“Sandrine Bergès on philosophy‘s rigid and also porous spheres for public life and the home, via readings of Aristotle, Hierocles, and Musonius Rufus. (aeon)
Hierocles the Stoic is famous among ancient philosophers for his account of Stoic oikeiôsis – moral development – as a progression through concentric circles starting from the desire for self-preservation to cosmopolitanism. Stoic moral development consists in first making oneself ‘at home’ in one’s body, then we reach out to those in the circles closest to us: parents and siblings, then to those farther from us – our other relatives and neighbours, our countrymen and women – and finally to the whole world. The concentric circles are important because they offer a clear and vivid explanation of what the Stoics mean when they declare that they owe moral allegiance to the entire world.
Before the dawning Of my life; I was the river Forever winding To purple dreaming, I was the glowing Of youthful Springtime, I was the singing Of golden songbirds,—
[…]
I was the vision Of youthful striving, I was the summer, I was the autumn, I was the All-time— I was love.
In the new place which will be also the old place we will save useful things neatly, with backups, but not too many, not too much. Everyone will train in some archives, teaching methods & learning our shared reverence for research which is reverence for knowledge which is reverence for community which is reverence for being which is reverence for this earth & all universes. We will keep kitchen archives & garden archives & comms archives & decisions archives & process archives & experiment archives & we will consult these archives when we need background or inspiration or instruction, or for pleasure, the great pleasure of the archive, the great archive of pleasure; we will call this art, how we spend our days & nights.
It takes too much energy not to care… The why of why we are here is an intrigue for adolescents; The how is what must command the living. Which is why I have lately become an insurgent again.”
-from Lorraine Hanshury’s play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window (1965)
via Corita Kent (1918-1986), highly prized, 1967. Seen at Marciano Art Foundation.