DIOGENES OF SINOPE

Diogenes of Sinope (on the Black Sea coast), who died 320 BCE, was the founder and most famous of the Cynics , a non-School embracing both asceticism and a kind of moral nihilism.

He reportedly believed that virtue (the goal of most Greek philosophers but an irrelevance to consumer-societies) could be attained only by fighting hypocrisy, greed and corruption - i.e. conventional morality. He is famously said to have gone around Athens with a lantern by day, vainly looking for an honest man. He would have agreed with Khayyam that society is merely knots of people on puppet-strings of systems of belief. It is likely that he disdained to write any of his ideas down. In any event, all our information comes (like our information on Jesus of Galilee) second-hand at best.

A major source of information is the third century (AD) Roman doxographer Laetius Diogenes, from whom much that follows is taken. "Cynicism" of ancient Greece and Rome derives its name from the Greek word for "Dog". Aristotle refers to Diogenes as "The Dog" and Diogenes seems to have accepted the nickname. Cynicism was not a "school of philosophy", but rather an "erratic succession of individuals" which can be said to have begun with the philosopher Antisthenes.

Antisthenes, an intimate and admirer of Socrates, disclaimed 'pure' philosophy, believing that the plain man could know all there is to know. Antisthenes was probably more consciously philosophical though less clever than his pupil Diogenes. Antisthenes emphasized moral self-mastery and is said to have rejected government, property, marriage and religion. But while property was regarded as an encumbrance by Antisthenes, Diogenes was not above stealing, claiming "all things are the property of the wise" .

The objective of Cynicism was self-sufficiency and self-control (autarkeia) , and the Cynic virtues were qualities through which true freedom was attained. [This is the very opposite of modern mores.] The most important virtue was impassive unattachment, which, obviously, had to be attained through training. This idea is, of course - like the essential attitude of Diogenes - Buddhist.

Another virtue was ruggedness or endurance. The lower animals were to be emulated insofar as they were independent of clothing, shelter and the artificial preparation of food. Cynics sought to disregard laws, customs, conventions, public opinion, reputation, honor and dishonor. The Greek satirist Lucian represents a Cynic as saying: "Scruple not to perform the deeds of darkness in broad daylight. Select your love adventures with a view to public entertainment."

Diogenes was born in Sinope, an Ionian colony on the Black Sea. His father was responsible for the minting of coins and when Diogenes took to adulterating the coins with base metals he was banished from the city. He went to Athens with his slave Manes. Soon after, Manes fled. When Diogenes was advised to chase his runaway slave he replied, "It would be absurd if Manes can live without Diogenes, but Diogenes cannot get on without Manes".

In Athens Diogenes sought Antisthenes as his mentor. Antisthenes ordered him away and eventually beat him with his staff. Diogenes is quoted as saying, "Strike, for you will find no wood hard enough to keep me away from you, so long as I think you've something to say." The persistence of Diogenes broke the resistance of Antisthenes.

He observed that if the flute-player or athlete were to devote their efforts towards training their mind or moral conduct the results would be marvellous. He also noted that just as those who are accustomed to a life of pleasure feel disgust when they experience the opposite, those habituated to a lack of pleasure seem to derive great pleasure from despising pleasure. He used to call the demagogues the lackeys of the people. He said bad men obey their lusts as servants obey their masters. He called love the business of the idle and said lovers derive their pleasure from their misfortune.

Diogenes did little 'pure' philosophising, but sought to live an exemplary life of autonomy. He lived in a tub (or a barrel) and is said to have taken enormous pleasure in all that he did. He declared Plato's lectures a waste of time. Plato had defined Man as a "featherless biped". Diogenes plucked a fowl and brought it into the lecture room with the words "Here is Plato's man!" - in consequence of which "...with broad nails" was added to Plato's definition.

There is something of the Zen and the Tibetan Master about Diogenes - and the haiku of Santoka in the 1930s and 1940s are highly Diogenean.

Insofar as Diogenes was known as "The Dog" throughout Athens, at a feast certain people kept throwing all the bones to him as they would to a dog. He played a dog's trick and urinated on them. It is said that Diogenes trampled upon Plato's carpets with the words "I trample upon the pride of Plato", who retorted, "Yes, Diogenes, with pride of another sort."

Being asked whether death was an evil thing, he replied, "How can it be evil, when in its presence we are not aware of it?" When someone declared that life is an evil, he said, "Not life itself, but living ill." To one who protested that he was ill adapted for the study of philosophy, he said, "Why then do you live, if you do not care to live well?" Seeing a youth dressing with elaborate care, he said, "If it's for men, you're a fool; if for women, a knave." Being asked what creature's bite is the worst, he said, "Of those that are wild, a sycophant's; of those that are tame, a flatterer's".

Having been invited to dinner, he declared that he wouldn't go - because the last time he went, his host had not expressed a proper gratitude. On another occasion, he was taken to a magnificent house and warned him not to spit, whereupon he cleared his throat and fired his phlegm into the man's face, being unable, he said, to find a meaner receptable. Plato saw him washing lettuces, came up to him and quietly said to him, "Had you paid court to Dionysus you wouldn't now be washing lettuces." Diogenes with equal calmness answered, "If you had washed lettuces, you wouldn't have paid court to Dionysus." One day he shouted out for men, and when people collected, hit out at them with his stick, saying, "It was men I called for, not scoundrels."

Dio Chrysostom (Goldenmouth) described Diogenes as terminating a discourse by squatting down and evacuating his bowels in the presence of his hearers. It is also said that he had no qualms about masturbating or performing other sexual acts in public. Being asked why people give to beggars, but not to philosophers, he said, "Because they think they may one day be lame or blind, but never expect that they will turn to philosophy."

He asked alms of a surly man, who said, "OK - if you can persuade me."
"If I could have persuaded you," said Diogenes, "I would have told you to hang yourself."

On a voyage to Ægina he was captured by pirates, conveyed to Crete and exposed for sale as a slave. When he was asked what he could do he replied, "Govern men." And he told the crier to give notice in case anybody wanted to purchase a master for himself. To Xeniades who bought him he said, "You must obey me, although I am a slave; for, if a physician or a navigator were in slavery, he would be obeyed." Xeniades took him to Corinth, set him over his own children and entrusted his whole household to him.

Alexander once came and stood opposite him and said, "I am Alexander the great king."
"And I," said he, "am Diogenes the Cynic." When someone was extolling the good fortune and splendour another had experienced in sharing the suite of Alexander, Diogenes said, "Not so, but rather ill fortune -- for he breakfasts and dines when Alexander thinks fit." Alexander stood opposite him and asked, "Are you not afraid of me?" "Why, what are you, " said Diogenes, "a good thing or a bad?" Alexander replied, "A good thing" whereupon Diogenes said, "Who, then, is afraid of the good?"

At another time Diogenes was sunning himself when Alexander stood over him and said, "Ask of me any boon you like." To which he replied, "Stand out of my light." Alexander is reported to have said, "Had I not been Alexander, I should have liked to be Diogenes." As it turned out, both Diogenes and Alexander died on the same day in 323 B.C. Alexander was 33 and Diogenes was 90.

Diogenes is credited with the development of the chreia (moral epigram), with a scandalous attack of convention entitled Republic (not to be confused with Plato's which, for good and ill, survives), and with tragedies illustrative of the human predicament. The followers of Diogenes, namely, Crates, Menedemus, and Menippus, imitated all his eccentricities and so exaggerated the anti-social elements in the Cynic system that the school finally fell into disrepute in Greece, but flourished elsewhere, notably in Syria and Galilee. Nevertheless, there were in the Cynic philosophy elements, especially the ethical element, which later became subsumed in the more socially-acceptable Stoic School. This element, combined with the broader Stoic idea of the usefulness of intellectual culture and the more enlightened Stoic concept of the scope of logical dialogue and discussion, reappeared in the philosophy of Zeno and Cleanthes, and was the - somewhat pallid - central ethical doctrine of the last system of Greek philosophy - which fed into Christianity, whose founder had much more in common with Diogenes than with Zeno or Socrates.

painting by Anthony Weir

The Cynics were a very strong influence in the Hellenistic culture of the Eastern Mediterranean just before the arrival of Jesus, and the original teachings that survive in the "Q-Gospel" suggest that Jesus - who regarded the staff and knapsack as too much property - was one of many successors of Diogenes who were teaching and practising in Hellenised Syria, and in Galilee which had only recently come under Jewish control. (Ironically, the staff and knapsack later became emblems of the pilgrimage to Compostela.)

Diogenes - who today would hardly be allowed to express himself outside India - evidently realised that we choose to be governed by the manipulators of fictions: money, religion and the nation-state. Political entities are fictions that most people choose to believe - but it is now evident that they are not really viable. They are either too big (empires and "federations" which are empires by another name) or too artificial, like the states of Africa. In all cases there is the tendency to fragment into small aggressive ethnic and/or linguistic purities. Only very powerful lies and inducements can hold them together.

Diogenes (urban like Omar Khayyam, whereas Jesus and Muhammad were rural) was also understood that civilisation (town-based culture) itself actually makes life much more difficult and bitter for almost everyone - but its own propaganda of property (and religions which support it) is highly successful in incorporating us into a belief in our own god-given superiority instead of a recognition of our pathetic dependence on artefacts and comfort. As humans move farther and farther away from the structure of the gathering band (hunting is comparatively recent in our history), their emotions become more disjunct from their way of life. With money and the oppressive corruption that it brings, comes most of the misery of the world. Capitalism in western quasi-›democracies (where both financial transactions and government are accountable to at least some of the people to some extent) is the least odious of monetary economic systems - but it is nonetheless odious in its greed.

There is an anti-hypocritical, that is more or less to say anti-religious, line connecting Diogenes of Sinope with Jesus of Nazareth, Abu al-‘Ala al-Ma‘arri of Syria, and Omar Khayyam of Balkh (who went to live in Nishapur) - a line which, very significantly, does not connect with Muhammad or with the moulders of Christianity, Peter and Paul, who were marketing a revealed Messiah. Khayyam (a tent-maker very different from St Paul) was roughly contemporary with heretical movements in the West which sprung up (like the Crusades) following the first Millennium, and which died out, were suppressed, or - as in the last of them, led by St Francis and St Clare - were quickly institutionalised and absorbed into hypocritical orthodoxy. Others included the Waldensians, and the Beghards who gave us the word beggar.