Diogenes: woke philosopher and full time grifter

The ancients indulged Diogenes because they thought him a joke. Diogenes thought differently...a shallow thinker for our age indeed

It all began with SNP leadership hopeful and Wee Free convert, Kate Forbes, making a speech from a barrel. The image triggered in me a memory of my Dad talking about Diogenes, the Ancient Greek philosopher, living in a barrel. Dad would go on to remind us of another Diogenes meme, him wandering around in daylight with a lantern looking for an honest man. Forbes was speaking on a visit to the Scotch Whisky Experience which explains the barrel and her excellent argument that banning booze ads is a bad idea. But I’m here for Diogenes not Kate Forbes (who despite, or maybe because of, the terrible crime of being a believing Christian, is the only interesting candidate for SNP leader).

Diogenes was a cynic. But ancient Greek cynicism and what we understand by it today are different things. Our understanding of the word is that people's actions are motivated by self-interest so when we hear a politician tell us how much he or she cares, a cynical reaction is to believe they are only saying this because it might help them get into power. Cynicism in this modern sense explains a great deal of join-the-dots conspiracy theory; you’ll have heard people like Carole Cadwalladr tell us to ‘follow the money’ when explaining why their theory of Brexit or Trump or the World Economic Forum has to be true.

Diogenes wasn’t like that at all:

“The program for life advocated by Diogenes began with self-sufficiency, or the ability to possess within oneself all that one needs for happiness. A second principle, “shamelessness,” signified the necessary disregard for those conventions holding that actions harmless in themselves may not be performed in every situation. To these Diogenes added “outspokenness,” an uncompromising zeal for exposing vice and conceit and stirring men to reform. Finally, moral excellence is to be obtained by methodical training, or asceticism.”

Diogenes was, in his lifestyle, an anarchist (albeit a rather moralising one) and rejected the entirety of conventional social mores. In the article I quote above we’re told that Diogenes viewed the family “...as an unnatural institution to be replaced by a natural state in which men and women would be promiscuous and children would be the common concern of all”. And like a dog (from where the word cynic derives), our cynic is indifferent to what others think, is happy to sleep in a barrel and to eat, make love and defecate in public.

Diogenes seems to represent the comedic figure of the wise fool, using his ‘shamelessness’ and ‘outspokenness’ to confront the presumptions of the great and good. So when visiting Plato, Diogenes walks dirt all over his carpet because he saw it as reflecting the great philosopher’s vanity. And when Plato describes mankind as ‘animal, bipedal and featherless’, Diogenes plucks a chicken saying ‘here is your man’.

I am struck that Diogenes remains an underappreciated philosopher (mostly this is because we rely on what other people said about him since his writings are lost to us) as well as one who fits these days of wokeness well. And Diogenes had something for everyone: there are a string of anecdotes about poverty (‘when should a man eat - if rich when he wants, if poor when he can’) accompanied with others that are just pure snark (telling the daughter of a well known prostitute not to throw stones at a crowd in case she hit her father). Diogenes comes across more like a comedian than a philosopher, barrel habitation aside, more akin to Russell Brand than John Grey or Judith Butler. Don’t take this as an observation about the politics or character of these people because Diogenes was ultimately, for all his wit and talk of self-sufficiency, just a grifter. Our philosopher does at times seem to be more about sponging off the rich than living the virtuous life. Diogenes channels the spirit of bank robber Willie Sutton who famously explained his reasoning by saying ‘that’s where the money is’.

Diogenes would have loved social media and his irreverent lifestyle would suit a well-curated YouTube channel broadcast, of course, from a barrel. And because Diogenes is all about screwing the rich and a pox on your social conventions, he’d fit well into an online culture filled with self-indulgent lifestyles designed to shock (and to generate contributions to the alms bowl). But the philosophy of cynicism remains shallowly anti-state and pro-individual meaning that it also helps us understand parts of the hyperliberalism that dominates elite discourse especially in the USA.

For all Diogenes anarchism, the remembered parts of cynicism are more about sticking it to the man than creating anything that looks like a coherent structure for a stateless utopia. In this respect our philosopher is like many hyperliberals who rail against power and control (usually by anonymous corporations and governments) while enjoying a life made possible by those corporations and governments - Diogenes would have Tweeted from his iPhone for sure. So Diogenes attacks Plato for being rich and for being conventional, arguing the toss with the more well-known thinker but merely hinting at the problem with the essential authoritarianism of Plato’s thought. Diogenes proposes a sort of ‘hippydom’ albeit one moderated by self-discipline. The philosophy speaks to lifestyle (live for today, don’t plan, reject ownership, do what you want not what society expects) rather than social structures. Diogenes even makes a virtue out of rejecting any and all social structures.

In modern hyperliberalism we see two trends that draw on this outlook: both about independence and self-determination but one economic and the other behavioural. There are a few who embrace both aspects - buying Bitcoin and embracing polyamory, for example - but most hyperliberals do just one or the other. Most commonly behavioural cynicism is what people adopt. We see this with the discussion of LGBTQI+ where the definition of gender comes to embrace everything from being biologically male or female to dressing up as a bunny rabbit. There are, and Diogenes would have approved, as many genders as there are human foibles around sex or to put it slightly differently ‘JFDI, whatever it may be’.

The problem is that because Diogenes was a wise fool, people indulged his foibles because he was witty rather than because he spoke truth to power. And so it is with high profile hyperliberals whose selfish lifestyles are ignored because we like their films, books, sporting achievement, songs or jokes. That stock joke about the best wine being one you don’t pay for probably comes from Diogenes and gives us a glimpse in the modern world of the Instagram influencer who scrounges freebies in exchange for publishing a brief puff. Again our Ancient Greek grifter would have cheered at this gloriously decadent means of making a living even while railing against the evils of advertising.

Cynicism, whether in its Ancient Greek or 21st century form, is ultimately a fairly shallow philosophy making it perfect for our world of indulgence, decadence and the short attention span. You are either going to be mistrustful and dismissive of everybody’s motives or else opt for an indulgent lifestyle based around getting the most for the least effort while telling jokes and sounding cool. Both are fundamentally selfish with the cynical protagonist contributing little except promoting a negative view of success while, if you are Diogenes, holding out the begging bowl to get a reward for the wittiness of your criticism. Today social media is riddled with people who make it their job to attack capitalism and rail at success while using the modern day version of the begging bowl - the online donation. Diogenes is, quite by accident, the philosopher of social media and this is reflected in the shallow snarkiness of his viewpoint. The philosopher - our wise fool - is more virtuous than you and I because he rejects the constraints of dull, conservative morality. So you should all cough up to pay Diogenes, and his modern ciphers, for telling us (with that gloriously snarky wit of his) we are all terrible people.