Posts by Peter Konstans

Quote from Cassius

So are you saying that you have found in your studies that there is in fact not much of a historical precedent for the use of letter-writing for spread of philosophical ideas before Epicurus?

The use of literary letters in the Greek world is older than Epicurus though not very much older. This genre was originally developed by ancient orators and it was adopted by philosophers (Epicurus was also trained in oratory). Of course the distinction between orators and philosophers was muddy back then. That's why the professional orator and statesman Cicero is also labeled a 'philosopher' even though we was not much of an original thinker.

Paul was a missionary theologian but the distinction between theologians and philosophers also tended to be murky in antiquity. This is seen for example in how Christian theology adopted many philosophical terms like e. g. the Stoic term pronoia (providence) and changed their content. Just like Paul's letters (which were read during mass for the purposes of catechism) so did the letters of Epicurus function as materials for philosophical catechism.

The fact that the only specimens coming directly from the pen of Epicurus other than the Kyriai Doxai that survived intact are such letters indicates that their use was more popular among Epicureans to gain new converts and educate themselves compared to his many other authored texts which were voluminous and highly technical and as such not suitable for mass consumption. The Kyriai Doxai is also highly convenient so it's no wonder this managed to survive too.

Epicureanism had a mission and Epicureans were highly motivated to do what it takes to get as many people as they could to hear their message. Epicurus didn't think of his philosophy as a philosophy like any other. He thought of it as the only true philosophy and the only one of practical and real value.

It was this missionary-like spirit that goaded Diogenes to take up the expense of erecting a massive rock to transmit Epicurus' message to coming generations. I don't know any other example of people using inscriptions to spread an entire belief system and I don't know any other tradition before Epicureanism that did exactly the same thing using literary epistles. The use of epistles for catechism can't possibly have escaped the notice of non-Epicureans if Epicureanism was indeed popular back then (as it was). But nobody would have had any motive to copy this practice unless they also had their own message to spread to everybody and a strong missionary zeal to go with it. The early Christians were precisely such a movement.

Quote from Cassius

Another very interesting post and I am glad you are pleased with the level of engagement. I am no longer sure if you are Greek or German but your English is top notch!

Thanks! I am Greek with no foreign roots as far as I can tell. Having studied German philology I teach the language as a part-time job.

I am glad I am getting the engagement I hoped I would be getting when I registered here. To avoid any misunderstandings, I wish to make clear that I don't regard anybody on this awesome page (thank goodness it exists) as somehow less Epicurean than I am whatever his views on any of the issues raised here may be. I see us all as being equally dedicated to Epicureanism and these discussions simply serve to provide some intellectual stimulation in the interests of pleasure and it's in no wise my intention to irritate someone or sow divisions.

Now, in the limited time I have before bed I would like to briefly address the issue of Christian epistolography. The most famous examples thereof are of course the letters attributed to Paul as integral part of the biblical canon, although not all of them are considered authentic today. The texts present the very first examples of Christian literature.

Claiming that the letters of the Corpus Paulinum belong to the literary genre of philosophical letters, (a tradition with no antecedents in Jewish culture during Paul's time) does not somehow contradict their status as 'real letters'. Allow me to translate the following paragraph from the German wiki article on the Pauline letters which illustrates the point well.

Die Paulusbriefe sind viel länger als gewöhnliche antike Privatbriefe, haben eine überlegte Gliederung und waren zum öffentlichen Verlesen im urchristlichen Gottesdienst bestimmt. Sie enthalten eine Vielfalt literarischer Kunstformen, die der Autor gezielt als Mittel der theologischen Argumentation einsetzte und die seine rhetorische Bildung zeigen. Ihr Zweck, eine persönliche Beziehung zwischen Autor und Adressaten zu bewahren und zu vertiefen, verbindet sie mit gewöhnlichen Freundschafts- und Familienbriefen. Ihre Kombination von lehrhaften, ethischen und autobiografischen Inhalten verbindet sie mit zeitgenössischen philosophischen Briefen. Darum werden die Paulusbriefe formal und inhaltlich als spezifisch urchristliche Literaturform eingestuft.

The Pauline letters are much longer than common private letters from antiquity. They are composed in neat sections and were meant to be read openly during the proto-Christian mass. They contain a plethora of literary conventional standards employed deliberately by the author as a means to argue theological points thus revealing his training in ancient rhetoric. The letters' goal to maintain and increase the personal connection between author and recipient puts them in the same category as typical correspondence between friends and family. However, their combination of didactic, ethical and autobiographical content puts the letters in the same group with contemporary philosophical letters. Hence, the letters are classed as regards their formal character and their particular content as a specifically proto-Christian literary genre.

Notice the distinction between Form (format, or formal character) and Inhalt (particular content) in the German paragraph. The formal character here is twofold: 1) that of a Greco-Roman philosophical letter with its typical literary and rhetorical conventions 2) that of a letter between close friends. The particular content is Proto-Christian theology. This distinction between format and content is ubiquitous in all continental European scholarship that has to do with the humanities. So there is no contradiction here from the European point of view. Something can be an ancient philosophical letter, Christian theology and a perfectly 'real letter' at the same time and face no existential crisis.

There is however a cultural tendency to ignore the use of such theoretical tools in the English-speaking countries or even to mock them as unscientific. Caspar Hirschi laments this fact in the English version of his book on nationalism and tries to convince his readers why they are actually useful. This tendency explains why some real historical affinities are automatically felt to be impossible contradictions or arbitrary verbose nonsense (for example the connection between humanism and nationalism that Hirschi writes about).

The tendency also explains some cultural habits that European observers find odd and leave them shaking their heads. For example, English-speaking atheists might talk about the differences between atheism and deism and then say that reasonable people are rather deists since they avoid 'strong claims' or they might talk about the differences between strong atheism and weak atheism etc. The problem with all this is that very little effort is made to contextualize and historicize the discussions surrounding those terms and concepts so in the end the whole thing resembles teenagers analyzing a videogame and arguing over which one is better.

In other words, they act as if the world of ideas is a supermarket where uniquely labeled products are neatly arranged on the shelf for you to buy, use and discard. But the world of ideas rather resembles a complex ecosystem: a highly dynamic and messy ecological environment where individual components are never seen sitting on a shelf. They constantly interact with other components over the course of their life cycle and are then consumed by other components and subsequently recycled into new different ones.

What did I mean when I said something like 'the Epicureans were the first cult to try to imagine an ideal community without political mediations'? It simply means that Epicureanism was only one of several schools that dreamed of a better social co-existence between humans. But the other schools had strong political flavors whereas Epicureanism didn't.

Here we find another affinity with radical Judaism and to Illustrate that we can use an example from what Jesus himself (who was in reality merely the leader of one of many unorthodox Judaist sects of that time) allegedly did.

According to the gospels when Jesus encountered a Roman centurion he was friendly to him and congratulated him because he saw that the centurion's wisdom exceeded that of the children of Israel. Jesus didn't tell him 'you are a filthy pig and you need to get away from the holy country of Israel' which is what an orthodox Jewish priest would have done. He didn't tell him that being a soldier is evil and that he should get another job as the modern Nietzschean caricatures of Christianity would imagine Jesus doing.

Elsewhere in the gospels Jesus says 'give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give unto God what belongs to God'. So it's clear that Jesus was apolitical and also not a moralist in the traditional sense. He didn't care that you weren't a Jew. He didn't care about your private life being pure, he didn't care what wordly regime existed in his time. The only thing he cared about was to bring everybody into salvation. Just as Epicurus was called a 'soter' (savior) so did Jesus understand himself as a savior. And Jesus was interested in saving everybody who wanted to be saved, not just the Jews and not just the virtuous people. So here we observe an implicit denigration of popular virtue in Christianity. Jesus spends much time in the gospels condemning the hypocrisy of orthodox Jews precisely because he is not impressed by popular virtue.

Jesus was also clearly a pacificist even though he lived in a country under foreign occupation. Epicureanism also has this aspect. Remember the anecdote where an Epicurean demostrates to Pyrrhus of Epirus that his conquests are just a folly and that harming people is the wrong way to pleasure.

So summing up radical Judaism was apolitical (the only state that mattered was the kingdom of heaven) it was cosmopolitan in its vision ('there shall be no Greek and no Jew'), it was pacifist in a country that cried for blood (and would soon get it) and it completely lacked elitist tones so that even prostitutes could be redeemed. In the staunchly patriarchal and zero-jokes world of antiquity prostitutes were regarded not as 'sex workers' but as something like a doll invested with filthy flesh, a pseudo-human form of life. So the radicality of Jesus in the context of Judaism should not be underestimated, it was this radicality that got him killed after all. So Jesus was definitely not a 'pathetic victim'. He was an unorthodox figure who firmly stood up for what he believed and paid the ultimate price. This is hell of a lot more than most modern political warriors would have done if they were up against real pressures.

The radicality of Epicurean egalitarianism in the context of the Greco-Roman world should also not be underestimated. Once again I wish to remind people that wealth inequalities were intense to the effect that religious sacrifices contributed significantly to valuable nutrition for the masses. Religion didn't just feed people's illusions. It also fed them literally. This was not a world where criticism of popular religion was a harmless thing to do. Epicureans are known to have faced expulsions for their beliefs.

Good place to start

https://darkmattercrisis.files.wordpress.com/2022/04/mond_for_dummies-27.04.2022.pdf

Pavel Kroupa: The Dark Matter Crisis

Quote from Cassius

Quote from Peter Konstans

I'm a follower of those scientists like Pavel Kroupa and Eric J. Lerner who argue that the traditional cosmological paradigm of a Big Bang, dark energy and an expanding universe is false and present the thesis that the actual empirical data supports a Milgromian universe (MOND) which is always evolving but not expanding and with no beginning in time.

Peter if you can point to particular articles that you have found valuable on this subject I would definitely like to see them linked in this section of the forum.

There is plenty of content with Pavel Kroupa on youtube and some with Eric Lerner. For us here who are (I presume) laymen as far as cosmology is concerned it's always more pleasing to hear specialists inform us than read papers meant for experts.

Quote from Godfrey

Peter Konstans , it would be extremely helpful if you would break up your writing into proper paragraphs. With all due respect, I can't even read what you just posted: it just comes across as an overwhelming stream of words.

In the interest of respecting the ideas that you're expressing, please consider giving some time to formatting your posts in such a way as to maximize what could prove to be a very interesting discussion.

Thanks! Godfrey

I will try to separate the materials into paragraphs to ease the reading process for the eye. But I cannot ease the process for the mind. The logical coherence of the argument is there and the English is syntactically correct. The only thing I could suggest that might help somebody get used to this particular 'dense' style of writing is to learn German and read German books. If you are interested in ancient philosophy and the humanities in general German-language scholarship in those areas is simply the finest in the world. I have studied that language in university and teach it for a living. In non-spoken German subordinate clauses are often woven together almost endlessly in a manner that English tends to avoid even in books dealing with complex issues. One could train the mind in pretty much the same way by mastering Latin or Ancient Greek but German is obviously far more useful and easier to acquire.

This is a very interesting discussion and there is much to discuss here. For now I will focus on the claim that Epicureanism is about 'living your life to the fullest instead of being a victim on the cross'. This ignores the fact that 'living your life to the fullest' was not the easiest thing to do in antiquity. Epicurus taught that what is good is easy to attain in stark contrast to moralists who always tend to exalt what is hard. In antiquity indulging yourself in luxuries and being socio-economically privileged was basically the same thing. You guys must have noticed this trend where exposure of the masses to infotainment that the likes of Mary Beard peddle has made people so infatuated with the Roman Empire that they report thinking of it every day. Vaclav Smil, a zero-nonsense scholar who has studied the economy of antiquity would use hard numbers to remind those people that the material circumstances of the period that the majority had to endure (even free people, not just slaves) actually resembled those of the very poorest countries in today's third world. Acquiring privilege in such an environment didn't mean going to college and becoming a successful businessman but seeking political patronage and inevitably getting involved in nasty political conflicts which easily turned lethal. Things could not have been more different today. We can afford to indulge in all sorts of luxuries and excesses like fine dining and drugs without acquiring high social status. And unlike us Epicurus flourished in violent times where there was not much room for our jokes. Today we demonstrate on the streets and congratulate ourselves for 'fighting' valorously and even teenagers are taken seriously as social reformers and visionaries. When the ancient Epicureans rejected luxury they automatically and unambiguously rejected political ambition since you didn't get to have the one without the other. If you oppose luxury you have to embrace minimalism and if you are skeptical toward political ambitions you have to embrace the modesty of a life with limited public exposure within the confines of a small community of friends. Epicurus argued that this is the key to the happy life and this is not an abstract ideal. There is in fact ample empirical evidence showing he was correct. That's how we observe people in the so called 'blue zones' living. That's how Daniel Everett who spent many years with the Amazonian Piraha and was left with no doubt that they are the 'happiest people in the world' also observed them living. These groups tend to be both strict mininalists and sensuous hedonists and no contradiction is involved. While being minimalist, they are still far more sensuous than the typical person in our societies could fathom and they do not shy away from alcohol or carnal play at all. But being a sensuous hedonist doesn't exclusively have to involve eating, drinking and sexing. David Buettner describes a happy family in Singapore where a woman kisses the hand of her husband every morning. Superficially that seems like a deplorable expression of submission but it's rather a highly sensual gesture that Epicurus would have approved as a manifestation of legitimate hedonism serving to please her husband and remind them both every day of the tender commitment binding them together. John Gottman reports how a therapist advised an unhappy couple to arrange a mud fight in the garden. They were shocked to hear that and thought the therapist was an idiot but they tried it out, they had a blast and it saved their marriage. So something like a mud fight or a hand kiss can also be legitimate expressions of hedonism that are not on our pleasure radar because our radar is not a very advanced model. So Epicurus was well aware that the full spectrum of hedonism contained more than just indulging yourself in drinking bouts and the like and urged people to pay attention to the full spectrum. That's one of the reasons why his definition of pleasure was misunderstood as idiosyncratic. He tried to convince people of simple pleasures that were as of yet unknown to them and to which they couldn't relate. Now I would like to say something about the 'victims'. In the protestant world there is no monastic tradition but here where I live it still survives and even non-believers admire the anachorites' genuine commitment to their faith. It would never cross my mind to put a Nietzschean mask on and call Christian monks 'life-denying victims'. These people lead lives that they obviously enjoy sincerely and deeply. They talk in a manner that radiates mental stability, tranquility and confidence, all rare qualities that Epicurus would have liked. They also have qualities that Epicurus would have hated like torturing themselves with arduous physical trials (like hauling heavy loads of timber across mountains and enduring extreme fasting) in the persuit of receiving the grace of holiness (glorification aka doxasmos) by God. But there is no doubt that they enjoy what they do and when asked they affirm unreservedly that their life is a life of pleasure, not of sacrifice. And they are aware that there is a huge difference between them and ordinary Christians who are steeped in genuine spiritual misery. They tell us that the religious motivations of ordinary Christians are as worldly and indifferent to the love of Christ as those that motivated the pagan masses in antiquity and they are in fact quite right. Ordinary Christians pray and go to church so that God likes them and blesses them with a happy life. They want their businesses to stay afloat, they want to enjoy a good income and be shielded from poverty, they want their bodies to be shielded from sickness and decay and they want their brood to have a good education, a good job and a good partner so that they can feel proud in the envious eyes of society. And when all is said and done they want a cozy afterlife. It's exactly those kind of stupid attitudes and fixations with all their unpleasant behavioral complexes and neuroses that Epicurus sought to banish. There is here an actual affinity between unorthodox elements in Judaism (from where Christianity emerged) and Epicureanism. They are both goaded by similar revulsions, intentions and motivations. Both wanted to empower man and bring him closer to a blissful divine-like state. But they went about this differently. Epicureanism sought to banish the gods from human life completely and elevate man to a blissful status by training him to be a proper and dedicated hedonist. Radical Judaism sought to limit God to his role as a judge who will only reveal himself in the apocalypse. Until then they wanted to focus on training people to use all their energy to secure god's grace in order to receive a favorable judgement and become divine beings themselves when the day of judgement comes. Interestingly, Epicurus was also thought of as a sort of judge personally monitoring your progress as a hedonist. The advice 'do everything as if Epicurus is watching' is parallel with 'do everything as if God is watching'.

In this excellent book by Caspar Hirschi, The Origins of Nationalism: an alternative History from Ancient Rome to Early Modern Germany (Cambridge 2011) we see that humanism was once a movement (a concrete intellectual and political movement of the early modern period and not just a set of abstract ideas) that was closely associated with nationalism. This is something that modern 'humanists' would find completely preposterous and yet it is true. As Hirschi observes the concept of 'humanism' has today been absorbed by humanitarianism. Nevertheless the epithet humanist still vestigially preserves in Europe some of its original chauvinistic flavors and Europeans will often make quick use of the handle to express pride in the cultural achievements and refinement of European civilization and then proceed to bask in its reflected glory. In the US the word humanism functions as a registered trademark of mainstream leftists who especially use it when in a mood to attack the religious aspects of their political opponents in the name of progress and modernity. None of this has anything to do with Epicurus who lived in world that was alien to modernity and its political agendas and whose only concern was guiding his community to a pleasurable life. If he lived today would he tell us that the key to leading a life of pleasure is becoming humanists and spend our time picking quarrels with the enemies of progress? I doubt it.

Epicurus may well have theorized correctly. I'm a follower of those scientists like Pavel Kroupa and Eric J. Lerner who argue that the traditional cosmological paradigm of a Big Bang, dark energy and an expanding universe is false and present the thesis that the actual empirical data supports a Milgromian universe (MOND) which is always evolving but not expanding and with no beginning in time.

The term 'early Christianity' is just a convenient anachronism that maybe we should avoid altogether. It was a merely a sect of Second Temple Judaism for a long time (accoding to some scholars it still hadn't completed the process of transformation into a totally distinct religion as late as the 4th century) so the question is if Judaism in a broad sense had a fruitful interaction with Epicureanism. According to the virtual Jewish library this was in fact the case. I quote the following from its article on Epicureanism.

'Agreements, however, both in content and literary form, between rabbinism and Epicureanism are striking: study for its own sake (Vatican fragment 45 and Avot 6:1); removal of doubt (Life 121b, Doctr. 22 and Avot 1:16); mortality and urgency (Vat. fr. 10 and Avot 2:15); acquisition of a companion (To Menoeceus, end, and Avot 1:6); diet of bread and water (Bailey, fr. 37 and Avot 6:4); satisfaction with one's lot (Bailey, fr. 69–70 and Avot 4:1); and avoidance of public office (Bailey, fr. 85–87; Vat. fr. 58; Doctr. 7 and Avot 1:10–11; 2:3; etc.). Epicurus anticipated Judaism's denial of astral divinity and rule. With the general rise of the lower classes he accorded human dignity even to the prostitute, an evaluation continued in the Midrash (Sif. Num. 78; Gen. R. 85:8) and the Gospels (Matt. 1:3; 5, etc.). In Hellenism and Christianity, too, denunciation of Epicurus together with partial adoption of his ethics is frequent. The centrality of the sage in post-Socratic ethics and rhetoric facilitated such developments.'

Are we in agreement that Epicureanism was the first major cult that spread its message chiefly though the medium of epistolography and the first major school that envisioned a community of equals and friends without the mediations of poltical authority? Are we also in agreement that Epicureanism was highly successful in that period? If we agree on both then we must agree that it's at least quite likely that efforts were made on the part of Jewish movements to copy aspects of it. Successful movements never seem to fail getting imitated in some respects by their enemies for tactical reasons. The early medieval Byzantine heresies against the veneration of images (iconomachy) were likely a reaction to the massive success of the new Islamic religion and an attempt to imitate its strong emphasis on strict monotheism and opposition to idolatry. Such theological tendencies in the Byzantine east were of course not entirely novel but the vigorous appearance of Islam suddenly gave them a prominence they didn't have before. On the other hand, Islam copied the entire tradition of Orthodox chanting and phenomena such as the success of Byzantium against the Persians and the inroads of Christianity into the Arab pagan world must have promoted the growth of a new Abrahamic movement there.

Successful movements also have an uncanny ability to swiftly abandon elements that they were previously closely associated with if it suits them. Christianity became a religion entirely distinct from Judaism only when anti-Semitism established strong roots in it. The process that led there was started when the Jews became so hated in the eastern Mediterranean after their failed revolts which had left entire communities of Greco-Roman gentiles massacred that Christians had to adapt by distancing themselves from their Jewish origins and accelerating the process of assimilating pagan traditions into their faith.

Quote from Cassius

Peter: I realize that this is going to be in the middle of the night for you but I hope at some point you can join us in one of our new member zooms like we are having tonight (eastern US time). Hopefully at some point we can get enough people in Europe to schedule something for that time zone.

I will definitely join you at some point when my schedule allows it. Thanks for the heads up!

Quote from Elli

Nice to meet you too Mr. Peter!

Sorry, dear compatriot, but your example is not relevant with the conversation for the Aristotelian term on "modesty". And when we try to confuse the study of Philosophy - giving examples - with political ideologies the result is always a mess. Plato did that in Syracuse as he had the desire to make in practice his philosophy and tried to educate "a wise King Philosopher". As it is very known he had failed three times on this, and in the end he has been sold as a slave !!! Poor Plato!

Moreover, those people that have the irresistible desire to make a career in politics in 99,999% are idealists - platonists - stoics as they also speaking to the people with empty words without meaning (see kenes doxes).

You said: "They (in the golden Dawn) were so highly popular for a time that nobody in Greece doubts that they could have climbed to stellar political heights".

I answer to your argument and on that failed example of yours :

Nobody have doubted... EXCEPT THE EPICUREANS, since they smell the platonists/stoics like the dog smells a hidden bone. HA !

So, my "modest" - friendly exhortation to you is that if you want to study properly the epicurean philosophy you have to clear your mind from political ideologies that always confuse the reality with the worlds that do not exist.

Finally, Epicurus says something remarkable to us in the following PD7. Thus, and in this PD we realize that Epicurus does not speak for "modesty", but he speaks just for "safety".

Doctrine 7. Some men wished to become famous and conspicuous, thinking that they would thus win for themselves safety from other men. Wherefore if the life of such men is safe, they have obtained the good which nature craves; but if it is not safe, they do not possess that for which they strove at first by the instinct of (their) nature.

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Just to be clear I'm not personally interested in pursuing politics though I do like studying history. I have my political preferences but I do not believe that any politics however noble could change some fundamental realities about the human condition. Misery will always exist, war will always exist. No politics could change that. Still, I do believe that there are good governors and bad governors. There are policies that make a political entity flourish and there are policies that make it fail. I don't think Epicureans want to live in a society that is not well-governed. So it's impossible not to think about politics on some level. It doesn't make one a bad Epicurean to have political thoughts. And I don't think it is accurate to say that all politicians are 'idealists'. They are just people with a career and they usually tend to propagate conformist views because that's the path of least resistance. True 'idealism' requires some sort of vision or originality. Most politicians (of all ages) are obviously very removed from that. I would rather call them a race of pragmatists. They mostly care about stuff like their re-election, their physical survival, their popularity, their material privileges and simply repeat platitudes or whatever they think their power base wants to hear. That's pragmatism. Idealists have usually been intellectuals and philosophers like Plato, not politicians.

Quote from Cassius

Peter your reference to modern politics in Greece is again skirting against our "no partisan politics" rule and probably is over it. The references to Caesar are entirely appropriate given the time lapse, but when we talk contemporary politics we are endangering the purpose of the board to promote Epicurean philosophy rather than to take sides on modern issues. Rather than my delete that from your post I would appreciate your editing to remove from "to take a modern example" up to "That's the person Caesar was too."

I regret asking you to do this because I don't want to sour what appears to me to be promising commentary you are offering on other issues, but if we lower the bridge an inch on modern politics then we are going to have an inequitable situation. I hope you understand that if we play favorites then the purpose of the rule and the objectives of the board are jeopardized.

I'd have to look back to see if we ever stated a specific rule as to where "modern" off limits begins and "historical" ok commentary starts, but pretty much up to 1900 the wounds are so deep and recent that it is best to stay away from them.

Thanks for your understanding in this request.

No problem, I will remove that section as requested.

Nice to meet you Elli! I insist on modesty and courtesy as highly useful tools in procuring and maintaining harmonious interactions and relationships and just like a chef's knife I insist that these tools be kept always sharp. Courtesy means that you never deliver words and gestures that directly disparage someone's appearance, intelligence, competence or character except if you deliberately intend to hurt that person. Epicurus was known to be frank and yet highly courteous. Myriads of problems that diminish the pleasure in life could be avoided or diminished in intensity if people had better courtesy skills. Less pleasure in life translates not only to a diminished quality of life but also diminished quantity. It's no accident that people in the blue zones live so long even as their material circumstances fail to impress. They live so long in quantity not least because they cultivate high quality friendships and this high quality in friendships is simply not possible without excellent courtesy skills. Modesty is also crucial when it comes to developing courtesy. If courtesy were a robust and vibrant plant, modesty would be the nutrient-rich soil it grows upon. Remember Caesar. He won the civil wars and was now effectively a king but since he lacked the modesty of an Augustus he made it a point to insult the senatorial class (these were fiercely proud people) in various grave ways including cuckolding them. These offensive behaviors and gestures got him butchered and this act led in turn to a new civil war in which large sections of the Roman upper class perished. It is clear that Caesar was one of those persons that you could either love or hate so either you were his stooge or you despised him. That's what Epicurean modesty means to me and it doesn't have anything to do with austerity in consumption patterns or submissive humility. It means not being the kind of person who would rather have lackies than friends and who enjoys making himself hated. It means trying to be the kind of person that Epicurus was, who was said to have been a spring of continuous blessings to all those who consorted with him. It means being the kind of person whose gravestone could justify carrying those beautiful Roman words from Martial: 'nec illi terra, gravis fueris: non fuit illa tibi'.

Godfrey. Of course

Quote from Godfrey

Interesting. Are you saying that you would raise young members to entertain the possibility of idealistic myths such as an afterlife? I'm curious to hear your reasoning in this regard.

Of course not. But remember that ancient Epicureanism did resemble an ancient mystery religion or what we would today call a cult. There were Epicureans who carried images of Epicurus with them and referred to him as a god even though they didn't think of him as an immortal being. Calling a human you venerate a god is not possible today but in the world of antiquity it was something you could easily do. Today we are compelled to draw inspiration from our modern environment and modern religions. For example we can have people recite the tetrapharmakos in the original in the same way Muslims are required to recite the shahada in Arabic upon conversion and we could also require them to undergo foreskin restoration if they were circumcised at birth. This would symbolize our rejection of Abrahamism as well as our devotion to pleasure since the foreskin is actually an organ with important sexual functions. Remember that in Greek antiquity the body was considered literally holy and any deliberate mutilation of it was an abomination. There should also be rituals and feasts that an outsider would reconize as religious, not just mere celebrations. An Epicurean wedding for example should not just involve an exchange of vows and a party. It should have a character that resembles a religious ritual. This is intended to give Epicureanism a strong communal identity so that it can successfully compete with well-established religious traditions. Most common people crave a strong identity that gives their life meaning and structure. Maybe that's not true for you or me but for most people it is and any spiritual movement that wants to have any hope of escaping the fringes of society must provide that. This need is precisely why people are so prone to becoming 'polarized' and partisan fanatics. Political ideologies are at least partly religious movements. However the adherents of 'political religions' (see the current ideological struggles between woke and anti-woke people) have a high degree of neuroticism that admittedly tends to exceed that of most traditionally religious people. That suggests to me that political religions suck at being religious and giving people the comfort, security and meaning they require. They provide at best half-assed versions of those things. Traditional religions in contrast, particularly the Abrahamic - have shown themselves to be highly competent in providing this. So my vision for Epicureanism is to give it a form that allows us to tell people: 'this is your holy literature, these are your rituals, these are your norms and codes of conduct, these are your symbols, dress and accessoires, these are your mores and customs, you don't owe tolerance to anyone who opposes your views, have a nice life'. Remember that Christianity did copy something from Epicureanism. Spreading your creed in the form of epistles and the early Christian vision of an 'agapetic community' were definitely inspired by Epicureanism which in the earliest days of Christianity boasted a significant following in the areas of Judea where Greek had been widely adopted.

Hi Cassius! I have not had any opportunity to associate with them because as far as I know these are based in Athens and Salonica which are the first and second most populous cities respectively and I live in a sparsely populated rural community. They are small obscure groups, I wouldn't call them successful at this stage but they are better than nothing. For the average Greek the name 'Epicurus' means only an academic rank (assistant professor) since epikouros literally means 'the one who rushes to help'. Most have never heard of the ancient sage.

Concerning the issue of parenting I support natural hygiene (see Ingrid Bauer) and John Holt's unschooling approach.

I do believe that Epicurus was serious about the existence of perfect gods. I suspect that he embraced this form of philosophical polytheism in order to seperate his own position from that of other hedonists who embraced anti-social attitudes and transgressionism (there is a definitely a link between Theodorus the Atheist for example and the philosophical positions of Marquis de Sade) or other schools like the Sophists. The Sophists who were the main villains in the Platonic corpus taught that the Gods were exclusively human creations. Epicurus' strategy was to disarm the gods completely but preserve their existence as blissful cosmic deities in order to show that a pleasurable life is possible all while respecting and preserving the social norms which were firmly associated with popular religion. Epicurus was definitely not very sympathetic to youthful counter-culture-style hedonism (recall that letter where he in a non-judgemental manner advises a youth to check his urges) and believed that social norms (like chastity in this case) do provide some useful and beneficial services to society. But he also observed that they easily acquired an oppressive and harmful character so he wanted to disarm the gods since they were habitually used to justify oppression and exploitation. Magicians and oracles for example fleeced poor uneducated people out of their money while sexual slavery was dressed up as sacred slavery and brothels as temples to Venus. In Greek 'sacred slavery' (hierodouleia) still means prostitution. In later centuries some Epicureans disagreed with Epicurus' position on the gods and simply saw them as immaterial fictions. This is in the modern context a far more defendable position. In any case Epicurus can be called a functional atheist since the gods were denied any agency in human affairs. In antiquity people sacrificed in the expectation that they receive a reward. If you affirmed that this practice is useless you were essentially an atheist as far as people in antiquity were concerned.

I think it's fair to think of ancient Epicureans as de facto atheists the way Plutarch thought of them. The acceptance of the existence of the gods whether honestly or pretentiously was useful in a social context where atheism were discriminated against and associated with a significant degree of social exclusion. Today we often use the term 'social exclusion' lightly and synonymously with 'unfairness' and everybody feels brave enough to 'fight' social discrimination in all its forms but in a pre-modern agrarian society social exclusion meant your very survival was at stake. Why would someone not want to participate in the sacrifices and share in the meat? In the early modern era the Catholic Church tended to regard the beliefs of deists as little more than a damage control cover for atheism and they were basically right. Today deism has essentially disappeared because no damage control is necessary.

Hey Nate. I am aware of Hiram Crispo but the reason I am here and not on his page is that I feel he's identifying Epicureanism too closely with mainstream left-wing politics and consequently with what Catherine Liu calls PMC virtue. I don't feel comfortable with this. Although I'm not formally involved in any political movement - and never will - my preferred politics personally is Marxist-Leninism-Trotskyism (I am a WSWS reader) which is firmly opposed to what we identify as the modern pseudo-left who we regard as only serving the class interests of the professional managerial class. In any case I don't mix up my political preferences with my Epicureanism. I think a more orthodox and authentic stance from the point of view of Epicureanism would be to maintain absolute political neutrality as well as a rather cynical view on the nature of politics akin to that of the ancient Sophists or Hobbes and which was still preserved in old-style Marxism. The notion of a clean and civilized politics that animates most supporters of modern pseudo-leftist movements is in my view incompatible with the spirit of ancient Epicureanism. It is rather an idealistic and platonic notion and one that got Seneca killed. I gotta go hit the sack. I'll adress more issues tomorrow.