Are you ever intimidated by the academy? Do you ever feel like the single Philosophy 101 course you took in college is an insufficient recommendation for you to hold your own during dinner-party arguments? “Ooh, I don’t know any Latin, I probably don’t stack up too great compared to scholars of the past.” Okay, well, stop feeling inadequately prepared at once because 1000% of Greek philosophy was just this:
“Zeno is described as a haggard, tanned person, living a spare, ascetic life. This coincides with the influences of Cynic teaching, and was, at least in part, continued in his Stoic philosophy. From the day Zeno became Crates’s pupil, he showed a strong bent for philosophy, though with too much native modesty to assimilate Cynic shamelessness. Hence Crates, desirous of curing this defect in him, gave him a potful of lentil-soup to carry through the Ceramicus; and when he saw that Zeno was ashamed and tried to keep it out of sight, Crates broke the pot with a blow of his staff. As Zeno began to run off in embarrassment with the lentil-soup flowing down his legs, Crates chided “Why run away, my little Phoenician? Nothing terrible has befallen you.”
Okay? Okay. Like: don’t let the past intimidate you. It was just tanned guys too embarrassed to carry soup through Athens without spilling it, and their teachers yelling, essentially, “Stop hitting yourself” at them. The past was absolute nonsense. And it’s these guys we credit with inventing philosophy! What if I made someone from Phoenicia feel bad about carrying a bowl of lentils, truly I have discovered the life of the mind.
A of all, if your society considers it embarrassing to carry a jug of legumes in public, your society needs some serious work; B of all, if your philosophy instructor thinks spilling soup on your thigh-meat in public and yelling out what town you were born in is an effective method of treating social anxiety, you need a better teacher. Fix your life, classical Greek thinkers! The inheritance of Socrates has got to be more than just, like, some spilled pulses. “Ooh, we’d better all think a lot about rhetoric.” Do we?? Because the same dudes who invented that also thought public stew-based humiliations are an effective treatment for low self-esteem.
You’re doing fine. Honestly. Whatever you’re doing in your life, you are thinking great thoughts and inspiring great deeds in comparison. Soup-yelling motherfuckers.
Aw, shucks, thanks Mallory. I feel very validated that you think I am doing great deeds in comparison to Zeno.
I mean, Zeno did a lot of thinking, but he never really went anywhere, you know?
oh my god
Cynics! This reminds me of a section in City of God where Augustine mocks the Cynics, who are supposed to be all counter cultural and have no shame in anything etc by writing that despite their attitude, if they were to have sex in public in full view of everyone, they would really be too scared and ashamed to have and maintain an erection. No one does these things in philosophical debates anymore, and the world is diminished for it.
omg I also did not learn this in college!!!! my entire education was a lie 🙁
Did he miss where Diogenes masturbated in public (as any good philosopher should)?
“Behaving indecently in public, he wished “it were as easy to banish hunger by rubbing the belly.””
To be fair to Augustine, Diogenes wasn’t who he was addressing at the time.
With how the election is going I’m pretty sure we’re gonna hit this level in the political debates soon.
I think we hit this level some time ago and it didn’t even slow us down.
*please* tell me he invoked adam’s prelapsarian, there-when-you-need-me-buddy boner.
Anxiety caused by spilling delicious lentil soup instead of getting to eat it
Is this where I post my fave lentil soup recipe? It’s spicy and has tomatoes and kale!
Yes. This is where you do that thing.
YES. YES IT IS.
This is my fave:
Non-Penitential Lentil Soup
Quick note on the name: My roommates both lived in vegetarian communal households during college and had eaten what they called “penitential” vegetarian foods–dishes that was healthy and all, but basically tasteless, as though the eater was being punished for something. Including occasional lentil soups with no flavor. This, however, is a delicious lentil soup, and therefore, non-penitential. It could more accurately be called:
Spicy Lentil Soup with tomatoes and kale
One onion, chopped
A few cloves of garlic, minced
A couple tbsp of oil
2 tsp (or more) hot paprika (Note: I really love hot paprika. If you love hot paprika, you will probably want to use more. If you don’t, or if you don’t know if you do, just stick with the 2 tsp.)
1/2 tsp thyme
4 cups stock (or water with the necessary amount of bullion)
1 cup lentils
1 28-oz can diced tomatoes (don’t drain)
1 bunch kale–I like the ruffly purple kind
Saute the onion, paprika, and garlic in the oil until the onion is translucent, stirring frequently. Add the thyme, stock, lentils, and tomatoes, and turn up the heat. Once it comes to a simmer, turn it down and put the lid on and simmer until the lentils are cooked through, about 45 minutes. Near the end of the cooking time, rinse and de-stem and chop up your kale. Add it after the lentils are done, a few handfuls at a time, stirring after each addition. Once all the kale is in, put the lid back on and cook for five minutes, or until the kale is cooked to your preference. Taste it to see if it needs more salt, it probably won’t if the canned tomatoes were salted.
Healthy, cheap, AND delicious! It’s pretty substantial on its own, but a good fresh bread would probably be lovely for dipping into the soup.
28 oz seems like a lot of tomatoes?
The more tomatoes, the more tomato flavor and the less penitential the soup.
Here’s my fav, just because it’s ridiculously easy but very good:
Basic Lentil Soup
Combine:
1/2 lb. lentils
6 c. water
Cook 30 minutes or until lentils are tender.
Add:
2 carrots (or parsnips), chopped or sliced
1/2 c. onions (can be green)
1 clove garlic, crushed.
1 1/2 c. tomato juice
1/2 c. minced parsley
1 T. margarine
1 1/2 t. salt
dash pepper
1/2 t. dried oregano
Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer just until carrots are tendr.
Check seasongins and serve
Brb copying this for future reference………
The Toast is magic. I bought some lentils yesterday for soup, but the Joy of Cooking recipe calls for celery, to my bitter disappointment, for I have no celery. The Toast, I say, is magic; and raqueue is magic; and whatever the seasongins are, I’m sure they’re magic, too.
Listen, I minored in philosophy at a liberal arts college and never ONCE did any of my zany professors bring this lentil-soup-shaming incident to my attention.
I would like my $40,000 back now, please.
This shows that my decision to drop Philosophy and take a class on Virgil instead was the right choice
I mean, some of it was Plato arguing that ACHILLES was the bottom- sorry, “the beloved”- not Patroclus, how dare you insinuate otherwise!
Shipwars: uniting us across the ages.
I am ALWAYS here for ancient philosophers arguing about who topped
Finally Proof that my argument that Batman, whoever he sleeps with, is in no way a top, has anicent, venerable philosophical precedent!
I feel like Batman would be an emotionally exhausting sexual partner. He’d cry a lot, and then lament the Heavy Burden of Responsibility that weighs him down. And he’d probably feel guilty about something minor, thereby completely ruining the moment.
Batman would be the huffy kind of bottom who only wants to be dommed in a very specific way, and if at any point you deviate from the fantasy script in his head that he has failed to communicate to you, he will be sulky and passive-aggressive for the rest of the night.
And sometimes he’d want you to wear a really creepy clown mask.
Exactly my thinking. Sex with batman would be frustrating and unrewarding. Hell, all his villains are just aspects of himself he’s painfully repressed, thr man couldn’t let go and relax to save his life.
TIL: I am Batman
TIL: like half of my sexual partners have been Batman
Oh my god, I’m talking on Twitter to a friend about this and reading some stuff right now because I only knew about Plato, and I thought: I wonder who ELSE argued about this? And I have to post what I’m learning.
Turns out the tragedian Aeschylus (whose work I am least familiar with out of the extant Greek tragedians, so this has been fun) wrote a trilogy of now-lost plays about Achilles and subscribed to the idea that a) they were banging and b) Patroclus was definitely the bottom. Which Plato got very, very sniffy about.
Greek ancients: they have arguments about their headcanons, just like us!
I’m now imagining some beautiful Achilles/Patroclus vs. Patroclus/Achilles kerfuffle, and it’s filling me with sweet nostalgia.
The Iliad fandom: basically the old world Naruto fandom.
I wonder if there’s an ancient Greek equivalent to fandom_wank.
Diogenes.
Fair enough.
I swear they switched. Look at the Nikolai Ge painting and fight me.
“Nothing could restrain Achilles except the thighs of Patroclus.” Mmhmm.
Ancient Greek gender roles were, in fact, stupid and limited.
If you’re Achilles do you care that much?
Oh, they were clearly switching all the time. But the poor philosophers just couldn’t understand something like that.
I mean, about half of Euripides’ plays are basically him rewriting plays by Aeschylus and Sophocles to “correct’ their interpretations of the myths. Like, there are whole passages in Elektra making fun of the Libation Bearers.
…Wow, people really don’t change, do we.
You know, if you think about it, the Trojan War itself was a shipping war: the Greeks shipped Helen/Menelaus, the Trojans shipped Helen/Paris, they were unable to reconcile their differences, and so had to do battle.
Wait, the whole “face that launched a thousand ships” thing …?
You just know there was that one person going “polyamory solves all love triangles”.
I was about to come down firmly on Zeno’s side as the reasonable, normal person in this whole incident, but then I read the wikipedia article and what? WHAT?
Zeno died around 262 BC.[a] Laërtius reports about his death:
As he was leaving the school he tripped and fell, breaking his toe. Striking the ground with his fist, he quoted the line from the Niobe:
“I come, I come, why dost thou call for me?”
and died on the spot through holding his breath.[25]
WHAT
He tantrumed himself to death.
That is AMAZING. A++.
Apparently there was a famous bit in the poem Niobe in which Charon, ferryman of the dead, gets impatient with a dying person and starts hinting that it’s time to weigh anchor. “I’m coming, I’m coming, hold your dang horses,” is the dying character’s response.
Zeno was 72 when he broke his toe. He interpreted the accident as a sign that his body was done, the good times were over, and the future held nothing but pain and infirmity; Charon, in other words, was suggesting that he get a move on.
This is even better with context, thank you
Yeah, getting old is like the last thing Greeks wanted to do. Homer is full of people wanting to APPROACH old age, but the unsaid rest of the sentence is “and then get run through the liver by a spear.” I guess holding one’s breath (or drinking hemlock) is the next best thing.
Wait but I thought that like, dying by holding your breath is not possible, because your body’s survival instincts kick in and you take a breath reflexively? No?
THIS little Phoenician is now very hungry for some soup
My little Phoenician
I used to wonder about philosophy
My little Phoenician
Until you all spilled your soup onto me
This little Phoenician went to market
This little Phoenician stayed home
This little Phoenician had lentil soup
This little Phoenician had none
This little Phoenician cried “Wee wee wee wee!” all the way home.
+ 1 Friendship is Magic
The only sensible person in preSocratic philosophy:
“There is a story that on one occasion, while a woman servant was leading [Thales] through the fields by night in order that he might observe the stars, he stumbled into a ditch; whereupon the woman as she helped him out remarked, ‘How can you expect to know all about the heavens, Thales, when you can’t know what lies under your own feet?'”
I love it.
I would watch a movie about all the women who had to work to keep these Super Smart Historical Dudes alive, fed, and in clothing, and how they all meet secretly at night to drink wine, eat cheese and drag philosophers.
Heck, I would watch a full season of this
Oh, you mean like Rousseau’s servant/mistress and Descartes’ servant/mistress? Or the women of the household of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who cooked plenty for Thoreau while he was off being “self-sufficient” in Walden? All the invisible women, hidden beyond the margins of philosophy, who dealt with base and worldly matters so the Great Philosophers could keep their minds fixed on Higher Things? Yes. Yes, I would watch the hell out of that movie.
Martha, getting dinner on the table and making sure everybody was comfortable so her sister and the male disciples could hear the Word.
I didn’t know I needed this until now
Rousseau’s childhood landlady who spanked him twice, apparently *immediately* realized she was encouraging a fetish, and never did it again!
Although twice was apparently two times too many: “To fall at the feet of an imperious mistress, obey her mandates, or implore pardon, were for me the most exquisite enjoyments…”
Unfortunately, “It will be readily conceived that this mode of making love is not attended with a rapid progress or imminent danger to the virtue of its object,” I mean, yikes, *zing*, but “though I have few favors to boast of, I have not been excluded from enjoyment, however imaginary,” which…I think means that he was just fine being dominated without, er, consummation? Or else that he was content to jerk off about it?
Either way, he decided to *begin* his autobiography with this anecdote, on the grounds that if he could get that out there without dying of embarrassment, he’d have no trouble with the rest. I have to admit that is pretty gutsy, dang.
Annabel Lyon’s The Sweet Girl is not exactly about this (it’s about Aristotle’s daughter, partly growing up and partly surviving after Aristotle’s death as an (over)-educated unmarried (it’s complicated) woman who is also a Macedonian in Athens at a time when that’s really not a very popular thing to be. I really liked it!
I have a story about this. In my freshman year of college, I dropped my cellphone on the soccer fields in back campus, and wondered where it was for a few days until it showed up in my campus mailbox, with a note from the faculty member who found it, referring to me as Thales, reminding me to look down as well as up, and to avoid stumbling into any wells.
“You’re doing fine. Honestly. Whatever you’re doing in your life, you are thinking great thoughts and inspiring great deeds in comparison.”
I like to think so, especially lately (I am thinking great thoughts about helping a young girl and her horsey desires but thinking and doing are two separate things, yes?).
Somewhat off-topic, but as a kid I taped the David Macaulay historical architecture specials off of PBS to watch over-and-over (Cathedral, Castle, Pyramid, Roman City) and each of these programs had little animated bits strewn in with characters telling the story of building the thing. To make a long story short, thanks to Roman City the phrase “At least I don’t have to go to PHOENICIA” is a staple in my family.
Macaulay’s _Motel of the Mysteries_ is the absolute best!
Ah yes, the Ceremonial Neckpiece.
When in archaeological doubt: “It’s for ritualistic purposes”
Francis Pryor? Is that you?
Wait, there were PBS specials? When?! I was obsessed with those Macaulay books as a kid, especially the Cathedral one.
OMG THEY WERE ACTUALLY BRITISH OR SOMETHING AND I TAPED THEM OFF PBS DURING A TELETHON SO I WOULD HAVE TO FAST FORWARD FOREVER WHILE WATCHING TO SKIP ALL OF THE “PLEASE DONATE NOW” BULLSHIT
They are all on DVD now: http://www.amazon.com/Macaulay-Collection-Cathedr…
(the mill one is newer, that didn’t exist when I was little)
But the DVDs are hella overpriced, so just watch them online (I know at least a couple are on youtube)
This is way late, but thank you!!
So it’s a bit like when one of the Blythe daughters believed it was humiliating to be seen carrying a cake?
Well carrying a cake instead of just eating it is obviously a terrible sin.
I gucking love the Cynics. Let us never forget that Plato once defined man as an upright-standing creature with no feathers, so Diogenes waved a plucked chicken around and yelled (basically) “Look, fuckwads, I brought you Plato’s fuckin’ man!” And Plato changed his definition to add “with flat wide nails.”
Shame Diogenes didn’t think to just go give it a set of nice false nails, I’d like to know what other minor feature Plato would have mentioned. Knees, maybe? Do chickens have knees?
Yes they do. Between the thigh and the drumstick.
On the other hand, theology is mostly just blowhards crying about having once eaten an illicit pear decades before, so not much improvement there.
IDK IDK I still think Anselm is worse than Augustine:
“God must be real because if God were imaginary that would suck but I’ve defined God as awesome so therefore God must be real”
THE BOOK
When I first read that in college I was like, “WHAT THAT CAN’T BE WHAT HE SAID THAT’S THE STUPIDEST THING I’VE EVER HEARD.”
also about having been too emotional about their fandom and their Problematic Ship back when they were teenagers. Don’t forget that part.
I studied philosophy in university AND had lentil soup for lunch.
Not sure if this means I’m living my best life or my worst one. (no one has yelled at me today, though)
Well, if no one has yelled at you, it can’t be your worst life.
Clearly, your best life. Keep up the great work!
My ancestors, a bunch of soup-yelling motherfuckers. Hell, my modern relatives are a bunch of soup-yelling motherfuckers too.
I love those soup yelling Cynic motherfuckers.
“A of all” is clearly the best way to start a list ever.
Is it just me, or does the fellow in the illustration bear a certain time-worn resemblance to Donald Drumpf?
Whoa. I totally see it.
“Zeno is described as a haggard, tanned person, living a spare, ascetic life” whereas whozit is a nasty-white potato, so just a bad pic, I think.
I thought this was going to be about Pythagoras and his NO BEANS policy.
Because, ya know, farts.*
*One theory why beans = evil in Pythagorean esotericism.
We read a bit of Empedocles in one of my Greek classes and I have never forgotten this immortal fragment:
Wretches, utter wretches, keep your hands off beans!