Seneca on achievement and ambition

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Seneca is particularly skeptical of the double-edged sword of achievement and ambition — which causes us to steep in our cesspool of insecurity, dissatisfaction, and clinging:.

“It is inevitable that life will be not just very short but very miserable for those who acquire by great toil what they must keep by greater toil. They achieve what they want laboriously; they possess what they have achieved anxiously; and meanwhile they take no account of time that will never more return. New preoccupations take the place of the old, hope excites more hope and ambition more ambition. They do not look for an end to their misery, but simply change the reason for it”.

This, Seneca cautions, is tenfold more toxic for the soul when one is working for somone else, toiling away toward goals laid out by another.

A personal take: I once employed people, who in a sense were employing me. I found myself “acquiring by great toil what I had to keep by greater toil.” I sort-of achieved what I wanted, very laboriously, and “possessed what I had achieved very anxiously”. Later, I adopted Epicureanism and devoted twenty years to writing music, with my wife – a new preoccupation. But in this endeavor we toiled, but it was fun; we achieved what we wanted to achieve, but we neither of us expected anything more than personal satisfaction. We made not a penny from it, and we didn’t care. We had done it to our own satisfaction.It was a joy.

Thought for the day: making advances

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To The Times

In your report “Ex-director goes on sex offender register for making pass at friend”, you write that the judge told the defendant: “You do not make advances towards women who don’t want you to.” In other words, a woman must first indicate that an advance is welcome before a man can make one. But the act of indicating to a man that an advance is welcome is in itself an advance, and what if he finds it unwelcome?

Richard Hayes, Oxford

Keeping the cost of drugs high

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The Trump administration has dramatically increased the number of legitimate shipments of prescriptions it seizes at the border. The Food and Drug Administration is seizing shipments of cheaper, legal medications from legitimate pharmacies around the world. High drug prices in the U.S. have long driven Americans to look internationally for cheaper medications. Historically, the federal government has turned a blind eye to those purchases — until now.
The FDA has quietly used funds it said were needed to capture shipments of opioids to step up its seizure of legitimate, safe drugs that individuals and pharmacies have long imported into the country.

One 85 year old man, who suffers fron Crohn’s disease, has been importing a drug called Asacol, which is no longer made or available in the US. He had no option but to order from abroad. The FDA has impounded the drug, putting his life at risk. But the government does not regard its job as acting for citizens, only companies (and companies who contribute to campaign funds, no doubt). The FDA acts only on behalf of pharmaceutical companies in this case – just as the Federal aviation department is there to support airlines, not the taxpayer. Government for the people, by the people? I don’t think this is what the Founders intended, but it won’t improve anytime soon with a corporatist Supreme Court in place and money the only yardstick. Sad!

Epicurus and politics, a response

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If you type in ‘Epicurus and politics’ into Google, the first result you get is an excellent post by Robert. Here, he explained Epicurus’ arguments against politics- the needless anxiety caused by a gullible public being fooled by charlatans only interested in their own gain. Charismatic figures will emerge, appealing to the public’s sense of collective virtue. But in reality the state is a clumsy instrument for achieving good- the pleasures of the collective are far more easily obtainable through smaller communities and voluntary exchange.

Robert’s argument against Epicurus is one I used to wholeheartedly agree with. The modern world is simply too influenced by politics to make non-involvement rational. The state is entrenched in every facet of human life, from education to the workplace to care for the elderly. I would add that Epicurus failed to foresee the good that can be achieved through political change. We would never have had the civil rights movement or the women’s liberation were it not for those who were willing to sacrifice their own pleasure to act in the public interest. In this regard, Aristotle’s conceptualisation of happiness as a life of virtuous activity may be more appropriate to the present day. What I like about Epicurus’ hedonism is that however individualistic, it makes no claims to a universal morality. Rather, it takes into account circumstances and deals in terms of general principles and practises, rather than doctrinaire dogma.

However, the limits of Aristotelian aspirations to virtue soon become apparent when dealing with situations where there are no good outcomes. Take for example, Brexit. The United Kingdom finds itself in a position where all plausible outcomes are bad. There was always a choice to be made between the sort of Brexit the country wants: either a Brexit where trade with the EU is restricted but the British government gains a decent degree of regulatory freedom, or a Brexit where trade remains relatively open but the UK gains virtually no additional sovereignty of its own. The Leave campaign lied about this choice, arguing we could have effectively as much trade with the EU as we do now while ‘taking back control.’ The British government has negotiated with the EU as if this lie is true, which is why its plan for Brexit is the worst of both worlds- it restricts trade with the EU greatly, particularly in services, while subjecting the UK to a ‘common rulebook’ with the EU, which would effectively mean the UK having to obey EU rules and ECJ rulings while having no say in how they are made.

Given the disastrous and incompetent nature of the British government and its negotiations, the UK has three choices. It can either accept May’s deal, leave without a deal, or stay in the EU. All options will be bad, but in varying ways. Accepting May’s deal with not only cost the country economically, it will satisfy almost no one. Leaving without a deal may be to the liking of a few hardcore Eurosceptics, but most people would be outraged by a rapidly deteriorating country with no arrangements on security or trade. Staying in the EU is only possible through a referendum, which would never pass Parliament. And even if somehow a referendum occurred, and Remain won, there would be a hard-Right backlash, complaining that democracy had been undermined and that the elites had subverted the will of the people. The results would be horrific. Disillusionment, apathy and a sense of hopelessness would reach record levels.

In this and other similarly dismal scenarios, Epicurean non-participation makes sense. Getting involved in politics will be a significant detriment on one’s happiness and peace of mind. You will waste time arguing with people who won’t ever change their mind. And in return, you won’t make the country much better, because there are no options worth fighting for. It makes more sense simply to try to survive the damage our politics inflicts on us, rather than deluding yourself into believing you can make a difference. The pompous, arrogant politicians Epicurus warned us about are just as notorious today as they were in his time.

 

Hitler and Stalin would be so envious!

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The Guardian reports (July 20th) that the Chinese government is busy creating an individual profiling system for each and every Chinese citizen, a “social score” which will indicate who is a “desirable employee”, reliable tenant, valuable customer, their eligibility for a loan, whether they are shirkers or a “waste of time”. And, of course, who is enthusiastic about the rule of Xi – and who is not. Those sending their children to Canada and other Western countries for education (and foreign citizenship?) should be fearful.

The creation of suitable algorithms has allowed power-crazed regimes to create such a system, which removes privacy, choice and the right to be an individual with views of one’s own. And it can only work in a compliant system where leaders and politicians say “yes” to the Great Leader about everything. Authoritarians are popping up all over the world as half news is broadcast and only the line dictated by the Leader is allowed to prevail.

If there is anything less Epicurean I haven’t heard of it. Brexit is driven by those with authoritarian instincts (so it is said); the Republican party has transformed itself, and is a “yes-crowd” for a president uninterested in the nation as a whole. All news that is not praise-full of the “smartest dealmaker in history” is “fake news”.

I hate to be constantly harping on the dangers ahead of us, but all who support constitutional government and the decent treatment of everyone regardless of race, has to do his or her bit to fight for liberty and democracy against craven cowards and timeservers interested only in power and continued easy income. You know who I mean!