Philosophical lessons from Seneca’s life (Part 3)

It frequently happens that individuals will criticise someone else’s mistakes more readily than they will admit their own. We all find our own psychological defences hard to overcome and #seneca was the paramount example. When he became tutor to Nero, the future Roman Emperor, it didn’t take long for Seneca to realize that Nero was a psycho. In his mid-teens, Nero was already displaying alarming cruelty and paranoia. The encroaching #danger was written on the wall. Seneca possessed sufficient experience and psychological savvy to figure out that, considering the structure of the Roman political system, Nero’s character flaws were incurable. Neither Nero’s mother, Empress Agrippina, nor any court officer, dared to challenge Nero. In normal circumstances, bad experiences will help tame the wildness of teenagers. Through trial and error, teenagers learn that one must think before jumping, and that aggressiveness is an obstacle to cooperation. Nero never went through those experiences because he was isolated by his institutional role; he wasn’t the Roman Emperor yet, but people feared him all the same. Officers and servants obeyed Nero’s orders without asking any questions, even if they could have checked with Empress Agrippina. They feared that, if they angered Nero, his revenge would be swift and lethal. Seneca made a large mistake at that point. The principles of #stoicism call for accepting the inevitable, but it’s crucial to tell apart the inevitable from the inconvenient or unpleasant. The longer Seneca stayed on his job, the more entangled he became in the power machinery. Empress Agrippina entrusted him with managing part of the imperial estate, a delegation that allowed Seneca to enrich himself legally. Seneca did so with alacrity, but should have known that the story was likely to end badly. As Nero got closer to ascending the throne, his abuses and cruelty grew exponentially. On some occasions, he required Seneca to collaborate. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/philosophical-lessons-from-senecas-life-part-3/