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4.1 AVERAGE
4.1 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Have you read a ancient white mans thoughts before? Congrats you can skip this book.
"Meditations" is an unusual book to read and to review alike, because all historical indications are that these writings were only ever written as "notes-to-self" and not with any intent at publication. As such they're generally disconnected ideas and thoughts without any particular structure, sometimes notes that were clearly jotted down on-the-fly (and just as often somewhat inscrutable,) and sometimes much longer thoughts explained in detail. There is also a significant amount of repetition of the same points.
Marcus Aurelius had a number of useful ideas, almost all of them relating to one's own temperament and to the task of disciplining one's mind to focus rather than react at random, and a number of stunning insights into conformism vs. intellectual independence. But MA was metaphysically a determinist and a fatalist, he held "duty" to be an imperative in ethics (undoubtedly owing to his lifetime as a military man,) and his politics were tragically collectivistic. So it is from within that significantly flawed context that all of his ideas emerge.
The writings also have use in fleshing out history, particularly the ideas and attitudes which prevailed at the time and therefore provide a much clearer glimpse into why the mighty Roman Empire was ultimately doomed to collapse.
Significant factors in that collapse were precisely: metaphysical determinism, the ethics of duty, the politics of collectivism - and the utter absence of individualism and therefore of human rights, which concepts would not emerge for another 1500 years. To draw a literary analogy, the Roman Empire was akin to Isaac Asimov's Galactic Empire in his "Foundation" trilogy - except where Asimov's imperial collapse was saved from an enormous span of barbarism by the implicitly-individualistic Foundation, the propriety of individualism and human rights as the ethical alternative to collectivism and serfdom would not emerge until the Renaissance and Enlightenment era. And so Rome's mighty empire crumbled.
More disturbingly, we are seeing history repeat itself within early 21st century academia - with the vital Renaissance / Enlightenment concepts of human rights and liberty being rejected, often explicitly, in favor of a de-evolutionary goose-step back to the collectivism and pre-industrial squalor of the Middle Ages. Given the wealth of historical and philosophical knowledge which is wide open to the people of the here and now, that rejection can only be the consequence of willfully-chosen evil. The only alternative explanation would be gross stupidity, but as much fun as it would be to lob that epithet, I do not believe anyone, even a tenured academic, is that stupid.
The 20th-21st century rejection of humanism, individualism and liberty is born of a metaphysical deterioration of respect for humanity, and of an ethically evil and consciously chosen hatred of humanity. One can easily find evidence of that hatred - which is just the evil of racism expanded outward to encompass all of humanity - in any of the countless times we've heard the sentiment "Humanity is a plague upon the Earth" or "We are a virus on the planet." Substitute any given ethnic group into those sentences in place of the word "Humanity" or "We," and the evil of the attitude becomes clear. It is that hatred of humanity - which not surprisingly prompts in those who espouse it a desire to make humanity suffer - which lies at the root of contemporary anti-civilization, anti-culturalism and neo-Medievalism.
Where Marcus Aurelius can claim ignorance of ideas which would only emerge a millennium and a half beyond his time, we have no such excuse. So "Meditations" is instructive, but aside from some useful insights on personal temperament, virtually all of that instruction is negative - i.e., "how *not* to do philosophy and politics." A lesson a whole lot of people today would be wise to digest.
Marcus Aurelius had a number of useful ideas, almost all of them relating to one's own temperament and to the task of disciplining one's mind to focus rather than react at random, and a number of stunning insights into conformism vs. intellectual independence. But MA was metaphysically a determinist and a fatalist, he held "duty" to be an imperative in ethics (undoubtedly owing to his lifetime as a military man,) and his politics were tragically collectivistic. So it is from within that significantly flawed context that all of his ideas emerge.
The writings also have use in fleshing out history, particularly the ideas and attitudes which prevailed at the time and therefore provide a much clearer glimpse into why the mighty Roman Empire was ultimately doomed to collapse.
Significant factors in that collapse were precisely: metaphysical determinism, the ethics of duty, the politics of collectivism - and the utter absence of individualism and therefore of human rights, which concepts would not emerge for another 1500 years. To draw a literary analogy, the Roman Empire was akin to Isaac Asimov's Galactic Empire in his "Foundation" trilogy - except where Asimov's imperial collapse was saved from an enormous span of barbarism by the implicitly-individualistic Foundation, the propriety of individualism and human rights as the ethical alternative to collectivism and serfdom would not emerge until the Renaissance and Enlightenment era. And so Rome's mighty empire crumbled.
More disturbingly, we are seeing history repeat itself within early 21st century academia - with the vital Renaissance / Enlightenment concepts of human rights and liberty being rejected, often explicitly, in favor of a de-evolutionary goose-step back to the collectivism and pre-industrial squalor of the Middle Ages. Given the wealth of historical and philosophical knowledge which is wide open to the people of the here and now, that rejection can only be the consequence of willfully-chosen evil. The only alternative explanation would be gross stupidity, but as much fun as it would be to lob that epithet, I do not believe anyone, even a tenured academic, is that stupid.
The 20th-21st century rejection of humanism, individualism and liberty is born of a metaphysical deterioration of respect for humanity, and of an ethically evil and consciously chosen hatred of humanity. One can easily find evidence of that hatred - which is just the evil of racism expanded outward to encompass all of humanity - in any of the countless times we've heard the sentiment "Humanity is a plague upon the Earth" or "We are a virus on the planet." Substitute any given ethnic group into those sentences in place of the word "Humanity" or "We," and the evil of the attitude becomes clear. It is that hatred of humanity - which not surprisingly prompts in those who espouse it a desire to make humanity suffer - which lies at the root of contemporary anti-civilization, anti-culturalism and neo-Medievalism.
Where Marcus Aurelius can claim ignorance of ideas which would only emerge a millennium and a half beyond his time, we have no such excuse. So "Meditations" is instructive, but aside from some useful insights on personal temperament, virtually all of that instruction is negative - i.e., "how *not* to do philosophy and politics." A lesson a whole lot of people today would be wise to digest.
challenging
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
reflective
slow-paced
reflective
medium-paced
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
reflective
fast-paced
Noi siamo infatti nati per darci aiuto reciproco, come i piedi, le mani, le palpebre, come le due file di denti. Ecco perché è cosa contro natura agire l'uno contro l'altro; (...)
—
In quanto Antonino, Roma è mia città e mia patria; in quanto uomo, il mondo. Unico bene per me è quindi soltanto ciò che giova a queste due città.