On viewing and participating in pleasing cruelty

He may say with Parmenides, who, upon reading a philosophical discourse before a public assembly at Athens, and observing, that, except Plato, the whole company had left him, continued, notwithstanding, to read on, and said that Plato alone was audience enough for him.--Adam Smith

The English Bill of Rights (1689) expressly forbids ""cruel and unusual" punishment, and this found its way into the U.S. Constitution. One important, enduring argument against such punishment -- and many other forms of cruelty that may not, in fact, constitute 'punishment' -- can be found in Seneca's Letter 7: viewing and otherwise participating in the degradation and cruelty of others, even in the context of justified punishment  [ille meruit ut hoc pateretur], can harm not just the victims or punished, but perpetrators and spectators alike. This is especially so if the cruelty produces pleasure as it is likely to do at public spectacles [spectaculo]* because then this pleasure makes our soul receptive; a desire for more cruelty creeps up on us  [per voluptatem facilius vitia subrepunt].

Seneca's particular target is the institution of aestheticized, public spectacles of cruelty and inhumanity [crudelior et inhumanior].** He emphasizes the significance of audience participation [spectatoribus suis obiciuntur]. He reorients and subtly transforms Plato's arguments for censorship of the arts to focus on the more pernicious institutions that indirectly teach people to celebrate cruelty. Seneca's argument applies to a lot of issues that we are not likely to consider primarily in terms of political speech: mass sporting events; war coverage; disaster tourism, and any form of entertainment that rely on the pleasures derived from exposure to the suffering of others. (This is not to deny that the targets of Seneca's argument can overlap with Plato's, and that his argument is indebted to Plato's moral psychology.) 

Seneca's argument relies on the fact that we are imitative animals and that some exemplars are bad [mala exempla]. This is not an ad hoc feature of his moral psychology because it also is key to his arguments on the significance of proper exemplars to the cultivation and development of (and our transformation) into virtues (recall, here here here, and here). Equally, we should not by pleasing imitation become bad [similis malis fias].

Of course, Seneca's analysis is not merely about imitation. A crucial, far-reaching feature of his argument is that because crowds participate in or in their reactions show approval of cruelty and degradation they can in virtue of their size undermine [ferre impetum vitiorum tam magno comitatu venientium potest] the moral constancy of even of the best of us (see below). This is especially due to the fact that crowds inherently just are rousing. Even if we are not corrupted, we may be so soured by our fellow human beings that we end up hating [oderis]. Our very own John Protevi deploys a version of this argument in his searching explorations of the relationship between what he calls political affect and contemporary college sports. (Recall also Jeff Bell's linking of Seneca to Deleuze.)

I conclude with two observations. First, the Loeb translation titles letter 7, "On Crowds." This suggests that the point of Seneca's letter is directed at the danger(s) of crowds. There is no doubt, of course, that Seneca thinks a crowd [turbam] should be avoided--the larger the crowd the more so. And it is easy to connect this with a certain kind of elitism that runs through Seneca's arguments. His favored axiology is, as we have seen, not  that of the market-place or of the polity. But if one reads Seneca's letter in isolation from the other letters and as an instance of political quietism then this title will facilitate missing the significance of Seneca's criticism. I have argued that Letter 4 undercuts the attribution of quietism to Seneca. Moreover, even letter 7 offers two hints against the quietist reading: (i) when Seneca lists three moral exemplars -- "Socrates, Cato, and Laelius" -- that might well be corrupted by massive crowds, the last two, especially, would have appealed to a Roman's notions of civic virtue. (There is, of course, more to be said about this list.) (ii) Seneca also points out that having a rich neighbor [vicinus dives] as such can be harmful to one's good character. So, Seneca's arguments point to larger social arrangements as the source of trouble. 

Second, we can see that Seneca's alternative to crowds is not (Epicurean) withdrawal from the world. This might be implied if take his advice [Recede in te ipse quantum potes] in isolation. For, he recommends making bonds with those that one can improve and be improved by [cum his versare qui te meliorem facturi sunt, illos admitte quos tu potes facere meliores]. There is no limit to the size of his (glancing ahead at letter 8). In doing so, Seneca appeals not just to what later came to be known as 'self-interest properly understood;' rather he suggests that there are two kinds of honor [gloria]: (a) a potentially bad one that appeals to very public acknowledgment, and (b) a better one that appeals to the admiration of the right sort of (true) friend. Seneca makes this latter point, in part, by quoting a maxim from Epicurus's correspondence; we should be such that we are audience enough for each other [satis enim magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus].

 

* It is common to translate 'spectaculo' as 'games.' But games convey play; whereas 'spectacles' calls attention to those features that Seneca finds dangerous.

**Cruel and inhuman has founds its way into international law and divorce law.