Episode Details

Can Stoicism answer our dilemma?

Is the suffering child a product of a world that demands every second and every soul be “useful”  to the state? By comparing the “Roman Plow” of duty to the “Sovereign Tree” of uselessness, we ask if our participation in the “Achievement Society” is actually what pays for global injustice and inequity.

Compare Seneca’s On the Shortness of Life with the Zhuangzi in this reflection on Stoicism vs. Daoism. Learn why “uselessness” is a survival strategy against the “Extraction Economy” and how Cincinnatus’s Roman Plow creates a utilitarian trap. Oh, and how The Expendables does, too.

Episode 6.33 –

Roman Plow, Sovereign Tree: Seneca and Zhuangzi

Readings & Resources:

• Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. “On the Shortness of Life.” Gareth Williams, trans., 2003.
• Zhuangzi. The Zhuangzi. Martin Palmer et. al., trans. 2020.
• Cicero, Marcus Tullius. De Officiis (On Duties). Walter Miller, trans., 1913.  
• Han, Byung-Chul. The Burnout Society. Stanford University Press, 2015.
• Levinas, Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority. Translated by Alphonso Lingis, Duquesne University Press, 1969.

Some Key Terms from this episode:

• Otium honestum:  “Honest Leisure.” Tactical rest that must still serve the state—for Cicero, a productive leisure

• Wuwei: (woo-way) – “Actionless action” that uses radical uselessness as a survival strategy against the empire.

• Budeyi: (boo-day-yee) – Acting only when compelled by necessity, without ego or the desire to “fix” the world.

Listener’s Guide Reflection Questions

1. The Price of Being Useful: If you were only valued for what you could do for your community, what parts of your “inner calm” would you have to sacrifice?
2. The Survival of the Gnarled: Zhuangzi’s tree survives because it is too twisted to be turned into a boat or a coffin. What “useless” traits have protected you from being used by others?
3. The Chisel of Kindness: The emperors killed Hundun by trying to give him a “normal” face. Where have we tried to “fix” someone else’s life using our own standards, only to realize we were ignoring who they actually were?
4. The Stolen Leisure: