Musonius Rufus on exile and one's homeland

 Let us step back from the details of news, policy and war to consider the larger questions of what matters.  We turn now to Musonius Rufus, for what I expect to be a set of posts on this interesting and challenging philosopher.  He is not the most famous stoic from the perspective of 21st Century America, not having been played by Richard Harris in a bad movie, but he was historically and intellectually important, as Epictetus's teacher.  I reference Epictetus regularly, if not as regularly as Seneca, on whom I lean perhaps too heavily.  As challenging as Epictetus's lessons are, Musonius is a kick in the nuts, which is strange for a man whose philosophy was nearly pacifist, but he challenges you.  If you are not challenged, though, why bother?  In fact, among Musonius's commentaries were as follows.  If you find yourself clapping and cheering to someone's pretty words, that person is no philosopher, but merely a musician.  You are hearing pretty notes, but no ideas of value.  If you are not challenged, no lessons of value can possibly have been imparted.  Let us begin, then, with a lesson that will be challenging to many, yet which I find important.

A few weeks ago, I posted my skepticism about what I called the project of Israel.  As a basic matter of pragmatism, my analysis is that it does not, and will not work because it will never be a place of safety for Jews.  Stripped of disingenuousness, though, all arguments over Israel come down to the question of a homeland and exile.

Once upon a time, banishment was a common and feared punishment.  So feared, and so important as an issue of the day, in fact, that among the few surviving lectures by Musonius was about banishment.  If you have any concept of stoic philosophy, you may anticipate that Musonius is indifferent to it.  He is.

The core of Musonius's philosophy is this.  That which appears evil may not be evil, and that which appears good may not be good.  Strip everything of illusion.  Neither pain nor death are evil.  All that is evil is acting without virtue.  You cannot be made to act without virtue.  That is your choice.  There are, obviously, commonalities across stoic philosophy, and the thread from Musonius Rufus to Epictetus should be easier than most to trace, but the differences reveal themselves to be important.  Seneca was not Musonius.

Regardless, Seneca would have benefited in exile from the lessons of Musonius had he needed them.  They were contemporaries, but Seneca was the elder.

Apply the core precepts of Musonius to the concept of banishment.  It is not a difficult task.  Banishment is no evil.  You are not harmed.  Land can provide what you need anywhere, your needs being minimal.  There are people with whom you can share companionship.  What does one piece of land matter compared to another?  And what of the reason?  Are you punished justifiably?  If so, the wrong is yours.  If not, the shame is to the one who banished you, you have not acted without virtue, and so you are unharmed, the only true harm being acting without virtue, and only you can do that to yourself.

The idea of attaching importance to one piece of land, to Musonius Rufus or any stoic, is a mistake.  Seneca would say that the problem is that it puts your happiness in the hands of others, or fortune, rather than yourself, resting it in something meaningless, but we're sticking with Musonius this morning.

Apply.  When I wrote that I found the project of Israel to be logically unfounded, I rejected by implicit assumption the notion that one (I, or other Jews) should place intrinsic value in that specific chunk of land as a homeland by birthright from which I/we/they have been banished or exiled.  My argument was that what mattered was not the land, but the context.  It was not precisely what Musonius argued, but somewhat closer than conventional belief because the concept of a homeland makes no logical sense to me.

Banish me from the United States and what?  If it is to North Korea, there's a problem.  If it is to Iran, or anywhere in the Middle East other than Israel, there's a problem.  Western Europe?  The UK?  Canada?  Australia?  Generally speaking, a country that adheres to classical liberal principles?  I'll manage, which is not to say that I want to leave what I consider the most successful project in classical liberal and capitalist values, but is that really the worst thing you can imagine?  The idea that this one place is the only place I can be because it is a homeland/birthright?  No.  Musonius Rufus had that right.  One piece of land?  Absurd.

Would you rather have the house and neighborhood where you were born and raised, presuming a stable location, but no books, or a random apartment somewhere with access to every book ever written?  That was the question I posed as a foreshadowing question.

If you take Option A, you are beyond help, beyond hope and beyond reason.

One may notice, though, that any argument about homeland, exile, and banishment, must cut both ways if logic holds.  Any argument must cut in all directions.  No special dispensation for protected classes.

Were it not for the moral hazard problem of yielding to terrorism, I would say that the best course is merely to hand "Israel" over to, for lack of a better word, "them."  I care not at all for one chunk of land over another, I cannot respect valuing one chunk of land over another, and there is value to living in peace.  Save the moral hazard problem, the obvious answer would be as follows.  Let them have it, not because it is right, or theirs, or anything like that, but because land is merely land.

Yet any principle must be universal.  Any rule must be universal.  To rape, torture and murder civilians for land where none of them have ever lived?  That is even more insane, to say nothing of un-virtuous, than believing one to be grievously, irreparably injured by exile from a place one has lived.  If it would be virtuous, by the logic of Musonius, for Israel to cede the land to the Palestinians for peace, it would be more so the other direction.

Yet one does not act virtuously out of expectation of symmetry.  My virtue cannot be conditioned on yours.  Truly, except for the moral hazard problem of incentivizing terrorism, the logical answer would be, let them have it.  Exile?  Exile is nothing.  Musonius is right.  Walk away.  That would be the course of virtue.  Yes, virtue would require that of both sides, but one side uses rape as a weapon of war, and decapitates children.  Debating their best, virtuous course of action seems a tad silly.  I cannot force virtue upon you.  I only determine my own.

War over such a worthless chunk of land, with no strategic value and just about the only place in the Middle East with no oil comes only from a combination of religious belief and its associated belief that that's my divinely determined homeland, and if I'm not there, I'm exiled from my homeland.  Exile, and who faces it.

Musonius added no religious dimension to exile, as Zeus did not apportion land in that way.  Rather, exile was a purely and obviously political condition.

To what extent is pious, religious devotion at the core of sentiment over land, and to what degree is it a smokescreen?

Musonius would not care.  Recall his justification for indifference to exile.  The only harm is evil.  The only evil is in acting without virtue.  Only you can do that to yourself.  Exile does not do that to you, so it is no harm, and no evil.

If you consider yourself exiled, and act without virtue, you have harmed yourself by acting without virtue, but the exile did not harm you.  That, obviously, goes to the Palestinian side.  On the other, would it be any evil for the Jews to leave, and permit exile?  No.  If they act unvirtuously, that too would be self-harm, in more ironic modern parlance.

Worth consideration.

All of these ideas lead to what I think I will address next week, in Musonius Part II, which is the question of a right of self-defense.  Musonius was what you might call a bad-ass pacifist.  Pain is nothing.  Hardship is nothing.  Exposure to the elements, and anything else that would bother you?  You're a pussy.  He was also a vegetarian pacifist.  What about when someone attacks you?  Well, if you can't take a beating, you're a pussy, and that's your problem.  Pussy.  As I said, Musonius was... interesting.  For next week, let us consider Musonius on the topic of a right to self-defense and pussy-dom.  I obviously differ with him.  He'd call me a pussy, but it'd sound cooler in Latin.  I disagree with Musonius on many points, but this one seems relevant.  I'm probably a pussy.

Bracha, "Internal Exile," from their self-titled album.