The New Epicureans
That the West is becoming less religious is both true and often observed, cause for regret for believers and rejoicing for those atheists who exult in the decline of “superstition”. But for all the attention the phenomenon receives, remarkably little attention is given to the question of what comes next. What does a post-religious world look like? How do people live their lives in it? Do we continue on our current trajectory, like a probe travelling endlessly through space or, like the Road Runner’s Coyote, do we frantically scrabble to build a new support as we try to run over the void of the canyon?
At the moment, it seems like the former. As the historian Tom Holland argues in Dominion, secular humanism is a Christ-less Christianity, generally reaching the same ethical conclusions but without any metaphysical authority to back them up. How coherent this is, however, is another question. Christians, for example, may reasonably believe that God gave Man, and Man alone, human rights; as Holland notes, echoing Bertrand Russell, once you accept the conclusions of Science, this becomes far harder to justify.
Even if, despite, as Nieztsche put it, having murdered God, we remain content to live by His Word, it is not clear that this will be enough. For the historical record shows that humanity has generally developed some underlying belief system to explain its place in the universe and offer meaning to life. The ancient Egyptians believed in Aaru, the Field of Reeds, and sought to live in such a way as to gain entry to it. Hindus and Buddhists believe in reincarnation and try to improve their karma to have a better life in the next cycle or even end it altogether. Christians and Muslims believe in heaven and wish to be granted admission. These beliefs offer a purpose which secular humanism and the scientific worldview do not, but which the ubiquitous history of religion suggests humans need.
How society might resolve this problem is hard to say, for there are few, if any, examples of previous cultures sustainably and voluntarily abandoning their religious beliefs. Revolutionary France attempted to replace Christianity with firstly the atheistic Cult of Reason and then Robespierre’s Cult of the Supreme Being but neither was able to survive their founders’ rendez-vous with Mme Guillotine. Communist countries in Europe were able to suppress Christianity for a while but it bounced back strongly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Both of these attempts to eliminate religion were top-down efforts to eradicate a rival ideology, employing the might of the state; today’s loss of religion, by contrast, is a bottom-up movement. The French and Eastern Europeans thought Christianity was a threat, today’s non-believers think it is a mistake.
If there are, then, no relevant examples of societies as a whole losing their religious belief there is, however, one instance of a group turning its back on the faith of its ancestors which matches the current moment: the Epicureans.
Epicurus’ Answer
As students of their myths will know, the Greeks’ gods were religious but not moral figures. They generally showed little interest in mortal affairs, contenting themselves with satisfying their own whims unless they felt insulted or their favour was explicitly sought. As long as humans knew their place and stuck to some broad guidelines, the residents of Olympus were happy to let them do as they pleased. The notion that they might have some purpose for mankind beyond being an occasional source of entertainment or that they might have some idea as to how these lesser beings might live was not one that crossed the Greek mind. There is, after all, no Hellenic equivalent of the detailed rules laid out in the Old Testament or the Koran.
As a result, those who wanted to know their place in the universe, and how they should spend their time in it, turned not to priests, but to philosophers. The most influential of these was Socrates (c.470–399 B.C) whose belief that virtue was the supreme good, and its pursuit the purpose of life was adopted by the later Cynic and Stoic schools.
Late in the 4th century B.C., however, a rival school emerged, founded by Epicurus of Samos (341–270 B.C.) who took inspiration not from the famous Athenian martyr but from his approximate contemporary, Democritus (c.460-c.370 BC), now credited as the inventor of atomic theory. To these thinkers, in contrast to the likes of Plato with his theory of transcendent Forms, the universe was composed exclusively of void and matter, the latter being made, ultimately, of atoms, small irreducible particles — “atom” derives from “atomos”, Greek for “uncuttable”. This extended to human beings. We were a temporary arrangement of atoms which would dissolve upon death. While they believed in the existence of a “psyche” (traditionally rendered as “soul”, but perhaps, in more modern, scientific terms, “consciousness”), this too was composed of atoms and would share the dissolution of the body on its demise.
It is difficult to tell from the surviving evidence if Democritus derived an ethical theory from his metaphysical beliefs, but Epicurus certainly did. To those familiar with modern usage of the term, it should come as no surprise that he and his followers were hedonists, believing that pleasure was the only goal of life.
However, their understanding of this was rather different to that ascribed to them by history — the Epicureans were not “epicurean” as we currently use the word. If their choice of ultimate good differed from their contemporaries, their approach to it did not, as, like other belief systems, they sought to maximise it over the long term. This did not, however, give them carte blanche to lead lives of debauched over-indulgence for many pleasures bring painful consequences in their wake — eating too much can cause sickness, drinking too much leads to hangovers, affairs lead to heartache on break-up etc. etc. To maximise pleasure across a lifetime, it is not just the momentary “high” that activities bring which must be considered, it is the subsequent pain they may cause also. And in many cases, this pain will outweigh the pleasure — as anyone who has sworn never to drink again the morning after the night before will attest.
As a consequence, the Epicureans decided that the best approach was not to maximise short-term pleasure at all but to seek aponia — the absence of pain.
“By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not by an unbroken succession of drinking bouts and of revelry, not by sexual lust, nor the enjoyment of fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning”
Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus
Merely passing up sensory pleasures was not enough, however, to achieve this, Epicureans effectively had to withdraw from society to achieve their aim. Activities such as having a family and participating in politics, which Ancient Greeks saw as akin to a civic duty, also had to be abandoned as the pain involved would likely outweigh the pleasure created. In contrast to Plato’s Academy, where students were taught while remaining part of Athenian life, Epicurus’ “Garden” functioned more like a commune, enabling his followers to pursue lives of quiet contemplation, cut off from the rough and tumble of city life. Restrictive though the lifestyle may have been, it proved sufficiently attractive to gather followers such as the poet Lucian (c.125-c.180 A.D.) for several centuries until being subsumed by Christianity.
In contrast to Revolutionary France or Communist Eastern Europe, therefore, Epicureanism offers an example of a group in society sustainably and voluntarily turning their backs on their ancestral beliefs and developing a new lifestyle derived from a new understanding of man’s place in the universe.
The New Epicureans?
It is easy from the lofty heights of technological modernity to believe that the ancients have nothing to teach us, but Epicureanism has long arms. Thomas Jefferson counted himself among its followers. For Nietzsche, it was “enough to recognise that the awakening sciences have allied themselves point by point with the philosophy of Epicurus but point by point rejected Christianity”.
Whether he was exactly right or wrong about this, he was surely correct that the Epicureans’ understanding of the universe was remarkably similar to the modern scientific consensus. We too are materialists, even if we no longer see atoms as the irreducible building blocks of matter. They had clinamen (“swerve”) which randomly shifted atoms from their preordained path; we have quantum mechanics and a universe which is probabilistic rather than deterministic. We have yet to solve the problem of consciousness, but one popular approach is to see it purely as an emergent property of matter, arising when the right amount of the right type of cells are placed together in the right conditions.
Sharing so much with the Epicureans, might we come to the same conclusions as them about how to live our lives? Perhaps some of us already have.
Just as frequently as it is noted that the West is becoming less religious, so it is observed that the younger generations (Millennials and Gen Z.) are a bit odd. Compared to the previous cohort, Gen X, they are substantially less likely to drink, smoke, do drugs, have sex, or experience a teenage pregnancy, leading some to call them the New Puritans. They have fewer friends than preceding generations (and often make all of them online), are less likely to vote and less likely to drive. They are more likely to consider dropping out of the workforce and are behind the decreasing importance survey respondents ascribe to community involvement and having children. All very Epicurean.
Attempts to explain their difference focus on the material, secular minds demanding secular answers — they are the first cohort to grow up as digital natives, they spend longer in education than their predecessors, there are fewer opportunities for the lower-skilled and house prices have risen. These approaches may explain some of the divergence, but not all — growing up with the internet, for example, may make one more likely to have online friends, but it does not explain a decline in the total number of friendships. For such phenomena, another explanation is required.
Millennials and Gen Z are the least religious group in society, and thus the most likely to inhabit a cold, scientific universe which offers them no purpose. In the absence of any greater meaning to life, choosing to maximise one’s pleasure would be an obvious course. But the post-war decades have been a lesson that many of the traditional sources of enjoyment are likely to bring pain with them. The long-term health effects of tobacco and, increasingly, alcohol are better known. The sexual revolution brought with it a rise in divorce. A quarter of families are now thought to experience estrangement.
We know from other areas that the younger generations are keen to avoid pain. Trigger warnings and safe spaces are nothing more than attempts to avoid the slightest discomfort. If that is their motivation in such trivial areas, should we not expect it also to apply to activities which can bring much greater suffering? For, while material explanations can account for some of their behaviour, the search for aponia can account for more — their small friendship circles were something Epicurus advised back in Athens to reduce the number of break-ups one might suffer, advice he would no doubt redouble in an online world which allows the instant, global sharing of embarrassing material.
There has been no formal Epicurean revival to parallel that of their old rivals, the Stoics. Millennials are not frantically scrolling through Lucretius on their iPhones. If they are leading Epicurean lives, it is most likely a case of “convergent evolution”. Finding themselves in the same situation as their predecessors, they have adopted the same behaviour in response. For all the differences between the modern world and the ancient, some things do not change — a hangover is just as unpleasant whether acquired at an Athenian symposion or a London nightclub. If there is no greater purpose to life, maximising one’s pleasure is a reasonable organising principle. But an essential part of that will involve minimising pain and, as history has taught them, many of the things we think bring the former will often lead to a healthy dose of the latter.
Materialist accounts suggest that the younger generation will eventually converge with their predecessors and so the world will continue as before. But if, rather than rationally responding to society’s incentives, they are rationally responding to their own beliefs, they will not. Being enrolled on a Masters programme or having a job makes no difference to one’s likelihood of forming a serious relationship, if avoiding the pain of a break-up is one’s overarching concern.
For, if the younger generation are currently leading more Epicurean lives, then technology will make it easier for them to sustain them. Online communications allow working from home to avoid the potential irritations of physical contact with colleagues. Globalisation makes freelancing easier by opening up a whole world of remote clients. There are countless websites offering all manner of titillation and, with the development of AI, the possibility of the perfect virtual partner, replaceable at the click of a mouse if one’s whims change. The ancient Epicureans had to give up most of their pleasures to pursue Pleasure, we are developing a world in which their modern successors can keep most of theirs with no risk of pain.
Science fiction has generally imagined a post-religious world as consisting of dystopian megalopolises where, absent the restraining hand of Christianity, humanity dedicates itself to sensory pleasure against a backdrop of urban squalor. But such places are the last Epicureans would want to live. Rather than aggregating in soulless megacities, they would prefer to withdraw, as Epicurus did, with a few close friends to preserve their equanimity.
But, for all the attractiveness of that bucolic vision, it will have its downsides. For a society of Epicureans will struggle to be a society. One of the most famous passages in the Roman poet Lucretius’ Epicurean masterpiece De Rerum Natura comes at the beginning of book II where he writes, “It is sweet, from the land, to witness another’s terrible struggle on a sea whipped up by mighty winds” (translation author’s own). He is not rejoicing in another’s misfortune but rather rejoicing in his own good fortune at having avoided such travails. He does not, however, attempt to help. His beliefs give him no reason to and, indeed, suggest he should not — entering a stormy sea is, after all, highly likely to bring pain.
For while Epicureanism may make its individual followers happy, it also frays the bonds of society by arguing against the type of everyday civic involvement, such as volunteering, on which communities rely. It will accelerate the trends already underway in Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone — Burke’s little platoons were not followers of Epicurus. A society with some Epicureans can thrive, a society with too many becomes a collection of atomised individuals, focused purely on their own pleasure.
For all the atheist community’s rejoicing at the decline of Christianity, if, as the behaviour of the young suggests, its “successor ideology” is Epicureanism, they may yet come to miss it.
