The Nomadic Alternative – Page 204

"that the most precious of my possessions is that I always have the leisure to see what is worth seeing and hear what is worth hearing."

Cynicism was a movement without leaders, only cult heroes. It was dangerous to authority, since political techniques of coercion were powerless against it. They held that suffering and pain were essential to the good life, going unwashed, barefoot and ragged a positive adjunct, flogging a healthy tonic and slavery no bar to individual happiness. Social reforms were meaningless, since social institutions themselves were discounted. The individual must sail with the wind, not speculate its future course.

VI

Against the background of Cynic rampages we should recall their ascetic counterparts in Palestine, the Essenes. This Jewish order of monkish celibates was indifferent to Messianic beliefs and foreshadowed the closed socialist utopias of later times. As described by Philo and Josephus, the Essenes withdrew to remote village settlements isolating themselves in rural communism from corrosive contact with the cities. A perpetual drift of people who were tired of the ways of the world replenished the communities, and sexual coupling was forbidden among them. They were content to provide themselves with the bare necessities of life and sat through rather grim communal meals in silence. They condemned the position of master and slave, possessed no gold or silver, and practised no trade, recognizing that "treacherous greed which brings about inequality of wealth had disrupted human kinship". They carried nothing on a journey and never changed their shoes or clothes till they wore out. The Therapeutes, their counterparts in Egypt, were a sect of self-healing recluses who had settled in huts by the shores of Lake Maerotis, their aim to "be set free from matter". Self-inflicted hunger, hymn-singing, and a regular antiphonal