Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Marcus Aurelius

I have been intermittently reading the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
I have not been impressed.

They are hailed as a shining example of Stoic philosophy, but it seems
to me that Marcus is simply repeating platitudes by rote. There is no
logic or structure; he simply writes things down at random.

There is almost no real introspection. He never seems to think about
what he is doing or why he is doing it.

It often seems that he is simply repeating some kind of magic formula
in the hopes of making things seem better.

Marcus has no hope and no goal in life, except to to what is expected
of him by society, playing his part well like a good little puppet.
If this work captures the attitude and philosophy of the Roman world,
then it is easy to see why Christianity spread so quickly.

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