Under the heading "Gated Communities" Mickey posed the following question a few days ago:
"Besides the principle of living simply, is there anything in Eism akin to Jesus’ admonition to the wealthy man to sell all his possessions? "
I posed the same question in turn on the Yahoo Epicurean chat site, and Victor Kioulaphiades, a great guy whom my wife and I met in New York, replied as follows. Whether anyone else will i don’t know:
Hello, Bob.
No. 67 of the sayings collected by Sr. Arrighetti, reads:
"A free life cannot acquire great wealth, because the task is not easy without slavery to the mob or those in power; rather, it already possesses everything in constant abundance. And if it does somehow achieve great wealth, one could easily share this out in order to obtain the good will of one’s neighbours."
(Transl. from The Epicurus Reader of Inwood/Gerson) I’m a bit too busy at this moment to offer my own translation from the original. Sorry…
This, I believe, is the clearest and most reasonably practicable advice we have from our Sage: live simply, be happy to have what is readily available; don’t sell yourself out to the Many, or to the Powerful; and, if by chance, or good fortune, or your skills and talents, you do acquire great wealth, be generous with it. There is something precious and priceless in good will. Et pax hominibus bonae voluntatis, reads the Latin Gloria. You don’t need to be a pious Christian, but merely a diligent student of human nature and the world, to recognize "peace" and "good will" as corollaries.
Cheers,
Victor
Hello, Bob and Lovely Wife: it’s good to be back among the Eists (derived from “Eism” which appeared in my absence).
Synthesizing the observations on the “Gated Communities” post with this “Living Simply” musing presents a great difficulty.
I take Epicurus’ meaning in saying: “”A free life cannot acquire great wealth, because the task is not easy without slavery to the mob or those in power.” Probably true in his day as well as ours. Or is it?
The young people raised in the gated communities I know already enjoy “great wealth” with little exertion. They do follow Epicurus’ advice to be “happy to have what is readily available.” They shop, eat, play, and socialize in a world peopled with folks who look and who behave just as they do. More to the point, they’ll attend expensive colleges, the ticket to a relatively comfy future.
On the other hand, who but the middle class or the wealthy can resign themselves to “what is readily availble?” Is that a luxury that presupposes relatively “great wealth” already?
My daughter and her young family live in a gradually gentrifying area of Washington, D.C., ribboned with white, black, and brown people. She said recently of her 17-month-old son: “He’ll never stare at black people.” She was referring to the far less diverse and self-segregated racial world of a small Virginia town where we lived when she was growing up. Her then 7 year-old brother once asked: “Why do only brown people collect trash?” There were no physical gates but it was a “gated” world nonetheless. (They left as soon as they could, with our blessing, and now mix-it-up in Washington and Manhattan.
Adapting Epicurus’ insights to 21st Century life is NOT, in my vew, so “simple” a business and textual analyses, though, helpful still leave us with a huge task. We have to take what is helpful and modify what doesn’t transfer so easily. I hope this isn’t a heretical observation.
I think one of the tasks of Epicureans today is to have honest conversations about the facticity of how we find ourselves in this economy and the fiscal realities of surviving in this world.
Autarchy is interpreted as self-sufficiency, and as a doctrine it saved ancient Epicureans (unconcerned as they were with vain pursuits) from becoming alms-seeking beggars and yogis. Many of us have been in situations where we’ve been very close to destitute today.
How can we best achieve autarchy without engaging in the wage-slavery scheme that our ruling classes have established?
How can we best achieve autarchy and still live happy, free lives?
It’s not easy for most of us to move to rural parts of society and institute our Gardens. There needs to be a modern adaptation of this tradition, maybe one involving non-profit humanist and charity organizations and even worker coops or other democratic business models that facilitate a living wage.
My own reaction is that you have to be as independent as possible of the mainstream capitalistic system, which seems to get constantly more exploitative. Starting your own business? Maybe impractical if you don’t have the money to survive while it gets established. I have started several businesses and it is not for sissies. Now I am retired I do a number of arty things, working with my wife, but on the understanding that we don’t try to make money out of them, and thus render them un-enjoyable.