What I really like about this quote is Musonius' emphasis on how lost we are if we are not part of a community. That's a very rare point of view in Stoicism.
"Tell me, then, shouldn't everyone do things for his neighbor as well as for himself and thus make sure that his city has thriving families and that it is not a wasteland? Isn't this how commonwealths thrive? To say that each should look only to his own affairs is to admit that a human being is no different from a wolf or any of the other wildest beasts whose nature it is to live by force and greed. They spare nothing that they can devour, they have no share in companionship, they take no part in working with each other, and they have no share in anything just. But you will agree that human nature is very much like that of bees. A bee is not able to live alone: it perishes when isolated."
- Musonius Rufus, Lectures 14.3
Coin, depicting a bee, from the Ancient Greek city Ephesus.
I certainly agree. A lot.of modern followers of Stoicism seems to think that it is a philosophy that wants to teach us to be tough, independent loners that don't really care about anything other than ourselves. Strangely, that group of modern "Stoics" often points to Epictetus to justify their worldview. Here are two quotes from Epictetus that makes it abundantly clear that Stoicism is all about community:
"What are you? A human being. Now, if you consider yourself in isolation, it is natural for you to live to an advanced age, to be rich, and to enjoy good health; but if you consider yourself as a human being and as part of some whole, it may be in the interest of the whole that you should now fall ill, now embark on a voyage and be exposed to danger, now suffer poverty, and perhaps even die before your time. Why do you resent this, then? Don’t you know that in isolation a foot is no longer a foot, and that you likewise will no longer be a human being? What, then, is a human being? A part of a city, first of all that which is made up of gods and human beings, then that which is closest to us and which we call a city, which is a microcosm of the universal city."
-Epictetus, Discourses 2.5.25
"you’re a citizen of the world and a part of it, and moreover no subordinate part, but one of the leading parts in so far as you’re capable of understanding the divine governing order of the world, and of reflecting about all that follows from it. Now what is the calling of a citizen? Never to approach anything with a view to personal advantage, never to deliberate about anything as though detached from the whole, but to act as one’s hand or foot would act if it had the power of reason and could understand the order of nature, and so would never exercise any desire or motive other than by reference to the whole. The philosophers are thus right to say that if a wise and good person could foresee the future, he would cooperate with nature even if it came to illness, death, or mutilation, because he would recognize that these are allotted as a contribution to the ordering of the whole, and that the whole is more important than the part, and the city than the citizen."
"Nothing will ever please me, no matter how excellent or beneficial, if I must retain the knowledge of it to myself. And if wisdom were given me under the express condition that it must be kept hidden and not uttered, I should refuse it. No good thing is pleasant to possess, without friends to share it."
"suppose that a wise man should be vouchsaved such a life that, with an abundance of everything pouring in upon him, he might in perfect peace study and ponder over everything that is worth knowing, still, if the solitude were so complete that he could never see a human being, he would die."
Thank goodness that some of Musonius' words survived, through Epictetus and others. Indeed, we are social animals and we don't flourish alone.
I certainly agree. A lot.of modern followers of Stoicism seems to think that it is a philosophy that wants to teach us to be tough, independent loners that don't really care about anything other than ourselves. Strangely, that group of modern "Stoics" often points to Epictetus to justify their worldview. Here are two quotes from Epictetus that makes it abundantly clear that Stoicism is all about community:
"What are you? A human being. Now, if you consider yourself in isolation, it is natural for you to live to an advanced age, to be rich, and to enjoy good health; but if you consider yourself as a human being and as part of some whole, it may be in the interest of the whole that you should now fall ill, now embark on a voyage and be exposed to danger, now suffer poverty, and perhaps even die before your time. Why do you resent this, then? Don’t you know that in isolation a foot is no longer a foot, and that you likewise will no longer be a human being? What, then, is a human being? A part of a city, first of all that which is made up of gods and human beings, then that which is closest to us and which we call a city, which is a microcosm of the universal city."
-Epictetus, Discourses 2.5.25
"you’re a citizen of the world and a part of it, and moreover no subordinate part, but one of the leading parts in so far as you’re capable of understanding the divine governing order of the world, and of reflecting about all that follows from it. Now what is the calling of a citizen? Never to approach anything with a view to personal advantage, never to deliberate about anything as though detached from the whole, but to act as one’s hand or foot would act if it had the power of reason and could understand the order of nature, and so would never exercise any desire or motive other than by reference to the whole. The philosophers are thus right to say that if a wise and good person could foresee the future, he would cooperate with nature even if it came to illness, death, or mutilation, because he would recognize that these are allotted as a contribution to the ordering of the whole, and that the whole is more important than the part, and the city than the citizen."
- Epictetus, Discourses, 2.10.3 ff
"Nothing will ever please me, no matter how excellent or beneficial, if I must retain the knowledge of it to myself. And if wisdom were given me under the express condition that it must be kept hidden and not uttered, I should refuse it. No good thing is pleasant to possess, without friends to share it."
- Seneca, Letter 6.4.
"suppose that a wise man should be vouchsaved such a life that, with an abundance of everything pouring in upon him, he might in perfect peace study and ponder over everything that is worth knowing, still, if the solitude were so complete that he could never see a human being, he would die."
- Cicero, De Officiis, 1.153