Seneca: Curbing Snobbery

A Little Humility Goes a Long Way

Mr and Mrs Andrews by Thomas Gainsborough, c. 1750. The art critic John Berger wrote of this painting: “They are not a couple in nature, [they are] landowners and their proprietary attitude towards what surrounds them is visible in their stance and expressions.” (source: Wikipedia)

There are four words that I dread whenever I go to a party: “So, what do you do?”

I dread that question not because I’m ashamed of what I “do”, but because in that question is hidden a judgement.

We can only presume “do” to mean what we principally get paid for. People can place excessive importance on our occupation as somehow defining us. You may volunteer at a refugee centre, be a fine archer, an expert on the guitar or in astronomy, but that person is essentially saying to you: tell me your job so I can form an opinion of you.

The most interesting people you are likely to meet will have trouble answering the question. The best of us usually diversify their lives, refusing to be pigeonholed or defined by a singular activity. Seneca would have been one of those people: he was a dramatist, philosopher, natural historian, teacher and lawmaker.

What’s more interesting is the character of a person: the way we define ourselves in our words and actions. Even polymathy and prolificacy are simply manifestations of what’s inside.

Seneca defined the soul as “something which has a lustre that is due to no quality other than its own.” The idea of the soul here is more Stoic than Christian — not an immaterial spirit trapped in a…