If your over the age of 40 you’ll remember the entertainment bloke, Harry Secombe. I never liked him much but the Brits seemed to swoon over him. He did however leave a legacy in my mind when he popularised the 1960’s song, ‘When I Rule the World.’ The last verse goes, “If I ruled the world, every man would say, the world was his friend, There'd be happiness that no man could end...” Apart from being very gender biased we might find ourselves thinking, “What a load of old tosh.” There are two reasons that come to mind: first, it’s not going to happen. Second, no-one is that altruistic.
Well, strangely enough, there was such a person who ruled the world and his hopes were essentially the same as the song writers.
A while back (about the second century AD), Marcus Aurelius ascended to become the Emperor of Rome, a position that gave him complete control over the entire known world. Yet what’s most interesting about Aurelius was not the size of his domain, but rather his use of power. Despite having the leverage to achieve and attain almost anything he could want, he rejected such power choosing instead a life of utter simplicity and goodness. If you like, Aurelius was one of the exceptions to Lord Acton’s dictum that, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Why? Aurelius was a Stoic. He held to the simple belief that happiness and contentment were the climax of living the virtues: honesty, prudence and courage.
As you can imagine, in the world of politics this made him something of an oddity as powerful political people always enjoyed the perks of their profession (1800 years later the perks are alive and well and still being enjoyed). However, Aurelius lived by Stoicism’s simple principal that those who engage in hedonistic behaviour suffer a malnourished soul - they live from want to want, not happiness to happiness.
Avoiding hedonism seems like hard work. Oscar Wilde claimed he could resist everything - except temptation itself. Within Stoicism the task wasn’t to avoid wrongdoing but rather to remove the desire for it. In this sense, Aurelius offers us a lesson across the centuries.
Post-modern society, with its ill defined moral boundaries and suspicion of all dogma, is far less liberated than it portrays. Real experience informs us that moral structure enhances our freedoms rather than restrict them. Because every action requires a choice, the constant option of “do I or don’t I?” is removed as the decision is nearly always determined. Our internal struggle dissolves because we have opted for fulfillment over temporary satisfaction.
Certainly we can’t control the external events of life, but we do have power over our responses. I can’t remember exactly, but I think it was Aldous Huxley who said that experience is not what happens to us, but what we do with what happens to us.
To chose the Christian way means to capture every thought and make it obedient to Christ. As with Stoicism, it’s not difficult, it’s simply a choice. What way have you chosen?
Digby Wilkinson 2009