The Greek praise of poverty: origins of ancient cynicism

Abstract

William Desmond, taking issue with common popular and scholarly views of ancient Greek Cynics, contends that early Cynics like Antisthenes and Diogenes were not cultural outcasts or marginal voices in classical culture; rather, Cynic movement through fourth century B.C. had deep and significant roots in what Desmond calls the Greek praise of Desmond demonstrates that classical views of wealth were complex and allowed for admiration of poverty and virtues it could inspire. He explains Cynicism's rise in popularity in ancient world by exploring set of attitudes that collectively formed Greek praise of poverty. Desmond argues that in fifth and fourth centuries B.C., economic, political, military, and philosophical thought contained explicit criticisms of wealth and praise of poverty. From an economic and political point of view, poor majority at Athens and elsewhere were natural democrats who distrusted great concentrations of wealth as potentially oligarchical or tyrannical. In contemporary literature, poor are those who do most of necessary work and are honest, self-sufficient, and temperate. The rich, on other hand, are idle, arrogant, and unjust. These perspectives were reinforced by Greek experience of war and belief that poverty fostered virtues of courage, strength, and endurance. Finally, from an early date, Greek philosophers associated wisdom with transcendence of sense experience and of conventional values such as wealth and honor. The Cynics, Desmond asserts, assimilated all of these ideas in creating their distinctive and radical brand of asceticism. Desmond's work is a compelling reevaluation of ancient Cynicism and its classical environment, one that makes an important contribution to scholarship of classical and early Hellenistic periods.