The Stray Dog Philosophers Dare to Enter the Arena

 

Everywhere I go I seem to be surrounded by dogs, they are everywhere. They come in so many shapes and sizes and are just adorable. There was a giant New Found Land outside Café Nero the other day. He got up as I went to greet him and almost knocked over the table, spilling coffee everywhere. He was a friendly fella and very big boy. Altrincham is full of puppies and all kinds of house dogs. They all bring a smile to my face as I walk around. Now I know a lot of folk got dog’s during lockdown. They have become an increasingly expensive commodity. There is concern that as we continue to return to some kind of normality that some will struggle to keep them. I do hope not.

Did you know that there is a school of ancient Greek philosophy named after dogs. Do you know which one? Well it was the cynics. How and why? You may well ask? Dogs do not appear to be cynical animals at all. Well the cynicism aint what is use to be.

The word “cynic” comes from the ancient Greek word “kynicos” meaning “dog-like”, churlish. Although some suggest that the word “kun” actually takes its origin from “Kunosarges” which was the gymnasium where the early cynics were taught by Antisthenes and those who followed him were considered his “faithful hounds” Whatever the true origins of the world the cynics became known as “The Stray Dog Philosophers”

The best known of cynics was Diogenes. Many of his habits certainly resembled an undomesticated dog. He loved basking naked on the lawn while his fellow philosophers talked on the porch. As they debated the mysteries of the cosmos, Diogenes preferred to soak up some rays. One morning, the great philosopher Plato had a stroke of insight. He caught everyone’s attention, gathered a crowd around him, and announced his deduction: “Man is defined as a hairless, featherless, two-legged animal!” Whereupon Diogenes abruptly leaped up from the lawn, dashed off to the marketplace, and burst back onto the porch carrying a plucked chicken - which he held aloft and shouted, “Behold: I give you... Man!” I am sure a real dog would have been more interested in scoffing the chicken.

Diogenes could be found wandering through the streets in the mid-day sun squinting and holding a lantern to find his way, claiming he was “looking for an honest man” He lived in a hollowed out half barrel which he wheeled through the streets. This was his only possession except for a wooden bowl which he destroyed in protest at the fakeness of society after seeing a boy slave drinking water with his cupped hands.

Those ancient cynics protested against society and attempted to mitigate the dangers of hubris. They believed “virtue” was the only good and that self-control was the only means of achieving it. They rejected what they saw as the falseness of the time. They were known as the “Stray dog philosophers”, so not the domesticated dogs we see on nice leads wandering around town. They rejected the luxury of home living and personal hygiene and they believed that the best way to get their message across to the general public was to verbally abuse them and expel bodily fluids on them as they went about their daily business. Is that dog like? I suspect that the phrase “mud slinging” may have its origins in the original cynics.

The “cynics” became celebrities of a sort in Ancient Greece, even Alexander the Great was fascinated by Diogenes. Several stories are told of their encounters. It is said that one day Diogenes was philosophising to great crowds and Alexander demanded a private audience with him. Diogenes was not very impressed and ignored his request. Eventually Alexander found him sunbathing. Alexander asked him what he could do for him and Diogenese simply asked him to move a little to right as he was blocking the sun. Another version of story claims that when Alexander found Diogenes he was sifting through bones in a graveyard. Alexander asked what he was doing to which Diogenes replied “I am looking for the bones of your father, but cannot differentiate them from the bones of slaves.

Alexander was greatly humbled by Diogenes and said “if he wasn’t Alexander, he’d want to be Diogenes.”

The ancient Greeks “cynics” were the critics of their time and place. They pointed out what was wrong. The original “cynics” had a way of bringing the greatest down to the truly humble level, they were an antidote to the hubris of the day. Yes they had their plus points but there were negatives too, it certainly was not a pathway to friendship and community building. It seemed to me to be the ultimate in isolation and individualism. Anyone can be critical of what others are doing, but what about doing something yourself? The cynics never entered the arena, know they slung mud and criticised those who did.

Diogenes and the other “cynics” remind me a little bit of “Statler and Waldorf” from Jim Henson’s “The Muppet Show”. They don’t step into the arena, they don’t participate in the show. They just sit on the balcony heckling the rest of the characters who are trying to create the show. They are archetypes of so many of us who sit back, pour scorn and criticise the efforts of others who are actually doing something. Those who have the courage to step into the arena and do what they can. Anyone can be a critic, it is so easy to just to sit back and criticise the best efforts of others while doing nothing yourself. I’m with Marge Piercy myself. The people I love the best jump into life headfirst. Instead of slinging mud, they do the work that is as common as mud. They participate rather than criticise the work of others.

Here is Piercy’s wonderful poem

“To be of use” by Marge Piercy
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

“Statler and Waldorf” are achetypes of the critic. They resemble the cynics of ancient Greeks. They sling the mud, they stand apart and just por scorn. Now while there is a role for being critical of those in power, it keeps them humble, grounded, level headed and saves us from the danger of hubris, it does not contribute. it does not encourage folk to truly play their part, to participate in the arena of life. It is easy to be a critic to cynically dissect and pull apart what others do. Social media is full of critics of all types. Critics who have opinions on anything and everything, but without the expertise. We are increasingly living in the age of the anti-expert too. It amazes me how folk can believe that reading a few things on the internet suddenly makes you an expert. Or am I being a bit cynical here myself?

Increasingly we seem intent on fault finding and discovering the imperfections in one another. Why do we do this? Do we believe it will help us feel better about ourselves if we pour scorn on the imperfections of others?

In “The Heart of the Enlightened” Anthony De Mello tells the following story.

“A woman complained to a visiting friend that her neighbour was a poor housekeeper. “You should see how dirty her children are – and her house. It is almost a disgrace to be living in the same neighbourhood as her. Take a look at those clothes she has hung out on the line. See the black streaks on the sheets and towels!”

The friend walked up to the window and said, “I think the clothes are quite clean, my dear. The streaks are on your window.”

This story brings to mind those words from Matthews Gospel (ch 7 vv 1- 12) we heard earlier “Why do you see the speck in your neighbours eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye.” It easy to pass judgement and to find fault in others but is that what our task is? To tear apart everyone else and to point out where they are going wrong? Or is it to make the most of who we are not only for ourselves but for the good of all. Is our task to be the critic who picks apart what others do or is it to contribute to life in whatever ways we can? I for one no longer wish to choose the path of lazy cynicism and criticism. I’d much rather do what I can and risk getting shot down.

I find the last line iin this passage from Matthew fascinating. Here Jesus states the Golden Rule of Compassion, the universal essence found in all the great religious traditions. In verse 12 you find those immortal words ‘In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”

Here lays both the problem and the solution. In these words we find the reason why people are so harshly critical of others. I suspect that they find fault in others because deep down inside is that insidious voice, finding fault in everything they do. People often do love their neighbour as themselves. The problem being that deep down inside they feel no real love for themselves.

You see the greatest critic of them all, the one that seems to drive all other criticism, is that inner critic that quietly tears our own souls apart. I suspect that we find fault in others so as to deflect from that voice that eats away at everything loving and good within ourselves and our world for that matter.

Cynicism eats away at your soul, until you do nothing and believe in nothing. In such a nihilistic state anything goes, all morality is lost and barbarity rules. Cynicism soon becomes nihilism, the worse form emotional cowardice.

As Caitlin Moran wrote in the novel “How to Build a Girl”:

“Cynicism is, ultimately, fear. Cynicism makes contact with your skin, and a thick black carapace begins to grow — like insect armor. This armor will protect your heart, from disappointment — but it leaves you almost unable to walk. You cannot dance in this armor. Cynicism keeps you pinned to the spot, in the same posture, forever.”

Here she echoes wisdom from “Teddy” Roosevelt a hundred years earlier

On the 23rd April 1910 former US president Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt took to podium at the Sorbonne in Paris and delivered what has been considered one the great speeches. It was titled “Citizenship in a Republic”. Here are a couple extracts from it:

“The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer. There are many men who feel a kind of twisted pride in cynicism; there are many who confine themselves to criticism of the way others do what they themselves dare not even attempt. There is no more unhealthy being, no man less worthy of respect, than he who either really holds, or feigns to hold, an attitude of sneering disbelief toward all that is great and lofty, whether in achievement or in that noble effort which, even if it fails, comes to second achievement. A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform…

… It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat…

The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be a cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder.”

Great language don’t you think.

It is easy to be the critic who sneers and throws mud at the person who gives life an honest go, who dares to step into the arena to do good, to do what they can. It says something of our age that one of the worst things a person can be today is a so called “Do-gooders”. Since when is doing good a negative thing? Well in this cynical age it seems.

Too often we mistaken critical thinking for sneering cynicism. Critical thinking is vital, but it also needs to be constructive. Today the cynic seems to have an ever more powerful voice than they did in the past. Today they don’t sling mud, instead they just join in forums of the internet and social media and tear apart those who dare put their head above the parapet and step into the arena and do good. Just a decade or so after Roosevelts speech Bertrand Russell asserted “construction and destruction alike satisfy the will to power, but construction as a rule gives more satisfaction to the person who can achieve it.” Those who enter the arena and give things ago, even if they fail will find satisfaction. Those who cynically sneer, sling mud and point out the imperfections will likely live lives where “They get no satisfaction”

There is no real satisfaction in sneering at life, just slinging dirt or pointing out the dirt on someone else’s washing or missing the plank in your own eye for the speck in your neighbours. It is easy to be a critic. It less easy to step into the arena and actually do something. What the world needs right now is less critics and more constructors as we attempt to build back society. That is not to say that we should not be critical. Any healthy society needs those who point ought what can be done better. The key is how we do this. We need to do so constructively. We need to learn from the original cynics and become folk who enter the arena with hope, ones who offer another way, a better way, rather ones who sit at home, pick up their keyboards and cynically dissect the work of those who dare to step into the arena of life.

So, I am going to leave you with a question. Are you going to be a mud slinger? Or are you going to be encourager or better still a constructor? The choice is yours. What is it going to be?

Below is a devotion based on the material in this "blogspot"