A Brief Conversation With Cicero

This series records Punk4762 ’s conversations with the great thinkers of the past on reason, will, and logic versus appetite, impulse, and the passions of the heart. While this conversation is necessarily philosophical in nature, our goal is a practical application to not only justify our questioning of how we got “here”, but why, as well.

Today, we converse with Cicero on reason and passion:

A Brief Conversation With Cicero

Cicero begins…

Cicero: “... we must keep ourselves free from every disturbing emotion, not only from desire and fear, but also from excessive pain and pleasure, and from anger, so that we may enjoy that calm of soul and freedom from care which bring both moral stability and dignity of character..."

Punk4762: “And here, Tulli, you reference to the passions of the heart that influence human behavior - wonder, love, hate, desire, joy, and sadness - suggesting that a life free of "disturbing emotion" is one in the pursuit of virtue?”

Cicero: Well observed, Punk. And further, “that moral goodness which is our theme depends wholly upon the thought and attention given to it by the mind...", for "... reason commands, appetite obeys.”

Punk4762: “You allude to philosophy's classic “savage man”, my friend, who, without society, is a being of pure appetite and emotion?”

Cicero: An astute deduction, Punk, for "... the body must be trained and so disciplined that it can obey the dictates of judgment and reason in attending to business and in enduring toil."

Punk4762: “Thus, I can declare that, we cannot pursue a virtuous life without mind and body trained to reason over passion, both requirements for the achievement of personal autonomy, and, since the passions of the heart occur, by habit of training, before the reasoning of the brain, through effort the body's habit can be retrained such that the passions obey reason, and not the other way around.”

Punk4762: “Thank you for your time, today, Cicero!”

Questions For The Community?

So then the question is: Are you living in the passions of your heart (wonder, love, hate, desire, joy, sadness) and directed by your emotions? If so, you do not have control over your mind and thoughts (autonomy) and your decisions are not your own - you are obeying appetite and impulse, not reasons and logic.

Why does this matter?

Because those of us directed by emotion, appetite, and impulse are those of us most easily manipulated and controlled.

Now, consider the state of mind most of us are in: highest geopolitical and global threat levels in 100 years, highest credit card debt levels in history at the same time as highest credit card interest rates and lowest level of home affordability, to name only a of the few attacks on citizen psychology:

Is it fair to say that most of us are in an emotional state (which makes us easy to control and manipulate, whether we realize it or not)?

Finally, in a year in which more voters than ever in history will head to the polls as at least 64 countries (plus the European Union) - representing a combined population of 49% of the people in the world - are meant to hold national elections, the results of which, for many, will prove consequential for years to come:

Does logic lead us to realize that what we are experiencing, and the state to which we have been driven, is purposeful, intentional, deliberate, and planned?

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Let me know your thoughts! Thanks for reading!