The Ancient Greek Cynic Philosophers and Their Fight Against Societal Norms

Diogenes of Sinope (Jean Leon Gerome), the ancient Greek philosopher who made Cynicism known crossed generations. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

When galore radical speech astir the past Greek Cynics, these peculiar philosophers, astir are reasoning of Diogenes of Sinope—the eccentric antheral who chose to unrecorded successful a clay jar, and told Alexander the Great to measurement retired of his sunlight.

Undoubtedly, helium was a fascinating figure, but focusing solely connected Diogenes bears the hazard of making america miss the broader, possibly adjacent much radical, philosophical question that helium spawned.

The Cynics were much than Diogenes and what helium represented arsenic a personality; they were crisp critics of past societies. They were unmistakably rejecting their norms, oregon nomos arsenic they are called successful Greek, successful favour of a wholly antithetic life. They chose a beingness lived with nature, oregon physis, astatine its core, thing that came to beryllium seen arsenic a profound situation to the precise foundations of past Athens.

The extremist critique of Cynic Philosophers

Let’s get our presumption straight. Nomos successful past Greece didn’t conscionable mean “law.” It embodied customs, traditions, values, and the societal norms that held nine together. Everything from manner and manners to concepts of wealthiness and status.

Physis, connected the different hand, represented nature, the essential, the stripped-down world of quality needs and instincts, the precise foundations of one’s existence.

The Cynics looked astatine the nine of Athens of their day—a metropolis often obsessed with reputation, governmental maneuvering and worldly possessions. This is 1 of the cardinal reasons wherefore they saw nomos not arsenic a civilizing force, but arsenic a root of evil, corruption, vanity, and ultimately, unhappiness.

Their solution? Quite radical: Ditch it. Live simply, honestly and successful accordance with nature, escaped from the artificial constraints and anxieties imposed by human-made conventions. This doctrine became manifest successful a substance of unusual personalities opting retired of the communal goal, embodying an active, surviving critique aimed consecutive astatine the hypocrisy and superficiality they saw each astir them. We tin intelligibly spot akin constituent successful our ain societies. Think of it little arsenic past minimalist tendencies and much arsenic philosophical guerrilla warfare against the presumption quo.

Crates, Hipparchia, and doctrine successful the streets

There is nary uncertainty that Diogenes was the 1 who laid the foundations of the cynic movement. However, his disciple Crates of Thebes, on with his singular woman Hipparchia of Maroneia, genuinely embraced this philosophy, adopting the extremist beingness to the top imaginable extent. Crates wasn’t calved into poverty; helium came from a affluent household successful the metropolis of Thebes, northbound of Athens. Yet, inspired by the Cynic ideal, helium reportedly gave distant his sizeable fortune, believing it was a load that hindered existent state and happiness. Imagine the disturbance that caused!

Roman partition coating of Hipparchia and Crates. Credit: Unknown, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

But the existent daze came from another, particularly for the patriarchal nine of past Greece: Hipparchia. From a bully household herself, she fell profoundly successful emotion not conscionable with Crates, but with the Cynic mode of life. Rejecting suitors her household approved of, she threatened termination unless she was allowed to wed the penniless, unconventional Crates. Hold onto your chitons, fans of past Greece—this was genuinely scandalous! After marrying him, she adopted the Cynic manner completely, wearing elemental cloaks, abandoning her location and engaging successful philosophical discussions publically alongside her husband.

They practiced anaideia—Greek for shamelessness, oregon acting without respect for accepted modesty—viewing biologic necessities arsenic earthy and not thing to beryllium hidden. Their beingness together, sometimes referred to arsenic a ‘dog-marriage’ (kynogamia) due to the fact that of the Cynic nickname (‘kynikos’ meaning dog-like), was a wide mode of surviving their philosophy, a constant, nationalist rejection of norms surrounding wealth, sex roles and propriety. Can you ideate the gossip columns successful past Athens for this couple?

What made the Greek Cynics truthful unique

What genuinely acceptable the Greek Cynics, including Crates and Hipparchia, isolated was the information that they embraced their doctrine successful their mundane life. They weren’t funny successful penning lengthy, abstract treatises locked distant successful immoderate academy. Their doctrine was lived, performed and demonstrated successful the bustling agora, the past equivalent of the metropolis square. Their elemental dress, their deficiency of possessions, their willingness to beg, their pointed and often witty remarks directed astatine passersby, adjacent their defiance of basal etiquette—it was each portion of the argument. They utilized their precise lives arsenic philosophical texts, forcing onlookers to face uncomfortable questions astir their ain values and assumptions.

This ‘performance philosophy’ was designed to provoke, to daze radical retired of their complacent acceptance of nomos. It wasn’t conscionable Crates and Hipparchia who behaved similar this; this was the Cynic mode arsenic a whole. Their shamelessness (anaideia) wasn’t gratuitous; it was a instrumentality to exposure the arbitrary quality of galore societal customs. This radical, lived philosophy, though often jarring, had a profound impact, notably influencing Zeno of Citium, the laminitis of Stoicism, who himself was a pupil of Crates. The Cynic accent connected virtue, surviving according to nature, and indifference to outer circumstances, echoes powerfully wrong Stoic thought, albeit successful a little abrasive form.

So, the adjacent clip you perceive astir the Greek Cynics, effort to look beyond the caricature of Diogenes and his barrel. Think of Crates renouncing his luck and particularly of Hipparchia, defying each anticipation placed upon a pistillate of her clip to unrecorded a beingness of philosophical integrity connected her ain terms. Their rejection of nomos was a deliberate, challenging critique of societal structures, urging a instrumentality to physis arsenic the way to existent happiness and virtue.