Cynic, iconoclast, and patron saint of Trolls, Diogenes of Sinope was a philosopher who lived between 412 and 323 BC. A contemporary (and extremely vocal critic) of Plato, Diogenes disagreed with the esoteric bent that Greek philosophy took under Plato's stewardship and favored a return to basics and common sense, co-founding the Cynic school of thought.
Diogenes never wrote anything down himself and took very little seriously, so much of his life story is up for debate. Most of what is known about his life comes from Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, a work by the 3rd-century biographer Diogenes Laertius. From what we know, Diogenes was the son of the Treasurer of Sinope, a Greek colony in what is now Turkey. His father was caught up in a currency-debasing scandal, and his family was forced to leave their home city. Disgraced, bankrupted, and exiled, Diogenes eventually made his way to Athens, where he became a harsh critic of modern Athenian life and Plato's school of philosophy. Instead, he became a follower of Antisthenes, building upon his work and bringing Cynic philosophy to a more fully-realized form, as in Diogenes took it to its logical extreme.
Diogenes rejected Athenian societal norms and owned almost nothing. He begged for food in the marketplace and slept in an empty wine cistern outside the local temple. He became notorious for his provocative stunts, like heckling Plato at his lectures and famously carrying around a lit lantern in broad daylight, claiming to be searching for "a man." All his stunts were apparently meant to challenge the mores of a society that he felt had lost touch with the fundamentals of life and virtuous living. His life was a conscious attempt to live out the primary tenets of Cynicism: a simple life with only the bare necessities for survival, a tough and stoic outlook toward hardship, and willful indifference to societal custom and convention. Rather than evangelize to the people about Cynicism in the traditional way, it would seem Diogenes elected to live the Cynic life in public view and let the people make their judgments.
At some point, Diogenes was kidnapped by slavers and sold to a wealthy Corinthian family as a tutor for their children. He lived out the rest of his life in Corinth - where he allegedly had a memorable encounter with Alexander the Great - dying either of infection or food poisoning (or, depending on the source you read, simply because he decided to die) at the age of 89.
Diogenes' legacy as a philosopher is somewhat dwarfed by his legacy as an Agent of Chaos. His feud with Plato put him on the outs with much of the philosophic community of Athens, and the sheer audacity of some of his stunts (which included masturbating in public and throwing a chicken at Plato in the middle of a lecture) alienated him from mainstream Athenian society. Nevertheless, his contributions to the development of Cynicism are still acknowledged, and he is held as one of the major figures in Western Philosophy.
Modern popular culture frequently associates both Diogenes and Cynicism with misanthropy and antisocial behavior. There's even a mental health disorder known as Diogenes Syndrome
, associated with hoarding and self-neglect. Ironically, Diogenes himself didn't hold with any of this behavior. For all his eccentricities, he was actually quite sociable and wasn't any more or less misanthropic than the average Cynic. He was also the polar opposite of a hoarder; he even got rid of his single drinking vessel when he realized he could just cup liquid in his hands. Nowadays, we might see his preferred method of dealing with occasional hardships by just enduring them stoically as a form of self-harm, but Diogenes saw it as a case of taking a main tenet of Cynicism to its logical extreme. In a sense, Diogenes was a Performance Artist, living out Cynic philosophy in its purest form for all to see, for better or worse.
Diogenes is associated with the following Tropes:
- Animal Motifs: The Cynics thought the dog was the most virtuous animal. In fact, the Greek word "κυνικός", from which the English word "cynic" is derived, means "dog-like." To be a Cynic is to aspire to be like a dog, that is, to live in accordance with virtue and not by social convention; Diogenes took this and ran with it. Artistic depictions of him often show him accompanied by dogs.
- Appropriated Appelation: In ancient times, "κυνικός", or "dog-like", is meant to be an insult as the word refers to dogs as scavengers. The Cynics' lifestyle is like that of a dog's, deeming virtue as the only good and deeming as worthless everything else that society prizes. The Cynics accepted the dog motif and deemed dogs as the most virtuous animal, and Diogenes in particular took it as an epithet. To name one example among many, when he met Alexander the Great, who introduced himself by saying: "I am Alexander, the Great King", Diogenes replied in kind with: "And I am Diogenes, the Dog". He explained that he got this epithet by saying "I fawn on those who give me something, bark at those who don't, and bite the wicked."
- Caught with Your Pants Down: Bound to happen frequently, given that Diogenes masturbated in public. Not that this bothered him at all, as he would reply: "If only one could relieve hunger by rubbing one's belly."
- The Cynic: Not the founder of the philosophy, but the one who embodied and fully developed it.
- Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?:
- His meeting with Alexander the Great, recorded by Plutarch. A fan of his work, Alexander sought him out to find him soaking up rays in the Corinthian marketplace. When Alexander asked if there was anything Diogenes wished of him, Diogenes simply said, "Yes. I would have you stand from between me and the sun." Alexander, recognizing that Diogenes would compromise his integrity if he showed any respect to him, took this remarkably well. In fact, when he returned, he told his followers that if he were not Alexander, he would choose to be Diogenes. (Diogenes may have overheard from some distance away and shouted that if he were anyone else, he would also elect to be Diogenes.)
- In another version of the story, Alexander found him sorting through a pile of human remains. Diogenes told him he was looking for Alexander's father's bones, but couldn't tell them apart from the bones of a slave. In this version, Alexander seemingly missed the obvious point Diogenes was trying to make to him, while still
admiring him.
- The Gadfly: As a Cynic, Diogenes saw it as his duty to disrupt and challenge the status quo as much as possible. And he was very good at it. Some of his memorable antics include:
- Carrying around a lit lamp during the day, claiming to be seeking "a man", by which he meant a being capable of reason and morality. It is sometimes translated as "looking for an honest man."
- Mocking Plato's definition of a man as an animal with two legs and no feathers by plucking a chicken, presenting it to Plato's school, and saying "Here is Plato's man!" Plato then corrected himself by adding "having broad nails."
- Responding to the arguments of Zeno of Elea, who argued that motion is impossible, by silently standing up and walking back and forth.
- Urinating, defecating, and masturbating in public. When he was at a dinner, the guests would throw bones at him as they would a dog. Diogenes, in dog-like fashion, peed on them.
- The Heckler: He would show up to Plato's lectures exclusively to disrupt, jeer, eat loudly, and occasionally fart. Plato has even called him "Socrates gone mad".
- Perpetual Poverty: By choice. Cynicism espoused the concept of "virtuous poverty," living in harmony with nature and owning as few material possessions as one could. Like everything else he did, Diogenes took this to its logical extreme, living in an empty jar and begging in order to survive.
- Troll: To almost all of respectable Athenian society. There was nothing that was not fair game to him.
