![]() ![]() Mary Beard scoffed in response to this: “Rich men have used the Senecan excuse ever after!” ![]() Seneca used the classic get-out-of-jail-free card by saying that you can have riches, you just mustn’t become too attached to them. Or, to put it in a modern context, it's like asking how you reconcile an anti-materialist stance with a love of trainers that cost north of £100. What sparked incredibly lively debate among the In Our Time guests was another thing we grapple with today: how to be a rich man espousing the moral virtues of a life of poverty. ![]() Stoicism shows a way to remain happy in spite of misfortunes, and insists on personal virtue. That’s where the idea of logos comes from. But for Seneca it was rooted in a philosophy called Stoicism, which deals with everything from the natural world, to grammar and dialectics. Most of us today regard the “being a good person” thing as being distinct from any wider belief system or religious base. My takeaway was that helping old ladies on and off buses is no good unless you’re doing it in accordance with the cosmos. This is the only way you can live in accordance with logos – the divine breath of the world. ![]()
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