Today we reach back to our 2015 episode on Diogenes of Sinope, the father of the Cynicism school of philosophy. He was also an incredibly eccentric figure who spoke out against pretense, and he used humor to convey his ideals
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Happy Saturday, everybody. Coming up on the show, we have someone who was inspired by the cynic philosophers, particularly Diogenes, who I have a soft spot for. So we thought it would be a good time to go back to our episode of Diogenes, which originally came out in July. So enjoy. Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm colleague Fry and I'm Tracy the Wilson. And it's been a little while, Tracy since we've done any episodes on ancient history that is correct show today, do you want to go back to four b C with me and talk about an enigmatic Greek philosopher. Yes, So this guy is really quite a fun character. He opted for a life of poverty to want of comfort. He was a self proclaimed citizen of the world. He's sometimes um uh uh credited with inventing the word cosmopolitan relating to being a citizen of the world. Uh. He was an enemy of pretense, he was an amant guarde thinker, and he was also a humorist. So he had a lot of irons in the fire of philosophy and this is Diogenes of Sinope, and I've heard I've listened to a bunch of pronunciations, some uh put an accent on the middle syllable, so it's Sinope. Sinope sounds more natural to me. So we're going with that. Apologies if that irritates anyone. But the trick with him is that his biography is based almost entirely on apocryphal stories. There is some but not much solid information about his life, and additionally, it appears that he didn't write down any of his own philosophy. There is some debate over that, but there's really been no evidence that he did. So what we have is information that's been passed down by his students and biographers, sometimes you know, several centuries later. And I have to admit, with my own personal kind of uh point of view this that I kind of look at Diogenes of Sinnapy as a sort of ancient Greek tyler dirden and that may become more apparent and why I would think that as we talk about his ideals and his philosophy and his life also reads in some ways like one long Monty python sketch. So it's quite fun. This is not one where you're going to get a lot of horrible stuff, although there are some twists and turns. But I think it will be an enjoyable little trip to the ancient past, so let's do it. Diogenes is usually cited as being born in the year four twelve BC, and as with much of ancient history, not really confident on that date. He was born in Sinnape Pathlagonia, on the coast of the Black Sea, and there's not really a lot known about his childhood. We do know that his father worked with money, although we don't know the precise nature of the work. Some biographies listed as one and some of another. He could have been a mentor, or perhaps some money changer, or simply a banker. And we do know that Diogenes worked along signed his father, and specificity as to the specific job title aside. The really interesting part of this relationship with money is that at some point Diogenes and his father together or Diogenes alone or even his father alone but taking credit by Diogenes, started defacing the currency that they were working with. There have been lots of archaeological finds that corroborate that a lot of currency from the time was damaged, but we don't really know why coin defacement was the hobby of Diogenes and possibly his father, although there are some theories on that yeah it may have been a politically driven move related to the Greco Persian wars of the time. Another perspective on the currency defacement features the oracle at Delphi playing a fairly significant role. In the text Lives of Eminent Philosophers, written in the third century CE by Diogenes Laertius, there is a discussion of Diogenes either being urged by the oracle to commit this vandalism although he was urged to vandalize political currency and instead to face state currency, or of being called to the oracle after the fact to realize that his behavior had been predestined. And we're not certain again of how this particular habit of currency vandalism actually played out in terms of repercussions. There are accounts that Diogenes was exiled for this behavior, and some of them involve a lot of um interplay with his father and who was taking blame and who really did it, But there are also conflicting accounts that say that Diogenes fled before he could ever be tried for the crime. Whichever of those scenarios was the case. The Agenes did move to Athens after this whole currency incident. This would wind up being a pivotal move because it's at this point that he started down the path of philosophy. One of socrates former students, Antissanes, took Diogenes on as a student of his own. Uh. In a much contested and I will keep saying that, but I just want to point out, like they're there are ongoing debates over the veracity of various accounts. H. But in a much contested version of the story of how Diogenes became antistanes disciple, Diogenes Laertius tells how Diogenes had to really wear Antistanes down before the elder man finally conceded to take him on as a student. When Antistanes raised a stick to Diogenes to drive him away, his devotion was so vehement to becoming a pupil that he put his head in the path of the stick and said, strike, for you will not find any stick hard enough to drive me away as long as you continue to speak. Uh. And while we're also continuing to talk about contested facets, of the Diogenes story. We actually don't know for certain that he really did study under Antistanes. This is something that still gets debated to this day by historians and classicists. So keep all of that in mind as we go to say Diogenes was an impassioned student would really be an understatement. He took the lessons of Antithonese two extremes, believing that he had to live the philosophy rather than really just talk about it. He wanted to reject artificiality and the luxury of of Athenian life. In fact, he wanted to reject creature comforts so badly that he decided to live in a tub in a building dedicated to the goddess Civilly. Some accounts indicate that it was actually an empty wine barrel and not a tub, and that he was merely in a public square. But regardless of the details of his tub or barrel, he was inspired, he said, by the mouse, which was a creature which he admired greatly for the adaptability that it showed. It didn't need all of these trappings, It could just live anywhere naturally. There's a whole other account of how he came to be living in this cask or tub, And in this version he wrote ahead to a friend in Athens that he was coming and that is and should find him suitable accommodations. The friend was unable to secure lodgings for Diogenes, and so the possibly exiled man opted for a nearby barrel or tub in the public square. In Lives of Imminent Philosophers, the agnes, then questioned as to his habit of living on the streets, said that the Athenians had already built him places to live in, meeting all of the public spaces around him. It's an interesting approach to life. But before we talk a little bit about some of the ideals that Diogenes expounded on, we're gonna pause for a quick word from a sponsor. Diogenes owned nothing, and he depended on the kindness of others and some wiggly logic that we're going to talk about momentarily in order to survive. He did, at one point allegedly possess a cup, that is, until he saw a young boy drinking from his cupped hands, at which point Diogenes threw the vessel away, claiming that it was simply an unnecessary possession. So you may wonder how a philosopher living on the streets managed to survive the elements. He's said to have taken up the habit of training himself to withstand any conditions, so he would roll in hot sand during warm weather and embrace cold marble statues in cold weather. Uh. Those those maybe fantastical fables of Diogenes. We just don't know. He did believe that manners were a form of lying, so he was pretty comfortable being really outspoken and really brudeally honest. Uh. He's also said to have pretty commonly urinated in public and even masturbated openly. Uh. Basically any of the natural human activities that someone might do in private as part of living in a civilized society. Diogenes felt those should all be allowed in public. That's part of authentic life. When I first started looking at your outline, Holly, I got to the spot about believing that manners were a form of lines. So he was just outspoken and brutally honest, and I was like, I think I used to date this guy. And then I got to the next midence I was like, Nope, did not date this guy. Thank goodness. There's another story of a wealthy group of people throwing Diogenes bones during a banquet and calling him a dog, after which he lifted his leg and urinated on them canine style. Yeah, we're gonna talk some more about dogs, because they are often associated with him. But this is basically this time in Athens, when he was doing all of these too, some seemingly outlandish things of living publicly in a tub or barrel and peeing on people that bothered him. Uh, East, people started to call him crazy. In fact, Plato supposedly called Diogenes quote a socrate has gone mad. So the relationship between Diogenes and Plato was not simply a matter of mild name calling. Diagene was very openly critical of Plato's work. For example, one of the ongoing philosophic discussions of the day was analysis of the nature and definition of what it meant to be human. Plato had to find man as a featherless, biped animal. To point out the limited view of this definition, Diogenes plucked a foul, possibly a chicken, and brought it with him into the philosopher's academy, showing everyone how he was carrying by Plato's definition, a human being. Yeah, I always get this is one of the famous stories of Diogenes, and I always get a little hung up on it because it's not the chickens natural state, so you can't be claiming that. But again, he was a humorist, so any the first prop comic perhaps um the debate over the nature of man and what defined humanity continued to lead to more eccentric behavior on the part of Diogenes. So he would walk the streets of Athens carrying a lantern. Sometimes you'll see it uh described as a candle, but much more commonly as a lantern, even during daylight, and he would hold it up to people's faces, claiming to be looking for an honest man and never finding it. So we're laughing at this guy pretty openly. And it's important to point out that Diagones was considered very humorous. So while he was on the surface looking for an honest human being in a way that might have seemed crazy at best or jerkish at the worst, he was using comedy to make a statement about the people of Athens having lost their humanity. They really felt that humans were living in pretense rather than in harmony with nature. That's where he starts to sound a lot like Tyler Dirtan to me. We should also mention, though, that he was not the first or only philosopher who believed that most humans were walking around in this sort of contrived dream state of inauthenticity. Heraclitis, Sophocles, and Plato all tackled similar issues in their work, but none of them took to the streets to challenge people openly and in their faces about it. To further comment on the trap things of human constructs, Badginies would say that he sometimes saw a man as the brightest and wisest of all animals, but when he thought that fortune tellers and soothsayers were heavily patronized, he thought that mankind was the most foolish animal of all. And he really believed pretty implicitly that humans should be self sufficient as part of their natural state. Like he really thought we exist in a way that we could totally take care of ourselves if we got rid of all of these societal constructs. H But he also did a little bit of fancy footwork, uh philosophically to make sure that his needs were met while he was living his natural, self sufficient double life. He would expound, for example, that all elements are in all things, and that all substances are united. So snatching a little bit of food or stealing a little bit of wine was just making use of the natural elements that are all around you in the vapor. They just happened to take the form of sustenance. And apparently, despite all the public urination and open criticism of literally everyone around him, Diogenes was much beloved in Athens. Yeah, people really thought I mean, they called him crazy, but they also thought he was very smart and he had a lot of interesting ideas, So he's such a fascinating creature. Um and Diogenes, a synopy with his disdain for social contract constructs, is also considered the father of cynicism, and this is where the dogs come in. So the word cynicism is related to the Greek word for dog, and there's no historical consensus as to how dogs came to be so closely associated with Diogenes and his philosophy, but there are several popular theories. The first one is that he extolled the virtues of the dog's way of living as being entirely without pretense, which people who love dogs would probably agree with the second one is that his mentor and Histones taught at a school called Sinos Sargees, which I may be pronouncing wrong, but that translates roughly to place of the white dog. So it was more of a linear homage to his teacher than anything else. The third suggestion kind of loops back to the first one, which is that it's a comparison between diogenes philosophy of anti pretense and the general characteristics of a dog. Yeah, so that one is more like from other people saying, hey, you kind of live like a dog, rather than him going dogs are awesome, they're not pretentious. It's more of one that's put on him rather than him expounding on And this association of dogs with Diogenes persisted throughout his life and beyond. If you look at any artists renderings of the philosopher, the majority of them, I would say, because there have been a lot of paintings of him throughout the years feature one or more dogs by his side. There are a lot of images of him kind of tucked into his little tub or his cask, and sometimes there are four or five dogs just around him. They're almost always dogs in the picture. So things are about to get a little bit wacky. Here's what's going on. So while he was traveling, at one point, the story goes that Diogenes was actually captured by pirates. You gotta have pirates in a good wacky story. And then he was taken to Crete and he was sold as a slave to Zeniads of Corinth, and as a slave, Diogenes allegedly told his new owner that he had no special skills or abilities other than governing men. So he was made a tutor to uh Zenid's children, and eventually he was considered a member of the family rather than a slave. And an alternate version of the story and Diogenes actually chose Zeniads as the man that the pirates should sell him to, saying that his potential master looked like he really needed to be governed. Many different details compete with one another when it comes to the relationship between Diogenes and the man who purchased him. He might have been set free immediately and then employed. He might have started out as a slave and then slowly that aspect of the relationship diminished, or he might have stayed a slave, although one with a great deal of personal freedom. His entire life. Yeah, we just don't know. And and that's another another one of those things that different tellings put it different ways, and different um translations have probably led to some of that muddy water in that arena. And despite the fact that he was technically a slave during at least part of this time in Corinth, it does appear that Diogenes lived there in much the same way that he did in Athens. So he slept and bathed and gave his lectures in public spaces, and he eschewed the trappings of society, and he continued to share and live his philosophy of personal responsibility and minimalist living. As for the lessons that he bestowed upon the children that he was tasked with teaching, he not only taught them academics, but also writing, archery and stone slinging. When the boys were in the gymnasium, he was adamant that they not be trained in the standard athletic style, but in a gentler manner, getting their heart rates up and color in their cheeks, but not really pushing to extremes. Yeah, this one always seems kind of odd to me. It's one of the many later writings about him because you see him so often depicted as walking with a cane and so like. Picturing him teaching them all of these physical things seems odd to me, but you never know. Perhaps it was true. Um. There's another sort of famous story about him involving his time in Corinth, when Diogenes allegedly had an encounter with Alexander the Great. Apparently, Alexander wanted to meet this unconventional philosopher because he had heard a great deal about him. And when he finally found this man on the streets of Corinth and inquired as to whether he was, in fact the philosopher that he sought, Diogenes is said to have replied, yes, get out of my sunlight. The eccentric philosopher openly criticized Alexander, which perhaps surprisingly, actually endeared him to the ruler so much. The King of Macedonia once said that if he were not Alexander the Great, he'd be Diogenes of Sinope. In another belittling move, Diogenes supposedly responded, if I were not Diogenes, I would also wish to be Diogenes. He's genuinely funny. That's such a good singer. I love it. Um. He would lecture in public spaces, and if no one stopped to listen, he got in this really interesting sort of cruel it's almost click abating of the ancient style. He would start whistling until onlookers came, and once he had drawn a few people and gotten their attention, he would then berate them for coming to listen to him whistling and being musical, and point out how ignorant they were that they did not stop earlier to listen to the far more important things he had to share. I e. His philosophy sort of reminds me of when Uh, like Joshua bell a virtuoso violinists will just bust in the subway and I'll sort of walk on by, not realizing what's happening. Uh. The Agonies lived the remainder of his life in Corinthe, Greece, and died there in at the age of ninety. His cause of death is as cloaked in murky variations as basically every other part of his life story, varying A counts list a dog attack resulting in rabies, which would have been kind of ironic considering all the previous dog stuff food poisoning, eating a raw ox or maybe a raw octopus. Uh, and even committing suicide by holding his breath until he died. And that last one is just as unlikely as it sounds. Probably he just died of old age. Yeah. I think some of these stories were probably written to add drama. But he was elderly when he died, and he had been around a very long time, hime, and that was quite an old age. I love that there are accounts that say he held his breath until he died. That can't work. You pass out and start automatically breathing. But while Diogenes had told people that he should be thrown to the dogs as food when he died, he was instead given a proper and honorable burial. He was again, despite being this really eccentric, cranky public urinator, very beloved. Uh. The account of his death plan is a little bit different in the third century Diogenes laardious writings. There, he is said to have told Zeniads that, in fact, he wanted to be buried on his face quote because in a little while everything will be turned upside down. And with that statement he was referring to the political situation at the time. Uh. The Macedonians were rising in power, and he thought a pretty big cultural shift was gonna undoubtedly follow that. A statue of the philosopher was later erected in Sea and up Turkey, and it features a dog by his side and the signature lantern he would shine in people's faces. Yeah, so that is the more modern day version of where he was born. And one of the reasons I think that the life of Diogenes comes with a lot of variation in the telling and most likely some outright fabrication, is that he was a larger than life personality and sometimes that will kind of build you know, people will build on some very real, larger than life things and kind of add their own embellishments. But I really like, uh, this one story about him that is a nice way to kind of sum up his his life, particularly at the end, because allegedly as he was nearing the end of his life he was getting very old, people would ask him why he insisted on continuing living his difficult path of poverty when he really could retire and live in greater comfort. Again, he was much beloved, He probably had a lot of options and plenty of people that would have been happy to take him in and he may have still been part of Zenia's family. We don't entirely new, but his response was apparently, why so suppose I had run a long distance ought I to stop when I was near the end and not rather press on. I love him, He's so dedicated to his whole thing funny. I mean sometimes, uh, we laugh at people's foibles in the in the podcast because they are humorous. We don't often get to laugh at somebody who's being deliberately comical in the podcast. This is a nice change of pace from feeling mildly guilty about laughing at somebody's comical foibles. Yeah, he needed his foibles were what they were. He he had a really good sense of like what he was he was drawing out of people. He was trying to get people to think through comedy, which I always am a big fan of. I think he's brilliant. Thank you so much for joining us on this Saturday. If you have heard an email address or a Facebook you r L or something similar over the course of today's episode, since it is from the archive that might be out of date now, you can email us at History Podcast at how stuff Works dot com and you can find us all over social media at Missed in History, and you can subscribe to our show on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, the I heart Radio app, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of I heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts, for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.