From the Cynics’ self-sufficiency to an ecology of wanking | Aeon Essays

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is the Lyman-Roberts Professor of Classical Languages and Literature at the University of Vermont and a sheep farmer. His recent books include Plato’s Pigs and Other Ruminations: Ancient Guides to Living with Nature (2020), How to Say No: An Ancient Guide to the Art of Cynicism (2022) and How to Care About Animals: An Ancient Guide to Creatures Great and Small (forthcoming, 2023). He lives in Shoreham, Vermont. Edited byNigel Warburton Ian Douglas Rushlau An essay that previously appeared in Aeon (’The Herd in the Head’/ 2022) used the character of Diogenes as an exemplar of living according to one’s philosophy. I’ll recycle a part of my comment in reply to that essay, which captures my reaction to the veneration of Diogenes and his public conduct– *Diogenes, Soractes’ contemporary (and by all accounts, nemesis) operated on the fringe, the margins, of Athenian society, in every way. I vacillate whether Diogenes is an icon of living according to principles taken to its logical conclusio

In his sixth Discourse, the orator Dio Chrysostom (c40-120 CE) relates a curious detail about the Cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope (404-323 BCE). Diogenes, Dio tells us, was particularly fond of the myth about the god Pan’s discovery of masturbation. By Dio’s time, Diogenes himself was already famous for the practice, owing to his public displays. ‘If only it were so easy to relieve hunger by rubbing one’s stomach,’ he is reported to have said when confronted about it. ‘When fish need to ejaculate,’ he observed another time, again in self-defence, ‘even they are more sensible than…

From the Cynics’ self-sufficiency to an ecology of wanking | Aeon Essays

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