Quick take and weekend preview: Two philosophical models of addressing moral rot, in thinking about political dysfunction

 Yesterday, New Hampshire held the formality of its primary, and while Nikki Haley currently seems as though she wants to play the role of Bernie Sanders, asserting the viability of her campaign, that leaves me in my scornful moments deliberating which Monty Python reference to make.  Sanders was the Black Knight, from The Holy Grail, hacked to bits and refusing to admit that he had been defeated with ever more absurd denials of the severity of his injuries.  The problem with that analogy would be that Sanders faced honorable opponents who tried to give him face-saving exits, like Arthur.  Perhaps we go back to the beginning of the movie.  "Bring out your dead!"  She denies that she is dead, but of course, she will be soon.  Perhaps we go with the parrot sketch.  That is an ex-campaign!  Lovely plumage, though.

Is there anything within scorn beyond the Trump-like bile inherent in its expression?  If not, therein lies a problem because the expression of the scorn would warrant the same.

And yet, there is so much that is contemptible, presenting moral and ethical quandaries, towards which I point an entirely hypothetical reader to two historical figures:  Diogenes of Sinope, and Lucius Seneca.  I reference Seneca quite frequently, but Diogenes, less frequently.

Diogenes of Sinope, better known as Diogenes the Cynic, is some combination of misunderstood and merely mythical because like many figures of the era, he did not really leave his own written record.  Yet, cynicism as a Greek philosophy is quite different from the modern, colloquial term.  Diogenes was somewhere between an ascetic, a strict moralist, and an insult comic.  He was like some weird alloy of Buddha and Don Rickles.  His scorn, unlike that of a cruel sociopath, was that of a moralist, aimed at pointing out the moral failures of Greek society.  If done with humor, so much the better, but the scorn was a moral lecture.

Alternatively, there was Lucius Seneca, who while he believed in acknowledging the ephemerality of material wealth and all such things, was not quite an ascetic.  He was, rather, one of the wealthiest people in Rome, and a different kind of moralist.  You can trace his moralism back to Diogenes, through Epictetus, but Seneca was a moderate in disposition, and he wrote more of grace in treatment, and would not approve of the scorn with which Diogenes treated those who failed to meet his moral standards.

Seneca's lessons on matters such as forgiveness and mercy are vital, and generally speaking, right.  Yet is there a point at which scorn is warranted?  Is Donald Trump better served by the Diogenes treatment or Seneca?  And the sycophants who pander to him?  Of course, Nero exiled Seneca.

When dysfunction is rampant, when moral failure is rampant, when one political party is in thrall to a man like Donald Trump-- Nero-esque, perhaps-- and the other is infused with a toxic ideology of identitarian bigotry now turned sympathetic to terrorists and advocates of the genocide of the Jews, what is the role of the grace advised by Seneca, or the scorn wielded by Diogenes?

Moral philosophy and modern political dysfunction, coming soon.

The nice thing about writing a blog that no one reads is the opportunity to think by writing.  I do not consider these easy issues.  I'd rather just have Seneca back to ask him what to do.  Diogenes would tell me to piss off, but in a funnier way.  He might literally piss on me.

Socrates claimed not to be wise, but was that posturing?  It was in Plato's recounting that Socrates engaged in self-deprecation.  In Xenophon's recounting, Socrates was far more arrogant, and since Socrates did not leave a written record, we can do little but parse between the two.  Yet, Socrates's denial of his own wisdom in Plato's version of the trial was as follows.  He was informed by a friend who visited the oracle that the oracle claimed Socrates as the most wise.  Socrates rejected the claim, knowing himself to be unwise, so he went around Athens talking to all of the puffed-up muckety-mucks, to prove the oracle wrong.  Unfortunately, they were unwise too.  The only way in which Socrates could be said to be wise was his own awareness of his lack of knowledge.

But if Xenophon's recounting had any validity, that's at least a little for show.  Socrates was a badass, and at least at some level, he knew it.

He's also dead.  So's Seneca, and basically, all the greats.  For those of us who aren't putting up the Socrates act, as described in Plato's version, when faced with the hard questions, it kinda sucks to have no one to ask.

'Cuz they're all dead.

Fuck.

Let's see if we can't interrogate the truly wise, sans ouija board.