“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.” *
If being an Epicurean means anything it must mean thinking for yourself . I live in a city where there is one readable newspaper. One goes to dinner parties and one hears the issues and the views of the journalists on that paper often being regurgitated without critical analysis. The concentration (deliberate concentration) of the media is a challenge to democracy . In some towns and cities in the US all one can access is the paper, the TV stations, the radio stations and crude talk show hosts representing one line of political thinking (if thinking is the word).
Epicureans should enjoy their Gardens, but should not be idle in them. They should think for themselves and be suspicious of consensus. People everywhere tend to boast of their individualism. The reality is that they are, as a generality, hugely conformist and frightened of being apart from the pack. Where I live it is a bit of a joke.
*Oscar Wilde, quoted in The Scotsman.
Where two or three agree in Washington you tend to have a bungle. So-called “experienced” people organized and ran a totally incompetent invasion and occupation of Iraq, supported by the “great and the good”.
No wonder we shouldn’t involve ourselves in politics – I can feel my blood pressure rising. Time for the gym!
Dear, dear. The “incompetent” invasion of Iraq is, at the moment, a raging success. While I did not agree with all of the tactics, I must applaud success when I see it!
The enemy is routed from Iraq, has lost it’s bases in Pakistan, and is now rushing headlong into the killing fields of Ahghanistan, pursued by the Pakistanis on one side, and the Americans on the other. Good news!
On the topic of consensus, I agree with Tolstoys take on it from War and Peace. In brief, there are serious people, to whom ideas are real, and must be taken seriously, and not-serious people. Most people are not serious.
I am guilty of doing just what I criticize others for doing – – making political statements when I supposed to keep off politics, and , secondly, making extreme statements without being able to back them up. I apologize!
I am very glad the violence has abated in Iraq, for whatever reason, but since no one commenting on this blog is either in Iraq nor has even visited the country, it might be wise to wait and see whether this lull is permanent. Let us agree to foregather in three years time and see whether Iraq is peaceful, in one piece (peace), has what passes for a democratic government and has recovered the 1 million citizens who have had to leave it as refugees. Then we might be able to judge whether the outcome has been a success. Make sense?
Do you think post-war Germany could have passed that test? Ot Japan? We still have troops in Bosnia! Besides, I don’t think this fight is over yet. It just looks good right now.
As for politics, if your aim is to discuss Epicureanism in the modern world, how can it be avoided? 🙂
I agree with Xiaoding. Would Epicurus have put ataraxia before justice, compassion for the oppressed, ethnic cleansing etc. allowing megalomaniacs to abuse their people such that they live moment by moment in fear?
War can only be justified if the alternative is a worse state of affairs. Is this idea not true for most thoughtful, compassionate people whatever their religious persuasion ?
Yes. But sometimes economic interests outweigh the compassion of ordinary people.
“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.†*
I like to think that I think for myself and that what I think is unique and reasoned but Its hard to be an independant thinker when its all been thought of and expressed before.
“Its all been done (and thought out) before.”! Even that is a quote from a song!!
I don’t believe this for one second Jane Dean.
The world is new everyday, with new miracles, new people, new occurrences, new thought, the world is constantly changing.
It’s ridiculous to think that everything has been thought and expressed before.
Anyway it’s new if you come up with it yourself , its never been expressed that way before.