Further, as Hegel would point out much later, slaves have a more authentic self-understanding and truer grasp on reality than masters. This might be a seed of the more modern notion that the oppressed possess ‘epistemic privilege,’ at least in understanding the reality of oppressive social structures. In Diogenes’ case, it is also quite likely that he was better educated, more wise, and of a more developed moral character than was his master.

We tend to shy away from the notion of considering anyone ‘superior’. Diogenes does not. But his standard is the opposite of the usual social evaluation. Superior for Diogenes means more free. The enslaved are obviously not more free in our usual way of looking at it. However, from Diogenes’ perspective, he was able to maintain his freedom, even when enslaved. How so? Because whether free or enslaved, he lived by his own lights whereas his master, in the very act of acting as an enslaver, was enmeshed in the false valuations of society (custom).

Clearly, we should be careful to not romanticize slavery or the condition of being enslaved. Diogenes had enjoyed many advantages prior to being enslaved. Further, he is not claiming slavery is a positive good: he did not go seeking to be enslaved. What he is doing though is, even while enslaved, judging the case by the standard of nature or reality, not social convention. I suspect many of the enslaved throughout the ages have had no problem seeing through the ‘high manners’ and assumed ‘superiority’ of their enslavers. To that extent, their vision remained freer than that of the enslavers who had internalized the perverted social vision of a society that tolerated slavery to begin with.

In the final fragment quoted above we should perhaps read it backward to get at its full significance. Rivers should obey their banks. Well, of course. They just will (under normal circumstances). It is natural for the river waters to flow between its banks. It’s really the banks that make the river a river. Patients should obey their physicians (we might qualify that by stipulating that the physician must be a competent and honest physician). Well, yes, more or less that holds. If I’m sick, I should pay attention to what those skilled in healing have to offer me. That is also ‘natural’ in that it makes sense and fits the facts of the case. Masters should obey their slaves. That turns the world upside down, but Diogenes wants us to accept that would be just as natural, given that the slave is superior to the master as discussed above. However, there is an implication that I think Diogenes was counting on us seeing even though he does not state it. Nature/reality upsets perverse social customs. If the master obeyed the slave, the master would then be the slave and vice versa. Ie, that hierarchy (master over slave) cannot stand because it contradicts nature by placing the inferior over the superior.

As illustrated in the encounter with Alexander the Great, Diogenes means for these principles to be applicable to all situations of social subordination, slavery being the extreme case. By the way, the flip side of this encounter is that supposedly Alexander remarked that if he could not be Alexander, then he would want to be Diogenes: both were equally free and masters of the world.

Practices of Resistance

We will look at how these two ‘spiritual practices’ can be translated into practices or strategies of resistance. As we’ll remember from the previous essay, effective resistance will need to accomplish at least two things. First, it will need to help reveal to us, and in turn those around us, the true reality and values that subvert the regime we seek to resist. Further, they must help us push through our fear, both the fear that might seem ‘natural’ to human beings and the fear generated and administered by the regime, to seize our freedom.

Debasing the Coinage

• Expose the hypocrisy and lies of the regime.
• Expose its values as false, self-interested, and ideologically motivated.
• This establishes oneself as being on the side of Truth.
• Humans are naturally Truth lovers (and Truth tellers). Only jaded self-interest on the one hand, or political indoctrination and propaganda on the other, can pervert this.
• Hence, being aware of being on the side of Truth tends to increase one’s courage.
• Courage empowers one to challenge the ‘fate’ imposed by the regime.
• Support genuine values, ones rooted in human nature and conducive to human flourishing.
• This weakens the psychological and social chains of convention.
• Remain clearsighted. Our feelings are an important part of us, but the feelings of the moment are not always what is best to go with in the long run. Anxiety will usually prompt us to evade and shrink back from what is causing the anxiety, but reason can tell us that always giving in to our feelings of anxiety may strengthen the anxiety the next time the same situation arises and that the anxiety may in fact need to be confronted to regain our freedom of action. Test one’s feeling against the reality of the situation.

Subverting Subordination

• Recognize that you already are (or, if not, become) superior to those perched in the regime’s hierarchy.
• For this to not be mere egoism, it needs to be grounded in reality.
• Have an unwavering commitment to fidelity to reality (Truth), to the best of the light of observation and discernment that you have.
• Be as free and self-sufficient as you can be.
• This begins with moral and intellectual freedom and trust in one’s vision and values.
• External freedom is secondary. The regime can exercise a good bit of control over that. However, internal moral and intellectual freedom will tend to work itself outward.
• Never accept the regime’s hierarchy of merit and prestige at face value; always test it against reality and nature.
• You will be called devaluing names. This or that ‘-ist’ or ‘-phobe’ or ‘conspiracy theorist’ or ‘hater’ or whatever. Those have real values behind them. There are really racists. There are really way-too-out-there conspiracy theorists. There are people who hate others with no good cause or based on stereotypes. However, we all know it is a strategy of the regime to smear all its opponents with these and other labels. Once something takes the form of a ‘label’; distrust it. Test one’s own motives. Make sure they are pure (as pure as we fallible creatures can be anyway). Then refuse to give them any credence.
• Further, test the regime’s values and self-applied labels. See if they are often not the exact opposite of the truth. When the regime extols its commitment to ‘democracy’, critically evaluate whether it is acting democratically. When it extols ‘equality’, test whether it is really working toward equality. When it talks about its ‘green’ credentials, test that, etc…, etc….
• A person on the downside of a social hierarchy, but who knows they hold superior moral values and commitment to truth, is empowered to challenge and expose shams.

In the opening quote, Johnny Cash points to the value of having a ‘satisfied mind’. I think this is a folksy way of referencing the strong internal repose that comes from having discovered the values you’ll base your life on and not compromise. Short of having achieved that, it is hard to have a satisfied mind. Having achieved a satisfied mind, having settled on the values one has tested and found durable, the world can throw a lot at you without really shaking you. I’ve known many people who were nowhere near being ‘professional philosophers’ but who had achieved this insight and strength. The ancient Cynics and Stoics called them not professors, but sages.

i Kill Bill Vol. 2 OST – A Satisfied Mind – Johnny Cash – YouTube [Originally written by Joe “Red” Hayes and Jack Rhodes]

ii Luis E. Navia, Diogenes the Cynic, Humanity Books, 2005, pp. 34-35.

iii Ibid, p. 15.

iv Pierre Hadot, What is Ancient Philosophy?, translated by Michael Chase, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002 (original Frech edition of 1995), p. 102.

v Ibid, p. 109.

vi Cynics | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (utm.edu)

vii All quotes of Diogenes’ Fragments come from Guy Davenport, Herakleitos and Diogenes, Grey Fox Press, 1979. I will note the fragment being quoted parenthetically. Davenport was an academic and his translations are revered in certain circles, but they are not ‘academic’ in the usual sense. He aims not at literal translations but at capturing the meaning and the flavor of the original. I like them for their vividness.

W.D. James’s essays on Egalitarian Anti-Modernism have now been brought together in a 118-page pdf booklet, which is available to download for free here. Our complete collection of free books can be found here.