Lessons from Diogenes the Cynic

By CAROLINE LI Staff Writer

Hailed widely as the founder of cynicism, Diogenes of Sinope was one of the most unconventional and irreverent Greek philosophers of his time. A contemporary of Plato known for living in a ceramic wine jar called a pithos, Diogenes rejected conventional desire in favor for simple, ascetic living; although his philosophy was met with widespread disgust and disapproval, many of his arguments can be applied to our current world of overcomplexity, blind faith, superficiality, and materialism. Following Diogenes’ legacy, we must shed our imposed social norms and extricate our identities from the society that has shaped them in order to become our genuine selves.

Diogenes championed the power of spawned a host of internet memes of pictures of “Plato’s Man” (i.e. a T-Rex) in modern times, as well as a now-famous response from Diogenes, who upon hearing this plucked a chicken and entered the lecture room crying, “Behold, a man!”, forcing Plato to change his definition to “a featherless biped with flat, broad nails” and illustrating the often constructive effects of a healthy skepticism. instance where could be ap is in the media’s over com mer cializa tion of contro versial topics or celebri ties’ lives. Both were prevalent in the media surrounding the 2022 viral Depp v. Heard trial (which was televised and live streamed) and had damag ing real world effects. Regardless of the verdict, the stag gering amounts of hate Heard received perpetuated the demonizing stereotype of women being whistleblowers using domestic abuse claims to attain fame and money. The Depp v. Heard trial was an opportunity to create a more nuanced discussion surrounding domestic violence (such as by increasing awareness for male abuse survivors or exposing its double standards) that instead devolved into a social media circus and content farm. This ex plosive, exploitative capitalization upon hot news topics for clicks is a prime example of the importance of cynicism and initiative when seeking out reliable news sources. vices (like Alexander’s offer) normalizes detrimental physical insecurities and the “playing it cool” phenomenon (like waiting a few minutes before replying to a text and pretending to not be too interested in someone), where people never want to give or express more love than they receive in order to maintain their appeal of “unattainability” or “scarcity.” As such, Diogenes’ wisdom warns against relationship commodification, which can result in the toxic romanticization of emotional unavailability, insecure relationships, and

Similarly, in the present day, TikTok and social media have been notoriously enabled the spread of misinformation, fear mongering, and witch trial-esque social retribution. For example, videos purporting to be of the Russo-Ukrainian war circulat ing throughout TikTok were, in actuality, found to have been taken years before the war actually began or ripped from realistic video games and reposted for the sake of gathering “donations’’ or accruing millions of views.

Diogenes was nicknamed kuōn, or “the Dog,” for his status as a beggar and frequent acts of public defecation.

As high schoolers navigating a chronically online existence, contending with the sociocultural forces pushing on our personhood from all sides, and reconciling the warring zeitgeists of hyperconnectedness and plummeting mental health, Diogenes reminds us that to maintain our autarkeia, we must look past the mirrors of social values that we have become to familiarize ourselves with the inner workings of the society that has shaped us, then discern for ourselves our true cli@arcadiaquill.com

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