epicureans – Emma Williams: Latin tutor

This weekend, my husband and I travelled to Suffolk for a close friend’s wedding. I was honoured to be a witness to the marriage, and it was a genuine tonic for the soul to watch a good friend declare her marriage vows, radiant and happy.

The weekend has caused me to think about friendship in general: how some friends come and go while others last the course. The groom had two Best Men, two close friends that he has been tightly bonded to since primary school. Seeing the lasting friendship between them was genuinely moving and there is something undeniably special about friends who have known us since childhood, for they have a perspective on us that nobody else can have. Those two friends not only remember the groom’s mother, who died long before he met and married my friend: they knew her well and spent endless time with her, as you do during childhood friendships. The same is true for me and my oldest friend’s mother, who died 20 years ago, long before my friend met many of the people who are a part of her life now. She reminded me of this fact when we were out together for dinner recently, and we both shed tears at the memory of her. There is immense value in hanging on to at least one or two people that have known you and your family for decades.

The friend who married her husband at the weekend is not someone I have known very long in the grand scheme of life, indeed we first met online during the pandemic when — like so many people — I flirted briefly with some online clubs. As so often in my case, the club proved to be too much of a commitment for me, but the friendship did not. I clocked her from day one as a genuinely interesting and intelligent individual, whom I made every effort to befriend long after I had dispensed with the hassle of the book club. I’ve never been much of a joiner, but friends are desperately important to me.

While our society places huge importance on romantic relationships — whether or not you have found “the one” — I would argue that it consistently undervalues the importance of lasting friendship. Elizabeth Day explored this in her book, Friendaholic, which I read in the hope of finding a kindred spirit, although it actually turned out to be an exploration of one woman’s neurosis rather than a legitimate exploration of friendship itself. For reflections on the value of friendship, one can find much better material in the writings of various ancient thinkers.

Aristotle argued that friendship was a crucial component of a fulfilling life. Ever the fan of definitions and categorisation, he divided friendships into three types: friendships of utility, friendships of pleasure and friendships of virtue. I think we can all relate to what he means in the first two categories: some friends you need in your life for practical reasons — perhaps your children play together, or you work closely with that person. Some friends are of value because you share a common interest and/or enjoy a particular activity: perhaps you’ve joined a golf club or a running group. According to Aristotle, the highest form of friendship, and the most enduring, is the friendship of virtue. This type of friendship is based on mutual respect, admiration and a shared commitment to “the good life” (the philosophical ideal of living well, which meant living according to your ethical code). Aristotle argued that such friends grow together and seek each other’s well-being because of their shared pursuit of excellence. I am quite certain that Aristotle — genius as he was — would also acknowledge that a friendship might start in one category and develop into another. You might form a friendship out of utlity that evolves into something much more fundamental. For example, many women meet friends through the NCT that become genuine soulmates over the years.

Aristotle’s talk of the pursuit of excellence and virtue through friendship might sound rather highbrow and off-putting, but it is actually not a million miles away from the things that are said in the modern world about romantic relationships. How often have we heard the mantra “you make me a better person” or “you bring out the best in me”? This is what Aristotle argued was at the heart of a good friendship. He emphasised the role of friendship in personal development and moral growth and suggested that through friendship, an individual can learn to cultivate virtues such as generosity, honesty, and courage. Good friends, he argued, challenge each other: both morally and intellectually.

All of the above is unquestionably true of the friendship I have with the person who got married this weekend. She is someone who has challenged my views on a range of topics and (unlike many) is not hesitant to disagree with me, a characteristic I value enormously. This is the friend who got me into weight training, as I first wrote about all the way back in November 2023, and which I am still doing twice a week, every week. I think it is fair to say that no other friend has had such a concrete and indeed revolutionary effect on my life and my fitness. She has quite literally changed my life for the better. This is by no means the only influence she has had on my life and is just one of many things which we share and talk about on a regular basis, but it remains perhaps the most revelatory for me as an individual. As someone who has eschewed all forms of sport and exercise throughout most of my life, it has been life-changing to find someone who has managed to shift my perspective on something so fundamental.

The Epicureans argued that genuine friendships are essential for achieving ataraxia or peace of mind, which is the ultimate goal of Epicurean philosophy. By surrounding oneself with trustworthy friends, ones who share similar values and interests, Epicurus believed that individuals could create a supportive environment that enhanced their well-being and guarded against the uncertainties of life. For the Epicureans, true friendship is characterised by the absence of strife and the presence of mutual trust and companionship. It is often assumed that the Epicurean approach was seismically different from Aristotle’s emphasis on virtue, but in reality it was not. The only thing that was radical about the Epicureans was their argument that a tranquil and pleasurable life was the ultimate moral goal: friendship was thus a part of their moral attainment, just as it was for Aristotle. Friendship, for the ancients, was not merely a social convention or a means to an end but a fundamental aspect of the good life.

Emotions got a bad rap from ancient philosophers. Most agreed that the ideal state was a kind of calmness that the Hellenistic philosophers (most famously the Epicureans and the Stoics) called ataraxia. There was even talk of apatheia – a detachment from the chaos of feelings and overwhelm. This is perhaps unsurprising if you understand the birth of western philosophy; if you’re trying to formulate, define and distil the key to the perfect life and the perfect society (which is what the early founders of western philosophy were trying to do) then it probably doesn’t include your citizens experiencing a rollercoaster of emotions. Once you’ve admitted that emotions are a bit of a distraction and often cause issues both on a personal level and for society, it’s not much of an overreach to find yourself arguing for a state of detachment.

The term “stoic” these days is synonymous with having a “stiff upper lip” but this is based on a crucial misunderstanding of the Stoic position. The Stoics did not advocate for iron-clad self-control or suppressing your feelings. Rather, they believed that all emotions were what they called “false judgements”, which meant that they were based on a misunderstanding: if you’re feeling them, you’re still getting it wrong. In the ideal philosophical life that they strove for, a person would have such a great understanding of himself, the world and his place within it that he would not suffer at the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune: he would simply nod and know the right thing to do. One example given is that a Stoic would run into a burning building in order to attempt to save a child because that is the right thing to do; they also argued, however, that a true Stoic would feel no distress when his mission failed. Weird, isn’t it? Interesting, though.

One of the frustrating things about this period of philosophy is that much of the writings that we have are general “sayings”, snippets or purported quotations which appear in the works of later authors, usually writing in Latin rather than in Greek, and reporting on what a particular thinker or school of thinkers believed. The reality of this of course is that they may be wrong. For example, there is a famous quotation attributed to Epicurus that states “the wise man is happy on the rack”. Quite how this works within a school of philosophy that was dedicated to the avoidance of pain is puzzling. If the quotation is correct, our best guess is that the Epicureans certainly spent a lot of their time considering the correct attitude towards unavoidable pain, for this was one of the biggest challenges to their philosophical position; presumably the “wise man” – someone at the pinnacle of philosophical endeavour – would know how to cope with pain in extremis.

Most people see Epicureanism and Stoicism as polar opposites and they were indeed rival schools of philosophy at the time. As so often, however, there was more that united them than divided them. Both schools were arguing and aiming for the perfect life and the state of detachment that philosophers before them had explored; both schools were concerned with how to manage our responses to pain and distress. Perhaps the biggest difference is that the Stoics believed in proactive, conscious and deliberate involvement in society and its structures, whereas the Epicureans were a bit more lethargic about the whole idea – getting involved with politics is painful and distressing, so is it really rational to bother?

One philosopher, writing before the Stoics and the Epicureans, was unusual in his take on emotions. Aristotle argued that emotions were appropriate and necessary: the trick was understanding when and how you should be feeling them and what to do with them. He spoke of “righteous anger” and argued that a good philosopher would indeed feel such a thing. It is difficult to explain how truly radical this position was, when the way the philosophical movement was drifting was towards ataraxia and apatheia. Aristotle also smashed through the Socratic idea that philosophical ideals such as “courage” and “justice” could be defined in one way and that if one could not do so then one lacked an understanding of them. Aristotle argued that there were multiple forms of “courage” and “justice” and that nobody could define them in one simple way nor apply their principles in individual cases without discussion, debate and compromise. What a genius he was.

Why the hell am I writing about this? Well, I spoke to a friend yesterday who has taken a decision about which she feels guilty. I cannot divulge the details of this decision as I do not want to betray her confidence. Suffice to say that it was a professional decision, the right decision and one which the people affected will hopefully benefit from in the long-run. There is no doubt – in my mind and even in hers – that the decision was right and good. Yet she still feels what she describes as “guilty” about it.

This reminded me yet again of The Greeks and the Irrational by ER Dodds, a book written in the 1950s, which I mentioned in another blog a few weeks ago. One of the chapters in the book argues that the Athenian world was a “shame culture” and that later ancient societies – the Hellenistic world and the Roman worlds – began the shift towards a “guilt culture”. I have thought about this on and off all of my life. The very thought that the nature of one’s emotions can be dictated by the society in which one grows up is fascinating to me. Dodds argues (rightly, I think) that modern society is more person-centric and hence feelings such as guilt can be internalised; in Athens, one’s personal standing and engagement with society was more relevant (a symptom perhaps of living in a small and emergent city-state) and therefore a sense of shame before others was more powerful than any kind of internalised guilt.

As I listened to my friend who left me some WhatsApp voice messages (I love them – it’s like receiving a personalised podcast!) I found myself wondering whether the Stoics had it right. Sometimes emotions truly are false judgements. My friend has no reason to feel guilty about her actions and she should strive to release herself from the false state of mind in which this feeling distresses her. According to the Stoic ideal she has prevailed in her actions but has not yet achieved the ideal state of detachment. So how should she achieve this goal? Well, I guess it depends on your approach to these things. A Stoic would advocate for rigorous rational analysis and say that this will eventually lead to release from one’s feelings. This is not, in fact, a million miles away from cognitive behavioural therapy, the therapy model supported by psychiatrists and many psychologists, who would say that she needs to question why she feels guilty and challenge her reasons for doing so. A psychologist with leanings towards the psychodynamic model would argue that she needs to explore where her feelings might stem from – does the situation remind her of experiences in her past, during which she has been made to feel or to carry guilt that perhaps should not have been hers? (Pretty sure the Stoics wouldn’t have been up for that one).

Whatever the answer in this particular circumstance, personally I find myself returning to the Stoics time and again. They were a fascinating turning point in philosophical history and paved the way – I believe – towards modern psychiatry. After all, what is the difference between sanity and insanity if not the difference between the rational and the irrational, the true and the untrue, the controlled and the uncontrolled? I will leave you with the Stoic image of how the individual should relate to society – not because I advocate for it, necessarily, but because it’s a classic and a model I have never stopped thinking about since I first learned about it in the 1990s. The Stoics believed that individuals could not control fate but they also argued that individuals had free will. So an individual person is like a dog tied to the back of a wagon. Whatever the dog’s actions, the wagon will go on its way. So how does the dog have free will? Well, he can resist the wagon and be dragged along, impeding the wagon’s progress and damaging himself along the way. Alternatively, he can trot along like a good dog and help the wagon to proceed smoothly.

Tag: epicureans

Friendships old and new

False judgements