Body and Soul in Ancient Philosophy

Philosophical norms and political attachments: Cicero and Seneca 443
much more compatible with courageous action dedicated to the good of
the republic. People for whom the whole political realm is smelly and
disgusting may get a tranquil life for themselves, but the emotion is
not likely to be productive of much good for others. (We learn from
Tacitus that Seneca tried hard to retire from politics altogether before
he lost his life. 15 ) Cicero, with all his very irritating flaws, struck the
right balance: he used Stoicism to stabilize an unduly volatile personality
and also, publicly, to keep the lid on emotions that might have proven
destructive in political life. Stoicism helped him rise above petty spite
and malice, and in that way, as Plutarch emphasizes, he was better
than the people who killed him. And yet, he never turned away or
said that Rome did not matter. His grief for the Republic and his
anger at those who would destroy it seem not only touching and
human, but also an intrinsic part of his commitment to justice.
Pondering this example, we should conclude, I believe, that Stoic
detachment is insufficient when bad events are upon us: it is not enough
to motivate deep commitment to political change, and it is just not the
right response, not taking the correct measure of the value of worldly
justice. With all its dangers and potential excesses, I believe that we
need both anger and its first cousin hope to propel us more deeply
into the world of politics. If we follow the Stoics, we will very likely
get the world described by W. B. Yeats after the First World War, a
world in which “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are
full of passionate intensity” 16 . Many types of anger are surely bad, and
many types of hope are surely foolish. We should not, however, banish
them all on that account. We should keep some anger around for the
sake of justice. As for hope, we may be positively required to cultivate
it, in order to motivate our efforts in the direction of a better world. 17
15 Ann. 15.45. The fragment of De otio also defends the life of retirement, although
we must be cautious, since we do not know how this material would
have figured in the entirety of the work.
16 Yeats 1921.
17 So Kant thinks, plausibly enough (see Reiss 1970, 89): “And however uncertain
I may be and may remain as to whether we can hope for anything better for
mankind, this uncertainty cannot detract from the maxim I have adopted, or
from the necessity of assuming for practical purposes that human progress is
possible. This hope for better times to come, without which an earnest desire
to do something useful for the common good would never have inspired the
human heart, has always influenced the activities of right-thinking people.”
(I have substituted “people” for the translation’s “men”, since the German contains
no restriction of gender.)