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Seneca to Lucilius: 44, philosophy as the great equalizer
“If there is any good in philosophy, it is this: it has no regard for genealogies.” (Letters to Lucilius, XLIV.1)
At the beginning of his 44th letter to his friend Lucilius, Seneca reminds us that philosophy is for everyone, regardless of one’s ancestry or so-called “noble” birth. This is a point I often have difficulty getting across when I talk about Stoicism to the media. A common objection raised to my presentation of the philosophy is that it’s elitist, since few people have enough leisure time to read the ancients, or a sufficient degree of education to appreciate them.
But that is simply not the case. No more than it is the case with Buddhism, which is practiced by half a billion people, or Christianity, which counts almost two and a half billion people among its followers. Of course, if one wishes to become sufficiently steeped in Stoicism to be able to write books or give lectures about it, one does need a somewhat sophisticated background in philosophy, and time to spare. But that person would be the equivalent of a Christian theologian, for instance, and most Christians don’t have to get to those levels in order to practice their religion.
