“Cultivate the habit of surveying and testing a prospective action before undertaking it. Before you proceed, step back and look at the big picture, lest you act rashly on raw impulse. Determine what happens first, consider what that leads to, and then act in accordance with what you've learned. When we act without circumspection, we might begin a task with great enthusiasm; then, when unforeseen or unwanted consequences follow, we shamefully retreat and are filled with regret: ‘I should have done it differently’”. - Epictetus
It is an unfortunate consequence of the passage of time that not everything survives for future generations, and so it is with the teachings of the Stoic philosopher Epictetus. Of all the Greek thinkers, I feel the greatest kinship with Epictetus, whose thought survives (as with so many of the ancient philosophers) in fragments recorded by one of his pupils. One of these two surviving collections is the Enchiridion, or ‘The Handbook’, and it is from this text that the translation above originates. It offers what might seem to be the simplest of advice: consider what comes first, then what follows after, and only then act. Astonishingly, we are habituated into accepting precisely the opposite philosophy.
Epictetus cautions against acting rashly, making what may seem to be the trivial observation than when we do so we are likely to encounter unexpected consequences which will cause us to regret what we have done. Yet if this is obvious, why is it that we ignore this advice in every single domain of contemporary existence, from politics to domestic life, from the investigations of the sciences, to the interventions of technology...?
Indeed, the development of technological means is perhaps the greatest example of acting rashly - for in no way can we claim in the context of developing any of our marvellous and wonderous tools and addictions that we established what would happen once it was created, or what that might lead to afterwards. No, someone saw something they could make, and they proceeded to create it as swiftly as they could in order to capitalise upon its commercial implications. This, more than anything else, is the essence of contemporary life, and why I resist the mercurial name ‘Capitalism’, which is simultaneously a demonic bugbear and a magical source of worldly salvation. But there is no capitalism as such, only money to grease the palms of those who would act rashly.
In part, this blindness about technological means comes about because of a dreadfully ignorant belief that technology, being merely tools for our purposes, is morally neutral. What matters is what we do with it, not what the technology itself does, right...? ‘Guns don't kill people’ (much less cars...). Therefore we should simply build up the largest war chest of possible actions by developing everything we can possibly envisage or invent. After all, who could doubt the moral neutrality of such ‘mere tools’ as a robot for answering questions, a pill for terminating pregnancy, a seed that produces no further seeds, an injection to supress puberty, or indeed a nuclear bomb...?
It is not merely a weakness in ourselves that has led us to this blighted circumstance where the capacity to act without thinking is deeply embedded within everyone’s behaviour. Our entire civilisation is organised to ensure rash actions are likely to occur. If journalists still pursued the truth and shared measured perspectives with others, if political leaders still took care not to lead nations into disasters, how different would our circumstances be! But there are no journalists any more, only activists seeking to force their desired outcomes without ever thinking or talking it through, and our politicians are not leaders but mouthpieces for the foibles of the wealthy who buy them power.
The wisdom of Epictetus is that whoever we are, we can only be one person, and our sole choice is whether we wish to foster the good in who we are, or else indulge our bad habits. Either we distract ourselves with the glitter and gloss of the corrupted civilisation that rushes at breakneck speed about us, or else we cultivate our own reason and prudence. You can, in short, either focus upon yourself, which is your one true and inalienable possession, or allow yourself to be swept up in everything around you. For Epictetus, this is the choice to be either a philosopher - a lover of wisdom - or merely one of the ever-present mob who act rashly.