Dressed in rags, if dressed at all, their heads half-shaved, eating, defecating and masturbating in public, ranting in the middle of the marketplace, the Cynics are among the most controversial figures of ancient Western philosophy. With a move that long predated the witty self-deprecation of groups like the Cubists or Afroamerican ‘nigga’ rappers, Cynic philosophers presented themselves as ‘dogs’ (kynoi) – and as such they behaved in public. By taking their place just under the bottom of the social order, the dog-philosophers simultaneously declared themselves to be above it: such was the most famous thinker of the early Cynic school, Diogenes the ‘son of Zeus’, the ‘heavenly dog’, the ‘king’. According to a famous anecdote, when Diogenes – who at some point was captured and sold as a slave – was asked by the trader in what he was proficient, he replied: ‘In ruling men’. Then he pointed to a rich man in the crowed and said. ‘Sell me to this man; he needs a master.’[1]
In accordance to the advice which Diogenes received early in life from the Delphic oracle – parachrattein to nomismata, ‘deface the coinage!’ or ‘upturn the customs! – Cynic philosophers rejected the narrow constraints of social conventions, and advocated the primacy of a life lived in accordance to nature. If the social norms are nothing but absurd conventions which allow people to indulge in their laziness – while precluding to them any real possibility of happiness – the Cynics worked hard at making themselves fit to live in complete adherence to what they saw as the natural norms. While rich Greeks might have indulged in expensive clothing, extravagant parties and the merciless exploitation of armies of slaves, the heavenly dogs practiced complete self-sufficiency. Anticipating Hegel’s intuition of over two millennia, thinkers such as Diogenes preached that rich masters relying on the work of others will eventually lose any ability to provide for themselves, thus eventually becoming subjects to those whom they forced to work for them.
The influence of Cynicism can hardly be overstated, as it shaped the thinking of figures such as the Roman emperors Marcus Aurelius and Julian the Apostate, authors such as Cicero and Lucian, thinkers as diverse as the founder of Stoicism, Zeno, Friedrich Nietzsche, contemporary anarcho-primitivists, countless Christian thinkers of late antiquity and, some claim, perhaps even Jesus Christ himself.
In the following pages I will attempt to review critically some of the central concepts of Cynicism, proposing a number of potential uses for Cynical doctrine as part of a strategy of emancipation, which I elsewhere defined as ‘squandering’ and ‘disrespectful opportunism’
[2] .
Defacing the coinage
One of the most controversial, and perhaps even revolutionary practices typical of the Cynic philosophers was their staunch and merciless opposition to all social conventions.
According to the legend, such a disregard for social norms run in the family of the most famous ‘heavenly dog’, Diogenes, since his father – an employee at the mint of Sinope – was caught literally ‘defacing the coinage’ as part of a fraud scheme, and was thus banished in perpetuity from the territories of the city. Although most Cynics proudly made a living out of begging – the poet Lucian, a Cynic himself, derided many of his fellow philosophers as little more than professional beggars – their relationship with money cannot be simply described as one of complete renunciation. Important figures of the early Cynic school such as Bion and Onesicritus, for example, did not renounce entirely to worldly possessions, while keeping strong in their philosophical conviction and practice.
The root of Cynic renunciation to money lies in their stark distinction between the laws and necessities of the social order (nomos), and those of nature (physys). While their idealisation of nature as an innately good, intelligent design sounds suspicious to our post-modern ears, their critique of social customs still resonates as a valid contribution to any struggle for individual autonomy and emancipation. Thinkers such as Bion and Onesicritus – the former an admirer of the ultra-hedonist Cyrenaic philosopher Theodorus ‘the godless’ and an advisor to the Macedonian king Antigonus Gonatas, the latter a mercenary adventurer and travel writer in the service of Alexander the Great – emphasised the contingent nature of social customs, while advocating the potential for enjoyment which is offered by a clever strategy of amoral opportunism. In other words, while some of the least imaginative Cynics stuck to a love of poverty which smacks of the religious rigidity of a St. Anthony or a St. Francis, it is also possible to interpret Cynicism as a relativist attack to the normative abstractions of the social order, in favour of the ruthless development of a full, autonomous and happy life.
According to the Cynics, all those social norms that come in the way of the enjoyment of one’s mortal life should be disregarded as unnatural and detrimental, while all those things which can enhance it – provided that they don’t do so at the hidden cost of debilitating oneself – should be welcomed and enjoyed as long as they last. Thus, money is not to be pursued and revered, nor it is to be hated and feared, but should be opportunistically employed to one’s own advantage with no regard for the social conventions which surround it. The same applies to all other social norms: as long as they genuinely enhance one’s joyous autonomy, they should be employed as useful tools, only to be discarded remorselessly once their beneficial effects begin to turn to one’s detriment.
Ponos, Aiskesis, Athlos
Such an ambivalence is also evident in the Cynic attitude towards pleasure and pain. Rich people are foolish to pursue pleasure to the extent they do, not because it is morally reprehensible to do so, but simply because their pursuit is doomed to resolve into a dulling of all senses and into the inability to enjoy any pleasures at all. Thus, claim the Cynics, a certain amount of pain (ponos) is necessary in order to enable the enjoyment of pleasure (hedone). Despite their reputation as harsh and ascetics types, the core of Cynic ethics is ultimately to be found in the tracks of earthly hedonism, as it was often the case with many Hellenistic schools of philosophy. The very use of the word askesis (from which the English word ‘asceticism’ derives) in reference to Cynic practice, has to be interpreted while resisting the temptation of lumping it together with later, Christian ideas of asceticism. At the times when the first Cynics began to rant in the marketplaces of Athens, askesis was a term commonly employed to describe the training of athletes in preparation to the Olympic games. The askesis of an athlete, his tireless toil (another meaning of the word ponos) under the sun of a gymnasium, was an instrumental activity to the achievement of very earthly goals. Such goals and achievements were defined as athloi (hence the English word athlete), and were considered as examples of work aimed at excellent accomplishments. Of all the non-gymnastic athletes, the mythical Hercules was the most celebrated by the Cynics, who saw in his ‘twelve labours’ (dodekathlos) a model of their own quest for earthly perfection.
In line with the recent claims of the French philosopher Michael Onfray
[3] – as well as with the tension present in much of Friedrich Nietzsche’s work – the Cynics understood labour and pain not as evil or good in themselves, but rather as potentially useful tools in the careful perfecting and ‘sculpting’ of oneself. Considered from a perspective which is entirely alien to the societal demands spawned out of hard-working Protestant ethics, labour and pain are thus to be judged only for their instrumental qualities, aimed at the personal and autonomous existential progression towards the full enjoyment of one’s own earthly existence.
Cosmopolitanism
The focus on earthly life typical of Cynicism doesn’t only go against the transcendent horizon of Platonism and Christianity, but it also attacks the core of more subtle religions such as Nationalism and Ethnicity. As the very first Cynic, Anthistenes said to the Athenians who gave themselves great airs for being so local that they were virtually born out of the Attic soil itself, ‘this did not make them any better born than snails or wingless locusts.’
[4] The custom of dividing the Earth into small local entities – whether Empires, Nations or City-States – was simply as idiotic as attributing any essential value to metals such as gold and silver, which, as Lucian put is, are ‘neither more nor less worth than pebbles on the beach’.
[5] According to the Cynics, citizens and non-citizens, locals and foreigners, masters and slaves, humans and animals are all equally creatures of the Earth.
In particular, we are indebted to Diogenes for the invention of the then-neologism
kosmopolites (in English, ‘cosmopolitan’), literally meaning ‘citizen of the universe’. An exile himself, Diogenes always rejected any superstitious belief in nationality, while making the case for the benefits of statelessness. ‘Exile made me a philosopher’
[6] he proudly stated, at a time when exile was consider a punishment only second to death, as it precluded from the enjoyment of any civic rights and public services. Yet, while modern thinkers such as the existentialist Albert Camus have tended to portray such a state of foreignness and exile with somber tones, the Cynics were renowned for their cheerfulness and good humour. While recognising the absurdity of societal norms and customs, the Cynics didn’t fall prey neither of existential desperation nor of the typically Christian temptation of calling for an apocalypse to cleanse the world from sin. They responded to the foolishness of it all by laughing in its face and ruthlessly taking advantage of it whenever possible.
We could claim that the ancient Cynics, facing all the conditions for what we call today depression and nihilism, managed to find a therapy of autonomy and singularization in the recourse to humour and comical dadaism, married with a completely disrespectful opportunism. Centred as they were in a ‘care of the self’ which did not shy away from self-discipline and effort, the Cynics offered to their contemporaries – and still offer to us today – a very unique blend of wisdom and seeming naiveté, shamelessness and revolutionary stances, defiance in the face of normative abstractions and clever adaptability to the opportunities and constraints of our biological mortality.
Radical atheism
Although they often invoked the gods as their close friends – Diogenes famously claimed the right to steal food offerings to the gods with the syllogism: ‘the wise is the friend of the gods / friends hold everything in common / thus what is property of the gods is property of the wise’ – and they never openly denied the existence of divinities as some of their contemporary Cyrenaic philosophers did, their disbelief towards socially-constructed religions doesn’t fall short of atheism. In fact, by deflecting the pressure of having to address precise theological questions, the Cynics focused their efforts towards creating tools for the enhancement of a much more wide-ranging and effective form of radical atheism. Regardless of whether the gods exist, don’t exist, or only exist in the space between universes – as Epicurus claimed – earthlings such as us already live subjected to the much lower divinities of societal norms (nomoi), as enacted by the economic structure of our societies (or simply put, money, nomismata).
By ‘defacing the coinage’ (parachrattein to nomismata), Diogenes found a way to affirm the freedom and autonomy of his individual existence. Yet, by doing so, he was also the first to have effectively killed the gods which rule human societies since time immemorial. Centuries before Nietzsche, a breed of ubermensch already walked the land of Greece. They were called the dogs.
[1] Diogenes Laertius,
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Life of Diogenes, 6.2.74
[2] F. Campagna,
The Last Night: anti-work, atheism, adventure, Zero Books, 2013
[3] Michel Onfray,
La Sculpture de Soi: la morale esthetique, Le Livre de Poche, 1996
[4] Diogenes Laertius,
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Life of Anthistenes, 6.1.1
[5] Lucian,
The Fisher, 35
[6] Diogenes Laertius,
Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Life of Diogenes, 6.2.49; cf. Plutarch,
De tranquillitate animi, 467c
