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The Great Greek Book of Cope: The Coperidium

Nietzsche presented us with two fundamental types of morality: Master and Slave morality. The Enchiridion’s championing of dispassion falls plainly within the realm of Slave morality. Though that is not to say the book has nothing to offer.

The core takeaway is to focus on our own actions, that which is within our control. As to that which is outside our control, we can only control our perception of them. From this core idea, emerges the corollary that happiness comes from within, we attain it by deriving happiness only from what is within our control. That is, by letting go of the desire for that which is outside our reach. From this perspective, a critical opinion of ambition appears wise. Or is it just cope?

The Enchiridion provides a framework for accepting difficult failures. From withdrawing your emotional attachment to outcomes to rejecting what is outside your influence to focus on what options are realistically available. Where the book falters is in an early contradiction - do not be averse to what is outside your control, and let go of desire to avoid disappointment. However, a life truly without desire is not possible, hence a life without failure or disappointment is similarly impossible.

Taking a cue from The Enchiridion, we can choose to view failure as a learning experience rather than something harmful. To accept the dice however they happen to fall. Having the toolkit to make the best of failure sets a foundation from which we can pursue our desires with genuine effort.

Where the Enchiridion would have you avoid disappointment, I would rather have the strength of character to endure it. Even with these flaws, the book remains an interesting collection of wisdom and a worthwhile read.

Selected Passages

• Remove aversion, then, from all things that are not in our control, and transfer it to things contrary to the nature of what is in our control. But, for the present, totally suppress desire: for, if you desire any of the things which are not in your own control, you must necessarily be disappointed; and of those which are, and which it would be laudable to desire, nothing is yet in your possession. Use only the appropriate actions of pursuit and avoidance;and even these lightly, and with gentleness and reservation.

• If a person gave your body to any stranger he met on his way, you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in handing over your own mind to be confused and mystified by anyone who happens to verbally attack you?

• With every accident, ask yourself what abilities you have for making a proper use of it. If you see an attractive person, you will find that self-restraint is the ability you have against your desire.If you are in pain, you will find fortitude. If you hear unpleasant language, you will find patience. And thus habituated, the appearances of things will not hurry you away along with them.

• When any person harms you, or speaks badly of you, remember tha the acts or speaks from a supposition of its being his duty. Now, it is not possible that he should follow what appears right to you, but what appears so to himself. Therefore, if he judges from a wrong appearance, he is the person hurt, since he too is the person deceived. For if anyone should suppose a true proposition to be false, the proposition is not hurt, but he who is deceived about it. Setting out, then, from these principles, you will meekly bear a person who reviles you, for you will say upon every occasion, “It seemed so to him.”

• For sheep don’t throw up the grass to show the shepherds how much they have eaten; but, inwardly digesting their food, they outwardly produce wool and milk. Thus, therefore, do you likewise not show theorems to the unlearned, but the actions produced by them after they have been digested.