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Introduction
Bill Clinton once claimed to read it every year. Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis carried it into battle with him as a Marine Corps Officer. Wen Jiabao, the former Prime Minister of China, claims to have read it over one hundred times. It appears in reading lists for sports teams and corporate departments – in high culture and in popular culture. We’ve long been fascinated by the widespread appeal of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
This text, beloved especially by the powerful and the introspective, was probably not meant for public consumption. As far as historians can tell, the last of Rome’s “Five Good Emperors” composed the Meditations as an untitled text meant for private reflection. Scholars who lived centuries later dusted it off and referred to it by a number of titles; in English, it is most often known as Meditations or as The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
The Lure of the Meditations
Over his last ten years, the Emperor aggregated the learnings of a lifetime. He begins the work by thanking various mentors, teachers and role models and citing key takeaways from each one. Aurelius then goes on to list many practical philosophical principles and specific reminders to himself about how to live well. It’s hard to argue that the book is an original work of philosophy; instead, a man who had a rigorous education in Stoic philosophy distilled related thinking into the most practical bits. He likely wanted to refer back to it as he faced the many challenges of his life and wanted his son and heir to have it as a manual.
The book is light on rigorous, consistent philosophical arguments and contains compelling conclusions for a man like the emperor; a man who wants to perform well and achieve meaningful objectives while feeling the weight of huge responsibilities and constant challenges. Fundamentally, Aurelius advises himself to use reason. In his view, error is the result of unreason, and the rational intellect can conquer the harm caused by one’s emotions or by circumstances that are out of one’s control.
This mindset is applied to problems as simple as how to get out of bed on time in the morning and as complex as religion and statecraft. Aurelius also emphasizes how everything we interact with is temporary or of little consequence in the grand scale of the universe. The implication is that we must use reason to do our best but ultimately not overly trouble ourselves with the supposedly petty problems of our own lives. At the same time, worldly pleasures and ambitions should be ignored in favor of duty and of philosophical contemplation; to the extent that we suffer along the way, we suffer more in our minds than we do in reality.
These are the sorts of ideas that people associate with Stoic thinkers, albeit a bit adapted for the statesman rather than the professional philosopher. The attraction of these concise, collected thoughts thus becomes clear for people like politicians, generals, professional athletes and corporate leaders. We’ve sampled some of our own favorites from the George Long translation below:
“Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of thy mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts. Dye it then with a continuous series of such thoughts as these: for instance, that where a man can live, there he can also live well.”
“Nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature to bear. The same things happen to another, and either because he does not see that they have happened or because he would show a great spirit he is firm and remains unharmed. It is a shame then that ignorance and conceit should be stronger than wisdom.”
“I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.”
“The words which were formerly familiar are now antiquated: so also the names of those who were famed of old, are now in a manner antiquated, Camillus, Caeso, Volesus, Leonnatus, and a little after also Scipio and Cato, then Augustus, then also Hadrian and Antoninus. For all things soon pass away and become a mere tale, and complete oblivion soon buries them. And I say this of those who have shone in a wondrous way. For the rest, as soon as they have breathed out their breath, they are gone, and no man speaks of them. And, to conclude the matter, what is even an eternal remembrance? A mere nothing. What then is that about which we ought to employ our serious pains? This one thing, thoughts just, and acts social, and words which never lie, and a disposition which gladly accepts all that happens, as necessary, as usual, as flowing from a principle and source of the same kind.”
“Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are and to make new things like them. For everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.”
“Let it make no difference to thee whether thou art cold or warm, if thou art doing thy duty; and whether thou art drowsy or satisfied with sleep; and whether ill-spoken of or praised; and whether dying or doing something else. For it is one of the acts of life, this act by which we die: it is sufficient then in this act also to do well what we have in hand.”
Final Thoughts
The Meditations is an eternally enjoyable read and, as we have just seen, highly quotable. Much of the love that the aforementioned groups tend to exhibit for the book is likely attributable to this memorable quotability. Marcus Aurelius must have cherished these collected ideas as he dealt with a wide array of painful issues including his troubled family life, the bloody scheming of political rivals, the horrors of the Antonine Plague and the bloody wars against the Germanic tribes.
We argue that the Meditations is a useful but incomplete operating manual. Many of the ideas are practically useful while others, such as the rationalist explanation for why people do bad things – that they do them from ignorance of the good – are probably wrong. The limitations of an overreliance on the rational intellect are evident in Marcus Aurelius’ very story. Intellectuals have crushed on him for centuries as the emblematic philosopher-king. He was a highly educated man plucked from a life of philosophy, somewhat against his will, to serve as a statesman in a position of great responsibility. While he took to the life of the statesman and the warrior king well, his reliance on the rational intellect didn’t save him from error.
The Antonine Plague that swept through the Roman Empire during his reign left it permanently weakened, and reason alone didn’t ameliorate it. Aurelius also resorted to genocide to handle the Germanic tribes and dealt what many have considered a death blow to the Empire by naming his incompetent, evil son Commodus as his successor. All the best education and care did not make Commodus into a fit ruler, and his reign led directly to the crisis of the third century. We would therefore suggest that faith in the rational intellect to temper will, emotion and error is necessary but not sufficient for success. The Meditations is a great gateway drug into philosophy, but it must be the beginning of the journey. If we muster the guts to cover Plato and Aristotle, it can also be the beginning of Citizen Scholar’s coverage of philosophy.
All the best,
The Citizen Scholar Team
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Discussion #36: Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius