Category Archives: Lucretius

Liber Qvintvs

Oh luckless human kind, to grant the gods such powers, and top them off with bitter fury! – Liber Qvintvs, 1194-1195

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is lucretius_de_rerum_natura.jpgI’ve had the pleasure of reading Copley’s translation of De Rerum natura (On the Nature of Things) at least twice now. I’m not the first one to notice that DRN is as much about the ethics as it is about the physics, as both are connected in Epicurean philosophy. I’ve also noticed that the Fifth Book of DRN is the most complete extant compendium of ancient Epicurean anthropology that we have.

The main ethical goal of the Liber Qvintvs is to replace the inherited ancient myths about the gods handing down laws, language, writing, weapons, arts, crafts, and other “gifts of civilization” with non-supernatural explanations for all these phenomena based on the study of nature. Ancient people used to believe that Dionysus gave us wine cultivation, Athena gave us the arts and crafts, Hermes gave us language and writing, Urania gave us astronomy, etc. Today, many still believe that the tribal god of the Jews gave us all the languages (via the Babel myth) and that he created all things … but since we see that nothing comes from nothing, there is no need for a Creator of all matter.

That this process of replacing myth with natural theories concerning the “gifts of civilization” is the over-arching theme of Liber Qvintvs is evidenced by how it ends, as if summarizing: “Thus, step by step, time lays each fact before us, and reason lifts it to the coasts of light; for men saw one thing clarify another till civilization reached its highest peak“. Here, Lucretius seems to be saying that we become properly civilized by dismissing supernatural explanations for phenomena and learning, through the study of nature, about the way things work.

Earth the All-Mother is also our common tomb: she gives, but takes away, and grows again. – Liber Qvintvs, 259-260

In Liber Qvintvs, Lucretius beautifully exemplifies how we may use the Epicurean canonin order to investigate questions in the realm of culture and anthropology. The most interesting case study for this is the origin of language (1028-1090). Of course, we can not go back in time and observe how it emerged, so here we are forced to apply the Epicurean method of inferring by analogy about the non-evident based on the evident. Since the last Twentieth message was about how we use the canon, I wish to point out how Lucretius applies this method of inference by analogy to the origin of language. The passage begins by stating what the theory says: that there is no teleology. Instead, nature first randomly produces certain faculties in our bodies, some of which then prove to be advantageous, and then later culture and artifice perfect the use of these faculties. A curious insight is provided here:

All creatures sense their powers and how to use them. – Liber Qvintvs, 1033

This deserves further elaboration elsewhere, as it is profoundly intuitive and insightful, but for now let us focus on the issue of language. Lucretius points to a few signs from nature in his investigation of the origins of language. Citing examples from many species (calves who attack with their yet-to-develop horns, lion’s kittens who play with their claws and fangs in order to hone their skills, tiny birds who flutter their wings), Lucretius argues that we see that human children use gestures to point at what they see, which seems to demonstrate a natural instinct to communicate. He ridicules the idea that one single person in remote antiquity (to the ancients, a God like Hermes or Thoth) could invent all the words of an entire language, since communication requires more than one person who must all understand and use words with an agreed-upon meaning.

Lucretius cites how various species make different noises to effectively communicate at a rudimentary level according to necessity. Hounds bear their teeth as a threat, lick their pups to comfort them, and cry when in pain. A stallion squeals, his nostril gapes, when he is in his prime. Birds make different noises when they fight over food or battle their prey. Having cited these concrete examples, and citing feeling as a guide of sentient beings, Lucretius then infers (by analogy) that

if varied feelings, then, force animals, dumb though they are, to utter varied cries, how much more likely that in those days men could use one and another term for different things.

And in this manner, Lucretius exemplifies how we apply our canonical methods of reasoning by analogy (here, inferring about the non-evident based on that which is evident) in the realm of anthropology. Furthermore, Liber Qvintvs includes a natural explanation of the origin of friendship and compassion for the weak and vulnerable in our communities, insightful thoughts on the origin of government, and in one sci-fi passage it even describes a war that involves great beasts in the innumerable worlds. He describes the origins of religion and the arts, as well as the beginning of the historical era (the writing down of events). The origins of music are described in a beautiful passage about the “people of the forest” (silvestre genus) who are the “children of the Earth” (terrigenarum)–perhaps the first-ever example of Epicurean primitivism.

We find assistance for interpreting the Golden Words passage, where Lucretius praises the words of true philosophy, epitomized by Epicurus’ doctrines, and names them “golden, and most worthy of eternal life“. In a passage on the evolution of metalworking (line 1280), Lucretius compares gold favorably to iron, saying that while iron exacerbated the problem of warfare, men increase daily their search for gold, praise it and grant it honor beyond belief. We must assume that this, too, is the attitude we should have towards the Golden Words of true philosophy. He seems to be saying: look for gold, not iron–which is to say, perhaps, “make love, not war“, or maybe “seek pleasure and prosperity, not conflict” but he says this without ignoring the nuances. Lucretius does not idealize gold, and in fact he warns people about incessant desires for more, about greed as the “dark side” of this choice of wealth over violence / gold over iron. He also recognizes that the tools made from iron are useful in farming and technology.

People in antiquity believed that all these “civilizing gifts” or decrees were handed down by the gods at the dawn of creation. Some cultures, like the Sumerians, had very elaborate and politically interesting myths concerning the Més (the “divine decrees” by which the gods civilized humans), control over which was ludicrously fought over by gods from different cities according to Sumerian myth. In Liber Qvintvs, Lucretius demystifies each Mé, revealing each to be the natural product of culture and nature taking their course. He proved that Athena did not give us olives (or law, or philosophy, or weaving), that Dionysus did not give us wine, that Aristos did not give us cheese-making, etc. It is mortals who have fashioned the Més, and since (like the laws of human society) they are not divine but natural, these techniques, practices, or wisdom-traditions can be perfected or updated over long spans of many generations … and, most importantly, they do not serve gods. They serve mortals.

Overall, although DRN has many inspiring and moving passages, Liber Qvintvs is my favorite of the six books of De rerum natura, a treasure-trove of wisdom, an intellectual feast. If you do not have time to read the entire work, I recommend that you focus only on Liber Qvintvs so as to get a feel for why Lucretius (together with his Hegemon, Epicurus) is such an essential foundational figure in Western thought.

Further Reading:

On the Nature of Things: Book 5 (57 BC) by Lucretius, read by Jade Vine

Philodemus, On Anger (Writings from the Greco-roman World)

On the Nature of Things

Book Review: Ontology and Ethics of Motion

Intro: On the Subject of Definitions

Ontology of Motion vs. Epistle to Herodotus

The Tao of Lucretius

Gravity Versus Freedom

On Relativity

Lucretius’ Venus

On Motion

Dialogues on Matter in Motion – Introduction

Dialogues on Matter in Motion – Part II

 

The Problem of Ataraxia in Nail

An Anarcho-Socialist Lucretius?

Epicurean Environmentalism

Conclusion: Ethics of Motion

Swinish Herds and Pastafarians: Comedy as an Ideological Weapon

The following piece was originally written for classics publication Eidolon.

Go ahead. Try us for thirty days. If you don’t like us, your old religion will most likely take you back. — Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

One of the newest international religious movements today requires its faithful to wear a pasta strainer on their heads and, on occasion, to dress up as pirates — as this couple did for the first Pastafarian wedding in New Zealand. The members of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster posit an afterlife in a paradise island that features pirates, strippers and a beer volcano. Naturally, eating spaghetti and meatballs constitutes a sacrament.

Pastafarianism is a parody religion invented in recent years to make the point that the supernatural claims at the heart of most faiths are mutually contradictory. If we’re going to act as if they’re all just as plausible as each other for the sake of political correctness, then we might as well treat the idea that the Creator is a flying intergalactic nebula of noodles and meatballs — and its hosts of pirates — with the same undeserved respect we afford all other unempirical beliefs.

The roles played and tactics used by secularist comedians and philosophers in the ancient and modern worlds are similar enough that one finds some continuity in their narratives, arguments, and identities. The so-called “New Atheism” is not new. It went through a period of arrested development, but its infancy can be located in dusty scrolls written by ancient intellectuals.

Both the old Epicurean tradition and the modern secular movement have had to deal with thorny issues of free speech, religious privilege, and diversity. They have employed similar tactics in their respective culture wars, including comedy as a weapon against authoritarianism and backwardness. They’ve also both faced persecution for said weaponry. More specifically, the modern practitioners of Pastafarianism are engaging in the kind of disruptive and insightful satire that ancient Epicureans were known for.

The Church of FSM is not the first parody religion in history. At times, the ancient Epicureans also seem to treat their legitimately recognized philosophical tradition as a kind of parody religion, the first inkling of which is their own designation of the Canon as the “book that fell from the heavens”. The Canon was the main piece of foundational writing of Epicurus of Samos, which established the materialist standard of truth based on empirical observation. Epicureans’ love of the Canon was such that their intellectual enemies joked that the Canon had fallen from heaven. The Epicureans seized on this mockery and began jokingly referring to it that way: the Canon had indeed fallen from heaven! It was the atomist Bible, the philosophical Quran. The designation stuck.

Later on, in the first century BCE, the Roman Epicurean poet Lucretius produced didactic and amusing caricatures of his contemporaries’ beliefs that still resonate. After asking why Jove hurls bolts of lightning at innocent people and not at sinners, and why the god should waste his efforts directing fire at deserts and other isolated regions, Lucretius goes on to mock the idea of divine origins of lightning:

Or, as the clouds pass by, does he climb down onto them, that he may aim his bolt close-range?

Lucretius, De Rerum Natura VI.402–403

Needless to say, the tactic of mockery is still in use today among the New Atheists, and there is no shortage of Christians, Muslims and animists who attribute weather phenomena and plagues to an angry, vindictive god.

In the second century CE, Syrian satirist Lucian of Samosata authored a satirical exposé of Alexander of Abonoteichus, a false pagan prophet who profited handsomely from giving obscure oracles to wealthy patrons. His antics are reminiscent of those of Christian televangelists and snake-handling cults of our day. In order to impress people, Alexander walked around carrying a snake and foamed at the mouth, which Lucian explained by accusing the prophet of chewing herbs containing saponin.

Lucian’s work, titled Alexander the Oracle-Monger, constituted the closest thing to our generation’s Religulous for the people of the late Roman Empire. It also nearly cost Lucian his life. Alexander, as it turns out, was not only vindictive but also two-faced — he showered Lucian with favors while plotting to have him killed for mocking his cult. Lucian narrates the event towards the end of his work, in the sixth paragraph before the ending:

When I intended to sail, he sent me many parting gifts, and offered to find us […] a ship and crew — which offer I accepted in all confidence. When the passage was half over, I observed the master in tears arguing with his men, which made me very uneasy. It turned out that Alexander’s orders were to seize and fling us overboard; in that case his war with me would have been lightly won. But the crew were prevailed upon by the master’s tears to do us no harm. “I am sixty years old, as you can see,” he said to me; “I have lived an honest blameless life so far, and I should not like at my time of life, with a wife and children too, to stain my hands with blood.” And with that preface he informed us what we were there for, and what Alexander had told him to do.

When Lucian attempted to bring charges against the false prophet, the Roman senators convinced him to abandon the entire matter. Many of the senators were not only clients of the prophet, but also fearful of retaliation from his mobs of followers. Lucian gathered stories about Alexander’s fraudulent practices until the prophet died in old age, at which point he published the satire. The false prophet got away with attempted murder.

Fun fact: it is in this work that Lucian invented the tradition of literally calling out bullshit. At the beginning of Alexander the Oracle Monger, Lucian makes the very first reference to bull crap in literary history when comparing Alexander’s fraudulent and evil practices to “the unspeakable filth that three thousand oxen could produce in many years”:

You, my dear Celsus, possibly suppose yourself to be laying upon me quite a trifling task: “Write me down in a book and send me the life and adventures, the tricks and frauds, of the impostor Alexander of Abonutichus” […] if you will promise to read with indulgence, and fill up the gaps in my tale from your imagination, I will essay the task. I may not cleanse that Augean stable completely, but I will do my best, and fetch you out a few loads as samples of the unspeakable filth that three thousand oxen could produce in many years.

Lucian’s narrative is peppered with affectionate words of praise for Epicurus and his legacy, and the work was allegedly written as an act of Epicurean solidarity. From this introductory paragraph, we get another picture of the cheerful cultural milieu of the Epicureans. It depicts a kind of “culture of comedy” advanced by Epicureans like Lucian — who, in addition to being funny, was known as a brilliantly engaging and entertaining narrator. His close associates, like the one Celsus mentions here, enjoyed listening to his stories so much that they wanted a record for their ongoing amusement and that of future generations.

Going back to the original tale of religious immunity and privilege, we see that it resonates with contemporary and recent events. Consider, for example, the Catholic Church’s predatory practices and dodging of the judicial system for generations, which has also inspired much satire. Another parallel could be the violent Islamic attacks and intimidation against cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo and authors like Salman Rushdie. These conflicts show the tension between comedy and authoritarian religions, where (perhaps excessive and undeserved) respect is channeled toward certain persons or symbols. Even when our societies do enshrine the right to blaspheme within broader guarantees of freedom of expression, there are communities under the sway of authoritarian religions that may coerce the state into annulling those guarantees — if only temporarily.

Some may argue that it’s precisely because of these dangers that one must artfully employ parrhesia, which translates as “frank criticism” or “frank speech”. Parrhesia was initially a power reserved for free Greek citizens, but Epicurean philosophers turned it into a tool for constant self-betterment and education. Philodemus of Gadara taught that “philosophy heals through frank criticism.”

In his scroll On Frank Criticism, Philodemus mentions that philosophers employed two forms of therapeutic parrhesia. On the one hand, private criticism cleanses the human character and purges bad habits and diseases of the soul. On the other hand, public criticism helps emancipate people from blind traditions, societal conventions, and false views that are degrading and generate suffering. The idea was to diagnose a disease of the soul for treatment. Parrhesia could be unpleasant, like bad medicine, particularly when the recipient was wealthy or arrogant. The Epicureans were known for softening the medicine with “suavity”, a virtue of soft and gentle speech. Comedy can also help to lubricate parrhesia’s harshness.

In the modern LGBTQ community, parrhesia can take the form of “reading” someone. Although it can sometimes be demeaning, at other times it can genuinely serve to therapeutically humiliate or demonstrate a weakness or flaw of character: the arrogance and empty insinuation of moral superiority of a preacher, the lying tendencies of a politician, the insecurities of a bigot. Societies need to appoint clowns who look from the outside and deflate hypocrisies with mockery and frankness. Drag queens frequently perform this role in the West, as their Two-Spirit gender-variant counterparts did in pre-contact Native American cultures. The LGBTQ community also employs parrhesia in another way: the process of coming out of the closet. This practice not only creates the opportunity of authenticity for the person coming out, but forces greater authenticity on the rest of society.

The use of various forms of parrhesia is one of the threads that unites secular activists and their allies. Creationism and notions of divine intervention in nature were as large of a concern to pagans and secularists as they are today. Modern Pastafarians have built an entire circus of parody around the inane, absurd beliefs in divine creation that persist into the 21st century.

A note here will help to illustrate the different attitudes adopted by progressive secular communities and regressive religious ones, as exemplified by ancient Epicureans and contemporary Muslims. The pig is considered dirty and insulting in the Islamic tradition, whereas the Epicureans accepted the pig as a symbol for the pleasant life of a hedonist. In the villa of Herculaneum, Philodemus and his Epicurean community prominently displayed a sculpture of a pig. The poet Horace jokingly asserted that he was “a fat pig of Epicurus’ den.” The comparison of Epicureans with pigs seems to have started out as an insult by enemy schools inspired by the Epicureans’ love of pleasure.

Their cheerful affirmation in poetry and sculpture of being a swinish herd, even up to the adoption of the pig as a formal symbol as we see in Herculaneum, together with their designation of their Bible-like Canon as “the book that fell from heaven”, demonstrates the Epicureans’ cheerfulness and willingness to not take themselves too seriously. This seems to have been a proud cultural trait of the Epicureans. It is impossible to imagine Muslims so easily and jokingly assuming epithets like “pig”.

“Scratch any cynic and you will find a disappointed idealist.”— George Carlin

This quintessential cultural difference characterizes both the modern and ancient culture wars between secularists and religionists. We may argue that it goes back to Democritus, the precursor of Epicurus who was known as the “Laughing Philosopher” for making cheerfulness his key virtue and for the way in which he mocked human behavior. The tradition of the laughing philosophers had to start with the first atomist: materialism liberates us from unfounded beliefs to such an extent that it renders absurd the beliefs and the credulity of the mobs.

Epicureans and Cynics have continued this tradition. Atheist comedian George Carlin — who was in fact a Philosophy major — is one of the most recent and most brilliant examples of a laughing philosopher. He employed comedy and frank criticism in a manner that was blasphemous, disruptive, and liberating. He did not reserve his bad medicine for religion alone. His rant against the bankers, many years prior to the 2008 banking collapse, was nearly prophetic.

The phenomenon of parody religions is quite popular today among militant atheists. Pastafarians worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster and, as a form of protest against and commentary about the excesses of religious privilege, have in recent years been involved in controversies for insisting on having their official picture IDs taken with pasta strainers and requesting that their faith be legitimized via census.

As we’ve seen, ancient Epicureans also often behaved like a parody religion and used Pastafarian-like tactics. But the political intentions behind their disruption took a second seat behind the educational, philosophical, and comedic value of their cultural output. In the “Isle of the Blessed” passage from True History, Lucian invents and describes in great detail a paradise. He sends all the Epicureans and kindred spirits to his version of heaven, in the center of which is a sacred Well of Laughter, but refuses to admit members of enemy schools by comically depicting how they failed to find the isle. Aristotelians, on their way to the Isle of the Blessed, stopped and were perplexed at how it was possible for such a thing to exist. Stoics were busy scaling the hill of virtue. Lucian uses wit to expound the Epicurean doctrine of how relying too much on logic, or setting goals other than pleasure, can hinder human happiness.

Similarly, some Pastafarians will temporarily put all joking aside and argue that their cult does present some legitimate philosophical points concerning who carries the burden of proof with regards to religious claims, and how every single unprovable supernatural assertion is just as valid as the creation myth that we find in the Bible.

There is great tension in Europe as a result of the rise of Islamic extremism, and many Westerners are looking to an idealized past for a shared identity and solidarity. Although Epicurus was not an atheist, many secularists frequently look to Epicurus for a role model. As a result, this Greek humanist hero is making a comeback, as attested by the proliferation of Epicurean blogs and memes on social media. The wise man of Samos has even been replicated in effigies made with 3D printers — a highly personalized, futuristic sculptural tradition that has begun in our generation. Perhaps that is a symptom of how Epicurus is being reimagined for future generations by modern humanists.

We need culture heroes to uphold the values of Western civilization and free expression. Epicurus and the tradition of laughing philosophers provide a deep-rooted cultural well that satisfies the strong desire that many Westerners feel to re-imagine their identities in line with strong scientific and secular principles.

Pastafarians and the New Atheists have appropriated many of the methods and discourse that Epicureans initially proposed and used. Lucretius’ arguments about how the gods didn’t make this imperfect world for humans are still used today. Today’s so-called culture wars, expressions of which we find in both New Atheism and parody religions, are in many ways a continuation of the ancient conversations, identities, tactics, and narratives of the Epicureans, and more broadly of the laughing philosophers.

Parrhesia and comedy are not the only tools in the Epicurean toolkit. There is also suavity, the virtue of gentle and kind speech that Epicureans were known for, and it is here that the Epicureans might have something to add to New Atheism, helping people to find the balance between militancy and ataraxia — the peace of mind and stable pleasure that was the ultimate goal of Epicurean therapy. Frank speech is the sign of us being free citizens. But there are many ways of saying something, and sometimes the utility of our words is sacrificed in their harshness.

Further Reading:
Lucian: Selected Dialogues (Oxford World’s Classics)

Nous Sommes Tous La France!

franceflag

The members of the Society of Friends of Epicurus express our solidarity and deep affection for all the citizens of the French Republic, which has been a beacon of Republican (that is, non-monarchic and anti arbitrary authority) secular values for centuries.

libertyIt was France that gave the United States its Statue of Liberty as a token of shared Western values, with its torch kindling in our breasts what became a central part of our identity. There are statues and other monuments to Liberty in other parts of the world also. We are not just two sister nations. We are a legion.

It was the French Revolution that first confronted the evil clergy in Europe which had fomented religious hatred, war and misery, perpetuated unfair and unjustified class divisions for centuries, and kept the population ignorant and docile for the benefit of parasite dynasties.

And now, the following two memes have been unfortunately added today to the Lucretian Meme Page, which grows with every religiously inspired attrocity that happens.FranceMeme2 FranceMeme1

The above memes were also inspired by the rememberance of the things that were said by the predecessors in our wisdom tradition, particularly in this case the poet Lucretius. Here is what our friend Cassius posted in the Epicurean Philosophy group after the Paris attacks:

In regard to Paris 11/13/15, there is one line of Lucretius that stands out and that ought to be burned into every Epicurean mind, an exercise that would be much more useful than the standard “praying” and gnashing of teeth:

TANTUM RELIGIO POTUIT SUADERE MALORUM!

In my own word-for-word Latin stream of consciousness, I prefer to translate that as: How Much – Religion – has the power – to persuade – to evil things!

Yes, Paris is burning, but so are the pens and the voices of millions of its defenders everywhere burning with ardor. Legions of secular bloggers, journalists, authors, activists, parents, intellectuals, and allies will weave the accurate narrative to neutralize the persistent, evil propaganda that will in all likelihood use the Paris events to invite people to pray and to fear their God, as if prayer had somehow been observed to solve the problems of religion and its tyranny in the past.

They will also invite people to believe that obscure, evil prophecies are coming true, or worse that they MUST com true … prophecies that see violence, misery and war everywhere and that warn about their inevitability, evil oracles that were seeded in the culture eons ago by ranting, paranoid, irresponsible, superstitious madmen with no knowledge of the nature of things and no caring investment in the welfare and happiness of future generations. And then they will invite people again to subject their bodies and minds to acts of bowing, kneeling, and praying … in spite of the supposed inevitability of the doom they themselves announce!

No, this is NOT the time to pray.

This is the time for Epicureans everywhere to educate their peers about the harmful effects of superstitious and religious thinking, demonstrating in concise terms how prayer and kneeling and bowing and submitting to any kind of arbitrary authority, invisible or not, does not solve, and has never solved, a single one of the problems that humanity faces.

It’s time to educate others on how it’s better to stand than to kneel, and it’s better to open our eyes instead of closing them like praying people do, to see things and to apply our faculties to the observable facts, before any course of action or decision is taken, as we were reminded by our friend from Greece who authored Aitio Paronta.

The enemies of human freedom and happiness will likely continue trying to kill and intimidate secular bloggers and content creators, like they’re doing in Bangladesh, but each one they kill will breed many more who will take note and speak up. In the Epicurean tradition, we honor the comedian Lucian as an example of how comedy, irony, and free speech can be employed to enlighten, as well as to en-lighten (lighten up, through laughter) people on these issues.

Will you kneel, will you bow, will you pray … or will you open your eyes, awaken your faculties, and stand up? The choice is yours. If you stand up, we are proud of you and thankful that you’ve joined us. One Love!

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