Body and Soul in Ancient Philosophy

Philosophical norms and political attachments: Cicero and Seneca 441
focus on a wrongful act or acts. We say, “That should not have happened,
and the person deserves to be punished”. We intend a rectification
or righting of the balance. In our disgust we say, “Yuck. Let me out
of here.” We view our politicians as filthy contaminants, and we want
to get away from them – whether by tossing them onto the garbage
heap, or – where that is not possible – by taking ourselves away. (My
own disgust fantasy typically involves the thought of moving to Finland,
which, having lived there for some extended periods of time – but not
too long – I imagine as a land of social-democratic equity, associating
this moral purity with the pure tones of the pale blue sky and the placid
lakes.) Disgust at politics is a reaction that seeks a purity that the world
of politics does not offer. Thus, like the simple bodily disgust, which
wants to get away from just those stuffs of which one’s own body is
made, its purposes are ultimately unrealizable in the world as we
know it.
Disgust does not have a large theoretical pedigree in Roman
thought. But explicit theory is not necessary in order for us to trace
its workings. Here we are fortunate to be able to draw on one of the
most extensive and methodologically careful studies of an emotiontype
in antiquity, Robert Kaster’s important study of fastidium. Studying
all occurrences of the term and its relatives in both Republican and imperial
Latin, Kaster argues that the term picks out two categories of
emotional experience that are importantly distinct. One is the sort of
disgust I have just been describing, a strong revulsion at the thought
of a contaminant. Here Kaster’s material supports (as he points out)
the arguments of Rozin. Disgust has certain primary objects, but the
same response is frequently extended to people who are viewed as unsavory.
What is distinctive about the Roman configuration is that the same
term, fastidium, also designates a rather different experience, drawing this
experience closer than in many cultures to the experience of disgust.
This is what Kaster calls “deliberative ranking”: fastidium involves thinking
something (or someone) is below something else. It is a relative of
contempt. The workings of the word-group create very interesting relations
between the two types of fastidium. At times, a primary experience
of bodily disgust leads someone to rank something (or someone)
low; at other times, a primary low ranking leads to the imputation of
traditional disgust-properties.
This theory of fastidium illuminates the dynamics of the Apoc. For,
obviously enough, a low ranking of Claudius leads to an imputation