An Epicurean Walk

Last night I brushed up on the tenets of Epicureanism. I knew that according to the popular understanding—misinformed by an ancient Christian smear campaign—Epicurianism amounted to little more than pleasure-seeking. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Epicurus did indeed advocate the seeking of modest pleasures as the highest good in life. But these pleasures did not involve partying or having sex. Instead of beer-chugging and hip-thrusting, they were more on the order of friendship and the attainment of enough knowledge to overcome superstition—though not more than was necessary to that end. In fact, Epicurus himself remained celibate, believing that marriage would overcomplicate things for him. So to understand Epicurianism as a philosophy of pleasure is half-baked at best. Just as important was the achievement of apenia—the absence of pain. Which according to old Epicurus was best guaranteed by avoiding excess and overstimulation.

The thought system seems to have been informed by a fundamentally conservative pessimism: Seek not too much pleasure in the moment, lest you be bitterly disappointed in the future. Epicurus and his followers espoused an ethics of convenience (treat others well because what goes around comes around), without positing an absolute morality. They also seem to have been of sound mind when it came to epistemological principles: Trust the senses only, and neither your prejudices nor your emotions will fool you--a kind of proto-empiricism. Three additional tidbits stuck with me from my brief reading: 1) Epicurus is said to have referred to life as a "bitter gift”; 2) A later Epicurean formulated a little mantra called the Tetrapharmakos, or four-fold cure, viz.:

Do not fear god
Do not worry about death
What is good is easy to get
What is terrible is easy to endure;

3) The Epicureans were effectively atheists. Meaning that although they avoided outright denial that gods existed (and thus also the fate that befell Socrates), they held that these gods disported themselves far from earth, somewhere out in the interplanetary void, and that they did not give a damn about human affairs, and were totally unable to interfere in them. If I remember correctly though, one daredevil Epicurean did go so far as to formulate a denial of God, saying that if God was willing yet unable to stop evil, then He was not omnipotent, that if He was able but unwilling to stop evil, then He was malevolent, and that if He was neither able nor willing—why call Him God?

This morning I set out on my “Epicurean walk” along the Bosporus. The water and the hills that flanked it were covered in a thoroughly philosophical mist. It seemed like the morning had been shaped this way—into a sort of interior to help contain and focus my thoughts—just for me. I reflected that the creed of modesty seemed very appropriate to the Epicureans' status as political outsiders. "Do not expect too much," the core of their thinking seems to say, "and you will not be disappointed." Or: Set the bar low enough and you'll sail over it every time. The thinking also seems similar to Buddhism in its focus on eliminating desire and selfishness as the source of unhappiness. Which is quite sensible, if ultimately defeating. As I walked I also remembered that while I was studying in Berlin I had met a kid who identified himself as an Epicurean, in the strict sense. I remember him as indeed having been somewhat restrained in his habits, entirely unlike myself, and that I found his company boring. Surely it is sad for someone to have resigned himself to the modesty and low expectations of Epicureanism (ultimately a kind of cynicism) at age 20? Or was it a token of wisdom beyond his years? The other thing I remember about this chap—he was a Canadian—was that his father was an arms dealer, which he thought was pretty cool.

There is more to be said about Epicureanism, obviously. It may be wrong to see it is fundamentally pessimistic, for instance. Maybe what I interpret as pessimism is in fact no more than a hard-baked realism. It would also be worth looking into the unconscious cultural pockets where Epicureanism survives today. As a philosophical system it does not seem to be a very good fit for America for instance: If "what is good is easy to get," why stake out the moon?