If a rich or prominent American gets caught out having an affair or making racist remarks, he is allowed a chance of redemption. A heartfelt apology on Letterman and he is away and running again. The common criminal who sells a bit of marijuana, for instance, ends up in jail. Are rich and important people granting themselves the chance of redemption, in the same way as they award themselves tax breaks, and then deny the same facility to less fortunate people?
Julian Borger, The Guardian Weekly December 1-7 2006
This is an illustration of one of the big problems with Epicureanism. Epicurus tells us not to get involved in politics and the affairs of the community, but simply seek personal peace of mind. And yet most of us (true – not all of us!) are hard-wired for compassion and with a sense of justice and injustice that is mostly common sense. A friend of mine the other day dismissed Epicureanism as “just too selfish’, and it was hard to counter the accusation. On this blog I personally try to put a more “communitaire” face on Epicurus and show it up in a more gentle, kind and just light. That is one motivation for creating the blog in the first place. I am looking for people who can help me! I don’t like to be thought of as adhering to a simply cruel and selfish creed.
I havent studied epicurus long enough to properly comment; but it seems there must be something in the philosophy that allowed for at least a common” compassion towards society as a whole, even if the epicureans did not involve themselves directly in politics; I dont see how the movment could have survived as long as it did, without having some form of “community” engagement; otherwise you would just have people gathering in the garden, introspectively “musing” about the injustices of the world; I believe we are hard wired to fight injustice rather than simply stand by and watch;
I quite agree!
The problem I see is that in my personal experience fighting injustices on a large scale are futile. Thus, the anxiety created by hoping to change something that is out of our control, that is unless we dedicate most of our life’s work to one cause (and even then the chance of seeing the results we push for is slim to none), is not worth the effort when we can achieve personal satisfaction easily by separating ourselves from the ever stressful and increasingly pathetic world and focussing on our personal friendships and experiences.
For an epicurean blog you sure talk alot about politics.
That’s fair comment/criticism.
The reason is that many people (myself included) are seriously torn between the Epicurean posture of avoiding politics and deeply felt concern about the country and the way it is going. Can one realize ataraxia with the world going to pot in front of your eyes? is another way of putting it. You may be a committed right-wing voter and believe everything the current government is doing is simply brilliant, including the two wars. But I hope you can still respect the point of view that thinks quite the opposite. I started this blog because on other Epicurean sites one usually encounter (understandably) a lot of Libertarians (perfectly o.k but I don’t hold with it myself, and think it puts a lot of people off Epicureanism), and I wanted to explore a more gentle interpretation of what Epicurus said and how he might possibly react to events today. If Christians can have a hundred interpretations of the bible, surely we can have two! if you want libertarianism and me-only points of view, there are a lot of other sites to explore. But I hope you will return and comment on this – I would like to hear what you think.
To ignore the realities which unfolded across centuries between Epicurus’ life and ours would relegate him to a historial curiosity instead of a palpable force in deepening our understanding. Truth demands that we fold in what we’ve learned from across those millenia and weave those insights into Epicurus’ fundamental viewpoint.
I’m impressed that this blog has remained vibrant and open to new insights because Epicurus was not a rigid, absolutist thinker. I’ve always maintained that his “quietism” as regards public life was rooted in having to face the reality of living under a militarized political system. We still have choices that were closed to him.