A Geek History of Time - Episode 288 - The Dog Days of Summer - Diogenes in Fiction

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

We were saying that we were going to get into the movies. Yeah, and I'm only going to get into a few of them because there were way too goddamn many for me to really be interested in telling you this clone version or this clone version in the early studio system. It's a good metric to know in a story arc. Where should I be? Oh, there's Beast. I should step over here.

At some point, I'm going to have to sit down with you and force you, like pump you full of coffee and be like, no, okay, look. And are swiftly and brutally put down by the Minutemen who use bayonets to get their point across. Well done there. I'm good Damian, and I'm also glad that I got your name right this time. I apologize for that one TikTok video.

Men of this generation wound up serving the whole lot of them as a percentage of the population because of the war, because of a whole lot of other stuff. Oh yeah. And actually in his case, it was pre-war, but you know, I was joking. Did he seriously join the American Navy? He did fuck I'm going to go to the bathroom. This is a Geek History of Time. Where we connect nerdery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock.

I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California. And I just got the preliminary feedback from my master's degree professor on the paper I turned in a couple of days ago it is the term paper for the first course I'm taking and my masters and I got a 96% nice I So I am stoked You should be it felt very good my my my what I what I kind of crowed about it when I saw the results I said who got a tiny six baby My wife looked across the table at me and went why would you think you wouldn't and I'm like That's why I married you. Yeah. Right there. For one thing.

Your faith in me is warming, but also a little, a little troubling, a little deflating. Like, but, but like, you know, yeah, so I am, I am currently on track. I'm currently on track to get an A. That's awesome. In the, in the first class of my master's degree program. So I am stoked. And when I went out today to run a few errands

as a celebration, I may have stopped at Crumble Cookie because God damn it, I earned it. Hell yeah. So that's what I've got going on. How about you? All right, have you heard of something? Well, first off, I'm Damian Harmony. I am a US history teacher at the high school level

up here in Northern California. Have you ever heard of something called the Tetris Effect? I know I've heard the phrase, remind me. You play the game Tetris, and eventually you keep playing it, playing and keep playing it and eventually you start to see Patterns in brickwork you start to see parts of buildings that you're like Oh if that combined with that other part of the building then it could drop down and it oh yeah Because because you the world yeah, because you've you've

You've dug the grooves in your neural circuitry for that so deep that that's just something that gets overlaid on everything. Yeah. Okay. Okay. When we were playing MechWarrior for a while, I got to the point where anytime I would see like above ground conduit or pipework, I was like, oh, I bet you that'd blow up pretty if I was 30 feet above it in a giant Mack and fired missiles at it Yeah, like or oh I could kick the shit out of that like that wouldn't even slow me down. Yeah. Okay I was driving into town the other day

Past some skyscrapers and a crane and I thought for just a second. I jump from there I wonder how far I would get because that depends how good are you with a parasail right and and the thing is I can think of some I can think of nothing that I would rather not do then jump from a thing and hope that a parachute opens like I have zero desire to fall slowly from a great height yeah oh I don't I do not want to skydive I don't want to do any of that shit hell no this is really funny that this is this is one of those places where you and I are looking at each other across a gulf of yeah really yeah yeah because like um my my father and I back when it back when I was in college um at at UC Davis outside of if you go far enough outside of town there is a a skydiving then you go out to the

yellow county airport and there's a skydiving company that operates out of there Mm-hmm, and my dad was up visiting and because he's a civil aviator like going airports as a thing So we were at the Yolo County Airport. I mean I get it. I'm a fat guy. I like to go to In-N-Out Burger. Yeah, there you go And and I remember saying to him, Oh yeah, no skydiving. You know, have you ever thought about doing that? And my father's response to me was, I've flown airplanes since I was 20 years old. I don't, I don't understand the idea of jumping out of a perfectly functioning aircraft. Right. One thing if it's falling apart, you know, um, but like, it's always,'s always been something. I've thought about doing and

And my wife has told me okay, well you know if you want to try skydiving for you know Your 50th birthday or something there's a place where you can do skydiving on the ground yeah indoors You know one of these is that fan yeah, yeah Yeah, it's like but that's not the same She's like I'm not letting you know God know no one no, but but given the opportunity I would I would so do it okay, so here's what you do after your son applies to all his safe schools and His regular schools right you make sure that that life insurance policy is paid up and then Once you get the results, and he doesn't get into the schools he wants to. I'm going to tell him to take a gap year and then you go skydiving

just in case. Just in case. Just, just, I don't think you're going to end up a greasy spot, but just in case. Well, if I wind up a spot I'd be a pretty greasy one because you know but But yeah, so I was looking I'm like yeah How far could I get and and I was telling producer George this and I'm like and the funny thing is I? Don't I don't ever want to jump off of something

This jump is just not your idea of a good time. God. No looks cool for other people to do Not an experience. I need to have in my life And yet I was still fantasizing about it like this game is very very productive that way So yeah certainly has an impact on one's on one's imaginary life. Yeah, yes Yes, so and my understanding of the inner workings of billboards, so you know that's kind of cool Okay, the whole scaffolding in there. Yeah, so All right, so um I want to set the way back machine to the summer of 1995

Okay, give me a second let me try to Picture you're in college. All right. Yeah, I am Freshman here. I think maybe you're saw no no I graduated high school in 93 Jesus Christ So this would have been the summer after my sophomore year. Okay, so you're about to be a junior Yeah, um, this is my junior year summer about to be a senior Okay now the popular perception of the impact of NAFTA on the local economic ability to compete was that there would be a few jobs that would get lost to Mexico.

Right. And that was a popular perception because that's the fears that were stoked by a grievance politics. Right. As it turns out, NAFTA fucked over Mexican workers a lot more than it fucked over American workers. Well, because the, if I'm remembering right, it's because the financial imbalance that was already there

essentially kind of got reinforced. In a lot of ways, yeah. So what ended up happening is there were wages that fell in certain sectors in America. And because America had the capital to continue going with agricultural work or beef making work that then enabled labor to come up to those places from Mexico Which meant that those corporations could get lower paid labor And then of course we're at the same time doing that weird psychotic thing that we do of like trying to tighten a border While encouraging people to come up while depressing their markets down. It's just it's all kind of fucked right?

the overall impact on the American economy and labor Has widely been agreed upon that it was a positive as a net positive right um It helped American labor far more than it hurt them however At the same time as this in not necessarily to get NAFTA through But it seemed like in order to get some of the social stuff through, Bill Clinton also had, he was the president at the time, he also had to say fuck the poor, and there was welfare reform.

And there were lots of folks who previously were able to feed their families, suddenly having to compete for lower wages working They're employed but underemployed now and there's less federal and state help for them to make up that gap Yes, that's all there. So and there is and and whether or not that's the majority of workers and it was not the majority of workers, but Regardless that had an impact on organized labor at those lower levels And it had an impact on the popular perception, you know, it's there's there's only one woodpecker in my neighborhood But that's enough, you know

Yeah, and right. Yeah, and and so I'm going to Kind of extrapolate a little bit there. Okay. I'm guessing that like the United auto workers and the teamsters union were not so much affected while, uh, United food and service workers. Yeah. Were more affected. Yes.

Okay. Because of the relative level of, um, close to the poverty line you were. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Because of the relative level of how close to the poverty line you were. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So also Walmart's on the rise now. Um, the Walmart family is grabbing everywhere. Um, so Clinton is, uh, you know, welfare is being reformed. Several people are aggrieved just by virtue of the gas. we say reformed can can we can we use a different word? Oh sure hamstring Cut off at the knees yeah, we got emaciated yeah Thank you. Oh, it's just like Jesus would have wanted yeah, um

Now also Several people are very aggrieved because Bill Clinton not a Republican was the president and god damn it. That's ours And and he was successful at it twice. Yeah Because it's the economy stupid even though it's like mmm dig a little deeper all of that combines to increase a general sense of alienation and impotence from one's personal ability to affect one's life okay okay okay and that summer was when I met Diogenes met Diogenes.

Okay. All right. So I don't remember the guy's name. I'll call him Adam, because it seems as good a name as any. All right. But he was Diogenes. Now, I was hanging out with the unhoused population of Walnut Creek,

the younger unhoused population of Walnut Creek. There younger unhoused population of Walnut Creek. There were several bridges in a place called Walnut Creek. There are several bridges and there's a park and there were several people that I hung out with. I spent a lot of time with most of whom had either run away or they were in process of running away or or or whatnot okay so real quick sure just a just a to frame this okay you are a junior going to be a senior in high school yes I'm working 30 to 60 hours a week depending on the week oh Jesus no I was doing everything I could to be out having fun is usually 30 to 40 hours a week to be on Okay, um there were a few weeks where I managed to bump up the the work hours

Okay, and and the individuals that you are hanging out with that you're socializing with are 20 yeah, or are they so I'm like I'm 17. Yeah. They're anywhere from 18 to 26, 28. Okay. All right. Some of them were couch surfing on their friends couches and some of them stayed under the bridges. It's summertime in Walnut Creek Not particularly cold. Right. So I met this guy

Creek, not particularly cold. Right. So I met this guy. He, as I recall, wore a lot of white, almost like white linens, but he, which was weird, but he wore a lot of white. He always walked around barefoot. He had very long hair, was blonde, he had a beard. He was somewhere between my height and your height. He's very stocky fellow. So he's probably five seven five nine Okay, very stocky fellow very well built Could run really fast and it was beautiful when he ran because his long dreaded Blonde hair would flow behind him, you know looking like he was on fire and he was barefoot. And he and I got to talking, amongst all the other people.

Like at one point, they caught and cooked a goose. And I came down there and saw that they were de-feathering the goose and had turned a shopping cart on its side and built a fire underneath and put the we're putting the goose on top to grill it okay that's so probably all right cool yeah and so I went to like the local Safeway and bought spices okay yeah this is this all tracks yeah so I'm like in Walnut Creek. You got to realize Walnut Creek had more cops per capita than any city in California. I Walnut Creek is one of the only places I've ever seen my wife get pulled over.

So like my my experience of Walnut Creek has been hasn't been influenced by the density of Well, and so like it tries to be the Orange County of the north Tries well it now has exceeded but back then no still trying working on it. Okay. Yeah, so Okay, I'm impressed with with this this cohorts ability to get away with doing this without You know getting caught so on the bridge Okay, all right. Nobody came under those bridges except for us. All right, fair enough

Yeah, and there were several bridges and I remember a friend of mine was like cruising around and he sees me coming up from a bridge Later one night. It's like Damien. I was like, oh, hey, what's up? Let's go hang out is a very odd life that I was living at the time Yeah, well that tracks. So anyway this guy Talked to him a lot. You know, there's the guys that play the the the Guitar and then there's the guys who do the skating thing and all that and the guy that always told me knife this guy I talked to a lot and what I noticed about him was he differed from everyone else in that everyone else had like frayed edges about them psychologically. Okay, well it kind of makes sense based on how you've described this cohort.

He didn't. He was 100, 100 he seemed he presented 100% centered in who he was and I finally Asked him we were sitting outside of a cafe. I said What's the deal man? Like you're very well read? You're a great conversationalist Why are you homeless and? You know and again, I wouldn't say that I was like touristing it. I just I was vibing with certain people and then I, you know, go about my life. Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

He said, well, when I was younger, I ran real fast. And then they took it all away. And then I had to start from nothing and I ran real fast again. And they took it all away and then I stood still and They had nothing to take away and the result was the same Now I don't know

Like that stuck with me that that hung with me There's there's a lot of I I get a I get a very strong Taoist vibe. Funny you would mention that. Yeah. Like yeah. So I assume the metaphor was that he chased down all kinds of material success and found it easily lost. Yeah. I don't I don't know. Maybe he you know worst- scenario, he had addiction issues and he found ways to keep fucking himself over. Or he had trauma issues that he didn't resolve and he kept finding ways to end up at the lowest points. Best case scenario, he genuinely had things blow up in his face a few times and he's made a very happy life living unhoused Okay

In many ways he was the Diogenes of of my youth Okay. Yes. So now now for anybody in our audience who is not familiar with This name you have used. Oh, I'm about to get deeply into who Diogenes is. Okay, perfect. Okay. So Diogenes is in many ways the trope codifier of the philosophy that is called cynicism. Okay, yes. He is not the founder.

The originator of what we now know as cynicism is Antisthenes, who was a former student of Socrates. Antisthenes never actually formally started cynicism. He never named it or anything like that. It's been attributed to him by Aristotle and guys like that. But the short version is Antisthenes took the Socratic idea of virtue and he extended it, virtue over pleasure, as the ultimate end. But in his rejection, and it's in this rejection of pleasure and the adoption of virtue, that we find his ideas and the tenets of what would later be considered cynicism. Okay. So virtue is, is to be valued over pleasure. And those are different things.

And therefore you must reject the conventions of wealth, clout, personal glory, influence, property, and the conformity and compromise that's necessary to get those things is also to be roundly rejected. And Antisthenes never turned that into a coherent suite of ideas really, but those were all aspects of the things that he mentioned when he was talking about rejecting pleasure in favor of living a virtuous life. Okay. about rejecting pleasure in favor of living a virtuous life. OK. Now, the virtue that cynicism focused on specifically, there's different virtues, was eudaimonia, which translates alternately as either lucidity or clarity or even moral clarity or even human flourishing. Like words render in different ways.

Now, this flourishing that comes about by something called apotheia the Greek concept of being unfuck with a bull And from where we had the term apathy yes that too but also Self-sufficiency candor living in accord with nature, both internal and external, and the importance of using human reason to get there. So if you use human reason, you will find that human is a beast that needs to live in concord with the nature around him, but also human is a being who has an internal nature, and you have to equalize those so that you can live in concord with those. You're not constantly fighting against something because when you fight

something, you're holding it up. Okay. Okay. So again, doubt. Yeah. Like, and, and what I, what I find, what I find fascinating about it is they're coming to like what you're describing in cynicism and what we see in Taoism are arriving in similar places from different, from different directions. And roughly in the same period of time. Yes.

That's also different geographic places too. Yeah. That's also something that I've that I've I've had my noodle By yeah a bunch of times now that I'm now that I'm teaching ancient history to sixth graders I'm looking at timelines going the fuck fuck was in the water right well clearly It wasn't in the water had to be like yeah trade winds, but yeah the winds of change I guess but anyway, so so the eudaimonia the the lucidity the clarity that one gets from being apathetic Purposely apathetic ultimately. I don't give a shit about keeping up appearances. I don't care that kind of apathy

yeah, yeah. The independence of thought and independence of values. Right. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Not convention. Things that I come to through reason. Yes. Right? Question. Question shit. Yeah. So very, very obviously you could see it trace back to Socrates, right? Right. And of course you're using human reason to get there because that's the mechanism that they all worshiped in a lot of ways. And in so doing,

a cynic can adopt an attitude of purposeful indifference toward cultural norms to the point of cheekiness. Hello, Diogenes. Guess who's next? Or I guess you could call it temerity, but I like the idea of cheekiness. Either one works. Yeah. And then Diogenes comes along and he pushes this other, this additional piece called purposeful asceticism,

leaning into the actual discomfort of eschatism, so Don't put all these blankets on you We've we are we are beasts too. We can we can live out in the elements. It'll be fine And in so doing Happiness can be found pleasure is not the same as happiness. Pleasure is a false happiness. Virtue means a life unencumbered by social norms that lead to pleasure and to displeasure. The result of dropping those social norms is true happiness. And so to a cynic, happiness would have a a spiritual like contentment kind of,

yes. Kind of, you know, this is, this is, this is what I have. Right. All that I have is all that I need and no more. And also I don't have. Yeah. Well, yeah. But you know, I can, I can be happy in a snowstorm without shoes because I Have hardened myself to these things I have made it so that I can be calm in In a storm, you know that kind of thing. Okay now cynicism developed in two major periods of time Both of which were times of tremendous authoritarian control over the people. When Diogenes was coming up, Philip II of

Macedonia had taken power as the hegemon of the Hellenic League, which I thought was the captain of the bowling team. Turns out I was wrong. No, it was when he essentially marched essentially, uh, marched in Athens, um, or didn't march it, but he had, he had essentially established military dominion over everybody. Yes. And then, and then went to Athens and told everybody, no, y'all go ahead and keep doing stuff. Just recognize I'm in charge. Yeah. It was a piece that was enforced by force.

Yeah. Um, Peter Weller in a History Channel biography. This is years ago, of course, of Alexander. Well, yeah, because you mentioned that the History Channel is doing history stuff. That's not only 2010. Yeah. Yeah. I think earlier than that.

But anyway, yeah, Peter Weller has a great description of that meeting Where you know he says no you you all you all keep doing that but just remember I'm in charge Right, you know and yeah, I show that to my students As part of my Alexander unit, you know, it's Philip saying I've got my eye on you Nice thank you now then Philip died um now his son Alexander the third Not to be confused with Alexander the second who Livy was like oh, we would have whooped his ass Actually, Livy said oh, we did what Alexander the second's ass But Alexander the third comes into power and was even more authoritarian in a lot of ways.

He seemed to go on a vengeance tour against those who had violated the peace, and then he conquered more and more and more and continued eastward. The shadow of authoritarianism ended the varying degrees of independence of most of these city-states. They all recognized that they were all under this Macedonian king. And so it makes sense that cynicism would develop at this time under these conditions. The second time that you really see it start to flourish is in the first century of Rome's empire. Yeah. So. So. So.

So. So. Uh-huh. I wonder why. Right. Another young, and here's the thing, if it's a young king, you're like, oh fuck, he's not gonna die for a while.

Turns out the flu is a thing, so, you know, 12 years later he's dead. But. Okay. But. Gus didn't do that. So Emperor Gussie I, he expanded Rome's Mediterranean hegemony. And if we read the Reis Guestei, and I have, we see either that Augustus had brought under the Roman sandal or made into client states close to 20 different peoples. And at home in Rome, he had restricted so many culturally acceptable fun things to

do that people were doing like each other's wives. He'd restricted that so much that people are like, what can I do now? And we're back to, and we're back to the episodes on obi-wan Yeah, right that they're not gonna sleep with each other's wives like right your nose. Yeah, okay. Yeah So I mean he even sent his daughter um Which kind of reminds me of Teddy Roosevelt I can I can run the country or control Alice. I can't do both That says so much about both of those people It's so brilliant

But he even sent his daughter into exile on one island and the poet Ovid into exile on the other So that they couldn't fuck each other like It's one now. Well keep in mind. I didn't realize avid got down like that. Oh, yeah No, he was writing from experience apparently although Maybe a weird fetish experience He tells people like what foods are like Aphrodisiacs yeah, and he picks all the vociferous ones

he's like Really want to get turned on eat a lot of broccoli. It's like Like, really want to get turned on, eat a lot of broccoli. It's like, do you like the farts? Or do you not know what you're talking about? Like, which one is this? I don't know which is worse. Yeah, okay. It's like when that guy on Twitter

tried to make fun of me for having a Boba Fett helmet and talked about how I was fluffing people in gay porn with my Boba Fett helmet and talked about how I was fluffing people in gay porn with my Boba Fett helmet And I was like you either don't know how fellatio works or how helmets work. I don't know which one bothers me worse. Yeah like so Anyway, yeah, so Gus throws Ovid to one and his daughter to another And like y'all can't fuck each other anymore, which is just wild. I have I this this brings back memories of a of a civ course I took in college

where it was Roman history and it covered, you know, the Civil War that led to Augustus taking over and that, you know, the civil war led to Augustus taking over and that, um, you know, uh, Cleopatra tried to seduce Augustus and she had succeeded with Anthony. She'd succeeded with Julius Caesar. Yeah. She, she tried to seduce Augustus and Augustus was not interested. Right. My professor was like so pissed at Augustus for for being such a nerd like and so Augustus a geek

Becoming from right yeah Is the Mark Zuckerberg of yeah? Yeah, no fun man come on now Interestingly I I think you bringing up the Civil Wars actually feeds into my next point was one of the reasons that Gus was trying To restrict fucking each other's wives was because Rome had been through three civil wars in three generations Yeah time to replenish the stock And in a way that doesn't make us blood-feud each other anymore Who stopped fucking each other's wives? Yeah, okay? All right reasonable. Yeah, so

Practical Romans though. I mean this is a big tradition for them like they they you know it's a cultural practice It would I don't know it would be like us Having school shootings like why would you take that away? Um? like us having school shootings. Like, why would you take that away? Wow, that got very dark. Well, very rapidly. Yeah. You like how I took Rome and made it dark. Yeah. Yeah. Also, also, by the way, quite cynical.

Yes. So in in both instances, both in in Alexander's Macedonia and in Gus's Rome, people experienced a palpable feeling of a loss of their own control and an overarching control overlaying their lives and that led to a frustrated impotence at a personal and local level. Okay, this all tracks. This absolutely would feed into the attraction of a philosophy that combines Crer barrel wisdom with an inward based self-sufficiency and a focus on the self as a source for happiness to help cope with such a time. Okay. Now Diogenes's personal history is not as historiographically sound as many Bronze Age iconoclasts that is to say

Not very um It is however agreed that he existed and interacted with famed people at a specific time He was born somewhere between 412 and 404 BCE in Sinope a modern-day Turkey That's in modern-day Turkey on the northern coast So on the Pontus, the Black Sea. Okay. Yeah.

It seems that he died in the same year as Alexander, 323, which would make him anywhere from 81 to 89 years old. Of course, we like to say in our country, presidential material. Okay. carry on. Anecdotes that we trust about his life have come from another Diogenes, a guy named Diogenes Laertius, who himself was born sometime in the 300 CE, so we're talking 600 years later. And not much. Oh wow. Yeah.

But to them, 600 years is a drop in the bucket, you know? Right, yeah. Yeah. But not much can be independently verified about the Diogenes the cynic. However, we do know that he existed, he being Diogenes Laertius, because there's an author in the 500s, 200 years later, who specifically references him and his writings. Diogenes Laertius wrote something called the lives and opinions of eminent philosophers, an encyclopedia of philosophy basically. Diogenes, our Diogenes, the cynic, is in the sixth book of that series, the book

that covers the cynics, and he divided his book into Ionian and Italian philosophers with the Ionians getting seven books and the Italians getting three. Oh wow. And interestingly, the only book that didn't survive to the days of monks copying shit down for us was the seventh book, which is the book on the Stoics. So the oldest version of this series that we have is missing book seven and it exists from about the eleven hundreds Wow, so copy of a copy of a copy Yeah So you were gonna say something though. Well, I just I find it funny that you know

The Stoics would be the group that got you know left shafted. Yeah, I Mean they were standing out on the Steps under the yawning yeah, of course they got left out. Yeah, yeah, but you know oh well That's what happens. I mean fires. You know where you store your books and what fires are yeah, it's like that But yes accepting it moving on is yeah, probably the best Best of action. Yeah now anyway Diogenes Laertius not not our Diogenes, but the author Diogenes from 600 years later wrote about anecdotes in Diogenes life our Diogenes and it's from Laertius that we learned that Diogenes' father was a banker and that Diogenes himself was stripped of all of his

possessions and had his citizenship stripped and was exiled from Sinope. And this was because his father and he had started a counterfeiting business or some sort of currency defacement scheme. some sort of currency defacement scheme. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah.

Now, what's interesting here, I think this is very, very instructive hinge point for Diogenes, I think, because this showed him the falsity of society. It showed him the kayfabe aspects of being acquisitive of possessions, of using currency, of valuing citizenship, and of claiming a homeland.

Because if it could be rescinded for something as silly as scratching off the faces on coins. Right, right, right. Okay. And now what's interesting is this does not seem to be fable actually, because there are a number of coins that have been found in that era, in that area from that era, from the era that's reported, that were defaced with a chisel in the area of Sinope. Now, given that Sinope is on the coast of the black sea and it's in the area of Sinope. Now given that Sinope is on the coast of the Black Sea and it's in the middle of warring empires

it would make sense that people are trying to counterfeit local currency in an attempt to gain wealth and power in between conquerings. Yeah, that all makes sense. That all does make sense. So you live in a world where your citizenship of this place makes you a target of two different places and Based on the arbitrariness of who wins You are this or that and your currency is worth this or that so what could have bought you food yesterday doesn't do it Or does does not do it today, and then you get in trouble for Scarring coins in this weird ass like none of it makes sense right so yeah Well, and and here's the thing this is as as you're describing all of that

all of these things are constructs Stateless a construct citizenship is a construct Money is a construct because like what are you gonna do with silver? Mm-hmm other than make coins with it right right? Right? It's shiny. Yeah, it's yeah What what what occurs to me and this is because of what I've been doing with my master's degree is We don't need postmodernism because we have cynicism

All the idea that all of these things are constructs well yeah the cynics figured that out like their shit got burned down so yeah okay it's time to recreate the trolley so okay so Diogenes ends up in Athens allegedly after seeking counsel with the Oracle Adelphi who said that he should focus on defacing politics, which frankly seems a little too Mary Sue for me, but okay. Either way, it's a little on the nose. Yeah. Yeah. Either way, the story has it that Diogenes ends up in Athens and while he was busy questioning the norms of society at the time, he bumps into antisthenes. And as the story goes he saw wisdom and common cause in what Antisthenes was advocating and he asked to be

Antisthenes his pupil and to the Antisthenes ignored Diogenes completely and so Diogenes continued to follow him around like a loyal dog Okay, that's one story. Another story is that Antisinies beat the living shit out of him to drive him away which again feels kind of that that Taoist the Buddhist cone right yeah like you know What's the sound of one hand clapping and then they come up and hit you upside the head because you're thinking too deeply you know Yeah, yeah Diogenes continued to return despite receiving these beatings until his antistinies took him on as a pupil

Also very Taoist and and Buddhist yes In the in the traditions of of you know Buddhist students showing up, you know Master I want to I want to be your student. Go away. Leave me alone and and like not not relenting right till until eventually all right you've shown me that you really mean it exactly exactly you know prove it it's also possible these two never met and Diogenes developed all this stuff based on his conversations with people who had met Antisthenes.

Okay. And it's here that we get a lot of our stories about him. So I just give you a quick list. He lived in a jar or a vase. Right. He begged using a bowl until he saw two boys using their hands to cup water, at which point he looked at the bowl and was like, I have been carrying out around this unnecessary luggage for too long I will be a slave to it no more and he breaks his bowl, right? He farts in public a lot Like I mean You're not supposed to I guess you're not supposed to but yeah, he scratched himself in public

He ate whenever he was hungry which at the time was against the custom in the Athenian market It's like Oh downtown Japan, you know, okay or downtown Tokyo. All right, uh He masturbated in public All right Now we're getting to a place where I'm like, oh Hey, okay Yeah, maybe maybe not that far Now across the line for me, all right

Well, and and people objected to him doing this, of course, and he said oh if only it was easy as easy to banish My hunger by rubbing my tummy. I Mean you're not wrong, right? But yeah, he if he disagreed with someone he would pee on them Speaking of ignoring social mores. Yeah, okay little LBJ action there He he would market my territory He would take a shit in the theater Okay, hold on hold on there's okay, there's

Context there. I hope it was theater. Yeah, theater wasn't just like the theater in Athens the theater was a temple. Right. Oh, holy, holy crap. Yeah. Um, wow. How did he not wind up having to drink hemlock for that? Because are you really going to punish a dog? You know, fair enough, but like, you know, we're dealing with the Greeks who are kind of where the Romans got their idea of, no, no, our religion is performative. We need to do these things to keep the gods happy. If you piss them off, we're gonna fuck you up.

Right. But then, you know, also, like, how do you punish a guy who is so outside of reality? That it doesn't register, right? So he's doing his street theater thing at the same time He's carrying a lantern in the daytime, which is ridiculous, and he's That way people ask him what he's doing. He says why I'm looking for a man in Athens some people say I'm looking for a virtuous man in Athens But you know a real man in Latin the word weir and the weird homo are two different words They both mean man, but one means a man of respect the other one means just a guy So I bet you there's he's not just looking for an throw pose. He's probably looking for another word

and there's he's not just looking for anthropos he's probably looking for another word and he said this because he considered everyone there to be fake since they lived fake lives based on fake values so therefore he couldn't find a man in Athens also how you gonna punish him dispossess him he doesn't fucking care. In fact he lived very poor on purpose to show people That one could be happy living poor and that civilization itself is a regressive practice So okay from a modern standpoint sure what I then would want to ask him like You know that whole exercise. You know you can pick four people living or dead to have to a dinner party I wouldn't actually hold a dinner party if the hatch days was on my list cuz that's just not gonna go anywhere But like if I call he's not gonna show up anyway, so no he's not

I honestly I might pick him and Gandhi cuz then I've got three plates There you go. Antiochities would approve of that. It'd be like, all right, way to work. Well, it's practical. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Um, but if, if I were to converse with him under whatever circumstances, one of my questions would be, okay so Would you are you are you advocating in the end for us to go? to to abandon all trappings of civilization and yes, everybody needs to go back to

Okay, he would say so for him like it's all a racket. It's all Shit. Yeah. Okay, you find the stuff that enables you to live simply and in a way that you can be content. And if you're not content, you'd better check your fucking values. Because the odds are you're winding yourself up over something that doesn't matter. Okay. So, an ideal civilization or night He he might not even argue that a civilization isn't ideal an ideal civilization isn't okay Wow, he also had no room in his world for Plato's abstractions

He didn't see he didn't see Plato is a rightful heir to Socrates is brilliant right? He claimed instead that Antisthenes was keening a lot closer because Antisthenes focused on real shit, not made-up shit. All right. Now according to Laertius, the guy who wrote about him, Plato called Diogenes the Socrates gone mad, which I just love. Yeah. And of course, Diogenes mocked Plato's definition of a man because Plato's followers were so dogmatic with what Plato said. And it's not that what Plato said was something Plato meant.

It was that Diogenes was taking the piss out of Plato's followers at his academy. Plato very tongue in cheek said, because he was asked, Hey, what is a man? He's like, Oh, it's a featherless biped you know moving on um and so the next day Diogenes plucked a chicken and brought it into the platonic academy this forced them to then redefine a man as being a featherless biped with broad flat nails a featherless biped with broad flat nails. Wow. So he wins.

So, okay. So, so hold on, hold on. Cause I've heard that story before. Right. But not that last part. Now there's, well, no, and not, and not the first part. What I, what, what I now find fascinating about it is one of his students comes to him all earnestness and, you know, teacher, what? Mm-hmm, you know in this in this deep, you know and and Plato's response is I don't know featherless biped. Mm-hmm. We got other shit to talk about right and Students are like no no the Messiah has this right?

It's like life of Brian. You know she's okay. Yeah, yeah And and and I had always taken that Because the way it's been it's been presented, but I've seen it. I've always taken it as oh well You know Plato is full of shit. I'm gonna. I'm going to go, you know, I'm going to fuck with Plato. That's not Plato at all. Right. Plato was like, no, we've got other shit to think about. Whatever. Like, and and it was the, as you said, the dogmatic students that he was coming back to going, you are all so far up your asses.

And so what he's he's not even going after them. He's going after the the the practice that they're doing, the trackers that they're chasing. Yeah. The, like, it's like- Their methodology. Yeah, well, I would even say like, you know, there are people who are out there

who define themselves as anarchists, and then they have to fit everything they do to that definition instead of looking at everything they do and going, oh, this aligns mostly with anarchism. Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah. And he's kind of going- I'm not a good anarchist if- Right.

Yeah. And so he's saying no true platonic. So like I said, he's an iconoclast, right? Love it, yeah, yeah.? As a teacher I would have fucking loved and hated this goddamn kid because in my class there's so much kayfabe. Well yeah. I use the shadows that are dancing on the walls to teach lessons because so many kids aren't ready for the blinding light outside of the cave anymore. And he would have hated me because he knows that wrestling's fake and why do I keep using K-Fabe?

Right. So after a while he bothers everyone in Athens and about everything that Athenians do and he sets sail for Iegean, which is on an island southwest of Athens. It's kind of the next big one over. The Sicily to Athens is Italy. Okay, fair. Okay. It's one of the Saronic Islands. In fact, one of the main rivals to Athens for sea power in the area, actually, the previous century.

Anyhow, Diogenes was, according to Menippeus, who himself, Menippus, was the founder of the Menippean satire. Menippus is a Phoenician who's considered a very important cynic and a potential intellectual godfather to the Declaration of Independence Because of satirical format that he came up with where you list all the things Okay, dodgy knees was captured by pirates and sold into slavery and Crete according to Menippus But of course he's Diogenes so when the slavers asked him, okay you we're gonna sell you what are you good at? So that they could probably mark him and market him he said no he said well the only skill I really have is to govern men so you should

Sell me to a man who wishes to have a master And I got so many levels that's just Wow, yeah, right the unmitigated audacity And and and I kind of want to see I now want to see Diogenes's life Done as a as a TV series for Netflix or something by Taika Waititi. Yeah, oh god that'd be fun. Because, because like well you know, the only thing I know how to do is govern, government, so you need to sell me to somebody who needs a master.

And I'm just like the long beat. Right. As the slavers stare at him. You got one guy in the background counting it on his fingers Yeah so And the two look at you know the two immediately in front of him You know being framing framing the shot look at each other like the fuck the guy with the clipboard is like

I don't have a box for that. I don't want to wait what yeah I don't have a box for that. I don't want to wait what yeah So here the story gets really foggy, but many agree that it's a fictionalized account anyway But that he gets sold to a skeptic philosopher named Xeniodes Who either had Diogenes tutor his own sons or immediately set Diogenes free once he got to Corinth? Either way, there's a lot of question as to whether or not Xeniodes even existed, so I'm going to assume that Diogenes got sold to someone and then annoyed them to the point where they freed him

once they got to Corinth. Oh my God. You were in trouble. Now, Corinth is on the other side of the mainland from the Saronic Islands, so to get to Corinth, it's a hell of a triangle actually that he ends up having to go in. Now in Corinth is where we run into the account of Diogenes meeting Alexander the Great, who was looking for a tutor. And there's two stories about that, right? Diogenes. What do you call it?

What do you call it? I lost I lost my page. I'm sorry. Um Okay So there's the the two stories there. The first story is he's he's carrying a lantern Going through like a bone again. Yeah, cuz this is his bit. It's a bit. Yeah, um going through a boneyard and uh, Alexander's like oh my god, what are you doing? He's like, oh i'm looking for your father's bones, but I can't tell them from the poor man's bones Which is supposed to be like a death sentence, but uh, yeah, you know it wasn't because alexander's like whoa dude knows his shit Um, and then later on You know he finds him living in a jar

a giant M4 behind I want to say the the temple of Athena or somebody and And he finds him living there. He's like you're the great dad. He's I am looking for a tutor I would anything. What what could I give you that you'd be my tutor? He says well You're blocking my son step to the left because that's all he needed at the time and that's the consistency. Oh so why this right? Okay, so Diogenes dies making fun of funeral rites On his deathbed on brain, yeah, they're like, how do you want your body to be cared for and blah blah blah. He's like, just hurl it outside of town to feed the wild game because why the fuck am

I going to care? I'm going to be dead. I'm dead. Right. And he's also credited as the creator of the word cosmopolitan because people would ask, well, where are you from? And he's like, I am a citizen of the world. OK, right. Makes perfect sense.

Again, seeing seeing how KFabe everything was. Yeah. On brand. Now, Dajji himself had several aspects that made him the embodiment and the trope codifier of cynicism. He was iconoclastic, both figuratively and literally. Right. He flouted decent and custom decency and customs And the laws if they got in the way of what he considered happiness not pleasure, but happy. Yeah, okay

He prized self-virtue that kind of Cracker Barrel common sense that will Rogers is famous for Okay, and he valued action over theory. Okay. Okay, he promoted the simple life, not only because it was easier, but because it offered him the ability

to critique the society that cared more about pleasure and the trappings, than they cared about virtue and happiness. Okay. So cool that you're rich. You know, it reminds me of that guy who is a fisherman and he's catching enough fish to sell to people and then at the end of the day,

he's got a few fish left over for himself, so he's got dinner. And then he does this all week long and then there's a rich guy who's like, well, you should buy another boat. He's like, I'm only one guy, I can't get on two boats. He's like, well, then you should buy another boat. He's like. I'm only one guy I can't get on two boats. He's like well, then you could hire a guy. He's like well Then I'd have to catch more fish

He's like but you know you you would be able to do that and then you could catch more fish and sell more He's like well, then what would I do he's like well you you could you could do all those things And then you could relax and you'd be very wealthy. He's like I'm already relaxed I'm sitting here smoking my pipe and eating my fish. Right. Yeah. You know, it's that story. Now, other people saw this effort as eschaticism, but I think, speaking of boats,

they really missed the boat with this. He cares about virtue and happiness, not about trappings and pleasure. Okay. You can be happy in a physically grueling environment because you're self-reliant. And again, self-sufficiency above all. Okay.

Okay. And that brings me to the point of this actual podcast. Right. Which is, I met Diogenes once in real life, but I've seen him a lot in fiction. Oh, okay. I think there are plenty of fictional characters who embody some of Diogenes' aspects,

but very few embody them fully. Most characters use Diogenes' aspects as a means to a different end, usually like, I don't know Degeneration X from about August through December of 1997 It was only to get and keep the world title. It was not to actually reject the norm in wrestling for its own sake Right. So I'm only gonna focus on the one on the characters who seem to embody the diagenetic aspects fully for their own sake or

As a deep character trait not as a means to an end Okay, okay, so I'm going to give you a list here of characters Who I think are Diogenes either in film or in book, okay? The first one that comes to mind is Jack Dawson from the Titanic Okay, yeah, I can see that He's poor right? He's living moment to moment. He lives very simply and doesn't seek trappings His speech at the dinner table on the Titanic Ruth Ruth's party Jack says in, in reply to Ruth's mom, who asks him if such a ruthless existence is something he enjoys,

he says, quote, well, yes, ma'am, I do. I got everything I need right here with me. I got air in my lungs, a few blank sheets of paper. I mean, I love waking up in the morning not knowing what's gonna happen or who I'm gonna meet and where I'm gonna wind up. Just the other night, I was sleeping under a bridge, and now, here I am on the grandest ship in the world having champagne with you fine people I figure life's a gift and I don't intend on wasting it

You don't know what hand you're gonna get dealt next you learn to take life as it comes to you You may to make each day count All right, literally living under a bridge two days earlier. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I can see. Yeah.

And the iconoclastic part is there. The contentment with self-sufficiency. He only needs the things that he needs to Yeah, buy his next meal, you know I never realized it but Jack is kind of a male version of the manic pixie dream girl trope in a lot of ways Yeah, yeah, which and now I hate myself for saying this but Diogenes is The he is absolutely manic manic that not center Sator manic Sator Dream boy yeah Greek philosophy. Yeah, absolutely I Think you're dead on there

Okay If you look at us baked my own noodle If you look back to the beginning he's playing a card game Literally doesn't know what hand he's gonna get dealt mm Mm-hmm. And then he moves on to the next thing, right? Yeah Earlier that day from the dinner party. He's walking with Rose whom he just met the night before Right sleeping under the stars living comfortably, right? Yeah, he's walking with her in the first-class area and He asks her quite simply if she loves Cal, because she's talking about why she was gonna jump

and all this, and he's like, well, it's a real simple question, do you love him? And she blusters and she blushes, and she goes on and on about how this is not a suitable conversation, talk about trappings. He sticks to the meat and potatoes of the simplicity of the question. He even says it's a simple question. And she then goes on about how rude he is and on how this is not proper. And he calls her out on

insulting him plainly and simply. He just, and you've insulted me. And she's all about how things ought to be and he's just rolling with it. And shortly after that, he literally teaches her how to spit. Okay, so he shows up in the movie. And I mean, I never, I have never sat down and watched Titanic from like like from beginning to end. I've seen bits and pieces here and there. Yeah. I know. I mean,

at some point just, just for the zip guys, I need to do it. But what I just now realized he is her, uh, psycho Palm through her, uh, Psycho Palm. Yes. Through her arc of, and Psycho Palm isn't quite the right word, but he, he is her, he is her guide to, uh, self actualization. If he was black, there's a term for that. If he was female and Rose was a dude,

there's a term for that. It's right. Literally. He. Yes. Okay. His entire way of living was at once a threat to the rich people on Titanic and an awakening for those capable of such thought. When he needs a jacket he steals it. When he needs a cigarette he asks for it from the man servant, David Warner. Within a couple of days, Rose has rejected everything about her life that was drowning her anyway and driving her to suicide, and she is ready to run away with him. And he's cool with that too. Oh, okay, cool. I guess we're doing that.

Jack is an iconoclast who flouted the accepted class structure that was on Titanic. Because he's literally getting to visit her in first class. He takes her down below to steerage for a real party, takes her into the underworld, if you will. With a band that didn't really actually fully get paid for their performance. But that's not why they were there

They were there of the playing. Well, you okay. Yes in the movie, but the actual band. Oh, oh, yeah Well, I mean that movie maligned like a storm Yeah, his name is a group and I'm a big fan. Well, it's not like the movie made much money So I mean, there's just not enough to go around Yeah, anyway. Yeah but he his life was the example and all that he was doing was just living it. His life becomes a critique. His existence is a critique on her made-up life as well as the whole circle she ran with. He was self-sufficient. He slept where he where he wanted roamed as he pleased and lived a life of common-sense survival Pity about the iceberg, but yeah shame about that and and the whole you know

Enough room on the door. Oh no no no okay that door would have submerged. I know they tested it All the people who were sitting there. Oh there was enough room It's about its ability to float and I knew them on it. I you know yes Yes, I'm just being a smart ass. Yeah also There's there's a You know if we're gonna talk about okay, let, let's, let's be real about this. We evolved as a species. Part of the reason we were as successful as we were is because we figured out how

to hack the idea of operating in a society. And so this, this whole cynic idea of, you you know self-reliance, and you know living like Jack or like Diogenes only works When there's an infrastructure around you I'm you know yeah, or if you are more powerful than anyone else Yeah, I'm gonna kind of call bullshit on the calling bullshit, but anyway well I'm not here to judge the the veracity of no I figure out where I Fall on cynicism, but yeah, but looking at the actual characters

Yeah, I just I I had to get that out of my system or it would become septic so anyway I just I I had to get that out of my system or it would become septic so anyway Right the next character is brother ray from Game of Thrones Okay, Ian McShane's character So In McShane's character is got he's got people building a sept in the wilderness of Westeros. Now, there's a lot of trappings here, I understand. So, this is not going to be a one-to-one like Jack was. No.

But I think ultimately they're living a bit above the eschatism that Diogenes seemed to prefer, and toward a religion that doesn't really have a physical bearing on their lives. And so maybe you could argue that this doesn't count as diagenetic, but they're still also living in direct rejection of Westerosi values. The virtues that they're trying to embody are those virtues that value eschatism, such as it is there, the kind of hard living that Diogenes recommended, the hand-to-mouth simplicity of it, and community, which is less so Diogenes, but it still has within it a type of self-reliance that remains a critique of Westerosi values. It's a little bit more macro than Jack the individual. Yeah. Then Jack the individual yeah I'm going to

Totally support you on the rejection of Westerosi values one of the things that I'm going to Interject that you haven't mentioned yet Okay, well, but I don't know maybe I'm Continue and I will see if I if I was about to cut you off. Okay, so when Brother Ray first found the hound Ray assumed that he was dead and said about burying him. That's what you do with a corpse When the hound coughed Ray instead loaded him on this cart and took care of him. So second ago. I was gonna bury you Oh now you're alive. I'll take care of you

There was no poring over what the right decision here was he knew what it was moment to moment The moment that he thought he found a corpse better bury it because it's gonna make my life difficult Otherwise when he found out that oh, it's not a corpse. It's a living man Okay, the moment changed so did his actions Okay now brother Ray's way to defend Brother Ray is kind of hard for me to say because it's actually the name of a Professional wrestler in the 2010s, but his his way to and he's nothing like this character I'm sure yeah

But his way to defend the people his people his community is to not Defend them if they have nothing there's nothing to take right It sounds familiar sounds like somebody I met His quote to his de facto congregation echoes Jack Dawson, but also echoes Diogenes his preference for doggy style quote I Was a soldier once all my superiors thought I was brave. I wasn't I mean I never ran from a fight Only because I was afraid my friends would see that I was afraid

That's all I was a coward who followed orders no matter the orders burn that village fine I'm your arsonist steal that farmers crops good. I'm your thief kill those young lads so they won't take up arms against us. I'm your murderer. You know, I remember once a woman screaming at us, calling us animals as we dragged her sons from their hut. But we weren't animals. Animals are true to their nature and we had betrayed ours. I cut that young boy's throat myself as his mother screamed and my friends held her back. That night I felt such shame. Shame was so heavy on me. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep.

All I could do was stare into that dark sky and listen to that mother screaming her son's name. I'll hear her screaming the rest of my life. Now I know I can never bring that lad back. All I can do with the time I've got left is bring a little goodness into the world. That's all any of us can do, isn't it? Never too late to stop robbing people, to stop killing people, start helping people.

It's never too late to come back. And it's not about waiting for the gods to answer your prayers. It's not even about the gods. It's about you, learning you have to answer your prayers yourself. God's. It's about you. Learning you have to answer your prayers yourself. So in that quote, Ray is refusing the trappings of expectation. He's trying to live closer to his own nature and through this eschatism that they're

living in the wilds of Westeros, he's also living closer to nature itself. Now he is bound by the idea of the seven, but through that he still lived in a way that rejected the norms of the culture in which he lived and died, and it was run largely by the common sense needs of living in the wilds. He even says it's not really about the gods, even though that's the thing that we're doing his way of life became a beacon to others who weren't living Who were not willing to live according to Westerosi norms? Now of course yeah, he gets hanged and that's we're two for two on dead Diogenes. Yeah. Well, so Being being this kind of figure is kind of like hanging out with the hero. And it tends not to end well. Um,

the one thing you haven't mentioned is the egalitarianism of the community. He is, he is clearly the leader, but that's because this is, this was his idea and he's the one who brought everybody together. But there is no, because of the simplicity of their lifestyle, there is no rich, there is no because of the simplicity of their lifestyle. There is no rich. There is no poor, right? There are no words to people or their requests. Yeah, there are no lords. There are no serfs and in a Feudal setting that is

that is Revolutionary. Oh, absolutely That is, that is revolutionary. Oh, absolutely. In fact, they even have a scene later on, I think like two seasons later, where they're trying to figure out who the next king's gonna be, and then somebody's like,

well, shouldn't we ask the people? And there's a beat, and then somebody just starts laughing. It's like, should we get the dogs too? Yeah. Which I'm like, oh, huh, dogs. So yeah, you're absolutely right what he is doing is a revolutionary repudiation of that society now He's not living like Jack exactly

But in as much as you can have a cynic in Westeros. I think you've got one in brother Ray Yeah, I think in this in this classical sense of cynic. Yes Mm-hmm. I think westeros is full of cynics in the more common modern technology Tier and how many kind of one? Yeah, how Dandor Tyrion being real real high up there Also Sarah Braun of the Blackwater. I almost had him Ron values shit too much. Oh, well, yeah

He's yeah, he is what we would call cynicism now, but he's not a classic cynic. He's not a die genetic cynic He is not no. Yeah. No he what he is is He is a Henry Kissinger realist I don't know if I'm what I He's he's a mercenary. Yeah You said Henry he says real politic Hmm decision by decision. Yeah, a castle is the true aphrodisiac All right, so the next one. Okay.

Yeah. Comes from Star Wars EU. Okay. So no longer canon but fiction is still fiction. This actually is from the Clone Wars comics and his name is Jedi Master Zao. Okay. He is a blunt, he is a Vecnoid Uh who absolutely was bought into the whole Jedi system until he stopped and zao zao Until he stopped being bought into the Jedi system, um Okay at this point when Quinlan vos the care the main character for that particular arc meets him Jedi master zao is a wandering Jedi who is blind, uses a stick to let him help him walk, and he cooks food for people. This is the one you mentioned in my episode on how the Jedi could have been.

Yes. Okay. He actually is a cook for a crime lord in the town of Dead End in 30 BBY. BBY is before Battle of Yavin. Yes. Okay. With his cooking he would teach philosophy to anyone who ate his food. Essentially all the ingredients are always the same but how the food tastes depends on whether or not you're in balance with your life With your true nature and by extension with the force if you weren't you would taste bad food The crime lord hated zows cooking By the way, I'm pretty sure that he is the inspiration on a few levels of truth and way Mmm, okay. Yeah, it sounds like it could be yeah now anyway

He doesn't let it which again if if so I love that because again Disney keeps doing that the right way with Star Wars Taking the good stuff and not making any of us suffer through children of the Jedi anyway Zao doesn't let anyone hurt him, but he also doesn't do much else. He kind of reminds me of the guy who taught Morgan how to fight with a quarterstaff in Walking Dead. The guy who raised goats. Yeah.

Now, he doesn't do much else. He doesn't seem to have a home of any kind. He kind of just, he drifts. When Order 66 happens, Zao survives it and he helps folks in a refugee camp. And while he's in that refugee camp, because that's where he is, so that's where he must be needed. When he gets a sense in the force that folks are coming to kill the refugees who are force sensitive, he does what he can to help the younglings escape to safety.

The militia that's sent after them end up getting killed in the attempt, and once everyone is safe, the younglings who use the force and anger to kill the militia runs off. Zhao leaves to go find her because that seems like the right thing to do at the moment, and that's literally the last we ever see of him It's it's presumed that he lived out the rest of his life Because we never actually see the body Now zao had given up the Jedi lifestyle no more temple living instead of living in a simple cloak cooking things

Instead he lived just wearing a simple cloak. He cooked things as a street vendor. He's very much living hand to mouth the whole time that we encounter him. And he is hesitant to even help the Jedi to fight the separatists because he thinks that the Jedi have gotten too involved in politics. Trappings involved in trappings. Zao actually invokes the right of denial, but he even seems to have rejected the ceremony and the requirements that go with that. You're supposed to like turn in your lightsaber and swear that you're never going to use the Force again and shit like that.

He's like, no, keep your shit. Like keep your dumb trappings. He simply lived as quote, but a leaf blown by the winds of the force. I trust my purpose and being anywhere will eventually be revealed to me. So he's one part Chirrut Imwe, one part Wash, all Diogenes. Okay. Yeah. He lived as an ascetic. He lived a solitary existence, blown by the winds or by nature or by the force. He spoke and acted simply. He didn't let the trappings of intergalactic civil war or what this particular warlord wanted guide him or get in his way. He didn't allow himself to be misguided by institutional loyalties or by political ideologies.

He walked the path that felt right and he lived according to his own conscience and intuition. All right, yeah. That's it. That's a compelling argument. Certainly one example, yes. Yeah. So, all right. So my next example. Yeah. Deadpool. He does touch himself in public. He does scratch himself in public. He would pee on you. Yeah, he totally would. I mean, right? His morality is his own. I mean, he's the easiest right his choices are his own He's iconoclastic as fuck. He's irreverent. Yeah, he lives in a way that is a direct critique and contrast to the norms of society around him

He the one Mm-hmm the one Wibble I don't know if it's even that, that I would make is we can, we, you and I can look at Diogenes's decisions regarding virtue and his idea of what it was to be virtuous, to be true to oneself, make sense. Um, Deadpool is batshit crazy. Or is he batshit crazy because we live with all of these trappings? Okay, alright. Fair enough, I suppose.

Because he is consistent in his morality. Well yeah. Well, yeah, um, it's, it's what it's what tv tropes calls blue and orange morality. Um, you know, everybody else is operating on a black and white gray scale, blue and orange. And God knows what in between, but okay. All right. But yeah, I mean, like, look what he does when he finds out that you know The kid is going to be or who was a victim of abuse. He shoots a guy dead right in bay like yeah Murder is not out of the question And you know, yeah ever yeah, but at the same time like

Watch his first interaction with Vanessa He is as respectful as it gets. That's true. He tells him hands off the merchandise. He absolutely backs off, only engages at the level that she wants to, you know, and on and on. Also stops her from being excessive

and squeezing fat Gandalf's balls. You know, and yet he starts a giant fight between two guys because he had money on that. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Pump the hate breaks, Fox and Friends. Right.

Yeah. You know? Yeah, all right. He has a very common sense approach to things that cuts through both people and conventions. See, you say common sense. Right. cuts through both people and conventions. See, you say common sense. I'm going to say there's a utilitarianism and I don't mean in the,

in the English utilitarianism. I mean in the, this is the easiest way to get from point A to point B. I don't know if I would call that necessarily always common sense. Well, okay, he doesn't take the easy way out all the time. Yeah, okay. He constantly teases Francis. Um Ajax You know, it's like every chance he can to the point where it makes his life measurably worse. Yes Yeah, and yet he's holding true to himself you know he's shooting in that guy's theater he is he is peeing on that man almost literally yeah yeah you know he clearly masturbates when he wants to he even he

tells her she should leave but he's not gonna stop himself you know and he also like he never really assumes anything more than his own survival as something that's important or the survival of other people right right yeah um and he rejects being called he like he even knocks out his friend um like in that climactic battle he's like i haven't seen you since jacksonville and he knocks him the fuck out why because they're fighting each other at that time yeah you know he rejects being called a hero uh he rejects joining groups uh he irritates the shit out of people who try to live by a code witness cable, uh, oh well witness Colossus yeah, but no he really bugs the shit out of cable. Yeah, like makes it his

mission. Well, I mean, okay, so if we're if we're gonna go with him being diagenetic, cable is clearly a graduate of the Academy of Plato. Oh, absolutely because he has like Canonically he has such a stick up his ass. Yes So so yeah, he's the most slam-dunk example. I've got to be honest. Yeah, okay. Yeah Yeah, I I can't I mean I've I've I've I've voiced my Level of disagreement, but I can't summon more than that because yeah, it's a compelling argument So I've got two more the first one is Del Mar from Oh Brother War Art Thou

Okay Delmar is by far though the one most diagenetic in the whole story now that doesn't mean that he is fully Diagenetic, but I actually think he is with a few caveats. Now Ulysses Everett McGill lies to everyone all the time to get what he needs, right? Yeah. Pete has a deeply held belief of kinship and hierarchies aspiring to be the maitre d of a fancy restaurant. Right. And you know the hell you say, wash his kin. It's like, well, he just turned you in. Well, I didn't know that, but Delmar just kind of shrugs and goes with whatever is right in front of him.

And throughout the movie, he does things that no one thinks to do. In 1930s Mississippi, while on the run from the law, who is it that advocates stopping and giving that young blackfella a ride? Delmar. Yeah. At every turn Delmar does not give a second thought to social norms or anything that would get in the way of simply living and being fed up to and including stealing a pie. Right. Okay. When he was convinced that Pete got turned

into a toad by them sirens, he didn't like the idea of keeping Pete locked up in a box while they ate at a fancy restaurant. Just because he's a frog doesn't mean you lock him away. Quote, I just don't think it's right keeping him under wraps like we were ashamed of him. Like shame is a social convention. Everett on the other hand was willing to pass such societal judgment quote, well if Pete, well if it is Pete and I'm, I am ashamed of him. Way I see it he got what he

deserved fornicating with some whore of Babylon. These things don't happen for no reason Delmar, it's obviously some kind of judgment on his character But Delmar does not relent he fires right back pointing out the inherent hypocrisy of this judgment Well, the two of us was fixing to fornicate He shouts in a restaurant Yeah He's he's also he's similarly kind to babyface Nelson and Tommy Johnson And while he doesn't agree with either man's choice

He doesn't judge them for it to the point where he stops Nelson from yelling at a woman for calling him babyface She didn't mean nothing by it George and When he's told by Tommy Johnson that he sold his soul, he's like, oh, you didn't do that. He's like, well, I wasn't using anything. Oh, OK. Now, while he is driven by his belief that land ownership matters, that that plus his baptism seem to be the only two things that he strays from cynicism with.

seem to be the only two things that he strays from cynicism with. And when Everett is talking about how to get his own wife back, Delmar's focused more on the itchiness of their costume beards. When Pete's cousin Washington Hogwallop is lamenting his wife's having run off, Delmar remarks about the flavor of the horse stew. This stew is awful good. That's it. Like any problems, he's like, yeah, but look what's right in front of us. When Nelson's ill-gotten booty starts blowing out the window, friend, some of your fold-in

money's come unstowed. And his willingness to apologize and take personal responsibility for mistakes is as commonsensical as it gets. Quote, we didn't abandon you, Pete. We just thought you was a toad. No, they never did turn me into a toad. Well, that was our mistake then. Just, oh, okay. Okay. Yeah. He lives simply. He lives hand to mouth, though he does have a slightly larger plans at the end of things that he's

working quietly toward. Again, land ownership, but he largely just goes with the flow. He honors his friends and his word. He protects them while they're under attack by a cyclops. Like he keeps attacking the cyclops. Yeah. Or when they're in danger because they've been turned into a horny toad, and he doesn't really live according to social norms of the society that has seen fit to incarcerate him. Delmar is Diogenes. All right, that's fair. I like it. And the last one I could find was the Traveler from Star Trek Next Generation. All right, that's fair. I like it.

And the last one I could find was the Traveler from Star Trek Next Generation. Okay. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Here's the thing. He exists in any reality that he prefers. He does what he wants, goes where he wants, and doesn't really have any interest in anything else. He doesn't see time or space in the same way as anyone else in Starfleet. He lives simply exploring as he sees fit and he helps folks whom he deems in need, offering them a new way to see the universe and rejecting the common understanding of it. My favorite quote of his is this quote, there is no specific place I wish to go, to which Picard, as lawful good as a man can get, asks, then what is the purpose of your journey? Curiosity.

Yep. I'm hungry. I rubbed my belly. I'm curious. I'm going to travel. Yeah. His existence in every way is a critique of the bureaucratic and imperial approaches that the rest of the galaxy seems to explore or to implement in order to explore space. He on the other hand lives very simply, travels very simply. I don't think he has any luggage with him. And he just lets folks go about what they're doing. Yeah. I totally, I, yeah, I can't, I can't argue with any point of that.

The one, the one thing that occurs to me is though he has preacher natural abilities that make that model of existence easier. Oh, absolutely. I mean, so does Wade Wilson., well yeah, he keeps healing yeah like Yeah, you know so there's a there's a certain level of Instagram travel influencer

You know the most lazy influencer. Oh yeah. Like he'd be shit at it. Like he would not. Yeah. He would not get followers or yeah. But the thing is, does he need to monetize? No. You know, but like that's, that's the analogy that comes to mind for me. So yeah, but, but as far as the chosen way that he behaves, yeah.

And the way he interacts with the societies that he comes into contact with. Yeah. No, you're, you're right on, right on the money. Yeah. So honorable mention, uh, I would put the dude Jeffrey lubowski as honorable mention now bless him He tries but he is way too easily rattled by walter and nihilists Um, although well and he's and he's wrapped up in, you know the rug Not at first not at first. He was willing to accept it until walter Not at first. He was willing to accept it until Walter kind of riles him up about it.

Okay, fair. And that's just it though. He's easily convinced to actually start caring about shit. And that's the problem. And his defense is stoned. Well, and it really tied the room together. Yeah. Now he does have several aspects of Diogenes, but it's so clear that

he could be if he would just abide more often. Yeah. If he would do a better job abiding. Yeah. Yeah. He aspires to abide. Yeah. You know, except he can't get out of his own way. He is a failed Diogenes. Okay, fair. Diogenes did not show up in fiction very often. And short of that man that I knew when I was a teenager, and the actual Diogenes himself, he doesn't seem to exist in reality very often. Most stories don't benefit from someone who rejects

just about everything that it takes to make a story interesting for us. And most lives are too tied up with being too tied up in life. I myself have drastic problems with Diogenes because I remember the story of the ants in the grasshopper. And humans evolved to be the way that we are because we sucked at being self-sufficient. We're inherently pack creatures. So it comes back to what you said before.

I do really enjoy running into them in either place because they do serve as an important kind of jester function. Anytime people are getting way too into whatever systems they fully bought into, it's good to know that there's someone out there who would point out that it's still mostly just bullshit. Yeah. But it's, it's, it reminds me, I almost, I deleted this from the thing, but I almost put Jesus Christ as a diagenetic character. Because of his iconoclasm. The thing is, he's, he does have too many concerns. He is not self-sufficient, and yet the way that he is brought up in the gospels is he's living in his own reality,

and 12 guys are trying to follow behind. Yeah. And there is a level of, I don't know how I don't know how to, how to formulate. He has a greater plan in place. Yes. There is, there is an intentionality. There's an end game to what he's doing. Yes. Yeah.

And there is, and there is a fundamental concept of salvation and God and there's a whole, there's a whole spiritual Superstructure. Yeah. Now you can say that his methods are diagenetic. I mean he he does do the whole go into the wilderness thing He you know absolutely questions almost every cultural norm challenges them Does the equivalent of urinating on the Pharisees importantly though yeah he he is wedded to the scriptures and the traditions right rather rather than looking at the scriptures and traditions and saying well, okay, that's all a construct. That's all bullshit He's saying the things we've constructed a top of it. Yes

Let's get it back down to its root meanings. Yes. Yeah, and that's Diogenes is five levels below that he's like All of its bullshit. Yeah. Yeah. So so again, I think he would be closer to Plato than he would be to Diogenes is like, all of it's bullshit. Right. Yeah. So again, I think he would be closer to Plato than he would be to Diogenes. And that's why he didn't make the list. But there was some examination there because of his iconoclasm. It's, he literally rips the veil and throws the things.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, flips tails. Yeah, there is a- Curses a, yeah. Yeah, but yeah, there is there is a Curses a fig tree. Yeah so And yet tells people don't you go throwing stones? Mm-hmm, you know like there's a lot there, you know, and and and I think you know in many ways He is a trickster character. He is a psycho pump for people

Yeah, you know and so there are Diagenetic aspects to that. Very much, yeah. You know, I just, I didn't think it was a strong enough case to make, to be perfectly honest. Yeah, and I can confirm the reasoning behind that. I think the other examples you have are much stronger. But I do like the interesting parallel though there. reasoning behind that. I think the other examples you have are much stronger. But I do like the interesting parallel though there,

because as you talked about with your Obi-Wan episodes months ago, was that we can never be that perfect person, but we try, right? And I think that is that that iconic, ironically enough, that iconic cynic that that shows us the attraction to trying to walk that path. Yeah. But the reality makes it so we don't ever all want to walk that path. Well, because yeah. And, and please, well, one, I don't want fleas to part of my happiness. And this is, this is also an individual thing.

Part of my happiness is my family. Yeah. Part of my happiness is those relationships and Diogenes didn't have that motivation. Diogenes, the truth that Diogenes saw was subjectively different in terms of where he found happiness. You know, if I, if I gave up my house and my job and the trappings that all went with it, I, I would, I would potentially be fine, you know, and I could be happy not having those material things. But I have a wife and a kid who are, who are a massive source of my happiness. And I, I want to see them happy because I'm a social being. Right. And so I'm just not wired the way Diogenes was.

Yeah, I think there's definitely an aspect of that. I think also, I don't know, there's a layer of, I remember years and years ago, I dabbled with taking anti-anxiety medication for one point, just a part in my life where I needed to get on top of it. What I found was that the crushing anxiety slash depression that made me not want to live disappeared. I will call that the bottom 15%. Okay. What else

disappeared was my ability to ejaculate successfully. So the top 15% so the agony and the ecstasy were both gone. That's leveled out. Yes. And you know what is a common experience. And medications that is a useful fucking thing because I much prefer being alive Then not well, yeah, and I'm I'm you know, I don't think I was ever having suicidal ideation But I saw myself keening in that direction. Hmm. I think that Diogenes What he promises like if you live a truly diagenetic Lifestyle. Yeah what he promises, like if you live a truly diagenetic lifestyle, you're in that middle 70%, which, cool, that is where lies contentment.

But, you know, the feeling of a nice breeze on your ankles is the greatest joy that you'll feel. I love a nice breeze on my ankles. Oh yeah. But chocolate and coming and holding hands and smelling my partners the top of her head. Cause I'm taller than my partner. Um, give it a shot sometime. Um, but uh, you know, like all those things, like that's, you know, hearing my kids laugh. Like all those things, top 15. I am not about to lose those. No.

And I think in some ways he was trying to exit the human condition by de-emphasizing the humanity of it. And at the same time, I understand why. Look at what humanity had to offer him. Oh, well, yeah. There's some fucked up shit right there. You know, like, oh, you bust your ass

so that you could get taken over by this guy or that guy and it won't really matter. And then if you choose the wrong side, bad shit will happen to you. And then you could just get cast out anyway. Like, you fucked up stupid bronze age society, you know, so I can understand coming out of that. Yeah, it's not an unreasonable response to what was going on around him. Right. But it's,

it's hard to get, as you say, it's hard to give up that top 15% when you're, when you're, you know, existing in a society, right? You know, and he, and again, I'm going to point this out. He was existing, you know, somebody made the amphora that he was living in, you know, he, he was able to exist hand to mouth in a society that had enough wealth around him. That they could spare some stuff for his hands. That they could. Yeah. Precisely. Um, you know, if, if his argument were to be followed to its greatest extent, you know, we'd, we'd go back to,

uh, you know, Neolithic or paleo actually pre pre agricultural revolution. And like, I don't think anybody but a genuinely hardcore diagenetic cynic would argue that we're not better off having community and having civilization. And yeah, there are downsides you have to put up with other people's bullshit Yeah, but I also don't get eaten. Yeah, you know I don't die Feeling the pain of getting eaten. Yeah, I don't I don't have to worry about leopards as much right Like like the safety aspect of all of that really fucking matters Yeah, you know yeah, you know All right, so what are you recommending to people to to imbibe to read

I Have to look it up here because I closed all my windows But I am going to recommend how And I've recommended this before But the title of the book is how the world made the West Yeah a four thousand year history by Josephine Quinn. Okay. Because, you know, the, the core of what we've been talking about in this episode with, with Diogenes and that whole philosophical traditional tradition that he came out of is, is part of that, um, ground layer of,

of what we refer to as Western civilization. And, um, you know, Quinn goes into some detail about just exactly how that construct again, to go into all of this shit is made up. Um, you know, the idea of the West is one of those constructs. Yeah. And, and how that came about and how that developed. So that's, that's my reading recommendation. How about you? Uh, I'm going to recommend a graphic novel. It's it's Clone Wars volume four called Light and Dark.

I think this is really where you first meet Master Zhao and if not volume three. But Light and Dark, it's got Count Dooku on the cover and it's really really good. What's cool about these comics is that there are some threads that go all the way through but you can kind of pick it up in the middle at least from Issues one through five six seven eight Tend to be tied together and then nine again falls away again But that is volume four of Clone Wars

the That is volume four of Clone Wars, the graphic novel. It's called Light and Dark. If you can get your hands on a copy of that, it's excellent, excellent stuff. The artwork is fantastic. I really, I think I'm going to go back and reread all those Clone Wars comics again, because they're really good. And I'm needing ideas for my kids' Star Wars game. So.

There you go. Yeah. You, I assume assume don't want to be found. Uh, I do not want to be found. Um, I am hiding in an M four, a, um, but, um, we collectively can be found, uh, on the Apple podcast app on Spotify and on the Amazon podcast app. Uh, we of course also can be found on our website at www.geekhistorytime.com. Whichever place it is that you found us, please take the time to subscribe, give us a five star review because you know, we've put in the work. We deserve it. We are attached to this particular construct, to this thing.

And what about you, sir? Where can you be found? Well, you can find me as a founding member, co-star of Capital Punishment in Sacramento at the Comedy Spot at 9 p.m. on November 1st December 6th and January 3rd basically first Friday of every month 9 p.m. come on down to the Comedy Spot in Sacramento you are not local then go to the Sacramento Comedy Spots website and buy a ticket to stream the show. When when Ed does an episode, you hear a ton more of my puns and then imagine that.

But it's like eight mile meets that meets pro wrestling. It is a lot of fun. So stream the show. Not so many suplexes in the show. That's true. That's true. It's I'm much more of a ground-based punster. Yeah. But yeah, come see the show one way or the other and enjoy it there.

All right. All right. Well, for A Geek History of Time, I'm Damian Harmony. And I'm Ed Blalock, and until next time, behold, a man. A twenty.