His conviction that the life of a dog is generally preferable to the life of a human being, his commitment to deface the norms and values by which most people live, his rejection of nationality and of allegiance to conventions and traditions, and his extraordinary freedom of speech and behavior earned him the name of “the Dog,” as Aristotle himself called him. It is for this that he is known as “Diogenes the Cynic” because the word ‘cynic’ is derived from the Greek word for ‘dog.’
What is most curious about him is that in his own words he felt called, perhaps by God or some higher power, to declare war on the world, indeed a total war against the ways in which people live and against all communal and political arrangements. In his view, human beings suffer from a disease that his many followers called typhos, which means all sorts of things, including smoke, fog, and cloudiness. People, according to him, are constantly in a state of mental intoxication as if they were drunk, which explains their irrational, frantic, and senseless behavior, as well as their futile search for happiness. Their constant drunkenness is fueled by emotions, mistaken perceptions, superstitious beliefs, false expectations, a maddening search for pleasure and possessions, and an endemic state of mindlessness that transforms them into idiotic peons of political ideologies. What better proof of this can there be other than the wars, exploitation, abuse, violence, and stupidity (a word that conveys precisely what typhos means) that permeate human existence?
Diogenes’ war against the world seems to have been unsuccessful. Now, twenty four centuries after the dogman died, the world has not changed from what it was then. In fact, it may have gotten worse: The population is vastly larger, greater knowledge has made us prouder, the worship of national states has become more entrenched, and technology has made the contagion of the disease of typhos a truly pandemic condition. Diogenes’ description of the world in which he lived—a gigantic madhouse—seems to apply perfectly to our own world.
One of the biggest problems concerning our understanding of Diogenes’ ideas is that no writings by him are in existence. We must rely on information provided by a few of his contemporaries and by the literally thousands of reports written by others. Most such reports come to us in the form of anecdotes or stories from which, with patience and imagination, the portrait of the famous dogman emerges with some clarity. Three such anecdotes can give us an idea of him:
Once, when Alexander the Great visited Diogenes in his tub, the proud emperor asked the philosopher to teach him to be happy, for which, he said, he would give him one half of his empire. Diogenes disdainfully said to him: “Just move out of the way. You are blocking the sun that is warming me.” On another occasion, the emperor sent a messenger to summon Diogenes to his presence, to which Diogenes replied, “Tell him that he is too important to need me, and I am too independent to need him.” He stayed put in his tub. In yet another, when someone asked him what his country was, he calmly replied, “Precisely where I am at this moment. The universe is my only country.” In his answer he seems to have created the word ‘cosmopolite’ (from cosmos, that is, ‘universe’ and polites, that is, ‘citizen’).
Diogenes’ ideas and mode of life had a significant influence in ancient times and indeed in subsequent times. The famous “Army of the Dog” to which he gave rise was alive and healthy for several centuries after his death. The innumerable men and women who enlisted in this “army” reached the same conclusion that animated Diogenes’ life, namely, that the human world is generally bankrupt and dysfunctional, and is indeed in urgent need of undergoing a radical change that can only be realized through a heavy infusion of rationality into human ideas and behavior. The Cynicism of Diogenes and his followers ultimately stands for the very opposite of what in modern times has come to be called “cynicism,” a point that I will endeavor to elucidate in subsequent articles.
Article originally posted on the VM Blog .
Dr. L. E. Navia is Professor of Philosophy at New York Institute of Technology. He is the author of many books including Diogenes the Cynic: The War Against the World , Classical Cynicism , and Socrates: A Life Examined .