If Diogenes, one of the founders of the ancient philosophy of Cynicism, could comment on the state of our world today—with its issues of climate change, depletion of natural resources, and political madness—what would he say? According to M.D. Usher, “he would have a field day with the human follies that we labor under now. I think the first thing he would say to us, because the Cynics were such a cheeky bunch, is, ‘I told you so.’”
Usher, the Lyman-Roberts Professor of Classical Languages and Literature and a faculty member of the Department of Geography and Geosciences at the University of Vermont, is the author of How to Say No: An Ancient Guide to the Art of Cynicism (Princeton University Press; October 2022). Usher’s anthology of translated selections about Diogenes and other ancient Cynics, How to Say No offers insight into their lived philosophy of refusal, doing without, and living according to nature. “I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that the Cynics speak directly to the issues we’re facing today,” Usher says. “They said all along that there are limits to growth, that it is self-devouring, and where does it stop unless you say no to it.”
According to Usher, Diogenes and the other Cynics trained themselves to do without, both to ensure that no one could take anything from them and because it lessened their impact on the environment. “Cynicism was a real, honest, put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is kind of commitment to doing what’s right, living in a way that is in accordance with truth or virtue, and not letting social pressures or conventions interfere with that,” he says.
Usher adds that the Cynics thought that civilization made people soft, dependent, and addicted to things like consumerism, luxury, and pleasure, whereas the Cynics themselves were all about self-mastery, autonomy, and freedom. “They were in a position to say no and to speak truth to power because they were free from dependency,” he says. “You couldn’t take away their property, their livelihood, their homes.”
In choosing which selections to translate for How to Say No, Usher set out to represent core Cynic teachings and personalities, and capture a range of responses to them, both laudatory and critical. “The Cynics themselves wrote nothing,” he says. “They were oralists, and they were too busy living the philosophical life to write about it.” About 800 years passes between the earliest and last writings in the book, so Usher also wanted to present a range of examples of what the Cynics stood for in different time periods.
“The modern notion of a cynic is of somebody who complains about everything, is caustic or acerbic in their wit, and looks down their nose at people,” Usher says. “The ancient Cynics told the truth about things and pulled no punches, but they were not cynical in the sense that they didn’t do anything about it. They basically changed their whole lives to conform to what they thought was true. The fact that they believed that they could change themselves, if not the world, is actually a very idealistic and optimistic view. How far we’ve fallen from that.”
Usher believes we need the Cynics now more than ever and that they live among us in satirists and critics like John Oliver and Jon Stewart, whose ultimate purpose is actually quite serious. “Sure, they want to joke and they’re drawing attention to a thing by making fun of it, but their purpose is ultimately to effect change, and that’s what the Cynics were up to as well.”
This is Usher’s second book in Princeton University Press’s series “Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers” that began with How to Be a Farmer: An Ancient Guide to Life on the Land (November 2021). A third book in the series, titled How to Care about Animals: An Ancient Guide to Creatures Great and Small, is due out in 2023.
“The Cynics argued that you should make ethical decisions and live your life in accordance with nature,” Usher says. “We should try to keep that in mind in pretty much everything we think about, in every decision that we make.”