The disappearance of education

And its replacement by voc-ed training.

I wouldn't have missed it for the world, though it did not earn me a penny.

My BA in Philosophy (with unofficial minors in Theology and English), my two (two!) MAs and my ABD in the same.

Never did finish a dissertation.

Didn't especially want to teach.

My working life has been in the Socratic and Cyrenaic-Stoic tradition.

Find some not too distressful job a decent, self-respecting man who means no harm can do, that pays enough.

For me, more than a tub, less than a McMansion.

The pithy wisdom of insanity, or animal and human nature compared, with a view to understanding virtue, happiness, and the just or good state, in relation to poverty and wealth

Is it fair to say that, empirically, only the most severely damaged humans choose homelessness?

Alcoholics, drug addicts, the most viciously abused of children, and the mad?

In the ancient world, anyway as far as Hellenistic times, the relation of mentor to pupil was particularly intense and personal, sometimes almost cult-like.

And, as we know, among the common perquisites of cult leadership are these two, that the women - and the men and the children - are yours for the taking and the followers give you all their money.

These thoughts in mind, what are we to make of the Dog Philosopher?

On the other hand, do the homeless write books or compose tragedies?

Might that whole poverty-schtick have been no more than one of his stunts, enduring no more than a few days, weeks, or years?

Or might it have been a regular phase in the Cynic training or career? - an idea that seems not to have occurred to Robin Hard, editor of the Oxford paperback, Diogenes the Cynic, Sayings and Anecdotes.

See his remark that Antisthenes would have had no use for the Cynic robe and backpack and could not himself have taught Cynicism to Diogenes because he was married and owned a house.

But, to be fair, that impoverished dog's life was regarded by the later tradition as at once the whole of the Cynics' life of virtue and happiness and, according to RH, a "short cut" to the very same virtue and happiness advocated by the Stoics, without the trouble of scholarship or the demands of theoretical reflection.

Anyway, the stories of Diogenes cast an odd light on the figure of Socrates and the City of Pigs in Republic, Bk. II, don't they?

Perhaps more sardonically even on Plato's dog-guardians, also in Bk. II.

But also and more significantly on the dichotomies that preoccupied Greek ethics from first to last like those between nature and custom, convention, or culture, between internal and external goods, and between natural and vain desires.

And (thus?) perhaps also on the conventional dichotomy between classical (Hellenic) and post-classical (Hellenistic) philosophy.

"Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose."

The Hellenic/Hellenistic wisdom of Janice Joplin.

And then there are echoes in philosophical pessimism right through the 19th Century.

And there is this.

The connoisseur of morals

For Nietzsche, the German morality of commands and obedience ranks below the Greek morality of virtue and distinction.

The Dawn, aphorism 207, The German attitude to morality

The morality of willing self-immolation ranks below the morality of self-control, severity, and obedience.

Living for others ranks below living for self.

The Dawn, aphorism 215, Morality of sacrificial beasts; aphorism 151, Fashions in morality

The morality of the pagans/masters ranks above the morality of the Christians/slaves.

But even among slaves there are exceptions.

The Dawn, aphorism 546, Slave and idealist

Nietzsche against altruism

The Dawn, aphorism 132, The echo of Christianity in morality

Note the distinction between Christian morals of the pre- and post-Enlightenment periods.

It is the latter that he elsewhere connects with herd morality, slave morality and often, here and there, with democracy and socialism.

And generally right along with utilitarianism, altruism, or any ethic based on sympathy or pity, quite run together.

Any ethic calling for anything like feeling the pain of others or sacrifice, often using exactly that word, of the self for others individually or collectively.

He does not appear to have had at this time such a negative view of the sorts of ethics we nowadays might speak of as imposing side constraints on pursuit or our ends, frankly egoistic or not.

He praises the ethics of Epictetus, for example, for teaching against sympathy for the sufferings or others.

The Dawn, aphorism 131, Fashions in morality.