Twice a month, The duty challenges enthusiasts of philosophy and the history of ideas to decipher a topical issue based on the theses of a prominent thinker.
Ancient Western philosophy was not just a theoretical discipline, because it offered a way to be happy. Some philosophers, like Epicurus, offered a gentle and kind path to happiness. Diogenes of Sinope stands out with a rigor and austerity that are much more in tune with the climate emergency. He sought to live without any frills and prepared for the worst.
However, difficult times are ahead. For 5000 years, the temperature of the planet has been cooling and bringing us, very slowly, towards a new ice age. The industrial revolution of 1850 changed everything by raising the temperature by one degree. A very small degree, which causes the annual melting of several hundred billion tons of ice.
The three voluminous reports that the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released in recent months indicate that our years of plenty and easy living are coming to an end. To limit global warming to 1.5°C, we would have to be carbon neutral by 2050. In other words, we would either have to stop producing greenhouse gases (remember that 80% of the world’s energy comes from fossil), or compensate for what will still be produced by planting trees. Canada committed to this through Bill C-12 passed in June 2021, but it will likely not achieve it, nor will the rest of the planet. In fact, we are rather sailing towards an increase of 2.9°C (and again, that is if the current commitments are kept).
According to forecasts by the US Energy Information Administration, renewable energy production will increase dramatically by 2050, but all three forms of fossil fuels will also increase. For an easy to understand reason: our economies will continue to grow and we have never seen, in any society, economic growth without an increase in energy consumption. A democratic government wanting to achieve carbon neutrality should therefore be elected by promising a recession!
Most surprisingly, the shutdown of the economy in 2020 due to the pandemic only resulted in a modest 3.5% drop in global energy consumption. To phase out all fossil fuels in 2020 would have required an effort 24 times greater, and then sustaining that effort year after year. Tirelessly.
This is why we will not even be able to meet the less ambitious +2°C target set in Paris in 2015, and why we face the real possibility of a collapse of our society. Whether this collapse occurs or not, we can expect to lose many of the possessions that make our lives better. However, this is precisely what Diogenes had chosen to achieve.
Happiness according to Diogenes
Diogenes of Sinope (–410 to –320) is a colorful philosopher. Walking barefoot, wearing only a cloak, he begged for his food and slept, it is said, in a barrel. He loved to provoke his contemporaries. Didn’t he say of Plato: “How useful is a man to us who, although he has been practicing philosophy for a long time, happens to have disturbed no one?” (References are taken from Lives and Doctrines of Illustrious Philosophers, by Diogenes Laertius, dir. MO Goulet-Caze.)
He belongs to the school of the Cynics, that is to say of the Dogs: “During a meal, people threw bones at him like at a dog; he casually pissed on them like a dog. Far from feeling insulted at being called a dog, he claimed this title: I am Diogenes the Dog!” »
It must be said that Diogenes holds the gods to be superior to animals because they are blessed, whereas animals are superior to men because they are satisfied just to drink water from a river. “He repeated aloud that the life granted to men by the gods is an easy life, but that this ease escapes them, because they seek honey cakes, perfumes and refinements of the same kind. »
For Diogenes, what is natural is good, what comes from society is bad. Indeed, the main cause of human unhappiness comes, according to him, from the false needs that society imposes on them. Hence his motto: life must be saved.
To be happy, three virtues are essential.
1) Autarky, being self-sufficient so as not to depend on others and their goodwill. “To whom Callisthenes proclaimed blessed on the pretext that he shared in the magnificence of Alexander [le Grand], Diogenes says: “He is unhappy, he who lunches and dines when it pleases Alexander.” »
2) Freedom, not to do what we please, but on the contrary to be free from all desire and all fear. It is mainly about giving up luxury. “Having once seen a young child drinking from his hands, he took his goblet out of his satchel and threw it down, saying: ‘A young child has beaten me on the chapter of frugality.’ »
3) Impassibility: one must harden oneself to better withstand the blows of fate. “In summer he rolled on hot sand, while in winter he hugged snow-covered statues, taking advantage of everything to practice. »
Diogenes today
These are three virtues to develop today to be more resilient.
1) Autarky. The pandemic has shown the fragility of our economies, because we depend on economic exchanges which can be interrupted. This is particularly true for food: it is essential to develop short economic circuits and to practice urban agriculture. Everyone should be able to do without processed food, because the food industry makes us dependent on it.
We depend on the Internet to guide us, to not have to memorize, to give us instructions, etc. However, only two states consume more electricity than the Internet: China and the United States, and electricity from the grid comes mainly from coal-fired power plants. As weird as it sounds, the Internet runs on coal! We therefore expect to lose it, or at least that it will become a luxury product.
2) Freedom. The IPCC calls for living more simply, with less, since we cannot eliminate fossil fuels without drastically reducing our standard of living. If we don’t learn by ourselves, like Diogenes, to live with little, nature will force us to do so and it will be much more painful. Imports will have to be reduced, like those citrus fruits that brighten up our winters. And reduce our meat consumption to a maximum of one serving per week.
3) Impassivity. The February 2022 IPCC Panel 2 report describes the suffering ahead of us. It is impossible to completely avoid it, because global warming has already begun, but we can prepare for it by learning to do without comfort. Those who know how to live the hard way, like Diogenes, will suffer less.
The fight against global warming cannot be done without more social justice. 2021 Man of the Year Time, Elon Musk, is the richest man in the world, therefore the best placed to pocket the money of others. Like Diogenes, it will be necessary, one day, to stop admiring wealth: “While he was taking the sun at the Craneion, Alexander came and said to him: “Ask me what you want.” And he said, “Stop shadowing me.” »
We will also need more international justice (because we will not solve environmental problems without the countries of the South) and more justice for women and First Nations.
Remarkably in antiquity, cynicism had in its ranks a woman, Hipparchia. Her presence does not testify to a form of anti-rationalism that would run through the school and that this woman would embody. True, the cynics valued practice more than theory, but they still proclaimed: “It takes reason or a rope.” Nor can we suspect Diogenes of having had feminist convictions, but, like other cynics, he condemned the role that society assigned to women. This is what allowed Hipparchia to become a philosopher.
The cynical school sought to produce a moral boost by provoking people. She took animals as models of the good life. It was not an environmental worldview, but we can use it to instill a sense of respect for animal and plant life. It’s also a call for sober living in a world of scarcity, which is precisely what we’re headed towards.
The final word goes to Diogenes: “Nothing, absolutely nothing, he said, succeeds in life without asceticism; this one is capable, on the other hand, of triumphing over everything. Therefore, while they should live happily having chosen, instead of useless labors, those which are in conformity with nature, people, because of their folly, are unhappy. »
Suggestions ? Write to Robert Dutrisac: [email protected].