diogenes and cynics as a way of life

7/30/2019 Diogenes and Cynics as a Way of Life

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Borrower: Y$flrlLending String: *BNG, NAM, NYP, NYPPatron: .,...DEPT; STATUS;AguiJournal Title: The making of modern cynicism IVolume: lssue:Month/Year= 2007Pages: 23-46Article Author: Mazella, David, 1962-Article Title: Diogenes of Sinope and philosophyas a way of life.lmprint: Charlottesville ; University of VirginiaILL Number: 101338663r ililil ililt iltil il|il lillr lllll lllil lllll lllll llll llll

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22 THE MAKING OF MODERN CYNICISM

manner of La Rochefoucauld, Machiavelli, or Chesterfield. Though D'Israelidescribes this entire group of immoralists as 'tynicsi'ten or twenty yearc ear-lier they would not have been brought together in this manner; they are allwriters who excelled at redescribing their societies in unflattering ways. In

i D'Israeli, cynicism has become synonymous not with philosophy or virtue, but/'with petty,'conformist, s9{,q9e-ki!rg behavior rationalized in plausibly elevate$I "philosophicall' terms. In other words, D'Israeli's description of cynicism no' tong", suggested independent philosophic reflection, critique, or even satirical

e--b-gr,g, but Hobbes's supposed qualities of accommodation, self-seeking, andt.tul" publicity for those in power.The sixth and final chapter takes up the polished cynics and cynical dandiesof Regency Britain and beyond, to trace the concept to its final moment of

semantic development around the beginning of the twentieth century. At thispoint, every term in the ensemble identified by Chaloupka and Keenan has^ ^ * .,D / fallen into place master-cynics, cynical insiders, and cynical public. The dan-\?/\\1 dies who modeled themselves upon Beau Brummell introdgie-da !g@q!bn

si,on to cynicism: a cool indifference to conv-enlional codes of-m4qqqti4!y-,4d1a7* uf-ott indistinguishable from polite accommodation. It is this pirodlc,'even scandalous dimerision of dandyism that Oscar Wilde exploited in his fic-tion and his life and that caused him to be labeled a bad cynic, a disbeliever,and a supremely dangerous example to the nation's youth'

After Wilde's prosecution and exile, one of the last reflective cynics and aph-orists disappeared in Anglophone writing. Instead, cynicism became a regulgfeature of mass culture, entering the marketplace of opinions as yet another' disillusi,oned and disillusioning voice in the era of Bierce and Mencken.ae Af-ter 1913, when Webst er's Dictionary formally related cynicism to a belief in theuniversality of self-seeking or self-interest, the semantic development of theconcept reached the point where it remains today. Cynicism was no longer theexclusive possession of the philosopher but that of the unreflective media ex-pert. The cynical media insider or 'talking head' becomes the perverse legacyof Diogenes'heroic philosophy and Rousseau's tortured quest for autonomy'

ONE Diogenes of Sinope andPhilosophy as a Way of LifeTo pervert Plato is to side with the Sophisty spitefulness, therudeness of the Cynics, the arguments of the Stoics. and thefluttering visions of Epicurus. lt is time to read Diogenes Laertius.-Michel Foucault, "Theatrum Philosophicum"

o DEScRIBE THE pRocESs that transformed ancient Cynicisminto modern cynicism, we should start with the "life and opinions" of Diogenesof Sinope (ca. 4tz- 4o3 to ca. 324-32r n c ), who was one of the first philosophersto be labeled a Cynic, or 'dog" (kuon).|It was the memorable personality andbehavior of Diogenes that established the distinctive practices and purposes ofCynic philosophy for the next two-and-a-half millennia. The characteristically'tynicall' {titudes and practices attributed to this movement helped define"cynic" and'tynicisrd'long after Diogenes and the canine metaphor had dis-appeared from everyday usage.

Along with a brief biography of Diogenes, this chapter will also offer somecontexts for understanding Cynic philosophy as it was practiced in antiquity,focusing on the characteristics that most powerfully affected its reception inlater periods: its character as a philosophical "way of lifd' emblematized by_thtjascel.lgifphilosophicalheio'Diogenes; its missionary character; its relianceupon-satiric or farcical language and gestures to communicate its serious phil-*olophic m"srag"; its programmatic hostility_to political power, conv-gnlio1al*values, and rival philosophies. Then f wif conclude with an account of liowthe satires of Lucian systematically invert many of these characteristics, mostcrucially the "philosophical heroi' to create a gallery ofhypocritical or sneeringwould-be Cynics. Once Cynic philosophy had become firmly associated withboth the philosophical hero Diogenes and the unphilosophical antiheroes ofLucian in the second century AD, we have the cluster of contradictory mean-ings that accompanied discussions of ancient Cynicism through the end of theeighteenth century.

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-THE MAKING OF MODERN CYNICISM

we must preface any so-called "biography" of Diogenes with an acknowl-edgment of the limits to our historical knowledge of this semilegenda ry fig-ure. since all of Diogenes' own writings were lost in antiquity, the single mostextensive historical source is the "Life" contained in Diogenes Laertius's Dvesand opinions of Ancient philosophers (ca.4o? an), a'tompilation of compila-tions" written at nearly five centuries'remoye from the philosopher,s lifetime.2Though Laertius's collection of Diogenes lore offers us a fascinating hodge-podge ofhistorical fact, legend, and outright fabrications, there is enough cor-roborating evidence from other sources and traditions to give us some degreeofconfidence in the narrative that follows. Nonetheless, we should always keepin mind how drastically the historicar image of Diogenes has been shaped bythe demands of oral, anecdotal transmission over many centuries.A "Simple Life"According to Laertius and other sources, Diogenes was born around 4oo BCin Sinope, a bleak little commercial outpost on the edge of the Black Sea, farfrom the metropolitan centers of the Greek world and tied through trade to avariety of non-Greek peoples in what is now Turkey and India.3 Diogenes wasexiled for counterfeiting the public coinage, an act that was committed eitherby himself or his fatheq Hicesias (DL 6.zo).a rhis well-known incident, whichis supported by numismatic evidence, probably inspired his most famous phil-osophic motto, "deface the currency!" (meaning literally to .tcratch the faceoff" the coinage).s In his wanderings, Diogenes was later taken and sold as aslave to Xeniades, and when asked what he courd do, rep1ied,..Goyern men',(DL 6.zg). Diogenes then tutored Xeniades' children, devoting as much time totheir physical training as to lectures and recitations (DL 6.3o_3r).At some point, Diogenes decided to become a philosopher. As he often

does, Laertius records two different versions of how Diogenes was initiatedinto philosophy. First he describes Diogenes demanding instruction from An-tisthenes, a one-time disciple of Socrates.6 when Antisthenes tried to refuse.Diogenes 'bffered his head with the words, 'strike, for you will find no woodhard enough to keep me away from you, so rong as I think you've somethingto say" (DL 6'zt). Afterwards, Diogenes, though an exile, became Antisthenes'student and took up the "simple lifel'meaning a philosophical ..way of life" onthe model of Socrates.TLaertius immediatelyfollows this anecdote with another, perhaps more fan-ciful story ofhow Diogenes saw a "mouse running about . . . , not Loking for a

Diogenes and Philosophy as a Way of Life

place to lie down in, not afraid of the dark, not seeking any of the things whichare considered to be daintiesl' According to Laertius, this mouse taught Dio-genes "the means of adapting himself to circumstancesi' one of the hallmarksof Cynic philosophy (DL 6.zt). After this incident, Diogenes stressed the im-portance of adapting easily and cheerfully to one's circumstances, and praisedsuch adaptability as the best way to

"ltft 1l*4 according to nature (phusis)

ralle l thgn hlrman coqvent ions (n o m o s).. " He wo uld oft e n i ns i st lo uAly ahtt thegods had given to men the means of living easily, but this had been put out ofsight, because we require honeyed cakes, unguents, and the like" (DL 6.++).

For Diogenes, the example of the mouse becomes a signal lesson in thedistinction between nature's needs, which can be met without fuss, and theo.tffiial 6urs, desiresl and


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self-restraint and freedom from luxury, living in the open and alternating be-tween Corinth and Athens until his death in his eighties or nineties around325 BC.A number of resonant themes appear in Laertius's account of Diogenes'lifethat will recur in many other accounts throughout antiquity: exile, asceticism,self-sufficiency, and shamelessness, all practiced for the sake of a philosophicmission wholly devoted to following nature and rejecting human convention.jWhen Diogenes "defaced the currencyi' moreover, he flouted conventional

I values as much in his speech as in his actions. His extraordinary capacity to't embody his philosophical principles, fully and. without remaind.er, made him, both a legendary figure and a philosopher whose manner of living constituted-iitfre greatest expression oi and justification forlfris-phitoropftf As Laertius

,' comment* "he acted [in accordance with his speeches], adulterating currency'',:' (nomismdf)invery truth, allowing convention no such authority as he allowedto natural right" (DL A.7r).In Laertius's conflicting anecdotes of Diogenes'first introduction to philos-

ophy, we might reflect for a moment upon the specific forms of resistance andadaptation demanded by the Cynic philosophy. In the first story, Diogenes willnot politely acquiesce to Antisthenes' command to leave him alone because heknows he needs to learn philosophy from his chosen teacher, Antisthenes. Inthe second, Diogenes immediately adapts himself to the deprivations experi-enced by the mouse because he realizes that to live a free and virtuous life hemust learn indifference to the 'daintied' that other men take for granted. Dio-genes therefore inverts the conyentional mant habits of accommodation byadapting willingly to the demands of nature, while resisting just as fiercely thedictates of human morality or custom. This is yet another way thathe "defacesthe currency" as much in word as in deed.

Having set forth this philosophy of self-denial, we might expect Diogenes'philosophic practice to have been cold, aloof, humorless, pleasureless, or self-isolating, but exactly the opposite seems to have been the case. Diogenes pub-licly, even joyfully performed his independence and self-sufficiency in frontof the large urban crowds he wished to educate, just as he had once governedXeniades and his children. In fact, Diogenes'way of life demanded somethingthat went beyond the severest self-discipline and physical "training" (askesis)from its followers. It also required those professing Cynic philosophy to havethe courage to communicate it to the widest possible audience, in order toshock them out of their false conventional values. In other words, the osten-+------'.ftatiously shameless style of Cynic philosoph/'ilas motivated by its mission-I


lary character, which transformed the private drama of the philosophical hero's/ self-mastery into a public spectacle and made the crowd itself an importantI p ar)gf the P,grformance.lo/ The public,_\rissionary charucter of Cynic shamelessness, the Cynic phi-tosiphEts'?ecided preference for preaching to large crowds and public gather-ings, and the Clmics' concern with challenging the false values of their massedaudiences all help to explain the distinctively Cynic emphasis upon the crowdin their philosophy. The anecdotal traditions concerning Diogenes are filledwith descriptions of the gawkers, gapers, and onlookers who react to his provo-cations, and who collectively embody the false conventional values that he op-posed at every turn. This is clearest in Laertius's story of what happened whenDiogenes entered a theater at the wrong time: "Meeting face to face those whowere coming out, and being asked why, 'Thisi he said, 'is what I practice doingall my liff" (DL a.6+). Thus, the presence of an audience, whether sympatheticor not, became an indispensable part of the drama of Cynic philosophic prac-tice, and Diogenes, who needed very few things, nevertheless needed a crowd,an audience whom he could harangue and entertain, and whose most cher-ished opinions he could ridicule.In one important respect, the presence of a crowd helped transform Dio-genes from a single eccentric vagrant into a philosophical hero, a man capableof 'governing men." It did this by showing the philosopher heroically riskingtheir_rejecfion and disapproval, all in the hope of transforming his audiencein some fundamental way. In fact, Diogenes treated the desire for 1ppro1{like any other desire, and systematically trained himsef to iegard it with in-difference: "He once begged alms of a statue, and, when iskidwhy Le did so,-replied, 'To get practice in being refused"' (DL 6.+g).Indeed, the numerousstories of Diogenes' famously gruff and unpleasant manner of begging enactthis dynamic on the smallest possible scale, in the transaction between theparadoxically independent beggar-philosopher and his client-donor: "Beingshort of money, he told his friends that he applied to them not for alrns, but forrepayment of his due" (DL 6.+6).

Hence, the paradoxically governing yet mendicant relation of Cynic phi-losophy to its nonphilosophical audience dictated its shameless yet missionaryapproach to preaching, which in turn demanded that Cynic philosophers di-

lltlylhallgnge_ their listeners' opinions inirdei to make the listeners' assent-ethically meaningful.It was this co1gclously paradoxical and scandalous stylgofpfgg.hl11g that became known, in Michel-Fo,g_9gulg'q colnage,as "parrhesiast"(paydla, or Ie franc parler), andcan be tranilated as "saying allil 'lfieq_qpg{-

THE MAKING OF IVlODERN CYNICIsM


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THE MAKING OF MODERN CYNICISM

ingi' or 'truth telling'.' Parrhesia, which Diogenes once called "the most beauti-ful thing in the world' (DL 6.6g), became another distinctive attribute of cynicphilosophy in antiquity, and an important part of its verbal and philosophicallegacyto subsequent generations, ?. t.,, ,t. I r ' i-l '' ( . ., "',MichelFoucaultonParrhesia.^c!,..f,,',.i'.Many of these themes regarding Diogenes,parrhesia, and the cynic way of lifewere brilliantly synthesized in Michel Foucault's 1983 lectures on parthesia,which culminated in the lectures regarding parrhesia and Cynic philosophythat were sadly interrupted by Foucault's death in r984.u Though various tran-scriptions and redactions of these materials are now beginning to appear inprint and on the Web, the most convenient source available in English rightnow is a valuable account published by the philosopher Thomas Flynn, whoattended the 1984 lectures and provides readers with a detailed synopsis of, andcommentary upon, the course's content (FP rcz-3).

In Flynnt summafy of Foucault, cynicism as a philosophy cannot pe com-municated in the form of verbal doctrine but onlylas the visible efecithatthecynic "way of life" has had upon the lives of those who embrace it. Foucault,who had earlier acknowledged his general indebtedness to the Hellenist PierreHadot's scholarship on philosophy as a "way of life" or "spiritual exercise" inantiquity, seems to have been drawing difensively upon these notions in histreatment of the Cynics.t2

According to Foucault/Flprn, the cynic emphasis upon the philosopher'smanner of existence rather than his verbal products (for example' in the form ofaxioms, systems, or theories) has important consequences for its transmission'which comes primarily in the form of stories, or better yet' anecdotes abotttfamous Cynic philosophers rather than their own writings.t3 Foucault/Flynndescribes the transmission process in the following way: "The Cynics' schemeof life is difficult to summarize theoretically. It is expressed and transmitted bystories, paradigmatic figures like Hercules, and case histories. Because what isto be communicated is a way of life more than a doctrine, the philosophicalhero becomes of prime importance and philosophic legend is common coin'(FP r.ro). By viewing Cynic philosophy as a 'way of life" rather than u t!ry-retical construction, foucault fielps explain the peculiar status and function of'biog.rr", ai the "philosophical hero" or "paradigmatic figure" around whominnumerable "st6ries" and'tase histories" are told, even when none of his ownwritings survive.

Diogenes and Philosophy as a Way of LifeFlynn summarizes Foucault's view of Cynic truth telling and the true life in

the following, extremely compressed description:tiFoucault sees the Cynics' extreme, indeed scandalous, pursuit of the trueilife as an inversion of, a kind of 9q11_v-{e9tu9 grimace directed tor.yard, thglPlatonic tradition. This, he believes, is the meaning of the Delphic Oracle'sgnomic advice to Diogenesl "Change the value of the money" [or, as Bran-ham has translated it, "Deface the currencvl'j. For the forms and habits of

lcommon life one must substitute the philosophers' principles,butliued to( the point of scandal Far from random grossness, the Cynics' pru.ticiiihal-t lEnged ph-ilosophers to live radically different lives from those conformingto the received wisdom of their contemporaries. For the Socratic'btherworld" they substituted an 'bther lifel' the truly philosophical life, the "truelife:' (FP uo; Flynn's emphases)

As we can see, Cynigl parrhesia constitutes a philosophy devoted not merelyto truth-telling5uf to active pursuit of the "tirib ilfel'As Fouiault noted, Di-

-o$eneS' pursuit ofihe 'true life" can be traced back to Socratic parrhesia, withits interest in the philosopher's harmonization of one's "doctrind' with one's"life." Harmonizing one's doctrine and life, however, is accomplished not byany single moment of contemplating the truth but by an ongoing process oftesting.In the words of Foucault/Flynn: "this alternative care of oneself denotesa manner of livihg as well as a self-knowledge of a quite different sort than thecontemplative: it involves a practical proof a testing of the manner of livingand of truth-telling that yields a certain form to this rendering an account ofoneself, a life-long examination that issues in a certain style of existence" (FP

Jo8-s; Flynn's emphases).ta, The "truth' around which Cynic life is organized systematically inverts the_Platonic or contemplative understandings of such terms or activities. The Pla-' tonic life of phitosophic transp arency, purity, conformity to the rule, and fix-ify is upended in Cynic practices, which insist that the pursuit of'tr.tttr is bestserved in actively 'defacing the currency" of others' false values and in living .a life demonstrably different than that prescribed by "received wisdomi'fn 'other words, to merit the title "parrhesiast]' a philosopher must continuallyand publicly demonstrate his willingness to test himself and all around him,risking scandal or even death by his very public words and deeds.rs Or, to alignFoucault's terms here with those of Certeau quoted in the introduction, wemight say that the parrhesiast Cynic, because he harmonizes his doctrine andlife through an ongoing process oftesting, represents the philosophic school


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THE MAKING OF MODERN CYNICI5M

0"v0'' i

in antiquity whose "beliefs" most thoroughly organize their "practices" (PELr78).

In one of FoucaultiFlynris most important formulations, the Cynics substi-tute for the Socratic 'bther world' an 'bther lifel' a life whose difference fromother lives resides in how it was lived, not in how it was conceived and justifiedand elaborated. To this formulation I would add that Diogenes and the Cyn-ics' decided preference for an 'bther liff' accords well with both Cynic mini-malism and naturalism, which derive ultimately from the Cynic principles of"adaptation' and "use what is present" described earlier. For their concentra-tion upon an ongoing "style of existence" rather than metaphysical specula-tion, the Cynics were often labeled as gross, libertine, or unphilosophical bytheir philosophical rivals, but Foucault rightly restored the submerged histori-cal and philosophic context that motivated their scandalous behavior and uni-fied their various activities: truth telling or parrhesia as a philosophic "style ofexistencel'

One of the most interesting effects of the parrhesiast hostility to conven-tional values appeared in the characteristic language and 1tyl9 Cylics usedto "deface the currencyi' a philosophical stfFThat-diCtinguished itself fromother schools' styles with its uninhibitedly ironic, shameless, and satirical tone,

i'i6ough these violations of linguistic and social decorum were intended to serveI higher ethical purposes. Such stylistic paradoxes and contradictions seem-impticit in the traditional description of the ancient Cynics' style as terio-, comicl'r6 Yet we should neve;fo1qe!,hoy,_to use Nietzsche's terminology, par-', rhesiastic speech enacts t\6"transvaluation"lpf existing values in the most os-" tentatious and public fashio'n-po-ssible. Parrhesiastic speech accomplishes this

by extending the risky project of Cynic "testing" to the everyday language ofhis audiences (FP ro8).

- r "f For example, in many anecdotes, Diogenes takes some commonplace nameli"'" for something and redescribes rtin ways that render it shocking or absurd, oftenby reversing its conventional moral valuations, so that what seems virtuous to

the unreflective observer is renamed as something vicious, and vice versa. As. Laertius recounts: "He would ridicule good birth and fame and all such dis-tinctions, calling them showy ornaments ofvice. The only true commonwealthwas, he said, that which is as wide as the universe. He advocated community ofwives, recognizingno other marriage than a union of the man who persuadeswith the woman who consents. And for this reason, he thought sons should beheld in common" (DL 6.lz). Good birth and fame are renamed'brnaments ofvicei' and what might have been called "whoring" is simply renamed a 'tom-


munity of wives.' Diogenes therefore uses a risky strategy that I call "moralredescription" to transvalue core concepts of Greek culture like birth, fame,marriage, and family, in order to test them, and thereby reveal their flimsy ba-sis in local custom and circumstance rather than nature.l7It might be easier to understand this ongoing process of testing throughtransvaluationby analyzing one of the most famous anecdotes concerning Di-ogenes. When Diogenes "lit a lamp in broad daylight," he said, "I am lookingfor a man' (DL 6.+t).In the words of the Hellenist A. A. Long, Diogenes'lin-guistic strategy is to turn 'names that are primarily descriptive into words thatonly pertain to those who merit the description."l8 Diogenes searches the city'scrowds to find those few who truly deserve to be called "meni' meaning thosecapable of following his philosophy. This gesture is designed not only to gainevery man's attention (the missionary dimension) but also to test them to seewho is willing to relearn the meaning of "mani'"manhoodl' or "humanity" onDiogenes' strict terms.re

As Long concludes, "in rejecting the standard denotations of certain termsand in renaming certain things, he indicated the gulf between current ethi-cal discourse a4d what he took to be the natural meaning of terms." This no-tion of the lulf bltween the conventional and the natural meanings of terms!g9o-mes ari important trope for the Cyiilc philosophir, *ho is ulways t"st-ing those around him to measure the &qpglity_,b_etween the names applied tothings and what he understands as the natural meanings of those teims. "Be-ing asked where in Greece he saw good men, he replied, 'Good men nowhere,but good boys at Lacedaemon [Sparta]"' (DL 6.zz). And, of course, the Cynicphilosopher was sometimes obliged to call things by their right names, evenif it meant redescribing them to restore the distinction of virtue and vice thathad been lost in ordinary or polite language: "Some one took him into a mig-nificent house and warned him not to expectorate, whereupon having clearedhis throat he discharged the phlegm into the man's face, being unable, he said,to find a meaner receptacle" (DL 6.zz).

The linguistic dimension of Cynic parrhesia and its elaborate strategies ofrenaming should bring to mind the other great rivals to Cyric philosophy inarrcieniGreece, the Sophists and rhetoricians. At one level, this perceived afin-ity is historically warranted, especially when we consider Diogenes' disciple-ship with Antisthenes: before his relationship with Socrates, Antisthenes hadbeen a student of the rhetorician Gorgias; Antisthenes was also deeply inter-ested in the neo-Eleatic logic and wrote on rhetorical topics; moreover, it wasthe fifth-century Sophists who first elaborated the distinction between nature

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32 THE MAKING OF MODERN CYNICISMand convention (phusislnomos) that later became so important for Diogenesand the Cynics.2o

For all those affinities, however, Dudley and subsequent historians of Cyni-cism are surely correct to point out the dramatic differences between Diogenesand the rhetoricians, differences amplified by their rivalry for the attention ofthe Athenian public: Diogenes would characteristically wonder, for example,"that the orators should make a fuss about justice in their speeches, but neverpractice it" (DL 6.28).21As Foucault points out, this divergence stems from theparrhesiastic demand that the Cynic philosopher harmonize his doctrine andlife, even while scandalizing his audience with both. The ancient and earlymodern rhetorician was not expected to speak from a position of personal be-lief, nor did he seek to 'thare in the thoughts and feelings that he [sought] toproduce in his audience"; indeed, the rhetorician's 'treative rold' lay preciselyin "the bridging of this difference."22 In contrast, just because of his lived rela-tion to the truth, the parrhesiast was able to act on others "so that they [could]come to build up a relationship of sovereignty to themselves, with regard tothemselves."23 In other words, both the Cynics and the rhetoricians manipu-lated language, including the moral valences of language, to influence crowdsand individuals, but the rhetoricians never shared the Cynics'project oftestingthemselves and their audiences in the hopes of their ethical transformation.In Foucault/Flynn's terminology, the rhetorician is the'bpen contrary" ofthe parrhesiast because he is a professional who is well-paid for his services,with nothing at stake if his message is rejected; the rhetorician, moreover, hasno need to harmonize his doctrine with his life and never invites his audienceto embark upon the difficult task of ethical self-scrutiny and -transformation(FP rof). To use one of Foucault's examples, the parrhesiast philosopher chid-ing a tyrant, unlike the grammarian safely teaching a lesson to a student, ex-poses himself to genuine danger by speaking the truth.2a In fact, the well-paidprofessional rhetorician often succeeded by manipulating precisely those un-reflective opinions that the Cynic was obliged to challenge. In this respect, Di-ogenes directed the same "ridicule" toward the Sophists and rhetoricians as hedid toward every other ethically useless form of knowledge: "The school of Eu-clides he called bilious, and Plato's lectures a waste of time, the performancesat the Dionysia great peep-shows for fools, and the demagogues the mob's lac-queys" (DL 6.2+). None of these arts and sciences tested or transformed theiraudiences the way that Cynic philosophy did.


Cynic Parrhesia versus Tyrants, the Polis,and Rival PhilosophersIn the course of their 'tritical preachingi' Diogenes and his Cynic followersdiscovered three major obstacles to their project of "defacing the currency":

ftyrants, the crowds in the polis, and rival philosopher$. In each instance, the>aneidotal literature shows Diogenes in his typically caustic mode of parrhesia,testing these representative defendeYs of conventional values to see whetherthey can withstand his truth telling. At the same time, we should view the Cyn-ic's verbal aggression as essentially missionary, even therapeutic: this is why hecould be called a "doctor of souls."2s To invoke Foucaultb terms once again, the ,Cynic's 'tritical preaching" remains a call for an ethical transformation, not ldestruction, of those to whom he addresses his criticisms.

This reading of the Cynics' criticisms as therapeutic rather than destructiveis bolstered by the fact that the Cynic parrhesiast, in his exiled, propertyless,powerless, vagrant state, administers his criticisms from a consciously assumedposition of social inferiority, even abjection. It is in this juncture that we canunderstand Cynic shamelessness not simply as an outward assault against itsaudience's values but as part ofthe larger process oftotal dispossession, and asnecessary preparations for the "shortcut to virtue." This seems to be one of itsmost important divergences from the Platonic tradition, with its fear of demo-cratic rule and its gravitation toward imagined philosopher-kings and real-lifetyrants like. Dionysius of Syracuse. As Foucault observed in his 1983 Berkeleylectures: "Itre parrhesia comes from'belowi as it were, and is directed towardshbovel . . . [W]hen a philosopher criticizes atyrant, whel:!!4n criticizesthe majority,-1'_t_r_eq gupil criticizes his or her teacher, then such speakers maybe using parrhesia."26 fn other words, a Cynic does not merit the term "par-rhesiast" without running the risk of rejection and real physical harm.

TyrantsBecause tyrants, who emblematize state power, present the most obvious in-stance of a threatening audience for the Cynic philosopher, we should beginwith Diogenei- ionfrontations with them and their values, as these values arelocalized in a courtly setting. Here the convehtional values of an entire cityor state have been gathered together and armed, so to speak, in the personof a single, very powerful yet fallible man surrounded by flatterers and para-sites eager to put his wishes into effect. From the point of view of the vagrant

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Cynic philosopher, it is the Cynic and not the tyrant who possesses the mostfreedom, since the tyrant is necessarily imprisoned within the conventionalvalues of a retinue afraid to challenge him. The danger for everyone is that theruler's whims and desires essentially dictate local opinion, so that he lacks anypossible corrective of his errors or wayward desires. The ruler needs preciselywhat he is least likely to receive: honest and, more important, un-self-inter-ested criticism, and this is what the Cynic, the "doctor of souls" administers,whether he is asked to or not.

These encounters also clarifythe distinction between a democratic, politicalparrhesia, which is inseparable from the free speech practiced among the qual-ified citizens in the polis, and Diogenes' own philosophical parrhesia, whichis associated with the subsequent decline of the polis and the emergence oftyrants and their courts as hierarchical centers of power in the ancientworld.2TIn a courtly milieu of luxury, implicit violence, and omnipresent flattery, theCynic philosopher is valued because he abjures self-serving rhetoric and flat-tery in his "free speech."2s

The inevitable point of reference regarding parrhesia and political powerremains Diogenes' encounter with Alexander the Great, one of the best-knownstories in the anecdotal tradition. Diogenes had been outside sunning himselfwhen Alexander approached and asked what he could do for him; Diogenes'only response was, "Stand out of my light" (DL 6.:8). Alexander, unlike otherrecipients of Diogenes' reproofs, was not at all displeased with this treatmentand told his men that if he were not Alexander, he would be Diogenes (DL6.32). As Foucault noted in his 1983 lectures, this is a paradigmatic momentof parrhesiastic confrontation, in which the philosopher bluntly informs theruler how little he needs him. Note, however, that Diogenes does not try to dis-place the ruler from his position of power, nor does he wish to disturb existinghierarchies of political power, but only forces Alexander to acknowledge his in-dependent existence and thereby "internalize [the] parrhesiastic struggle-tofight within himself against his own faults, and to be with himself in the sameway that Diogenes was with him."2e In Laertius's version of the anecdote, Alex-ander affirms their shared desire for independence, along with their equivalentstatus as governors of men. Alexander conquered the world, and Diogenes hisown desires. This parallel, however, only emerges in the risky moment whenDiogenes challenges the emperor, while making no attempt to abolish the es-sential asymmetry of their respective speaking positions. In this rcspect, par-rhesia is a 'philosopher's virtuei' adapting to what is present, taking for granted

,, the huge disparity in power between philosopher and tyrant, and remindingfj even the ruler of the possibility of an'bther lifel'30

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The Polis i< >.', \ t.The second category ofencounters, Diogenes'risky addresses to the crowds inthe polis, shows the philosopher militating against every conventional form ofattachment, from maiiihge and family all the way up to the polis and empire,while stiiving to remain a friend to the whole of humankind. In these, theptriloiophert ambiguously mendicant yet golgrning relation to the crowd isextended to the polis and ultihately to the whole of humanity. For example,Diogenes arrives atphilanthropia(orlove ofhumankind) through exile, an ex-clusion that he characteristically reversed and adopted in the form ofan itiner-ant, cosmopolitan lifestyle. As Laertius recounts, "when some one remindedhim that the people of Sinope had sentenced him to exile, And I them; said he,'to home-staying"' (DL 6.40).

Diogenes' exile and his rejection of the disgrace offered by the city of Sinopehelped transform him into a philosopher, a man capable of a philosophical"way of life" inextricably caught up with the care of others. Though exile wasusually considered in antiquity to be one of the greatest evils to befall some-one, for the Cynic philosopher it becomes the best possible training for phi-losophy: "When some one reproached him with his exile, his reply was, 'Nay,it was through that, you miserable fellow, that I came to be a philosopher"' (DL6.+g).

Exile, or at the very least a cosmopolitan existence, introduces a real dispar-ity between tle philosopher and the rest of humanity, but this disparity para-doxically transforms the philosopher into a "guard dogi' devoted to the welfareof others, a friend of humanity in its widest possible sense, and therefore, inDiogenes'famous words, a"citizen of the world" (DL 6.6:) (FP rrr). Again, asDiogenes put it:

All the curses of tragedy he used to say, had lighted upon him. At all eventshe was

A homeless exile, to his country dead.A wanderer who begs his daily bread.

But he claimed that to fortune he could oppose courage, to conventionnature, to passion reason. (DL 6.38)

Unlike other philosophers, Diogenes refused to participate in the politics ofthe city or polis, refused to own property, and refused to perpetuate the socialinstitutions of marriage or child-rearing except in their properly Cynic, com-munal form. Diogenes discovered freedom in his rejection of everykind of at-tachment, even if that meant .ot rffi.ubi" sacrifices of comfort and economic

THE MAKING OF MODERN CYNICISM 35


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36 THE MAKING OF MODERN CYNICISM

securiry Nonetheless, I concur with the judgment of the classicist John Molesthat the missionary nature of Cynic philosophy appears most clearly in its cos-mopolitan "indifference to place" and its embrace of kinship with humanityin the broadest possible sense, over and against the numerous divisions intro-duced by human conventions and institutions.3l

Rival Phifosophers | 'vr.,, .,-.i. l,'i, ',;i.., ,, ,,,The last series of confrontations with conventional values involve Diogenes'philosophical rivals, whose doctrines he considered intellectually distractingand ethically useless-in other words, purely verbal philosophies. In the ab-senLe of the parrhesiast drive to harmonize one's life with one's doctrine, theconventional philosopher could easily become what Diogenes once accusedPlato of being, 'bne who talked without end' (DL 6.26). And yet what distin-guished these confrontations from Diogenes'challenges to the polis or tyrantswas the fact that he was addressing those with a similar status and function ashis own, without the possibility (or the risk) of criticiz\ng them parrhesiasti-cally, "from belowl' To supply the necessary risks of rejection, then, Diogenesintroduced a number of doubts about whether he himself merited the title'philosopher": by treating his own claims to the title "philosopher" with an ag-gressive irony, by practicing philosophy in parodic, serio-comic forms, and byironically inviting others to treat him as a fraud or a counterfeit philosopher.Consequently, when Diogenes made his parrhesiastic challenges to his philo-sophic rivals, it was not from the safety ofan elaborated theoretical system ofhis own but as a would-be "philosophizer" and parodist, making incursionson their home turf.A "Socrates out ofHis Senses"?To understand Diogenes' fraught relations with his philosophic rivals, wemight begin with Plato's well-known description of Diogenes: a "Socrates outof his senses" (DL 6.s4. This label, though dismissive, has the virtue of rec-ognizing the indubitably Socratic origins of Diogenes' parrhesiastic role assatiric gadfly, while calling attention to the manifest differences between thetwo. In the words of Dudley, "Diogenes represents the Socratic sophos lsageor wise man] with its chief features pushed to extremes."32 In Plato's descrip-tion, Diogenes operates as both a legitimate disciple of Socrates' model of thephilosophic life, and as a potent symbol of philosophical reason fallen intoself-reflection, excess, or even madness.33 The anecdotal clashes of Diogenes


with Plato can therefore be read as genealogical documents of the struggles todecide who constituted the genuine heir to Socratic philosophy.

The deliberate extremity of Cynic philosophy begins to look less idiosyn-cratic, moreover, once we consider the social context in which the Cynics com-peted for the public's attention. Our first clue comes from Hadot's assertion,seconded by other scholars of Hellenistic philosophy, that'philosophy as a wayof life' was an assumption more or less shared by virtually every major schoolof philosophy in antiquity.3a In the midst of a noisy and contentious philo-sophical scene, one that had witnessed the state execution ofSocrates duringAntisthenes'lifetime, and to which Antisthenes was a companion and an eye-witness, the Cynics took the shared assumption of the philosophical "way oflife' but pushed it to a degree that the other philosophical schools were unwill-ing to emulate.35 Accordingly, Lladot has remarked that in Cynicism we havea "highly revelatory example" of a "limit casei' a philosophy that was "exclu-sively a choice of lifei' and in which 'philosophical discourse was reduced to aminimum"-an unsurprising development, once we remember the normativestatus of the minimum in both Cynic doctrine and practice.36

Diogenes therefore assumed the simple but strenuous life of a philosophicalhero to demonstrate to his rivals and the public just how little theory or philo-sophical discourse one really needed to live virtuously. This is the philosophicequivalent of the philosopher throwing away his cup after he saw a little boydrinking from cupped hands, exclaiming, "a child has beaten me in plainnessof living" (DL A aZ\ Yet we shoultl also note the very Greek overtones of athlet-icism and competitive striving in these stories of Diogenes, overtones equallypresent in the pivotal Cynic concept of askesis (training).37Phil o s oph er or Philo sophizer?We can see, moreover, that Diogenes, when challenged to defend his claim tothe term 'philosopher," played a variation on his usual games with the con-ventional and natural meanings of words: "To the man who said to him, 'Youdont know anything, although you are a philosopherl he replied, 'Even if I ambut a pretender to wisdom, that in itself is philosophy"' (DL 6.6+).In a gestureresembling his denial of the term "men" to the crowds of Athens, Diogenes de-nies that he himself merits the title of 'philosopher'l and settles instead uponthe more equivocal title 'pretender to wisdoml'The force of this slightly puz-zling remark is perhaps clearer in William Baxter's 1688 English rendering thanin the standard Loeb translation: "If I do but pretend to Wisdom, even that is toPhilosophize (or affect Wisdom)."38 Regarding Diogenes, the intransitive ver-


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3B IHE MAKING OF MOOERN CYNICISM

"7

bal form "philosophize" seems a more fitting description of his activities thanthe flat static noun "philosophyl'This subtle distinction between philosophyas an activity rather than an abstraction coincides with Hadot's observationthat philosophy as a way of life names the philosopherk continual preparationfor a form of wisdom that nevertheless remains distinct from philosophicaldiscourse.3e Hence, "philosophizing' may very well be the best term we havein English to describe the characteristically ironic Cynic interpretation of phi-losophy as a lifestyle, introducing a hint that the "philosophizer" could be afraud or a counterfeit who merely affects, or pretends to, a philosophy.

By describing himself as nothing more than a pretender to Wisdom (butnot necessarily its possessor), Diogenes locates his philosophic practice some-where between wisdom and outright parody. This suggestion of a disparitybetween the term 'philosopher" and his own practice indicates first of all thatDiogenes conceives his self-training and -testing to be lifelong processes-what we have already seen described as a "style of existencel'More important,this refusal to fix his identity securely either as philosopher or fraud forced hisphilosophic rivals to draw the distinctions for themselves. By alternating inthis way between jests and earnest behavior, Diogenes maintained in his life aswell as his speech a "serio-comic" sryle that consistently blurred the boundarybetween serious philosophy and witty philosophizing'a0 Mingling sense andnonsense together in this fashion is an aggressive act along the lines of Freud's"tendentious jokesi' one designed to expose onei audience as they attempt todistinguish between outward nonsense and underlying insult.Strategies or Tactics?To develop further this distinction between Platonic philosophy and Diogeni-cal philosophizing,we might recall Certeau's valuable distinction between therationality of "strategies" and that of 'tactics" (PEL zg-+z). According to Cer-teau, a strategy is the 'talculus of force-relationships which becomes possiblewhen a subject of will and power (a proprietor, an enterprise, a city, a scientificinstitution) can be isolated from an 'environment.' A strategy assumes a placethat can be circumscribed as pfoPer and thus serve as the basis for gener-ating relations with an exterior distinct from it" (PEL xix).In both militaryand philosophical practice, to draw boundaries, police bordels, and establisha place as one's own is to lay the foundations for a nexus of knowledge andpower capable of growth and endurance. In Certeau's terms, establishing "theproper" (in French, propre, proper, correct, related ofcourse to propri6t6, es'

rj.'

-.,:, ': :Diogenes and Philosophy as a Way of Life

tate, ownership, property) is the first step toward winning a "triumph of placeover time" (PEL z6).

Hence, Plato's philosophy can be seen as a strategic rationality because itcreates and regu[ites itso-*] theoretical realm, thai of "Ideasi' that it designates"iiii o*" "prop"ri'at tie same iimi ttrit it becomes localized in an institution,the Platonic school or Academy that reproduces itsJfin wriiing, teaching, andthetraining of students. The Platonic Academy therefore becomes I qtg-g!_iq1stitutionalized transmission and a model for subsequent philosophy up to thefiesent. Most important, Plato's philosophy establishes itself in such a way thatit becomes invested with what Certeau calls the "power of knowledge" (PEL

y^ .1fi6), a hankering after power and influence that expresses itself most vividly in,tn' . Plato's abortive attempts to counsel the tyrant Dionysius.In contrast, Diogenes' philosophizing "tactics" rely on a calculus that doesnot belong to the localized place or institutional setting of"the proper" because

76is tactical rationality lacks borders, property, or possessions of its o*\Cer-teau describes the rationality of tactics in the following manner: /The place of a tactic belongs to the other. A tactic insinuates itself into theother's place, fragmentarily, without taking it over in its entirety, withoutbeing able to keep it at a distance. It has at its disposal no base where it cancapitalize on its advantages, prepare its expansions, and secure indepen-dence with respect to circumstances. . . . On the contrary, because it doesnot have a place, a tactic depends on time-it is always on the watch foropporturi.ities that must be seized'bn the wingi'Whatever it wins, it doesnot keep. It must constantly manipulate events in order to turn them intoopportunitles. (PEt xix)

Certeau's remarks on the rationality of tactics forge a significant connectionbetween Diogenes' cosmopolitan "indifierence to place]'his shameless'refusalof distinctions or boundaries between private and public behavioc his lack ofinterest in theoretical system-building, and his transient, emphatically tempo-ral mode of philosophizing, which wins its battles opportunistically, 'bn thewingi'and always on another's turf.

Certeau, moreover, citing Clausewitz and Freud, makes three further pointsabout(tactics )t e_q letf_qltlre weqk'l lhat qggld be taken over and applied toCynic iaTr4bsia: tactical thinking demands a capacity for surprise, guile,makeshifts, ruses, and cunning to win skirmishes against the more power-liFand persisten, fora;s of strategic rationality; tactical thinking is therefore


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DLt..!.r,, .^";' " r'- () tiil (ttTHE MAKING OF MODERN CYNICIsManalogous to "wit" in the verbal realm, when a sudden "legerdemain" or sleightoflhand takes an order by surprise, and finally, tactics represent yet anotherlink to the verbal juggling of ancient rhetoric, the Sophistic art of making "theweaker argument seem the stronger" (PEL zz-Zs).

Even if we accept Foucault's strictures against conflating the parhesiastwith the orator, the deliberately weakened position of the parrhesiast seemsto demand a certain kind of verbal wit, intellectual creativitp even adapt-ability, from the Cynic speaker. It is this quality of quick-witled perquasiye-*lu ness-which I earlier identified asimoral redescription or renaming-that theparrhesiast necessarily shares with the orator, a coincidence that will have im-porram consequences for the subsequent reception of Clmicism in classicalrhetoric. Nonetheless, the contrast of Diogenes the tactician with Platot insti-tutionalized, strategic philosophy seems clear.

Consequentl)[.parody and performance, not written philosophic systems ofhis own invention, remain Diogenes'preferred method for testing the views ofhis opponents: "Plato had defined Man as an animal, biped and featherless, andwas applauded. Diogenes plucked a fowl and brought it into the lecture-roomwith the words,'Here is Plato's man.'In consequence of which there was addedto the definition, 'having broad nails"' (DL 6.+o).

As is usual with the "serio-comic" anecdote, there is more to this episodethan what appears on the surface, something beyond a mere clash of personali-ties.ar When Diogenes ambushes Plato, he rudely invades Plato's lecture room,his rival's "proper" space of philosophical transmission, to refute his rival's def-inition with a single unforgettable gesture. We could not ask for a better imageof the moral and philosophical disparity between conventional and naturalmeanings of words-the noble term "man' matched with the sorry sight of aplucked chicken. Diogenes' quarrel with Plato involves not simply the terms ofthe definition but the failure of Plato's philosophy to capture the most salientaspects of the human creature he would define. Diogenes' opportunistic par-ody of Plato's definition takes the featherless biped outside the realm of words. and confronts the students dutifully applauding in the lecture room with the

,,r ) paltriness (poultriness?) of the definition.ri'. ' W" should take note of an especially fateful aspect of Diogenes' showdown,,JJ\,. ' with Plato: Diogenes' insistence on moralizing the gap between his own ethi-

cally drwenparrhesia and Plato's institutionalized version of philosoplry'a phi-losophy of the lecture room but not a way of life. In epsence, Diogenes assertsthat Plato's lectures do not produce a "man" but only a travesty of a man, "Pla-to's man." Thus for Diogenes the entire process of institutional transmission

Diogenes and Philosophy as aWay of Life

and reproduction constitutes an evasion of the ethical demands of philoso-phy and produces neither philosophers nor philosophizers but a sorry-lookingsuccession of "Plato's menl' From Diogenes'point ofview, the institutionaliza-tion of philosophy represents not the triumph of philosophy over time but athoroughgoing perversion ofits characteristic "style ofexistencei' its programof self-testing. Diogenes confronts Plato to show how the institutional tranS-mission of philosophy actually reproduces the moral infirmities of convention(nomos) rather than the philosophic activity of ' defacingl' By the time we reachmodern cynicism, we can see this concern translated into a series of assump-tions about institutions and their 'triumphs over time" that echo and gen-eralize Diogenes' critique of Platonic philosophy: that institutions routinelygenerate disparities between the conventional and natural meanings of words,that the demands of institutional self-reproduction, not beliefs, organize thepractices taking place there, and, consequently, that such institutions do notmerely neglect, but actively betray theirfounding ideals or values.a2 Nonethe-less, each of these assumptions about institutions will need to be revisited inorder to analyze the dynamics of modern cynicism.

I should make one final point before we leave Laertius's account of Di-ogenes as philosophical hero, and consider how the parrhesiastic impulse andthe anecdotal form combined to affect the historical reception of Cynicism.the parrhesiastic exploration of the arbitrary and essentially local nature ofshame helped to,foster both negative and positive images of the Cynic phi-losopher that persisted long after the movement itself had died off as a viable'way of lifei' Though one portion of their audience willingly overlooked theoutrageous, trivial, or unimpressive aspect of Cynicism, another portion con-sistently refused this interpretation, and interpreted the scandalous behavioror language of the mendicant philosopher as "uncharitably" as possible. '

The parrhesiast dimension to Cynicism therefore demands that we treat itnot as a self-contained verbal artifact, tradition, or philosophical "school" butrather as a series of"philosophizing" gestures. These acts of"philosophizin{'were performed upon, and in conjunction with, an audience free to express itsmoral disapproval, rejection, or abuse of the philosopher. This 'philosophiz-ingi' moreover, also included a series of hostile and parodic incursions ontothe territory of other philosophers, who were not shy about answering Cynicwit in kind. The result of all these factors is that the hostile, unsympathetic, ordismissive historical responses to Cynic philosophy constituted a peculiarlylarge portion ofits historical legacy since such responses represent importantevidence for the success of its parrhesiastic mission to "deface the currencyi'

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THE MAKING OF MODERN CYNICISM

The polarized images and counterimages of Diogenes, moreover, were rein-forced and amplified by their anecdotal form, which encouraged a largely anon-ymous, long-term process of telling and retelling, collecting and re-collectingbefore and after Laertius. In this respect, Laertius is only one ofthe few sur-viving examples of what once must have been a long succession of compilers,and his "Lifd' of Diogenes shows all the signs of such shuttling back and forthbetween oral and written transmission: the biographical anecdotes and tradi-tions, which rarely agree with one another, were preserved piecemeal over timebecause each helped illustrate some particular quality of Diogenes' distinctivephilosophical ethos, however understood, and came to be clumped togetherwithout any authorial attempt to resolve their conflicts.a3 Because Diogenesand the Cynics never bothered to produce a canonical literary document or au-thorized foundational statement of beliefs along the lines of Plato or Aristotle'stexts and never possessed a "property'' that would help to classify subsequenttexts as either faithful or unfaithful to the tradition, the legacy of Cynicismwas transmitted as a vast, contradictory corpus of anecdotes-stories withoutauthors or authority-whose meanings could never b e organized into a coher-ent or univocal "tradition."Thus, the Cynic's ironic silence regarding the value of his philosophy alsohelped structure the terms in which the stupid or the insensible could dis-miss him. That is how images of the Cynic as a philosophical hero proliferatedalongside images of the Cynic philosopher as a sham, phony, madman, or lib-ertine. In these curiously matched images of the Cynic philosopher coexistingin the anecdotal tradition, we find the common origin of what one Renaissancescholar has called the "High View" and "Low View" of Diogenes the Cynic dur-ing the Renaissance.aa In effect, both images were authorized and reinforcedby Cynic parrhesia, both images were transmitted piecemeal through the vastcorpus of anecdotes and collections of which Laertius is only a part, and bothimages pervade the work of one of the most important responses to Cynicismin antiquity, the satires of Lucian of Samosata.

Lucian's Passing of Peregrinus ProteusAs I have just argued, the anecdotal images of Diogenes as a philosophical herowere always shadowed by potentially negative responses to his shamelessnessand truth telling. Yet the late-Roman satires of the Syrian-born, Greek-speak-ing rhetorician Lucian of Samosata (ca. rzo-r8o eo) formalized, and in somesense, thematized the tensions between the competing views of Diogenes as


philosophical hero and as fraud. Lucian presents a series of "genuind' (mean-ing, unambiguous) philosophical frauds who,lacking the true Diogenical para-dox of inverted greatness, are nothing more than hypocrites or shams, patheticwannabe philosophers. Lucian, however, is too practiced in the technique ofsatiric inversion, which he directed toward the latter-day Cynics of his own era,and too conversant with Cynic literary forms like the Menippean journey ordialogue, to be regarded in a simplistic way as an anti-Cynical writer.a'The single most important difference between Laertius's and Lucian's ac-counts, produced in roughly the same period of Imperial Rome, is that whereLaertius attempted to reconstruct and restore the true philosophical "way oflifd' emblematizedby Diogenes in the fourth century ec, Lucian decided tostress the unbridgeable historical distance between his own era and that ofDiogenes. Lucian therefore registered the now historical as well as ethical dis-parity between the genuine Clmicism of Diogenes and the fraudulent pseudo-Cynicism of "modern Cynics" of his own era like Peregrinus Proteus. In thisrespect, Lucian "tests" Peregrinus to see whether he merits the term "Cynic"and finds him absurdly outmatched by his historical predecessors.

One of the implications of Lucian's satires upon the modern Cynic is theimpossibiliry or even absurdity, of practical imitation of the Cynic lifestyle,and a turn instead toward a literary re-creation of the Cynic through what thephilosophical historian Niehues-Pr


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THE MAKING OF MODERN CYNICI5M

Nevertheless, in this satire Lucian is clearly out to prosecute the false CynicPeregrinus for his crimes against philosophy. The Passing of Peregrinus offersa trenchant critique of the Cynics' ethos of philosophical heroism and livedphilosophy that goes beyond the earlier polarities ofparrhesiastic reception.

The premise of Lucian's Peregrinus is simple: Lucian writes to his friendabout a recent newsworthy event. In this case, the event is the very real andvery public suicide that the notorious Cynic Peregrinus Proteus had stagedfor himself at the Olympic Games. This piece includes another skeptical ob-server's history of Peregrinus's actions prior to the suicide, an unsympatheticdescription of one of his followers, Theagenes, praising his master, then a jeer-ing and explicit description of the unpleasant physical details of Peregrinus'sself-immolation. Though the description of Peregrinus and the circumstancesof the suicide seem more or less factually accurate, Lucian nonetheless choseto present Peregrinus's character and background as unsympathetically as pos-sible, producing in effect an example of 'hncient invective" designed, in themanner of ancient rhetorical practice, to discredit its target utterly and withoutreserve.as

Lucian's psychological study of Peregrinus, a former Christian and would-beCynic, anticipates many of the paradoxes surrounding modern, disillusionedcynicism. For one thing, Proteus's story is not so much about a philosophicway of life as about the temptations of falling into a degraded, unreflective,hlpocritical, pseudo-philosophical pose: Peregrinus is an antiparrhesiast whohas absolutely refused to harmonize his life and doctrine, deceives others withhis sham philosophy, lacks all integrity, and conceals his deeply conventionalvalues underneath a superficially outrageous exterior. Peregrinus may haveconsidered himself a follower of Diogenes, but he was widely known to be, inone spectator's words, "a man who only used philosophy as a cloaki' runningthrough a succession ofidentities grounded in pathetic outcast groups such asChristians or the urban poor.ae Hence, Peregrinus represents a perversion ofearlier Cynic attitudes toward adaptability, or "use what is presentl' by flout-ing conventional values without any sense ofpurpose or risk about his fecklessphilosophizing.

When Lucian writes his account of the man, Peregrinus had been reducedto a final trick to gain the mob's attention, a publicly announced suicide (inimitation of the end of the Cynic icon Heracles), where he would immolatehimself on a pyre before the crowd already gathered to watch the OlympicGames. Lucian used the risible tale of this "new Diogenes" to demonstrate theCynic's continual need to parade his independence before the crowd. Hence,

Diogenes and Philosophy as a Way of LifePeregrinus, as a would-be leader ofwhat increasingly appeared to be a religiouscult, violated the aspects of Cynicism that always provided its distance frompolitical power or religious authority.50 To use Foucault's description of thestruggle between Diogenes and Alexander, Peregrinus is a false parrhesiast tothe extent that he has betrayed the distinction (hence, the struggle) between"political power" and 'the power of truth" and assumed both forms of powerfor his own selfish purposes.5r In the words of two recent commentators on theCynics, "Peregrinus's theatrical imitation of Heracles" threatened to turn Cyni-cism "into just another cult; and indeed that is always what it is in danger of be-coming merely in virtue of reproducing itself over time, a process that entailsimitation and easily lapses into mere conformity to a type."s2 Lucian, in otherwords, has taken on the same role of "watchdog" that Diogenes once assumedin the plucked chicken episode, ensuring that any modern pretenders to thename "Cynic" merited the title and warning against a process of reproductionthat travestied philosophy.

Yet Lucian's satiric character study also reveals how Peregrinus became en-tangled in his own deceptions while facing death: when finally confronted byhis own funeral pyre, Proteus is visibly shocked when the crowd fails to callhim back from his public suicide. Much to his disappointment, this profes-sional manipulator finds that the crowd is contentedly waiting for the spec-tacle of his death. Instepd, Peregrinus must proceed with the public suicide hehad never really planne*d on committing. When the impatient crowd finallybegins to shout for him to "Carry out your purpose!" Proteus is forced to per-form his Clmicism in the most practical way, even if his final suicidal act hasbeen provoked by the very shame that he had once disavowed.s3 Peregrinustlast act is an unwilling parody of the parrhesiastic harmonization of doctrineand life and ultimately forces him to match his actions with his words in apointless suicide. Though Diogenes had once derived his verylivelihood fromthe crowd, false Cynics like Peregrinus Proteus are punished for their need toshock and scandalize their audiences.

Lucian's early portrait of Peregrinus helped to harden the distinction be-tween true and false cynics, a reworking and stabilization of the distinctionimplicit in Laertius's discussions of Diogenes as a self-conscious philosophizer,a Purveyor of both sense and nonsense. Lucian's influential distinction be-tween true (ancient) and false (modern) Cynics would accompany discussionsof Cynicism for the next two thousand years. Lucian has shown what Cynicshamelessness would look like in the absence of masculine reason and self-possession, and lacking the parrhesiastic drive to harmonize one's doctrines

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46 THE MAKING OF MODERN CYNICISMwith one's life. Peregrinus Proteus has in some way ceased to be a governor ofmen, in the manner of Diogenes, and has become instead a captive and slaveto the crowd that screams for his death. Peregrinus Proteus does not die be-cause the crowd is vengeful, or because he has risked anlthing in his flatteringaddresses to them, but because they are bored. These are the consequences,Lucian seems to suggest, of living and dying for the sake of publicity.

TWO Diogenes the Cynic as"Counsellor" and Malcontentin Early Modern EnglandHence then with those Athenian Timons, those Diogenicalcynics, that make their private mansions the public monumentsoftheir living carcasses and so retire themselves from alloccasions of intercourse that the very doors oftheir habitationdo seem to challenge by way of anticipation the inscriptionfrom their tombs.-Daniel Tuvill,'Of Civil Caniage and Conversation"(16o8)

rrH THrs cHAprER we begin the story of the extraordinarilylong aftedife of Cynicism, when Cynicism ceased as a philosophic movementbut persisted in the form of stories, sayings, and images of Cynic philosophers.For a philosophy qore interested in actions than theories, the fading publicpresence of the movement was especially troubling because it eliminated oneof the most important elements in the transmission of Cynic values: the publicexample of the Cynics' self-testing "style of existencd' (FP ro9). In the absenceof written systems or theories, the disappearance of new philosophers attempt-ing to emulate the Cynic way of life reduced Cynicism to the recorded acts andsayings of a handful of names. Consequently, transmitting narratives about themovement without any corroboration from ongoing Cynic practice eliminateda crucial dimension of parrhesia, its lived tension between the verbal and ethical interests of Cynic philosophy. The loss of this tension, as it was embodiedin the exemplary lives of Cynic philosophers, irrevocably altered the balancebetween Cynic philosophy and the language in which it was transmitted. Atthe same time, this reduction of Cynic philosophy to stories about the Cynicshelped to disperse and even perpetuate their legacy, in the form of innumer-able lives and writings tinged with some recollection of Cynicism.

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diogenes and cynics as a way of life

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