Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are,
well, we are not just stepping out of the box.
We are smashing the box, setting it on fire,
and then probably peeing on the ashes to put
it out. That's a pretty good summary, actually.
We're talking about a man who looked at the entire
elaborate structure of civilized society, money.
Status, real estate, manners, even the clothes
on our backs and just decided it was all a giant,
ridiculous performance. A performance he wanted
absolutely no part of. None. Zero. It's really
the ultimate case study in what happens when
you take a philosophical idea and you just you
push it to its absolute logical and frankly,
somewhat terrifying extreme. It is. Yeah. We
usually think of philosophy as something. You
know, soft. Something that happens in a quiet
classroom with a chalkboard or in a library.
Right, with the smell of old paper. Exactly.
But for the subject of today's deep dive, philosophy
was a full contact sport. It was played out in
the dirt, in the street, with, you know, high
stakes and absolutely zero safety net. That's
it, exactly. And to get us into the right headspace,
I want you to erase the image of a university
professor from your mind. I want you to picture
this instead. You are walking through the bustling
marketplace, the Agora of ancient Athens. It's
the center of the intellectual universe. The
heart of everything. You have politicians debating,
merchants selling olives. The Parthenon is gleaming
up on the hill. And there, right in the middle
of all the foot traffic, is this. massive ceramic
jar lying on its side. And inside this jar lives
an old man. And he's not just sitting there quietly,
is he? No, not at all. In the winter, you might
see him hugging frozen statues of the gods just
to toughen himself up against the cold. Wow.
In the summer, he's rolling around in scorching
hot sand. He owns nothing. I mean, nothing but
a dirty cloak, a wooden staff, and maybe a little
leather pouch for food. And he has... barking
at people. Literally barking. Literally barking
like a dog. And yet, and this is the crucial
part, this isn't just some random person suffering
from a mental health crisis who's been abandoned
by society. This is Diogenes of Sinope. The man
himself. He's one of the founders of the school
of cynicism. And despite living in the street,
he went, you know, toe to toe with Plato. He
insulted Alexander the Great to his face and
lives to tell the tale. He really did. Diogenes
is one of those figures where the legend is so
loud, it almost drowns out the actual human being.
When I first heard about him, the cartoon image
in my head was just the guy in the barrel. That's
the classic trope. But looking at the source
material you brought today, we need to make a
correction right out of the gate. Because it
wasn't a barrel, was it? It definitely wasn't
a barrel, no. That's a very common misconception
that comes from much later Roman art in translations.
Okay. We have to remember barrels. Those wooden
casks held together with metal hoops that we
associate with, you know, whiskey or wine aging,
they didn't really exist in ancient Greece during
this time. The technology just wasn't there yet.
It wasn't. Source materials is very specific.
He lived in a pithos. A pithos. Okay, let's unpack
that. Because living in a jar sounds like something
out of a nursery rhyme, not a serious housing
strategy. What exactly is a pithos? So think
of it as the industrial storage container of
the ancient world. It's a massive ceramic vessel
made of thick, heavy clay. That's not glass.
Oh, God, no. Earthenware. They were used to store
things in bulk, things like grain, olive oil,
wine, and they were often as tall as a person.
So when we say he lived in a jar, don't picture
a cookie jar. Picture a human -sized hard clay
tunnel lying on its side. That's a much better
image. Which, I mean, practically speaking, sounds
absolutely miserable. Oh, it would be awful.
Utterly awful. Just think about the acoustics.
Think about the temperature swings. Exactly.
In the Athenian summer, that clay would bake
like an oven. You'd be roasting. And in the winter,
it would be like sleeping on an iceberg. It offers
shelter from the wind maybe and the rain, but
zero insulation. But that was the point. That's
what we have to understand. His mission, if we
want to call it a mission, wasn't just to be
homeless because he was down on his luck. It
was a calculated daily performance art piece.
A philosophical statement. A huge one. He was
challenging the very fabric of social norms.
He wanted to prove that what we consider necessary
for a happy life, a roof, a bed, privacy, all
of it, is actually just baggage. And that is
what we're going to explore today. How does a
guy go from being the son of a wealthy banker,
which, spoiler alert, he was, to a philosophical
beggar shouting at the most powerful men in the
world? It's quite a journey. We're going to look
at his origin story, which involves a massive
financial crime. We're going to look at his rivalry
with Plato, his time as a slave. Yes, he was
sold by pirates. That really happened. It's an
incredible story. And his bizarre debt. But I
want to start with that origin story. Because
Diogenes didn't start out in the gutter. He was
actually born into the 1%, wasn't he? He was,
absolutely. Diogenes was born in Sinope, which
is modern day seen up in Turkey. It's right there
on the southern coast of the Black Sea. And Sinope
wasn't some, you know, backwater village. Not
at all. It was a thriving, wealthy Greek colony.
A major trade hub. It was on the map. So there's
a lot of money flowing through there. Tons of
it. And Diogenes was right at the tap. His father,
a man named Hysesias, was a trapezius. A trapezius.
It sounds like a trapeze artist, but I'm guessing
it's a little less acrobatic. Little less physical,
but probably just as high stakes. It means he
was a banker or a money changer. Ah. In a busy
port city like Sinope, this was a crucial state
-sanctioned role. You have traders coming in
from all over the Mediterranean, all with different
currencies. The trapezius is the guy authorized
to exchange that foreign money for local coin.
So his dad was essentially running the mint,
or at least a major branch of it. Something like
that, yes. This implies that Diogenes grew up
with significant privilege. Right, so he's not
scraping by. He's got everything he could want.
Far from it. Yeah. The sources tell us he received
a private education in things like literature,
horsemanship, and athletics. These were the absolute
luxuries of the rich. He was part of the establishment.
So, I have to stop you there. He's a rich kid.
He has the education, the money, the status.
He's totally set up for a comfortable life running
the family business. Why would a guy with a silver
spoon in his mouth decide to burn it all down?
I mean, that's the question, isn't it? Yeah.
Usually rich kids might rebel a little, you know,
grow their hair long, maybe join a band. But
they don't usually end up living in industrial
waste containers. It's the question that drives
his whole life story. And the answer, or at least
the beginning of the answer, starts with a scandal.
A massive life -altering scandal. Okay. And it
centers on the very thing his father managed.
The money. Sometime around the mid -4th century
B .C., Biogenes and his father, Hycesis, were
accused of adulterating the currency. And adulterating
the currency. That sounds like a very polite
way of saying counterfeiting. It's in that ballpark,
yeah. It's a bit more specific. It means debasing
the coinage so... altering its metal content,
maybe mixing in cheaper metals, or defacing the
official stamp. So you're destroying public trust
in the money supply? Exactly. It's a huge crime.
Now, the historical record is a bit divided on
exactly how it went down. Some sources say the
father did it and Diogenes was just an accomplice.
Some say Diogenes did it and fled. And what happened
to the dad? Well, one version of the story says
Hysesias died in prison while Diogenes managed
to escape. The details are murky. This isn't
just a rumor, right? Do we have any physical
proof that this happened? We do. And this is
what makes it so fascinating. Archaeology actually
backs this up. Excavations have found coins from
Sinope from that specific time period that were
defaced, deliberately damaged with large chisel
marks. Wow. So someone was systematically destroying
the value of... the currency someone was yeah
but here is where the story gets really really
interesting to me okay there's this legend and
with diogenes it's always hard to separate the
man from the myth that he didn't do it out of
greed he wasn't trying to get rich he claimed
he was following orders orders from who His dad.
From a god. Oh, come on. That's the famous Oracle
legend. The story goes that Diogenes, maybe feeling
unfulfilled or confused by his comfortable life
in Sinope, went to the Oracle. This could have
been a Delphi or Delos. Yeah. The sources differ.
Right. And he asks the classic question that
every young man asks in a Greek myth. What should
I do to gain the greatest reputation? A very
ambitious question. Very. And the Oracle, who
is famously cryptic, high on volcanic vapors
and shouting riddles, gave him an answer. And
what did she say? She replied with a very specific
phrase, adulterate the currency. And he just
took that literally. He went home, grabbed a
chisel and started hacking away at the coins
in his dad's bank. According to one version of
the legend, yes, he took it at face value. But
this is where we have to look at the Greek language
to understand the deeper philosophical meaning
that he would later embrace. Okay. The phrase
used is perikarotene to nomisma. Perikarotene
to nomisma. Let's break that down. So nomisma
means currency or coin. That's the straightforward
part. But it shares the exact same root as the
word nomos. And nomos is what? Law. Custom? Law,
custom, convention, the rules of society, all
of that stuff. Oh, I see where this is going.
It's a pun. It's a brilliant, world -changing
pun. The Oracle wasn't telling him to commit
financial fraud. She was giving him a philosophical
mission. Debase the customs. Revalue the values.
She was telling him to take the things society
values, reputation, wealth, etiquette, all the
rules of polite society, and prove that they
are fake. That they have no inherent worth. Exactly.
He later claimed that he had misunderstood the
oracle at first. He wasn't supposed to attack
the metal coins. He was supposed to attack the
currency of human behavior and social norms.
That is such a powerful metaphor. The idea that
our social rules are just a currency we've all
agreed to pretend has value. Like wearing a tie
to work or saying bless you when someone sneezes
or shaking hands. It's all just fiat currency.
And Diogenes' life's work became exposing that
inflation. showing everyone that the emperor
has no clothes. But before he could become that
philosopher, he had to face the consequences
of the literal crime. Right, because the people
of Sinope weren't interested in his philosophical
interpretation. They just saw a guy wrecking
their money. And the consequences were severe.
Catastrophic, really. He was exiled. He lost
his citizenship. We have to stop and really think
about what that meant in ancient Greece. It wasn't
just like moving to a new town and getting a
new apartment. No. Oh, no. In the ancient world,
Your identity was 100 % tied to your city -state,
your polis. You weren't just Diogenes. You were
Diogenes of Sinope. To be in exile was to be
a non -person. A ghost. Yeah. You had no legal
protections. You couldn't own property. Crucially,
you couldn't be buried with your ancestors, which
was a huge spiritual crisis for a Greek. It was
often considered a fate worse than death. People
would commit suicide rather than face exile.
They would. But this is where we see the first
real spark of the Diogenes we come to know. He
didn't crumble. He didn't fall into despair.
No. Instead of being crushed by this, he completely
flipped the script. There's a famous exchange
where someone was mocking him later in life,
saying, the people of Snope have condemned you
to banishment. And what did he say? Diogenes
just shot back, and I have condemned them to
stay in Snoping. That's a brilliant comeback.
You're not firing me. I'm firing you. It's pure
confidence. He claims the exile liberated him.
The historian Plutarch notes that the hardships
of exile are what actually forged him into a
philosopher. He realized that if you have nothing
to lose, you are truly free. If the worst thing
society can do is kick you out and you decide
you don't care, you become untouchable. Their
power over you is gone. So he leaves Sinope,
presumably in disgrace. And he heads for the
intellectual center of the world, Athens. And
he's not alone, right? At least not at first.
Well, there is a report that he had a slave with
him named Mains. This is another really interesting
pivot point. Yeah, you'd think a man about to
preach a philosophy of radical poverty wouldn't
have a slave. Well, remember, he came from wealth.
She likely brought Mains with him from Sindope.
But shortly after they arrived in Athens, Mains
ran away. And most slave owners at that time
would have been furious. They would have sent
a search party, put up notices. That's lost property.
That's money walking out the door. Diogenes'
reaction was the complete opposite. He just laughed.
He laughed. He laughed. And he famously said,
if manes can live without Diogenes, why not Diogenes
without manes? Wait, I want to pause on that.
That is such a radical thought for 400 BC. He's
basically saying the master needs the slave more
than the slave needs the master. It is fundamental
to his entire philosophy. He realized that by
relying on a slave, the master is actually the
one who is enslaved. You're enslaved to your
own helplessness. If you need someone else to
cook for you, dress you, fetch your water, you
aren't the master. You're a dependent. You're
weak. The slave who can survive on their own
is actually more free than you are. So Maines
runs off. And sadly, one source says he was eventually
eaten by wolves, which is a tragic end. But Diogenes
is now alone in Athens. He's poor. He's an outcast.
And he starts looking for a teacher. Right. And
he sets his sights on a man named Antisthenes.
And who was Antisthenes? Antisthenes was a heavy
hitter in the intellectual scene. He was a former
student of Socrates himself. He was already preaching
a kind of proto -cynicism, living simply valuing
virtue over wealth. So he was the logical choice.
He was. But Antisthenes wasn't exactly looking
for new students, and certainly not a scruffy
criminal exile like Diogenes. I read that Antisthenes
actually tried to beat him away with a stick.
He did. The story goes he was very reluctant.
He found Diogenes annoying and physically threatened
him with his staff. But Diogenes just lowered
his head and said, Strike, for you will find
no wood hard enough to keep me away from you
so long as I think you have something to say.
That is incredible persistence. It's also a little
bit scary. It is. It shows that Diogenes was
hungry for truth in a way that just completely
disregarded his own physical safety. And it worked,
by the way. Antisthenes eventually gave in and
accepted him. And Diogenes really took Antisthenes'
teachings and just turbocharged them. He did.
Antisthenes taught that virtue is the only good,
that social status is meaningless. Diogenes took
that theory and turned it into a full -time,
24 -7 lifestyle. And this brings us to the comparisons
with Socrates. You know, Socrates was the gadfly
of Athens, stinging the horse of the state to
keep it awake. He was annoying, sure, but he
was sort of polite about it. He used questions.
But Plato, who was Diogenes' contemporary and
chief philosophical rival, had a different description
for Diogenes. Yes. Plato called him Socrates
gone mad. Socrates gone mad. That is such a perfect
backhanded compliment. It's like saying you're
a genius, but you're also a complete lunatic.
It's incredibly accurate. Socrates questioned
people politely in the Agora, used logic, irony,
the Socratic method. Diogenes used shock tactics.
He didn't ask questions. He made statements,
often by, you know, throwing things. Or by barking.
He called himself a dog. In fact, that's where
the word cynic comes from. The Greek word kynikos
means dog -like. I want to dig into that dog
label in just a minute, but we absolutely have
to talk about the beef with Plato. Because the
stories of them trolling each other are legendary.
They are. And there's one incident that I think
is the funniest thing in the entire history of
philosophy. The featherless biped incident. This
is a classic. And to understand it, you have
to picture the scene. Plato is running his academy.
Right. Very prestigious, very serious place.
Very serious. You've got wealthy students, geometric
diagrams drawn in the sand, very highbrow, abstract
discussions. And Plato, in one of his lectures,
was trying to come up with a definitive scientific
definition for human being. A simple definition
for what makes us, us. Right. And after a lot
of deliberation, he and his students settled
on a definition. Man is a featherless biped.
Okay. I mean, it makes sense technically. Humans
walk on two legs, and unlike birds, we don't
have feathers. It's logical. A bit dry, maybe,
but it works on paper. It works on paper. Well,
Diogenes heard about this new official definition.
And he didn't write a paper refuting it. No.
He didn't ask for a formal debate. What did he
do? He found a rooster, a live chicken, and he
plucked every single feather off its body. Oh,
that's... That is graphic, that poor chicken.
Then he marched into Plato's lecture hall with
his poor, naked, shivering bird under his arm,
threw it onto the floor in front of everyone
and shouted, Behold, I've brought you a man!
Or, here is Plato's man. Oh my god. Imagine this
scene. You're in a serious philosophical lecture
contemplating the nature of the soul and this
crazy homeless guy runs in and throws a naked
chicken at the podium. It completely dismantled
Plato's abstract theory. with a brutal, physical,
and hilarious reality. It humiliated Plato in
front of his own students. So what did Plato
do? He was forced to update his definition. He
had to add, with broad, flat nails, to distinguish
a human from a plucked chicken. With broad, flat
nails. It just makes the whole thing even more
ridiculous. But Diogenes' point wasn't really
about the chicken, was it? It was about the futility
of these abstract definitions. Right. He was
a pragmatist. The ultimate pragmatist. Plato
deals in the abstract, the ideal forms, the ideal
chair, the ideal man. Diogenes deals in the messy
physical reality right in front of him. There's
another story where a philosopher was trying
to argue that motion isn't real. Zeno's paradoxes,
that kind of thing. Exactly. And Diogenes didn't
debate him with logic. He just stood up and walked
away. His actions were his arguments. He hated
pretension. He hated over -intellectualizing
things that should be simple. Absolutely. So
let's get back to the dog thing. He embraced
the title of cynic or kynikos. Why a dog? Most
people, especially back then, would consider
being called a dog a pretty terrible insult.
But Diogenes reclaimed it. He turned it into
a badge of honor. When someone asked him why
he was called a dog, he gave a very simple, practical
breakdown of his behavior. What did he say? He
said, Simple as that. Reward the good, harass
the cheap, and attack the bad. It's a pretty
clear moral code. It is. But there's a deeper
symbolism there, too. Think about how a dog lives.
A dog lives entirely in the present moment. True.
They eat when they're hungry, they sleep when
they're tired, and they... Well, they do their
business wherever they happen to be. They have
no shame. They have no social anxiety. They're
not worried about whether they're wearing the
right toga or if their 401k is performing well.
Exactly. Diogenes saw that as the ideal natural
state, free from all the artificial worries that
plague humanity. And this leads directly to his
extreme asceticism. We mentioned the jar, but
there's the story of the cup. This one really
stuck with me because it shows just how high
his standards for minimalism were. It wasn't
enough to be poor. He had to be efficient. It
really does show his commitment. So at this point
in his life, he possessed almost nothing. A cloak
to wear and sleep in, a staff for walking and
self -defense, and a single wooden cup for drinking
water. Which is already pretty minimal. Very.
But one day, he's walking through the city and
he saw a young boy at a public fountain. The
boy didn't have a cup. He just cupped his hands
together to drink the water. And most of us would
think, oh, that poor kid, he can't even afford
a cup. Diogenes had the opposite reaction. He
thought, I am a fool. He realized this child
had outsmarted him in simplicity. So what did
he do? He immediately threw his own wooden cup
away, saying something like, a child has beat
me in plainness of living. He realized nature
had already given him a perfectly good cup, his
hands. Why was he carrying around this extra
piece of wood? It was just... Baggage. He threw
away his only dining utensil because he had hands.
That is hardcore. It's like a modern minimalist
throwing away their bed because the floor exists.
He did the same thing with a bowl. He saw another
boy who was eating lentils out of a hollowed
out piece of stale bread. An edible bowl. Right.
And Diogenes realized his own bowl was unnecessary
and he smashed it. There's also the story about
the mouse, which seems to be a real turning point
for him. Yes. This is often cited as a moment
of epiphany. He was observing a mouse running
around in the pantry, in the street, wherever.
He noticed the mouse wasn't looking for a soft
bed. It wasn't afraid of the dark. It didn't
crave luxury foods. It just adapted. It adapted
to whatever the environment offered. And Diogenes
took that as a profound lesson. If a mouse can
be perfectly happy with a few crumbs in a dark
corner, why is a human so incredibly demanding?
It's interesting because the expert analysis
here, your analysis in the notes, distinguishes
between actual poverty and the feeling of poverty.
Can you explain that? Because to me, sleeping
in a jar sounds a lot like actual poverty. It
is, of course. But this is a crucial distinction
in cynic and later stoic philosophy. Actual poverty
is just a lack of money or resources. It's an
external condition. Okay. But the feeling of
poverty, that gnawing dissatisfaction, the anxiety
of not enough. That comes from wanting things
you don't have. So a billionaire who is obsessed
with becoming a trillionaire could feel poorer
than a monk. Diogenes would say he is poorer.
He believed that a wealthy tyrant who is constantly
afraid of losing his power or who always wants
more land, more gold, more glory, is actually
the poorest man in the world. Because the tyrant
is needy. Exactly. The tyrant needs armies. Walls,
tasters for his food, constant flattery. He is
a slave to his desires and his fears. Diogenes,
on the other hand, needs nothing. Maybe little
water from the fountain, maybe a crust of bread
somebody gives him. The man who needs nothing
is the equal of the gods. That's the core idea.
That brings us to the behavior that got him in
the most trouble. The shamelessness. And when
we say shameless, we mean he did everything in
public. He did everything in public. We're talking
about eating, which in ancient Athens was actually
considered rude to do in the marketplace, right?
It was seen as low class. It was, yes. Like eating
on a crowded subway today, but with more social
stigma. Yeah. But he went much, much further
than that. He slept there, obviously, and he
performed other bodily functions. We're talking
about urinating and self -pleasure. He would
urinate on people who insulted him. Yeah. And
he would masturbate in the marketplace in full
view of everyone. Okay, I have to play the skeptic
here. Why? Was he just trying to be gross? Was
he just an exhibitionist? Because that sounds
less like philosophy and more like, you know,
a public indecency charge. It wasn't just to
be gross, though I'm absolutely sure he enjoyed
the shock value. Oh, I bet he did. It was a philosophical
argument made through action. Diogenes argued
that if an act is natural, it shouldn't be shameful
to do it in public. We don't hide in a private
room when we eat an apple. Hunger is natural.
Right. Sexual desire is also natural. So why
do we hide one act in shame and not the other?
He was challenging the completely artificial
line that society draws between public and private.
He had a pretty funny quote about it, didn't
he? He did. After being chastised for it by some
horrified pedestrians, he apparently rubbed his
stomach and said, God, that's so blunt and so
brilliant. To him, sexual release was just another
physical itch, like a mosquito bite or a hunger
pang. If you could satisfy hunger by rubbing
your stomach, of course you would. He saw no
moral difference. He refused to assign any magic
or taboo to biology. There's the spitting incident.
This one makes me cringe just reading about it,
but it's so effective. This is peak Diogenes.
He was invited into a wealthy man's house. This
man was very proud of his home. And the house
was immaculate expensive rugs, beautiful art,
polished marble everywhere. So the man is showing
off. Absolutely. And the host, maybe trying to
be a bit condescending, says to Diogenes, be
careful not to spit anywhere. The house is very
clean. Which on the surface is a reasonable request.
A very reasonable request. But to Diogenes, it
was a challenge, a display of vanity. So he takes
a moment, clears his throat, and spits right
in the host's face. Oh, my God. That is assault.
It is. And when the host starts shouting at him,
Diogenes calmly replied that with everything
else in the house being so perfect and clean
and expensive, his face was the only dirty or
worthless place he could find to spit. That is
certainly one way to make a point about vanity.
But it makes you wonder, was he a sociopath?
Or just so committed to the bit that he didn't
care about other people's feelings? I think he
viewed politeness and feelings as... part of
the currency that he was trying to deface he
felt that by prioritizing the cleanliness of
objects over the i don't know the dignity of
reality the rift man had his values completely
backward he wanted to shock the man out of his
vanity he was a slap in the face literal and
metaphorical yes let's talk about the lantern
this is probably the second most famous image
of him right after the jar He wanders around
Athens in broad daylight holding a lit lamp.
Yes, in the middle of a sunny afternoon, holding
a burning lamp up to people's faces in the crowded
marketplace. And when people would ask him, Diogenes,
what are you doing? He'd say, I am looking for
a man. And usually people translate that as,
I'm looking for an honest man. That's the version
I always hear. That's a later, softer translation
that kind of misses the bite. The original Greek
suggests he said he was just looking for a human,
an anthropos, a man. Or more specifically, a
wise man, a sophos. So the implication was even
more insulting than just looking for an honest
guy. Much more. He was saying the people around
him, all of them. Weren't even real humans. Exactly.
He was implying that all the people crowding
the marketplace, buying, selling, gossiping,
politicking, they weren't real humans. They were
just sheep following customs. They were sleepwalking
through life, driven by appetites and conventions.
He couldn't find a single person who was living
as a true, rational, self -aware human being.
He was saying, I see a lot of bodies. I see a
lot of togas, but I don't see any people. That's
the perfect way to put it. This leads us to his
view on where he fit in. Because if he didn't
respect the men of Athens, he certainly didn't
respect the state of Athens. He has this famous
line when he's asked where he was from. Right.
Someone asked him, what is your country? And
he replied, I'm a cosmopolities. A cosmopolitan.
It's the first recorded use of that word. He
likely invented it. He did. But we have to be
really careful not to project our modern meaning
onto it. Right. Today, a cosmopolitan is someone
who, you know, drinks fancy cocktails, travels
to Paris and Tokyo, reads The New Yorker. Or,
in a more political sense, someone who believes
in a global community, like the UN Universal
Brotherhood. We are the world, that sort of thing.
Diogenes didn't necessarily mean we are all brothers
in that kind of kumbaya sense. We have to remember
the context. In 400 BC, the city of the polis
was everything. It was your religion, your military,
your family, your safety net. To say, I am not
an Athenian, was practically treasonous. It was
like saying, I don't have a country. He was saying
more than that. He meant that the city -state
itself is a fake construct, an artificial label.
Being Athenian or Corinthian or Spartan is meaningless.
He belongs to the cosmos, the universe. He lives
by the laws of nature, not the arbitrary laws
of some city council. So it was a total rejection
of politics. A total rejection of the state.
He viewed social norms, or nomos, as being in
direct opposition to nature. And we know he wrote
a book about this called The Republic or Politia.
Which is lost now, sadly. It's lost, but we have
reports from other writers about what was in
it. Yeah. And it was incredibly radical. How
radical? I mean, Plato also wrote a republic
and that was pretty strict with the philosopher
kings and all that. Diogenes' republic was the
anti -Plato. According to the sources, it was
a utopian vision of a world with no government.
He advocated for the end of the nuclear family,
a community of wives and children. He argued
that money should be abolished. Okay, that's
pretty far out there. But then he went into the
really dark stuff. He reportedly argued that
things like cannibalism and even incest weren't
evil in a natural sense. Whoa, wait, cannibalism?
His logic, and it's a cold, hard, and disturbing
logic, was that in nature, animals eat other
animals. Matter is just matter. If you strip
away the custom... the nomos, that says eating
people is wrong. Nature itself doesn't have a
specific rule against it. That is shocking even
today. I mean, that's beyond the pale. It was
meant to be shocking. He was pushing the logic
of nature over custom to its absolute breaking
point. He was forcing people to admit that much
of their morality was just habit, not a law of
physics. If you peel the onion of custom all
the way down, you end up in some very dark, uncomfortable
places. Wow. Okay, so Diogenes is living this
wild, provocative life in Athens, but then his
story takes a dramatic, almost cinematic turn.
He leaves Athens, but not by choice. He gets
captured. This is like an action movie subplot
just dropped into a philosophy lecture. Diogenes
was traveling to the island of Aegina by ship.
And travel in the ancient world was dangerous.
Very. The agency was swarming with pirates. And
these weren't, you know, Jack Sparrow type pirates
with parrots. These were slavers. Brutal stuff.
Absolutely. His ship was attacked and overrun.
Diogenes was captured, put in chains, and taken
to Crete to be sold in a slave market. The irony
is suffocating. The man who mocked slavery, the
man who said, I am the only free man, is now
literally standing on an auction block. But listen
to how he handles it. Most people would be weeping.
begging for mercy, trying to look useful. The
auctioneer asks him the standard question. What
are you skilled at? What can you do? Expecting
him to say farming or cooking or accounting.
And Diogenes, in chains, looks the auctioneer
right in the eye and replies, I know how to govern
men. He says his skill is being a boss while
he's for sale. Yes. And then he points into the
crowd. He sees a wealthy, well -dressed Corinthian
man named Xaniades. And he shouts to the auctioneer,
Summon to that man. He needs a master. That is
the ultimate sales pitch. Buy me because you
are incompetent and need someone to run your
life. It's insane. And it worked. Xaniades was
so intrigued, so blown away by the sheer audacity
of this dirty old man, that he actually bought
him. You have to admire Xaniades, too. He saw
something there. He did. He took him back to
Corinth. And instead of treating him like a field
hand or a servant, he put Diogenes in charge
of his entire household and, most importantly,
his children. So the homeless philosopher becomes
a live -in private tutor. Yes. And by all accounts,
he was an excellent teacher. But he taught them
the Cynic way. He taught Cynides' sons how to
ride horses, to shoot arrows, and to memorize
long passages of poetry. But he also made them
walk barefoot. He made them wear a single simple
cloak. He made them drink only water and cut
their own hair short. He turned these rich Corinthian
kids into little philosophical monks. He did.
And Xenides apparently loved it. He told people
that having Diogenes in the house was like having
a good spirit, a deity, living with them. Diogenes
managed the household finances and affairs perfectly.
Which just goes to show Diogenes wasn't incompetent
or lazy. He was perfectly capable of running
a complex estate. He just usually chose not to.
Exactly. He refused to be freed too, right? He
did. When some of his old friends from Athens
found him and offered to buy his freedom from
Xenides, he called them foolish. He said, So
he saw himself as the lion of the house. He viewed
his position as the true master of the house,
regardless of his legal status. He was the one
with the wisdom and virtue. Zinniades was just
the guy with the wallet. This brings us to Corinth,
where Diogenes is living later in his life. And
this is the setting for the most famous, most
iconic anecdote in his entire biography, the
meeting with the most powerful man on earth at
the time, Alexander the Great. This is the heavyweight
championship of the ancient world. It's the collision
of two completely opposite worlds. You have to
visualize it. It's around 336 BC. Alexander has
just pacified Greece. He is young, maybe 20 years
old. He's on top of the world. He's handsome,
probably wearing golden armor, surrounded by
bodyguards and fawning sycophants. He is effectively
the king of the world. And everyone wants a piece
of him. All the other philosophers, the politicians,
the generals, they're all flocking to Corinth
to congratulate him and get on his good side.
Everyone except Diogenes. He doesn't go to the
court. He stays in the cranium, which was a cypress
grove outside the city. He's just lying in the
sun, maybe scratching himself. He couldn't care
less that the king is in town. So Alexander,
being curious and having heard the wild stories
about this philosopher, goes to find him. The
king goes to the beggar. Imagine the tension.
The entire royal entourage walks up to this old
man and rags. The shadow of the king falls over
Biogenes. Alexander stands over him and, you
know, trying to be magnanimous, he makes an offer.
He asks, is there anything you want? Ask me for
anything. Anything at all. think about what that
offer means he could have asked for a palace
he could have asked for a citizenship back he
could have asked for a mountain of gold he could
have asked for his enemies to be executed anything
and diogenes doesn't even sit up he doesn't stand
he just squints up at the most powerful man in
the world and waves his hand dismissively and
he says yes Stand a little out of my sun. Stand
a little out of my sun. That is the ultimate
power move. It is absolutely devastating. In
one sentence, he reduced Alexander the Great
to nothing more than an opaque object blocking
the light. He showed that Alexander, with all
his armies and all his wealth, couldn't give
Diogenes anything of value. The only thing Diogenes
wanted at that moment was sunlight. which is
free and natural, and Alexander was ruining it.
Alexander's soldiers must have lost their minds.
They probably wanted to cut him down right there
for the disrespect. Oh, yeah, they started laughing
and mocking the old man. Look at this fool disrespecting
the king. But Alexander, he was smart. He silenced
them. He understood what had just happened. As
they were walking away, he reportedly said to
his men, but truly, if I were not Alexander,
I would be Diogenes. That is a profound admission.
It gives me chills every time I hear it. What
did he mean by that? It suggests that Alexander
recognized there are really only two ways to
be truly free and powerful in this world. One
is to conquer the entire world so that no one
can command you. That's Alexander's way. And
the other? The other is to want nothing from
the world so that no one can command you. That's
Diogenes' way. They were two sides of the same
coin of autarky total self -sufficiency. Alexander
was a slave to his ambition. Diogenes was free
because he had none. Wow. The conqueror of the
world was actually jealous of the beggar. In
a way, yes. He respected that freedom. So Diogenes
eventually reaches the end of his life in Corinth.
And true to form, his death is surrounded by
a cloud of bizarre stories and legends. When
did he die? Scholars think it was around 323
or 324 BC. He would have been quite old, maybe
around 90. And the legend, of course, says he
died on the exact same day as Alexander the Great,
who died in Babylon. That is almost certainly
a myth, a poetic touch made up later to link
them together forever. But it does signify the
end of an era. The theories on how he died are
just wild. They're all over the place. One popular
theory is that he ate a raw octopus. Why on earth
would he eat a raw octopus? To prove that cooking
was an unnecessary and artificial custom, he
wanted to eat like an animal. But the octopus
was raw. and either choked on it or died of severe
food poisoning or cholera. Death by raw octopus,
that's very on -brand for him. It is. Another
theory says he was trying to feed an octopus
to some dogs, got bitten by one of the dogs in
the scuffle, and the wound got infected, and
he died of gangrene. But there's a weirder one,
the suicide theory. Yes, the theory that he voluntarily
held his breath until he died. Is that even medically
possible? I feel like if you hold your breath,
you just pass out. and then your body just starts
breathing again? You are 100 % correct. Your
autonomic nervous system forces you to breathe.
You cannot kill yourself simply by holding your
breath. So it's a myth? It's a myth, but as a
philosophical legend, it fits perfectly. It implies
he had such total superhuman control over his
body and its desires that he could simply choose
to leave life when he was done with it, like
turning off a light switch. And then there's
the most likely and most boring cause of death.
Old age. He was 90 years old, living outside,
sleeping in the dirt. It was probably just time.
But the show wasn't over. He had instructions
for his burial. Or rather, his non -burial. He
told his friends to just throw his body over
the city walls for the wild beasts to eat. Just
garbage disposal. Recycle me back into nature.
Yes. And his friends were horrified. They asked
him, you don't mind being eaten by birds and
wolves? And Diogenes, even on his deathbed, made
one last joke. Was it? He said, not at all. Just
make sure you give me a stick to chase him away.
I love that. And his friends were like, Diogenes,
you'll be dead. You can't use a stick. You won't
be aware. And he delivers his final lesson. If
I am unaware, then why should I care what happens
to the body? Even in death, he was teaching.
He was showing that the body is just a vessel.
Once the person is gone, the meat doesn't matter.
Our funeral customs are for the living, not the
dead. In the end, the Corinthians didn't listen
to him. They were too fond of him. They buried
him with honor by the city gate. They even erected
a pillar with a statue of a dog and parian marble
on top of it. Which is deeply ironic, considering
how much he hated monuments and statues. But
let's talk about his legacy. Because Diogenes
didn't just die and vanish. His ideas rippled
out and actually formed the basis for a much
more famous and much more mainstream philosophy.
Hugely. His most famous student was a man named
Crates of Thebes. And Crates taught a man named
Zeno of Sidium. And Zeno is the founder of Stoicism.
So the entire school of Stoicism, the philosophy
of people like Seneca, Epictetus, the Roman emperor
Marcus Aurelius, all of that traces its DNA directly
back to Diogenes barking at people in his jar.
But Stoicism is so different. It's so... polite.
It's about duty and self -control within society.
Stoicism is like the polite buttoned up version
of cynicism. It's cynicism in a suit and tie.
Stoicism took the core ideas that virtue is the
only good. You should live according to nature.
You should ignore wealth and status. But they
smoothed out all the rough antisocial edges.
They decided you could live in a nice house,
hold a job and wear clean clothes and still be
virtuous on the inside. Exactly. You didn't have
to pee in the street to be free. We also have
to mention a modern medical term that bears his
name, Diogenes Syndrome. Yes, this is a real
clinical term. It's used to describe a disorder,
usually in elderly people, characterized by extreme
self -neglect, domestic squalor, and compulsive
hoarding. But based on everything we've just
discussed, that seems incredibly unfair to Diogenes.
It's a complete misnomer, a total misunderstanding
of the man. Diogenes wasn't a hoarder. He was
a radical minimalist. He threw things away. Hoarders
surround themselves with junk. Diogenes surrounded
himself with nothing. And Diogenes syndrome is
characterized by social withdrawal people hiding
in their homes. Right. And Diogenes was out in
the Agora every single day engaging with people,
arguing with them, shouting at them. He was hyper
-social. So the medical community kind of got
that one wrong. They focused on the filth but
completely missed the philosophy. He's also iconic
in art. You see him in Raphael's famous painting,
The School of Athens. He's hard to miss. You
have all these dignified philosophers, Plato,
Aristotle standing in groups, arguing, holding
books. And then there is Diogenes sprawling on
the steps in his blue rags, just basking. totally
alone, ignoring everyone. Even in the painting,
he's an obstacle tripping up the passersby. So
we've unpacked the man, the myth, and the jar.
It's been a wild ride. But what does this all
mean? Why does the guy who died over 2 ,300 years
ago still matter to us? I think Diogenes matters
because he is the ultimate mirror. We live in
a society that is incredibly complex. We are
obsessed with brands, with likes on social media,
with job titles, property values, with keeping
up with the Joneses. We're constantly stressed
about things that... in the grand scheme of nature,
don't even exist. Exactly. He forces us to ask,
is this real or is this just painted currency?
You don't have to move into a jar to learn from
Diogenes. You don't have to, you know, do what
he did in the marketplace. Please don't. Please
don't. But you just have to look at your own
life and ask, how much of my anxiety comes from
trying to impress people I don't like or from
following rules that don't actually make sense?
He challenges us to be brave enough to be ourselves,
even if it means looking a little crazy to everybody
else. That is the takeaway for me. We are all
playing a game. We are all acting out a part.
Diogenes was the only one brave enough to stand
up, flip the board over, and walk away. Before
we go, here is a final provocative thought for
you to chew on. Diogenes claimed his life's work
was revaluing the currency. He believed that
our shame, the shame of being poor or naked or
different, was artificial a fake coin so the
question is if you had to look at your own life
right now your possessions your social obligations
the things that keep you up at night stressing
which of those are fake currency that diogenes
would tell you to throw away and if you threw
them away would you be poor or would you actually
be free thanks for diving deep with us see you
next time