Jorge Mario Bergoglio chose the name Francis to demonstrate his commitment to the common people and the environment.  In his papacy he demonstrated courage and openness.  He spoke out on behalf of poor and marginalized people of the world and he spoke out against authoritarians including Putin, Netanyahu, Bolsonaro, and Trump.  No doubt he will be named a saint joining the pantheon of 83 previous sainted popes, some whose holiness is questionable.

Of course Francis will have to go through the ancient and strange process of beatification and sanctification including finding a couple of miracles he must now get on the schedule. Francis himself elevated two popes to sainthood, John Paul II and John XXIII.  John the XXIII was another pope of the people, an enormously consequential pope who moved the Church somewhat belatedly into the 20th century.  Pope Francis also sainted Pope John Paul II, who not only reached out to all faiths and nations and Jews but apologized for 2,000 years of Christian anti-semitism.  John Paul II may well be a saint but his dealing with sexual scandal by priests is less than saintly. 

More importantly, in my mind, Pope Francis put a hold on the process of sanctifying Pope Pious XII, a craven betrayer of his duty. Francis opened the secret archives on Pious XII which confirmed the obvious, that Pius accommodated the Nazis in order to preserve the wealth and position of the Church. I recall the day in November 1958 when we Catholic school kids were marched next door to pray for dead pope in St. Ann’s church whose entrance was draped in black. For years little was said about the perfidy and awful silence of Pious XII.

The secret archive that was opened by Francis was studied and reported by David Kertzer in The Pope at War: the Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler. In his book, Kertzer shows that the negotiations of Pious with Hitler’s emissary, were secretly recorded, Nixon style, by a staff who listened in an adjoining room as Pious, in fluent German, agreed to say nothing against Hitler in return for protection of priests and churches.  And Pious kept his vow of silence even as Jewish and Catholic leaders pleaded throughout the war for the pope to speak out against the monstrous crimes of the Nazis.  When President Roosevelt asked the pope if he had any evidence of the Nazi atrocities, the spies of the papacy told the pope they indeed had confirmed evidence of the ethnic cleansing but convinced the pope to tell Roosevelt that the Vatican knew nothing.  And as the war proceeded to its close, the Nazis rushed to kill all the Jews they could find.  Nearly under the windows of the Vatican, the Jews of Rome were rounded up. The secret archives revealed that Pope Pius asked his advisors for recommendations and received only grossly anti-semitic responses from his own staff. Once again there was only silence from the pontiff. So my our Catholic school prayers for Pius might not have done much good. If you sell your soul to the devil, whether for Helen or Hitler, you are not likely to get it back.  

In contrast, the successor to the weak Pious, the now sainted John XXIII was outspokenly liberal and made the first outreach to other religions with respect and humility.  Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli was the Vatican nuncio (ambassador) to Turkey and Greece during World War II.  During the war, he saved thousands of Jews from the Holocaust. He issued certificates of baptism, a kind of fake Christianizing, to Jews all over Eastern Europe to rescue them from the Nazis.  He facilitated the transport of endangered Jews to Palestine and supported the creation of the State of Israel and he has been recognized as a righteous Christian toward the Muslims and Jews.

Known as “the Good Pope” his efforts to reach out to non-Catholics began the ecumenical process among the formerly feuding Christian sectarians.  He began the liberalization of Catholicism by creating the Second Vatican Council which further the pontiff’s efforts to elevating the movement toward universal human rights. Some authors refer to John XXIII as the most consequential pope in history.  But “consequential” can have two meanings.  The extraordinary extravagance of the 16th century Pope Leo X was financed through the sale of indulgences.  This led to the Protestant Reformation surely the most consequential change in Christian history.  On the other hand, how can you not admire a prince of the Church who rides to his coronation on his enormous pet white elephant?  The elephant’s name was Hanno.  Hanno now rests in peace beneath the Vatican.  Leo X is not a saint.

John XXIII also rests in the crypt of St. Peter’s Basilica. Vatican tour guides often point out his burial site saying “here is the tomb of Pope John XXIII, the most beloved pope in history.”  The tomb of Pope Francis will read simply: Franciscus. Jorge Mario Bergoglio was a man of humility and chose to name his papacy after the humble and nature loving St. Francis. I’ve never come across anyone deserving of sainthood, except my mother of course. Surely the gentle but courageous Pope Francis comes close. His most humble and perhaps brave statement was when he responded to a question about homosexuality and he responded “who am I to judge?” Well, you are the pope for Chrissake! But this was his humility and acceptance of all people especially those who suffer discrimination. When Pope Francis elevated John to sainthood, he did so without the proof of the attribution of two miracles.  Two miracles are a tough act to deliver, especially after you’re dead, but I have faith in Pope Francis, the pope of the people. 

The fifth century BCE tyrant Pisistratus was an outrageous liar and one of history’s first populists. He was an Athenian aristocratic who appealed to the poor and working classes by asking for their protection from his imaginary enemies who he claimed inflicted his self-inflicted wounds.  He ruled Athens for some years, but his actual enemies ousted him. Yet he shortly thereafter regained his rule by another enormous farce. He rode back into Athens in an opulent chariot beside a tall beauty who he claimed was the goddess Athena herself who supported him. The populations loved this. He had betrayed his aristocrat class, but his elaborate deceits won him the trust and faith of the masses. They chose one Athens’ last tyrants.

Authoritarian rulers come to power, and maintain rule, with charisma and phony appeals to patriotism, nationalism, and religion.  Their power is not always sustained with the use of force, although some type of violence is usually in the playbook. In modern democratic or somewhat democratic states, strongmen take control of the state mostly by appealing for popular support sometimes with the help of a military coup but more often by an election. Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil was elected president and Silvio Berlusconi was elected Prime Minister of Italy several times. Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines was elected as were Vladimir Putin, Victor Orban, and Donald Trump. Adolf Hitler and Silvio Berlusconi were appointed to leadership in democratic Germany and Italy. When strongmen leaders use the force of a military coup to gain control, they must maintain their power with the support of a large part of the public.  Francisco Franco came to power by a coup but stayed in office with the support of nationalists and church and civilian power brokers. Muammar Gaddafi used the military to take control of Libya and maintained his power with moderately leftist policies to insure the support of the people.

The historian and Guggenheim Fellow Ruth Ben-Ghiat shows how similar are the modern anti-democratic demagogic rulers in her book Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present. The strongmen wreak chaos in their nations and increase their power using extra-legal means to control the discord.  Authoritarians’ power comes “at the expense of the legislative and judicial branches of government.” The tools of the trade are common among the strongmen: censorship, disinformation, discrediting opponents verbally or violently, blaming economic hardship on an enemy such as a minority or immigrant population, alliances with religious factions and wealthy plutocrats, posturing as messianic saviors, and most of all outlandish lies.

Here are just some of the examples from Ben-Ghiat’s book:

One of the methods of strongmen is to convince a disaffected population that he is their savior.  Pinochet claimed he was appointed by God to save Argentina.  Franco’s claim that a “higher power intended him to save Spain from Marxism became an element of his charismatic authority.”  Maga rallies are filled with prayers and an adulation that can easily be called worship.  At Trump’s 2024 election watch party, the crowd broke out in a racous rendition of the hymn “How Great Thou Art.” Moammar Gaddafi said that Allah had appointed him to rid Libya of evil forces. 

Strongmen gather strength by showing how his opponents oppress him. “Mussolini prepared the script used by today’s authoritarians that casts the leader as a victim of his domestic enemies.” Gaddafi blamed the Italians and the West in general for victimizing him and Libya. Berlusconi claimed that his legal troubles were nothing but his enemies trying to discredit him. The Italian parliament then passed a law granting Berlusconi immunity. He said he was a victim of a “witch hunt.”  Trump claimed that his impeachments were merely attempts by the left wing to hurt him personally.  He called all the various investigations “witch hunts.”

The people themselves are portrayed by authoritarians as victims too. The strongman wants to convince the population that times were better in the past and that some enemy has stolen their former greatness and prosperity.  A call for a return to an idyllic past is always part of the despot’s narrative.  For Hitler, the Jews were the enemies of the people but sometimes he claimed that the French and Marxists ruined Germany’s noble heritage.  Hitler and also blamed the elites of Germany. Putin blames America or any vocal opponent.  Early on, Putin blamed Chechens for discord and violence in Russia. For Trump, American are the victims of massive immigration fostered by the weakness of the elites. For Berlusconi, it was immigrants who were the enemies to blame. 

To return the nation to its former greatness, the strongman must be personally strong, virile, and dominant over the weak and a master of women.  Mussolini promoted photographs of himself in powerful and manly poses including bare-chested pictures.  Putin does the same. The Kremlin often releases photographs of Putin in manly poses.  Ben-Ghiat writes “Gaddafi, Berlusconi, and Trump vaunt control of desirable women, the former by surrounding himself with attractive female bodyguards and nurses, the latter two with former models and beauty pageant queens. Some broadcast their sexual stamina. “I can love four women at the same time,” says Duterte; “If I sleep for three hours, I have the energy to make love for three hours after that,” claims Berlusconi.” Trump has been accused of sexual abuse by 18 or more women. Mussolini was ahead of Trump on the body count–he had his staff bring him five different women each week. Gaddafi kept a virtual harem of sex slaves and rape was rampant in his administration. Dominance over women by the strongman is not kept secret but promoted to enhance his image as powerful, in control, and manly. Berlusconi’s sexual escapades were not only well known, but a subject of his boasting.

Lawlessness is part of the very definition of authoritarian rule.  Berlusconi lost his office but then returned to power with 10 legal cases pending against him. Trump’s criminal and civil legal cases against him dominated the news up to his re-election. When Mussolini was about to be tried for having a political opponent murdered, he escaped legal accountability by declaring himself the head of government. To insure immunity from prosecution he assumed total dictatorial powers, dared parliament to impeach him, fired the officials who investigated him, and pardoned anyone implicated in the crime. 

To stay in power, the despotic ruler installs cronies, sycophants, and family members as the core of his rule.  Pardons of powerful and corrupt individuals give demagogues a pool of intensely loyal staff and supporters. Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency was famous for cronyism and his alliances included organized crime figures. Officials appointed by the leader fear saying anything negative about the ruler or correcting any lies. This often results in upheaval and constant turnover of officials who can be fired and replaced over the radio, in the press, or by tweet.  Gaddafi, Erdogan, Mobutu, Mussolini, and Trump all installed corrupt but loyal followers and often dismissed them without notice.  Humiliating former and fallen loyalists is a favorite tactic of the all-powerful leader.

Most of all, the dictator gains and maintains power by the corruption of the truth. Putin uses censorship, shuts down offending press, or incarcerates or kills offending truth tellers.  Trump has Truth Social and has elevated Elon Musk the owner of X. The most widely viewed news network, Fox News, is a Trump promoter. Berlusconi actually owned and controlled the major news sources in Italy.  Hitler had Joseph Goebbels as chief propagandist. Much of the population under authoritarian rule either has no source of truth or is misled by lies.  The lies feed on fears and offer an imagined future of safety, prosperity, and vengeance. Ben-Ghait’s book quotes Hannah Arendt: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”

From Pisistratus until today, enormous untruths and misinformation sustain the authoritarian. People freely choose to believe the lies.

It is going to be a long four years.

Last year the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that 7 of 10 Republicans think that recent demographic changes are driven by liberal policies aimed at “replacing” conservative whites.  Earlier surveys showed most Americans believe that white people suffer discrimination, and many think that discrimination against whites is more severe than against minorities. But where does the idea that there is such a thing as white, or a race of whites.  It is because Americans, uniquely among nations, decided long ago that there is such a thing as a race of blacks.

Isabel Wilkerson, in Caste, offers a compelling argument that in America, while we may have a fluid class system for whites, but for blacks, we do not include them in a class.  Black Americans are in a caste system and in the lowest caste.  American untouchables.  Even the prejudice against immigrants such as Asians or Latins can be overcome with time and effort. As in India, the lowest caste, the Untouchables (properly called Dalits) must not hope to rise or overcome their status.

When Martin Luther King visited India, he was introduced at a high school for Dalits as an “untouchable from the United States of America.  King thought that “every Negro in the United States of America is an untouchable.”

The American caste system is like the Hindu system (now outlawed yet still practiced), and like the Nazi system for relegating Jews to a dehumanized, lowest caste.  Formerly laws enforced the caste system but despite the new laws designed to guarantee equality, black people remain, in the eyes of many Americans, a separate and unequal group.  And the lowest class of whites needs the system to ensure their belief that they are, at least, white.  I think of Pap in Huckleberry Finn.  A violent drunk, the lowest form of white American, who was enraged when he learned that a freed slave could read and write even vote.  He needed a lower set of people than he was.

Wilkinson describes a caste system as having eight major characteristics that define it and distinguish it from a simple class system. The caste system is supported by religion. It is inherited. Marriage and mating are controlled by law or simply by racist attitude.  The untouchable class, the Jews of Nazi Germany, the Untouchables of India, and blacks of America are to be avoided physically as impure and polluted.  The lowest caste are relegated to occupations that are the most undesirable and yet these jobs are those that are the foundation of a society and absolute necessities.  The caste system is controlled by terror and fear.  And those at the lowest of the low are inherently inferior and importantly, those not in the untouchable class, those of white America must be inherently superior regardless of merit or achievement.

The idea of the American Dream is that anyone can rise from impoverished immigrant to a higher, richer, more privileged class.  But for the caste of African Americans, class is static and immutable.  LeB James said that no matter how great or wealthy or worshipped you become, if you are an African American, “you will always be that.”

The rise of Trump and the explosion of social discord, hatred and violence cannot be explained simply by racial prejudice but only by caste.  Barack Obama broke the caste system and a resentful mass of people rebelled.  The real resentment is that not only with Obama’s election but also with the rise of black Americans to positions of influence and honor.  Many white Americans saw that the superiority of “whiteness” was slipping away.  The “replacement” belief is fundamental to the idea that we must go back to when America was great.  America was free from enforced equality.

Isabel Wilkinson writes like a journalist not an academic. The book is convincing not only by diligent research but also by the author’s personal experience and her travels and interviews in preparation for this book.  Here are some things that surprised me:

Wilkinson was told by and African born woman that there are no blacks in Africa.  Africans “are Igbo and Yoruba, Ewe, Akan, Ndebele.  They are not black.  They are just themselves.”  Blackness is a uniquely American idea born of the slave trade.  The author discovered that the architects of the Nazi caste system modelled their caste system on the Jim Crow laws of the South.  But the Nazis found it too harsh:  they would not go so far as to say that one drop of Jewish blood puts a person in the hated caste of Jews.  Wilkinson notes that W.E.B. Dubois realized that after emancipation, the white power structure were afraid that former slaves may actually succeed.  In a caste system, a bottom caste is a necessity.  It is when black citizens succeeded in politics or business that violent and murderous backlash results. 

The concept of caste not only helps to explain the Republican victory in 2016 but also helps explain the Democrat loss of working-class support.  The working class was always supporting their own interests and now see the dominance of the white working class slipping away.  Caste is a powerful explainer of our history and present social division.

I was amazed at how contented and happy our little dog Clinton was right up to his last day. Even the vet remarked that he was always a cheerful and cooperative little guy even as she was giving him only a short time left.

Although the philosopher Epicurus died over 2200 years ago, he no doubt went as a happy man. He lent his name to the idea of living well, epicurean, and he taught that to live happily was to live without fear of pain or death. The only way to leave well is to live well.

The Stoics also taught that the acceptance life’s pain as well as pleasure was essential for the good life. Death comes to all but those who accept this without fear will have an easier time of it. I talked about the current fashion for Stoicism in a previous post. For a quiet read before bedtime I keep a copy of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, the emperor and Stoic philosopher.  I’m not too sure about his passing though, because Marcus died of the plague in the midst of a war. The Stoics and the Buddhist share many teachings. The Buddha advises to meditate every morning on the inevitability of your own death.  I would rather drink coffee.  Socrates was offered a chance of exile or escape from Athens, but he chose to die as he had lived, a life of honor.  He takes the hemlock, telling Crito to see that his last debt to Asclepius is paid: A chicken.

So I think it was the Epicureans who got it right. Living at peace with yourself means getting rid of worry and the fear of pain and most of all the fear of death.  The epicurean poet Lucretius thought so too.  He said that we didn’t suffer a lack of life before we were born and we certainly won’t worry about it after we are gone.  Epicurus said the art of living well and the art of dying well are one. 

Many people put their hopes in a heavenly afterlife in order to meet the reaper.  My Mom was a hundred and one in her last days and a faithful Catholic.  She told me God had given her a good life but forgot the button.  The button?  You know, the one to turn it off.  She was content and ready to go.  But the doubters and strict heathens can also live and die at peace.  I don’t know where my mother got such faith in a heavenly afterlife, but it sure wasn’t from her own mother.  My grandmother was a cantankerous old-school Marxist who one day announced at dinner: “oh, the hell with this,” and promptly expired.  You die as you lived.

David Hume, the 18^th century skeptic and empiricist, died as he had lived, with equanimity and good cheer and not a bit of hope for immortality.  His ever loyal friend, the economist Adam Smith, wrote that in his last days Hume spent his time entertaining friends with conversation and card playing.  He was of such good nature and cheerfulness as always and, toward the end, his own physician could hardly believe he was dying.  Hume said to his doctor that he was “dying as fast as my enemies, if I have any, could wish, and as easily and cheerfully as my best friends could desire.” He did indeed have enemies, mostly the clerical establishment in Scotland and the religious academics who denied him a professorship. Dennis C. Rasmussen tells the story of the remarkable friendship of Adam Smith and David Hume in The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith and the Friendship that Shaped Modern Thought (Princeton University Press, 2017).  Hume initiated the development of philosophical empiricism and religious skepticism that is characteristic of contemporary thought.  Smith, the darling of modern day capitalists, started the belief in free markets and helped to found modern sociological and economic studies.  The book tells the story of David Boswell’s visit to the dying Hume.  Boswell apparently believed that any man confronted with the nearness of death would return to religion and a hope for eternal life.  He attempted to urge Hume to forsake his lifelong denial of a human and eternal soul.  Hume told him that after he was gone he could no more regret his non-existence than he had regretted his lack of life before he was ever born.  The opinionated Boswell went away disgruntled and unhappy, but Hume remained “placid and even cheerful” with a tranquility of mind.  Hume was a true epicurean who believed that a good life was being of good cheer, surrounded by friends, as he was to the last.

The Scottish Church tried to excommunicate Hume for his irreligious ideas.  For his part, Hume wrote that even some of religion’s virtues were instead actually vices: “celibacy, fasting, penance, mortification, self-denial, humility, silence, solitude, and the whole train of monkish virtues.”  His life, despite his setbacks and his enemies, was to the very end placid and optimistic. He had described himself as a “man of mild disposition” with an “open, social, and cheerful humour.”

The art of living well and the art of dying well are one.

Like the philosophic dialogues of Socrates, we must look to the students of Epictetus for a written record of his thoughts.  The former slave Epictetus became a leading teacher of Stoicism in the first and second centuries C.E. His student Arrian recorded his teachings in Discourses and from the Discourses Arrian compiled a handbook the Enchiridion.  This brief book became a standard of philosophical guidance among Western thinkers through the centuries and has even seen a revival among readers of the novel A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe. The Wolfe novel also led some contemporary philosophers to a contemporary Stoicism resurgence. In a blog entry back in February I wrote about how William Irvine, a professor of philosophy at Wright State University, turned from the study of Zen to Stoicism by reading A Man in Full.

The Enchiridion is a kind of life guidance book that would fit nicely on a modern bookstore shelf of lifestyle books.  It is not about philosophy in the sense of metaphysics or epistemology but is rather a toolbox on how to reach eudemonia or how to live the good life of reason and peaceful equanimity.  It is a book of applied philosophy, how to make reason guide your life. 

Epictetus advises us to know our limits, to always distinguish what we can control and what is beyond us. Strive to foster the good within our control and a placidly accept that which is beyond our powers.

“There are things within our power, and there are things beyond our power. Within our power are our opinion, aim, desire, dislikes, and, in summary, whatever is our own. Beyond our power is property, reputation, duties, and, in summary, whatever is not ours.”  In another of the short passages, Epictetus says “If then, you decide to avoid the things you dislike which you can control, you will never suffer any grief from anything in your power to avoid; but if you try to avoid sickness, or death, or poverty, you will run the risk of being unhappy.”

Stoicism always reminds me of Buddhist thought, especially the Buddhist concern with the calm control of the mind which in turn controls our actions. Or Shakespeare’s “there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” This is what Epictetus says “Men aren’t disturbed by reality, but by the view which they take of it. Death is nothing terrible, otherwise it would have appeared to be to Socrates. But terror consists in our idea of death, the idea that death is terrible.”

Epictetus advises the strengthening of character, of taking life’s blows with endurance and equanimity.  Several passages caution us to use our own inner strength to rise about what others think of us.  Here is one: “Remember it’s not the person who gives abuse or blows, who insults, but the view we take of these things as insulting. When, therefore, anyone provokes you, be assured that it is your own opinion which provokes you.” And another “Don’t consider what he does, but what you should do to keep your own will in a state conformable to nature, because another cannot hurt you unless you let them. You will only be hurt when you allow yourself to be hurt.”

So look to your thoughts because your thoughts are what your are. “You must cultivate either your own reason or else what the external gives you. You must apply yourself either to think inside you or outside you—that is, either be a philosopher or one of the crowd.”

Don’t worry, be happy.

Magpie Murders and its sequel Moonflower Murders are both whodunits-within-whodunits by the clever mystery writer, Anthony Horowitz. Horowitz is probably best known for his work as a screenwriter for the Midsomer Murders, Foyle’s War, and the very best version of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot stories starring David Suchet. The Poirot series was a favorite Masterpiece Theater production and soon Magpie Murders will be a Fall 2022 Masterpiece feature. 

These mysteries feature an unlikeable fictional mystery writer, Alan Conway who writes nine mysteries led by his likeable detective Atticus Pünd. Like one of Horowitz’ favorite sleuths Hercule Poirot, Pünd is a cerebral immigrant detective with a sidekick who works the English village and manor house murders and keeps his own counsel. The Pünd story, Magpie Murders, is nested within the mystery of the death of its author Conway, whose editor, Susan Ryland becomes a reluctant sleuth herself. There are murders galore, red herrings, miscues and all the features of the English village murder mystery. The sequel, Moonflower Murders, follows Susan Ryland to Greece and then back to England to discover a clue she knows must be hidden in Conway’s story. Moonflower Murders again is a nested mystery with the detective Pünd story in another English village manor house murder. This story is told enveloped within Susan Ryland’s search for yet another murderer.

What is particularly appealing in both novels is the rumination of Susan Ryland as she tries to discover the perpetrator by exploring how mystery stories are written. There are references to famous whodunits and even Horowitz’ own work. These intriguing stories are detective stories for the lovers of detective stories. I loved reading them.

A neighbor of mine retired and moved to a new subdivision bordering a golf course. Why?  He said “well, every day I just open up the garage and roll onto the links in my golf cart for a couple of rounds.  I am livin’ the good life!”  I hope he is still happy.  Most of us do not know exactly how to achieve such a blissful state.  The ancient Greek philosophers sought the answer and, later, the Roman Stoics thought they found it, although they didn’t have golf courses.

William B. Irvine, a professor at Wright State University looked to Zen Buddhism to help him in a personal quest for flourishing life. In A Guide to the Good Life:  The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy he writes that the path of Zen was not enough, but he found his way through Stoicism.  And his conversion came about by reading A Man in Full.  Tom Wolfe’s novel features a man who suffers one defeat after another but finds comfort and personal satisfaction through the works of the Stoic philosopher Epictetus.  When I read the novel some years ago, I did find I came to appreciate Stoicism.  Irvine relates how Wolfe’s novel led him from his embrace of Western style Buddhism to the Greek and Roman philosophy of Stoicism.

There is a growing interest in Stoicism. A recent New York Times article was somewhat critical of the new, trendy Stoicism Lite (Opinion | What Pop Stoicism Misses About Ancient Philosophy – The New York Times (nytimes.com))  Stoicism for the ancients sought a meaningful life through the cultivation of virtue.  To the Greek and Roman philosophers, virtue wasn’t personal goodness. Their concept of virtue includes a rational understanding of just what is goodness, and the cultivation of wisdom, courage, self-control, and justice.  Moreover, virtue was a social good, a measure of one’s relationships with others. The NYT opinion writer quotes the Stoic Seneca as writing: “Let us cultivate our humanity.” 

Irvine’s book does not really feature ethics, but rather the book’s purpose is to guide the reader toward a fulfilling life of tranquility and a calm acceptance.  In modern terms, this interest in developing a fulfilling, happy life fits well with the interest in meditation, “living in the moment” and the new “Positive Psychology” of Martin Seligman as well as popular college courses about happiness. Irvine stresses the self-help aspects of Stoicism as the road to tranquility and seems to have very little interest in the ethical goals of the Roman form of Stoicism.  He shows the reader how to control anger and reduce anxiety. To prevent worry, the apprentice Stoic should learn to go ahead and imagine the worst-case scenario and see how unlikely it is and to understand the futility of worry. 

In order to learn satisfaction in life, the author recommends “negative visualization” or imagining how it would be to lack some of the things and relationships we have.  Consider how valuable is our life now.  Get off the hedonic treadmill, the yearning for better things or riches or fame only to find out that when we have more things we are not happy. We keep striving for more and more.

Like the Buddhists, the Stoics were careful to point out that one must distinguish what one can have from what is achievable.  Buddhists emphasize that everyone’s life comes with sorrow and misfortune. However, desires, especially unreasonable desires are the root cause of suffering.  Stoics and Buddhists are clear about the understanding that distress is within the self and there are methods to deal with personal suffering.  One of the new websites devoted to Stoicism, “The Stoic Sage,” explores the similarities between the Western Stoicism and Eastern Buddhism. The entry is on Buddhism and Stoicism is here: http://thestoicsage.com/stoicism-and-buddhism/.

The New York Times book critic Molly Young tells of her own initiation into Stoicism https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/28/books/stoicism-books.html. The article gives several resources for modern Stoicism including Ryan Holiday’s popular book and website. I do listen to Holiday’s podcast “The Daily Stoic.” But after all, the best reading is from some of the original Stoics like Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. I keep the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius handy for reading the short entries like Marcus wrote it day by day. It’s the original Daily Stoic. Amazing that Marcus, the Emperor of Rome, could write with such humility, graciousness, and wisdom.

Anthony Horowitz is a clever and often humorous writer about murder.  And who doesn’t love a clever murder…mystery.  Horowitz worked with David Suchet and wrote many of the scripts for my favorite mystery series, Agatha Christie’s Poirot.  He discusses some of his television work in the mystery novel The Word is Murder because Horowitz becomes not only the first-person narrator of the novel but a character in it.  Horowitz portrays himself as a less than competent sleuth who works with a less than likeable detective, Hawthorne.  Apparently, the dyspeptic Hawthorne is to become a figure in a new series of who-dun-its.  Hawthorne hires Horowitz to write about Hawthorne himself and it turns out that he writes about Horowitz himself as well.  An interesting scene is an incident when Horowitz is meeting with Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, an actual meeting—interrupted by the fictional Hawthorne. When the Horowitz character tries to out-detective the detective he almost gets himself killed.  After the incident, he writes that it is a pity deciding to write in first person because the reader can’t possibly think the writer will die at least until he finishes the book.  It a strange twist to the unreliable narrator technique, in this case possibly reliable, where the reader can’t quite tell what is fiction and what is not.  Like the long-running series Midsomer Murders for which Horowitz was also a writer, the story involves multiple murders, revenge, suicide, and various deceptive clues that the Horowitz character doesn’t catch but his character Hawthorne does.  Ingenious, witty, and entertaining.

Have I already written about Joshua Foer’s book, Moonwalking with Einstein? I can’t remember. But then again, I don’t need to remember because this blog site remembers for me. Foer’s fascinating book is subtitled The Art and Science of Remembering Everything. Foer, a journalist, is well equipped to write such a book because in his reporting of the unusual world of memory athletes, he not only learns the techniques of championship memory challenges but wins the USA Memory Championship. 

Memory Championship? Really? Yes, you could look it up on the Google memory machine. Practitioners of the ancient art of memory gather annually and compete in several areas of memory challenges. This is safe to try at home. Shuffle of deck of cards, display them one by one and give yourself five minutes to memorize them and then name them in order. Give yourself twenty minutes to memorize hundreds of random numbers and then write them out. In order. Give yourself fifteen minutes to memorize one hundred names and place them with the correct faces. And what is said to be the hardest and most dread challenge, take fifteen minutes to memorize a long poem of several pages that has never been seen by anyone and repeat it exactly as written. 

Probably you can’t remember your brother’s cellphone number and certainly could not give the address and phone number of your physician. Nobody needs to anymore; we all have cellphones who do the memory challenges for us. Cellphones are the world champion mnemonists. The ancient arts of memorizing that were taught by Greek and Roman scholars are largely forgotten, not by the advent of cellphones but by literacy itself. If you can read the Odyssey, why should anyone memorize it?

Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad were recorded and served as a kind of foundational text by the time of Pericles’ Golden Age of Greek thought and learning. Some scholars maintain that the work of Homer shows such consistency, brilliance, and creativity that must have been put into writing by one exceptional man. However, there is no doubt that the poems have all the hallmarks of an oral tradition. That is, they were memorized and performed before an audience. In the early part of the 20^th century, literacy was not prevalent in some parts of Europe. Milman Parry and Albert Lord of Harvard traveled to Bosnia and recorded and transcribed the oral stories and poetry recited by local bards. The work of Parry and Lord helped to define the techniques of oral epic poetry. The poetry of Homer and other epic poems are characterized by a formulaic structure. Standardized phrases such as “the wine-dark sea” and “rosy-fingered dawn” help to carry the poem along in a recitation. Formulaic phrases along with other conventions including meter, alliteration, episodic structure and other standardized techniques aid the performer’s memory. These same techniques are evident in Beowulf and other ancient heroic poetry.

And now there is an 11 hour long DVD of a man reciting—from memory—the over 10,000 lines of John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Why John Basinger would do such a thing I just don’t know. When I went for some long walks, I listened to an audio of Paradise Lost but apparently, I didn’t walk nearly enough to get too far into the epic or too high up Pinnacle Rock. According to Prof. John Seamon of Wesleyan (in an online course I took on Coursera) Basinger would memorize parts of Milton’s work while on his exercise machines. It took him nine years and he got it exactly right and probably is in very good physical condition. According to Seamon, the memorization done by actors is not done by rote repetition. Actors say that they try to mentally enter the person of the character they portray and look for meaning of the lines, not just the words of the lines. Actors “encode” their parts by understanding the meaning of their part, committing themselves to the emotion and forming a deep empathy with the character.  Seamon interviewed Basinger who told him “During the incessant repetition of Milton’s words, I really began to listen to them, and every now and then as the whole poem began to take shape in my mind, an insight would come, an understanding, a delicious possibility.”

It is safe to try this technique at home as well. With some difficulty I am able to memorize poems of a few stanzas, certainly not poetry of epic length. The technique of recall by meaning does work but not as well as the ancient method of the Memory Palace.

The Memory Palace, or Method of Loci, is a technique useful in memorizing list of things. Physicians who examine Medicare (elderly!) patients are encouraged to give a simple test of cognitive ability in order to detect the possibility of incipient dementia in the patient. The recent defeated president made a claim of high “mental stamina” by having successfully repeated five words. Person, woman, man, camera, TV. Truthfully, anyone can remember much longer lists of words by simply taking a walk, that is, taking a mental walk through a “memory palace.”

In ancient Greek and Roman times and in the Middle Ages memorization was highly valued and taught to students as a fundamental skill for learning and speaking.  Scholars studied the techniques of memory by consulting works on this skill by the Romans Cicero, Quintilian, and Giordano Bruno. Thomas Aquinas wrote a treatise on memory. Foer writes that memory champions still study Rhetorica ad Herrennium.  This guide to memorization and rhetoric was written by an anonymous author in the first century BCE.   Herrennium records the techniques of Simonides. According to Cicero, Simonides of Creos invented the Memory Palace after a tragedy. Simonides was a Greek poet and rhetorician who taught in the 5^th century BCE. The story goes that Simonides was invited to a dinner party to give a recitation.  After he recited his poetry he stepped outside to talk to friends.  A terrible earthquake struck and destroyed the building burying the dinner party guests. He helped families to recover and identify their crushed loved ones by pointing out where each participant was seated at the table.  Simonides reconstructed in his mind the room and its table and where each person sat. He could identify each body by recalling the loci, each location or place in the Memory Palace. 

Psychologists who study memory say that familiar places are very easy to remember by forming a picture in the mind especially of a familiar place. At each of the loci, an item to be recalled is placed, and then one takes a walk through “palace” and observing each item. Here is how it works:  Perhaps you have a shopping list. You think of your own home trying to imagine each room as you walk through.  The front door is opened by a farmer in big boots holding a gallon of milk. As you enter you see on a small table in a carton of a dozen eggs. At the stairway stands the Frankenstein monster holding a package of AA batteries shooting electricity. The people are not as important as the places but it helps to have highly memorable persons in the rooms to help form memorable pictures. Joshua Foer likes to imagine a naked woman; that one is not forgettable. Or try a person, perhaps Einstein doing the moonwalk (thus the unforgettable title of Foer’s book). The Memory Palace is a sure-fire method to easily remember a list of items. Master the Method of Loci and you will easily pass the five-item dementia test your family physician will give when you reach Medicare age. In that way you can delay the time an assisted living facility will serve as your memory palace. Personally, I always decline to take the test. Because who knows?

The use of imaginative and striking images is also the way Foer learned to remember the names of people he meets. Everyone I know has trouble remembering names, but of course we all have cellphones to remember for us. Foer explains that part of the difficulty with names is explained by the Baker/baker Paradox. A psychologist shows two people the same photograph of a face. To one subject she says the name of the person is Baker. To the other, she says the person is a baker. Sometime later the person who associates the face with the occupation baker is much more likely to remember it than the person who tries to recall the name Baker. It takes a long time and many encounters to associate a name with the person, but a shortcut is to create a memorable image based on the name. One of Foer’s mentors said he could imagine Joshua Foer “joshing me…and I’d imagine my self breaking into four pieces…”

This useful and, well, memorable book is about Joshua Foer’s adventure into memory contests and his remarkable development of a world class memory. Foer does not much dwell on what is most important about memory itself, the real meaning of Memory itself, its fundamental importance, its telos, its true value. Foer’s book does have interesting information about some of the strange characteristics of long-term memory. Many severe types of forgetfulness include the loss of only short-term memory while the distant past may be able to be recalled. The passage of time, the processes of sleep, even light and day have dramatic effects on memory and sometimes what is recalled about the past can change and shape-shift over time. However, the book generally deals with memory improvement, memory tricks of the trade, and Joshua Foer’s remarkable improvement in memory.

Nonetheless, Joshua Foer is aware of the centrality of memory to everyone and to our basic humanity and he makes clear that memory and its improvement is no game show. Philosophers recognize that it is memory that creates and shapes selfhood. What are we without our memories, the things we have learned and the experiences that have shaped us? The philosopher Peter Singer, who has defined “personhood” to include humans and all manner of sentient animals, places memory at the center of selfhood, along with the cognizance of self, the avoidance of pain and death, and the desire for a future.  We are built of our memories. Foer mentions a man known to science as EP who has completely lost his memory and thus cannot “place himself in time or space, or relative to other people.” Another man, Gordon Bell, is digitizing everything about himself and everything he hears and does into a computer bank in order to externalize memory. But this is a vain escape from the fundamental meaning of memory and selfhood. Foer thinks that we should cultivate memory because human action depends on memory. “Our memories make us who we are. They are the seat of our values and source of our character.” He says that his journey into the world of memory challenges is not about party tricks but “it’s about nurturing something profoundly and essentially human.” And there is this from the writer Haruki Murakami: “People’s memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive.”